Network Message Standard

Hey Doomworld. There was some talk in... I think the "Odamex Seeking Lead Developer" thread about Eternity and Odamex merging (or something to that effect), which kind of got me thinking about something. If there were a standard way of communicating between a Doom client and server (and a master I suppose...?), then players/admins would be free to run whatever client or server they wanted - so long as they both spoke the same version of the standard. If we could somehow agree on a network message standard we could save port authors a lot of time and effort inventing their own system.

There are plenty of GPL ports that have some kind of C/S networking code, Odamex, Doomsday, PrBoom/PrBoom+, ReMooD, etc., so there's quite a bit of work already done. Personally, it excites me to think that it might be possible for a player running a faithful client like PrBoom+ to compete against a player running an advanced client like Doomsday. What do you think?

Nothing wrong with the idea but first those ports would need a "proper" client/server implementation. The only one of those you listed which does away with the old peer-to-peer ticcmd method is Doomsday. Thus it rules us out to begin with.

It should be more feasible for say Odamex and Eternity though it is still a very tall order.

Oh wow Doomsday has a completely different method then huh? Care to expound (I am quite curious)?