Where is xfire?

[watcher]

Robyer,  is it dead? I don't use it, so i don't know.

[Robyer]

watcher, yes, it's dead.

As White-Tiger mentioned and as can be seen from their homepage:

Xfire servers are down for a while now.. they closed their "business"
Xfire, the chat app, no longer exists. see: http://social.xfire.com/

Seems like they were bought by someone new and that just for their name... all other services got closed without much warning or time for it. (as in case of the social app, 2 day warning for profile export before they vaporized it altogether)

So the Xfire plugin might require a rewrite now IIRC not even the game detection works before the plugin is connected... so you can't even use it to set your status anymore. Would be nice though if this plugin could integrate Raptr and Evolve and maybe finally get an in-game overlay...

[White-Tiger]

It's not useless as I said in my previous posts Just needs to be "fixed" so it can set status messages etc. when it's not connected...

[Wishmaster]

Or someone shoud move all game-detection-related code into a separate plugin

[Robyer]

Or someone shoud move all game-detection-related code into a separate plugin

Exactly.
XFire plugin is dead. If someone would want to resurrect game-detection, it should be done in separate plugin. And written mostly from scratch as it doesn't make sense to make some zombie hybrid out of this poor plugin

[White-Tiger]

It makes sense... for those people who used to use this plugin.
Because they can just keep using it without any further intervention. (well, they have to remove it if they actually just wanted the chat feature...)

Besides, it's XFire either way Since it's using its detection and game list.. unless the new plugin uses a different one.. yet it should adapt old users for simplicity (how should they know that there's an replacement, and what about their config?)
It's also way easier to just adapt it and fix stuff later than doing a full rewrite^^ It either turns out to be a rewrite, or improvement with less work.

I'm not even sure if the game detection is really disabled when it's not connected... I seem to remember it was this way, but I've actually not tested that recently. Like I said before.. the game detection didn't properly work for me anyway... maybe part of my config or "custom games" ini is corrupt. (at least from the point of view of the plugin)

[Robyer]

White-Tiger,

1) It has to be rewritten to NOT be a protocol anymore, but classic plugin
2) If you strip all Xfire stuff and let only game detection and change status to work, it will be a different plugin. It has to have a new name and other stuff.
3) Plugin updater can do replace (let say we set rule to replace xfire.dll with e.g. gamedetector.dll), which will delete old plugin and install new one. IF we want to put only gamedetector plugin to all those who had XFire (which doesn't makes sense for me, because you can't tell whether he used it for Xfire or for Game detection), we can.
4) New plugin can be compatible with games settings from XFire (e.g. you can let user just rename the settings branch, or provide import of games settings at first run or something).
But it's definitely not needed, because do you know how many users who use VI uploading use XFire? TWO. Just me and (probably) you. It's 1.5 % regarding all users with VI, but I guess the number is waaaay smaller. (We should prepare better stats btw :-) )

You can take game detection (which was only a tiny part of whole sources), but it HAS to be different plugin with different name and with most things written from scratch.

[White-Tiger]

1) not really.. could still be a protocol if it adopts Raptr or other Xfire alternatives (and in this case, makes sense to have them all in one. Otherwise the game detection should be reusable by other plugins)
2) it's just a name. Since it still behaves like it, it could be called the same... or a minor change such as "XFire Gamedetection". Unless the company that owns the name doesn't like it
3) I know that it can replace/rename... my post was mainly about fear that someone "deprecates" it which is irreversible. We should not uninstall or install plugins for users without their consensus. It might be ok to remove it if there's no replacement and never coming etc., but otherwise, we should let the user decide what to do. They can always delete it if they don't need the game detection...
4) VI is useless... at least for most users. That's why I've only used it on IM since it allowed me to stay up-to-date.

[Robyer]

Sigh...

1) If such plugin will support Raptr or other Xfire alternatives then it still need to be rewritten from scratch. And also it definitely will not be called Xfire anymore.

2) Since it will have nothing in common with Xfire then it shouldn't be call'd "Xfire" nor "Xfire Gamedetection". Why are you so attached to the name "Xfire"? How is overal "game detection" related to Xfire? There has been 2 more plugins - "Gamer Status" and "Gamer plugin" with such detection and features.

What makes it Xfire plugin (protocol) is communication over Xfire network. There is no such thing as "Xfire game detection".

Ideally there should be service plugin for monitoring processes that other plugins will use (like watrack, new gamer status, raptr or other...) and bring functions based on that - it doesn't need to be only games, but any kind of software (like music/video players, some specific software - e.g. set status to "working" when visual studio is running, etc.).

3) Xfire network IS dead. Xfire protocol, which point was to communicate over Xfire network is thus dead too, and should be removed ASAP. If you want to take game detection (aka an algorithm/functions) to separate plugin, that's ok. But that would be different plugin. It won't be Xfire anymore. I can't believe we're having this conversation...

4) It depends...

[White-Tiger]

e.g. set status to "working" when visual studio is running

almost what I'm using Except XFire sets my status to "watching TV" when I'm watching TV^^

[Ищезаяц]

there was 2 plugins in MIM, and one script (maybe i'm wrong about the last one).
gamer status something like that?
worked better that xfire for sure :}

[Robyer]

Ищезаяц,  yes,

There has been 2 more plugins - "Gamer Status" and "Gamer plugin" with such detection and features.

(and I forget the mBot script as I never used mBot much)

But if I remember correctly, both plugins were freeware without source code available (I'm sure at least one was freeware, I was communicating with author many years ago about getting his sources, but he stopped communication before he was able to send it to me...)

[Saldavon]

Seems like they were bought by someone new and that just for their name... all other services got closed without much warning or time for it. (as in case of the social app, 2 day warning for profile export before they vaporized it altogether)

Sorry this is not correct.
When you have a look at the blog of Evolve (an xfire alternative) you can see in letters that there was 1 month time to export the data.

I use Evolve since xfire was shut down because users can write detection rules on their own easily.
Then you submit them and after 24 hours Evolve detect the new games.
Also you can change old rules when they don't work anymore. It is a much better system then xfire.

[White-Tiger]

[...] Sorry this is not correct.
[...]

It actually is... see the first comment here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/39a41v/xfire_social_profiles_shutdown_save_your/

Maybe there were some rumors or what ever.. but the users were actually notified 2 days before.. and not even all. I never got any notice what so ever.