I’ve noticed that retroarch has netplay ability. I then realized the underlying, amazing potential since this is, in a way, an all-in-one emulator. Would it be possible to create a lobby or matchmaking system for retro games? Like, is it possible to create a XBL/PSN like experience with voice-chat, or at the very least, a lobbying system which could seamlessly connect players?
It’s been discussed, but we don’t really have the infrastructure for it. There’s an IRC channel, #retroarch-netplay on Freenode that was created for people to find each other, but it doesn’t really have any activity.
Since all of the netplay stuff can be handled from the command line, someone could write a launcher that handles all of the handshaking and voice chat and all that and then spawns off a RetroArch instance with the proper switches attached.
By infrastructure do you mean server capacity, or networking knowledge to create a XBL/PSN like experience? Perhaps there could just be a Kaillera-like lobby, and users could create their own servers? Retroarch could just scan a master-list of servers.
Either way, even if Kaillera were to just be implemented and nothing else, it’d be awesome for us to have the ability to join netplay matches from our couch with a controller seamlessly without have to manually find matches via IRC, then proceed to type in I.P. addresses, ports, etc.
Kaillera can’t be implemented, it’s closed source
Darn. Well, down the toilet that goes… Is there any other way to seamlessly connect players, or is this truly a lost cause?
hunterk provided you with an idea of how it can work.
retroarch doesn’t need to implement match making, a match making program can implement retroarch.
And it is a darn good thing that retroarch is built that way, rather than implementing all bells and whistles and becoming a feature hog. Unix philosophy for the win 
It is no lost cause at all, just a matter of will and time 
This^^
Hey guys, I too used to play on Kaillera and nobody really uses it anymore. I have been thinking and I’d like to share my perspective. So for me the RetroArch is becoming massively popular thanks to raspberry-pi and an OS build for it called RetroPie. As you all know it consists of the software “EmulationStation”. So wouldn’t it be worthwhile getting the Netplay frontend managed in this (EmulationStation)? As its mentioned, the Netcode can be controlled from the command prompt.
These two systems (ES) and (RetroArch) go so well together, neither would be anything without the other in terms of popularity at the moment. So by having the front end on (ES) we could get the PC users and the Pi users to play eachother? Imo it could make the online community acitve?
What would need to be done? -A system to connect to your freinds and\or connect to public players. (Host to host would be an IP entry, whereas finding players would require a server? maybe piggybacking on something like QTracker to keep lists of hosts?) -Be able to set up and use via a controller pad -Voice chat? Its hard for Pi, but on PC we can just use discord or teamspeak
What are your thoughts guys? is this worth posting on ES forums too? I wish I could develop on this level but I was never a good programmer.