Metaserver

The Metaserver organizes the many-to-many relationship between users and game servers. It enables a single account to work across all game servers, in a cryptographically secure way. The only thing users share with game servers is proof that they are registered and verified with the metaserver. Similarly, users can trust that the game servers listed by the metaserver are administrated by users that are registered and verified with the metaserver.

flowchart BT
  m(("Metaserver"))
  subgraph gservers [Game servers]
    g0["Game server"]
    g1["Game server"]
    g2["Game server"]
  end
  subgraph users [Users]
    u0["User"]
    u1["User"]
    u2["User"]
    u3["User"]
  end
  
  users -->|User proof| gservers
  users -->|Registration, login and server management| m
  gservers -->|User proof verification| m

Installation

Install the dependencies in a virtual env:

1. Prepare the env: python -m venv env
2. Activate it for you current shell session: source env/bin/activate
3. Install modules: pip install -r requirements.txt

Development

1. Activate the virtual env (source env/bin/activate)
2. Set export DEV=true for verbose SQL logs.
3. Optionally set your DATABASE_URL environment variable to the back-end of your choosing. Otherwise (and during tests) it's in-memory SQLite.
4. Write tests using the test client in tests/ and run them with pytest. No need for throwaway cURL stuff and we end up with some tests too!
5. Implement things in metaserver/.
6. GOTO 4.

Migrations

Autogenerating migrations:

alembic revision --autogenerate -m "My migration message"

Applying migrations:

alembic upgrade head

Deployment

1. Clone the repository.

2. Configure the environment variables:

    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=...
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
    AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=eu-central-1
    DATABASE_URL="sqlite:///metaserver.db"

3. Run with docker compose up --build --detach

FAQ

What is the user registeration/login/user proof token flow?

flowchart TD
   s(("User starts the game"))
   p["Game uses credentials to request\nuser proof from metaserver"]
   l["Game shows login screen"]
   r["Game shows registration screen"]
   register["Game registers user with metaserver\nMetaserver sends email confirmation\nGame shows email token entry screen"]
   s -->|Username & password are saved locally| p
   s -->|Username & password are not saved locally| l
   l -->|User does not have an account| r
   l -->|User enters valid auth| p
   p -->|Auth is valid| browser["Game stores user credentials on disk\nGame stores user proof in memory\nUser browses servers"]
   p -->|Auth is invalid| l
   r -->|User enters valid username, display name and password| register
   r -->|User enters invalid data\nMetaserver reports errors to game\nGame reports errors to user| r
   register -->|User enters valid email token| p
   browser -->|User joins server| proof["Game provides user proof to game server"]
   proof -->|User proof is invalid| l
   proof -->|User proof is valid| play(("User plays game"))
   l -->|User enters invalid auth\nMetaserver reports errors to game\nGame reports errors to user| l

What is the server registeration/update/browser flow?

• User wants to start a new server.
  1. POST to /v1/server/register.
     • Authenticate with user auth info
     • Post the info of the server that is to be registered (see /docs for the schema)
  2. Receive a server username (integer, not secret) and a server password (string, secret). Store this auth info.
• A user wants to see which servers are online. Note: 'online' is defined as having had their info updated in the last X seconds show up.
  1. GET /v1/server/online.
     • Authenticate with user auth info.
• A user wants to see which servers they have registered.
  1. GET /v1/server/my.
     • Authenticate with user auth info.
• A user wants to update the information for their server.
  1. POST /v1/server/update.
     • Authenticate with the server auth info received on registration.
     • Pass the new server info as data. This refreshes the datetime on which the server was updated and ensures it is visible when users request a list of online servers.

I can haz REST spec?

Yes. Follow the installation steps, run the server with make serve and visit 127.0.0.1:8000/docs. You can even get an openapi.json file from http://127.0.0.1:8000/openapi.json and automatically generate a client from it.

How does the ranking system work?

It's my generalization of the Elo rating system for teams. Let the rating of a given player $n$ be $R_n$, and let the mean rating of a team they played on be $T_n$. Using a hyperparameter $\lambda$, we define the team-weighted rating for player $n$:

$$R_n^w = \lambda T_{n} + (1-\lambda) R_{n}$$

If player $a$ and player $b$ played a match on opposing teams, the expected score $E_a$ for player $a$ is:

$$E_a = \frac{Q_a}{Q_a + Q_b}$$

With $Q_n = 10^{R^w_n \over S}$, where $S$ is the starting rating for new players. Finally, if player $n$'s team won, the new rating for this player is computed:

$$R'_n = R_n + \frac{S \alpha}{R_n} (A_n - E_n)$$

Here $\alpha > 0$ is a hyperparameter that sets the update step size, and $A_n$ is the achieved score for player $n$, which is $1$ in case of a win, $0.5$ in case of a draw, and $0$ in case of a loss.

Some nice properties compared to vanilla Elo:

• The expected score is adjusted based on both the player's own rating, as well as the team's rating. The balance can be adjusted to place more importance on the team's rating $(\lambda \rightarrow 1)$, or the individual's contribution $(\lambda \rightarrow 0)$.
• It's harder for players at the top end to gain/lose rating than it is at the bottom. This achieves two goals:
  • It limits rating inflation over time.
  • It limits incentives to be risk-averse for players with a high rating.