XLink Kai: Evolution VII. Global Network Gaming.

Another XLink Milestone Reached!!

Team XLink is proud to announce that we now support 200 PSP games and counting. So if you fancy a change from playing Monster Hunter, there's everything from shooting to surfing, puzzles to platformers and football to fighting to choose from! For a complete list of XLink compatible games, click the 'Supported Games' number just under the XLink Server Statistics area. Happy gaming!

Posted by Hawk_The_Slayer on Wednesday 6 May, 2009

First Mac and PC friendly Kai solution for PSP owners.

I've been rather busy as of lately with the little one and apologize for the lateness of this announcement. After many months of development and co-operative testing with Team XLink, I am delighted to announce the availability of two Wifi Adaptors from Planex that allow PSP players to connect to Kai on both Mac OS X and Windows. I've personally been involved in testing these and from my own experience I have to say if you own a Mac and a PSP you must treat yourself to one of these adaptors.

There is the GW-US54Mini2W which supports 802.11g and the GW-USMini2N which supports 802.11n. Although both work equally well on Kai, I have to recommend the Mini2N model because of it's smaller design and sweet looking XLink Kai logo.


GW-USMINI2N Order from eCost - $15.00 USD Order from Amazon - ~~$26.99~~ $21.99 USD	GW-US54Mini2W Order from Amazon - $16.99 Order from Amazon.co.uk - £12.99

Posted by prestige on Monday 8 December, 2008

Kai 7.4.18 beta

Mainly bug fixes. Added auto-detection of Windows language settings.

kaiEngine-7.4.18-osx-universal.pkg.zip
kaiEngine-7.4.18-linux-x86.tgz
XLinkKai-7.4.18-win32.msi

Posted by prestige on Wednesday 30 July, 2008

Prestige + Gunslinger = Roland

Team XLink leader prestige and his wife gunslinger are now the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy! Roland Andrew was born today at 11:06am and weighs a healthy 7 pounds 11 ounces!

Roland will make your love stronger, the days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

Congratulations p & Guns from everyone on XLink Kai.

Posted by llnk on Wednesday 16 July, 2008

Kai 7.4.15 released

Kai 7.4 has been out for just over a week and we are happy to report over 20% adoption. Thanks to everyone for your bug reports and skin contributions.

Of course, we would like to finalize 7.4 and retire the earlier versions of Kai as soon as possible. Today's release contains a number of bug fixes and additional support for PPC-based Mac systems and a fix for our Japanese users. So, download the latest and report any issues to the TX mods.

Changes...

Updated: OS X Universal binary (PPC and Intel support for OX 10.4 and above)
Fixed: Internet Explorer 6 support in the Web UI (you really should use Safari, Opera, Firefox, or at least upgrade--IE6 is seven years old now!)
Fixed: Japanese installations with Netmon driver installed.
Fixed: engine crash when using /orb command

kaiEngine-7.4.15-osx-universal.pkg.zip
kaiEngine-7.4.15-linux-x86.tgz
XLinkKai-7.4.15-win32.msi

Posted by prestige on Friday 11 July, 2008

XLink Kai 7.4 Beta released

Real Brief: Kai 7.4 is a foundational release specifically focused on internationalization and platform independence.

Timeline:

2003	XLink RC2 Omega released and quickly suffers scalability issues due to enthusiastic growth
2004	XLink Kai Evolution 7 released - redesign using C++ and MFC PS2 support added *nix engine (kaid) started API specifications for client <-> engine made available
2005	PSP support added Kaid ported to MIPS platform for router integration Kai Evo8 project announced (later known as xlink::one or x1) TheDaddy officially retires from the XLink project
2006	work on x1 begins with MeanMF heading the development numerous updates to Kai and Kaid
2007	massive user growth due to enthusiastic PSP players in Asia - Kai infrastructure shows scalability issues development on x1 continues
2008	Kai concurrent online users triples - over 14,000 users on at one time x1 project terminated - development immediately switched to Kai 7.4 as current infrastructure crumbling under user strain Kai 7.4 released - setting a new foundation for future development and user growth

What's the point?

XLink Kai 7.4 began a few months ago to address the following issues:

Internationalization - the existing Kai UI does not support many languages and character encodings.
Platform Independence - Linux and OS X client software is no longer feature compatible with the Windows client
Unified Development - numerous versions and variants of the engine and client exist creating compatibility issues and fragmented development/support.

Team XLink prides itself as a 'Global Community' of gamers. To us, this means people who speak different languages, who use different Operating Systems, and who live all over the globe should be able to connect with one another and make Team XLink their home. Our year to year userbase growth and concurrent player statistics tells us we've been making excellent strides towards our global ambitions. Still, to truly move forward with the project, we need to address infrastructure and compatibility issues so that we have a solid platform that encourages further growth. Kai 7.4 addresses these issues and provides a solid foundation for future plan that simply would not be possible with the previous versions of Kai.

So what's new?

The biggest change to Kai is somewhat invisible--the code. Kai was designed primarily as a Windows-based system with compatibility for Linux/OS X (and other *nix systems) added later through the Kaid project and numerous third-party clients. This created a rift in development where any features added to the Windows Engine and Client needed to be added to Kaid and the third-party clients needed to be updated. A small change in the Windows client required all the other clients to be updated. Updates to the Windows engine (ex: new PSP MAC addresses) required Kaid be updated. As developer interest in Kaid and the many clients waned, it has become increasingly difficult to add any new features without breaking existing compatibility for those not using Windows. To address this, Kai 7.4 uses a single codebase and non-proprietary libraries so that the same code that compiles the Windows binary also compiles under Linux, OS X, BSD, etc. This required removing all the MFC code from Kai and replacing it with platform-independent alternatives like the Boost and wxWidgets libraries. With this unified codebase, future updates and changes will be made available on all supported Operating Systems at the same time.

The most visible change found in Kai 7.4 is the Client Web UI. Instead of designing multiple User Interfaces for every supported OS and every language we decided to drawn on the strength of existing cross-platform technology: the web browser. The Kai 7.4 engine contains a small web server which serves the client to your web browser (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) and communication between the web browser and the Engine is achieved using Ajax programming. Aside from the obvious elimination of platform compatibility issues, switching to a browser-based client has some wonderful side effects:

Updates and additions to the client are served immediately without the need to restart the Engine.
The client is 'skinable' allowing users to develop and share their own customizations.
Kai can integrate other web technologies such as streaming audio and video.
Kai can be controlled using embedded systems with compatible web browsers (ex: iPhone).
The Kai engine can be accessed and controlled remotely via the web browser ( chat from work/school :P )

Another notable improvement found in Kai 7.4 is the support for uPnP routers. Most modern routers support uPnP allowing on-the-fly port mapping. When started behind a uPnP router, Kai just works--no port forwarding or router configuration required.

Lastly, all language has been stripped out of both the Engine and the Web UI Client and replaced with language templates. Currently, English and Japanese translations are available; however, support for Korean, Spanish, and many other languages are being added as translation becomes available through the community.

Alright, what's next?

Well, Kai 7.4 constitutes some serious changes to the Engine and Client programming. Although Team Members have been testing Kai 7.4 for a number of months now, we anticipate bug reports, feature requests, and interface changes now that it is 'out in the wild'. Once sufficient time has passed, Kai 7.4 will move from Beta status to it's final release, at which point development on 7.5 will start.

So, should I upgrade to 7.4?

Of course! As mentioned above, Kai 7.4 is a foundational release meaning all future updates are dependant upon the 7.4 programming. Once the brief beta period is over, all versions of Kai prior to 7.4 will no longer be supported so, unless you have upgraded, you will not be able to access Kai.

Skinning?!?

The Kai Web UI is designed to be customized! To see a list of available skins, enter the command '/skin' (without the quotes) in Chat.

Skins are saved as .zip archives with the following directory structure:

/skins/skin_name
/skins/skin_name/skin.css
/skin/skin_name/skin.js

Once your customized skin is complete, zip it starting with the /skins folder and name it skin_name.zip (where skin_name is the name you are calling your skin). The skins reside in your appdata directory.

We will be providing more information about creating skins in the upcoming days as well as providing web portal to the Kai UI Skin database for sharing your finely crafted skins with the rest of the community.

Some final thoughts...

I'm very proud of how The Team XLink crew really pulled together for this release. Our Moderators and Admins have committed countless hours to testing, discussion, documentation and translation--it's boring tedious work but you guys stuck through it. Also, special thanks to baby Kai for generously providing the squawk sound for PM messages.

This release and frankly all Team XLink developments over the past three years would not have happened if not for the dedication of our Lead Programmer: MeanMF. Not only did he revamp the Orbital and Engine code but he also put up with my incessant feature requests and questions about the Web UI to Engine communications. I wouldn't have thought it possible but you've actually outdone yourself, again. Incredible work, MeanMF.

And finally, I want to pay special thanks to our loyal and committed users who have stood by us for the past five years. It is your ongoing support and enthusiasm for console gaming that really motivates us.

Downloads:

Now, I'm sure you carefully read through the release announcement and are eager to give it a try... choose the version appropriate for your Operating System below and enjoy!

-prestige

Posted by prestige on Monday 30 June, 2008

13,000 And counting

Today we have hit a new level on XLink Kai. Today at 11:34:34 AM EST we broke a new record of 13,102 users online.

Posted by (-TU-)-Mortj109- on Friday 18 April, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Kai Updated to 7.3.1.7

We at Team XLink are delighted by the recent record setting increase in online player counts and are continuing to optimize our network and software to facilitate sustained growth.

In the past weeks, we have migrated our core services to a much faster server generously provided by MoxieColo. We have also updated our Orbital Code to access a separate back-end from our main page and forum--eliminating one single point of failure from our network operations.

More exciting, we are proud to present our latest update to the Kai Tunnelling system: Kai 7.3.1.7. Unlike previous updates, this will be a 'soft update' so we requests users uninstall their previous Kai installation and install the new version provided at the link below.

Among other features, this iteration of Kai boasts much faster performance, improved Vista support, and a streamlined update mechanism for improved security and stability. We have also added greater accessibility and usability options through enhanced support of Asian character sets (selectable via configuration) and user-selectable font resizing. Most importantly, however, this utilizes a retooled orbital selection mechanism which not only eases Kai network congestion but also makes connecting to Kai a faster and less cumbersome user experience.

Please take a moment to uninstall your current Kai installation and download / install the following:

http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/binary/XLinkKai-7.3.1.7-win32.msi

This is the first step in a number of exciting updates we will be rolling out over the upcoming weeks.

Much thanks to Sean at Moxie Colo for generously donating great hardware and premium bandwidth to Team XLink. If any of our users are looking for an outstanding co-location or dedicated server provider please consider Moxie--competitive pricing, reliability, blazingly fast Internet Speeds, and committed support staff have made them our first choice for the past three years.

We owe a great debt of thanks to MeanMF for providing us with this most recent updates to the Kai Engine and Orbital. I also want to thank our Administrative and Moderator crew for your ongoing support of the community and helpful testing during this roll out of the new server and software.

Lastly, thank you to our constant players. It's your enthusiasm and support of the Team XLink project that motivates us to continue doing what we do.

-prestige

Posted by prestige on Saturday 12 April, 2008

10,000 and Counting...

We recently had over 10,000 users on Kai and that number will continue to grow over the coming weeks. We would like to thank each and everyone of you for helping us reach this milestone.

Posted by urine.my.way on Monday 7 April, 2008

X1 on the iPhone

'cause some nights a PC is just too far away...

Posted by prestige on Saturday 19 January, 2008