I have a hard time understanding what's going to happen...

[GAMEDRIX 🦴]

As I read, the servers are going down, so what about single player instances? is the whole game going to be this pink/blue hue that says offline and the game is basically non usable or would we be able to use a single player instance and use the tool still? I know Zetaphor is working hard on crazy things and I'm really happy to hear about it but I didn't take the time to really understand what's and what's not possible. Personally I would love to use the game even if offline, using the tools are what's making me happy the most, sharing was even better but as the game's community died a bit I fully understand why this is happening. But I swear, I love this game a lot, I know I sound basic when I say that it changed my life but it really did, I know how to talk english because I've been playing it since 2016 and english people everywhere lol xD. This truly opened many doors for me and I have an incredible work and an amazing life because of it... If someone wants to take a little time and tell me a bit about what's going to happen, what are the possibilities, I'm here to listen. I know I'm in the discord's anyland and stuff but I struggle understanding some technical terms out there... so yeah. Anyway, I love you all, Philipp, again you are truly an amazing guy, you need to know that you really did good for a long time and you changed poeple's lives for the better, I even heard people getting into blender and crazier stuff starting with your tools, I also think your game is irreplaceable and true masterpiece of technology and nerdgasm.

[Zetaphor]

When Philipp and Scott take the servers offline, the game as it's distributed on Steam today will cease to function.

What will break

The game relies on three internet based components:

1. The API - This is what your client uses to login, request an area, get the in-game forums, and save your creations to the CDN.
   
2. The CDN - This is the server that hosts all of the JSON files that contain the persistent data for areas and things
   
3. Photon PUN Networking - This is the service Anyland uses to provide voice chat functionality and real-time multiplayer.

If any one of those components goes offline, the game will cease to function. As I understand it the intention is to take down the API, and likely also the CDN. No idea if they're going to (or even need to) close their account with Photon. I say not sure about Photon since I'm pretty sure the usage of Anyland falls within Photon's free tier, but that is only my speculation since we've received no communication from Philipp or Scott.

What can be replaced by us

We've already documented the API and archived nearly all of the content. And now thanks to Cyel (a member of the Manyland community archive who has stepped up to help with the Anyland effort), work has begun on a custom user run server.

This custom server will be acting as the replacement for the API and the CDN. This means you can take a modified version of the Anyland client and point it to a custom server hosted either on your own computer or somewhere on the internet.

At first this server will allow only for singleplayer use. This is because the multiplayer is handled by a proprietary third party component (PUN) which still needs to be replaced. Neither myself nor Cyel have looked too deeply into this part as we're still focused on making sure everything is archived and starting work on the single player server.

As with everything related to this archive, you can find status updates in the Anyland Discord server. If you don't want to follow along with the day by day status, just be on the lookout for posts to the announcements channel.

[GAMEDRIX 🦴]

Originally posted by Zetaphor:

When Philipp and Scott take the servers offline, the game as it's distributed on Steam today will cease to function.

What will break

The game relies on three internet based components:

1. The API - This is what your client uses to login, request an area, get the in-game forums, and save your creations to the CDN.
   
2. The CDN - This is the server that hosts all of the JSON files that contain the persistent data for areas and things
   
3. Photon PUN Networking - This is the service Anyland uses to provide voice chat functionality and real-time multiplayer.

If any one of those components goes offline, the game will cease to function. As I understand it the intention is to take down the API, and likely also the CDN. No idea if they're going to (or even need to) close their account with Photon. I say not sure about Photon since I'm pretty sure the usage of Anyland falls within Photon's free tier, but that is only my speculation since we've received no communication from Philipp or Scott.

What can be replaced by us

We've already documented the API and archived nearly all of the content. And now thanks to Cyel (a member of the Manyland community archive who has stepped up to help with the Anyland effort), work has begun on a custom user run server.

This custom server will be acting as the replacement for the API and the CDN. This means you can take a modified version of the Anyland client and point it to a custom server hosted either on your own computer or somewhere on the internet.

At first this server will allow only for singleplayer use. This is because the multiplayer is handled by a proprietary third party component (PUN) which still needs to be replaced. Neither myself nor Cyel have looked too deeply into this part as we're still focused on making sure everything is archived and starting work on the single player server.

As with everything related to this archive, you can find status updates in the Anyland Discord server. If you don't want to follow along with the day by day status, just be on the lookout for posts to the announcements channel.

Woaw, thank you for this detailed step by step explanation and taking the time Zetaphor ❤️

I'm really glad to see the efforts you and others put into this "seems to be" crazy amount of work, I see there's 3 main parts that makes Anyland function and it seems the game has been developed in a way that it can only run off a server as the game itself is a "client", I don't know how you guys will manage to do this but you are incredible just for making all of this already!

[GAMEDRIX 🦴]

I would also love to join you and help with your work but my knowledge in basic networking is very limited and I don't think I would be great help but dang that I would love to with anything truly.

[Zetaphor]

and it seems the game has been developed in a way that it can only run off a server as the game itself is a "client", I don't know how you guys will manage to do this

This is correct, the game you're running on your computer is the client that takes information from the server (official or user run) and presents it in VR and allows you to interact with it.

The way we're doing is by monitoring the network traffic between the client and the server, and then writing code to replicate the responses the server sends to the client. This is a process called reverse engineering. By doing this we're creating our own server that anyone can run themselves. You will need to install a mod to your client that lets it connect to this server instead of the official Anyland server.

This is easy to do for a single player server because Anyland uses a text-based format called JSON. This will be more challenging for the multiplayer part because Anyland uses Photon's PUN service, which is both proprietary and encrypted.

[Daddy_Cage]

Amazing work. I really hope we get more clear communication from Philipp and Scott regarding things. At the very least, a solid date for the final day of the games servers being online would be nice to know.