Hello all,

Wall of text incoming.

Im back, with a "refurbished" idea that I think will interest most of you, and will definitely do good to the dreamcast legacy.

Facing a non stop down slope of "next gen gaming" I recently re connected my dreamcast, and I missed all of it, maybe except for the loading times in general. And now I see that Toy Racer is back online!? THIS IS HUGE.

Add to that the fact that Im still unemployed, and I use my free time to learn and get deeper and deeper in the IT world in general (currently learning the Pythong coding language) I think its a good time to strike.

I present you, DreamArena, a project I had already a few years ago and that I discussed right here with fellow members, adapted with time and new ideas.


To those who dont know: DreamArena is the name of a online service Sega had for the dreamcast in europe.
Dreamarena - Sega Retro

The project that ive been studying for now a couple of days, i think is pretty solid and good, here how it goes:

(the new DreamArena) will be a HUB. It will showcase and promote existing and new projects that add to the Dreamcast legacy. No need to go very far: this very same forum. That would cover all the social part.

The original idea of the new DreamArena I had a few years ago: an actual replacement of the original DreamArena. So, a portal, 100% optimized for dial up connection (hello, low pixel backgrounds!) with some basic features: show news (the ones from the mainpage here will do, will just need a new stylesheet so the dreamcast can handle it smoothly), a basic javascript live chat, maybe a webmail service? And what I want the most, what I really miss: a vmu saves upload/download service. directly from the dreamcast. We need that!

Also feature, something else I read is new around here, and very much needed, the DC Revive work. And let me be clear on something, which I think should be approved by all before we go ahead with the idea.

We dont promote piracy. piracy, kills the industry. It surely didnt help back then, but it doesnt do much now. 15 years after the system releases, and barely a few of those years alive, downloading a game doesnt hurt the system, the devs, or anyone in that specific gaming industry [dreamcast]. [our] goal is to promote and revive one of the greatest and most under rated system [continue fanboy speech here] and in order to do that, some use of piracy is unevitable. lets imagine we all decide to get all our games from ebay: theres not enough copies for all of us, plus, the work of the dreamcast scene IMPROVE the experience. faster loading times on game rips, that awesome english dubbed shenmue 2 release by Smith, and new online experiences for the system.

Which brings me to my final points ladies and gentlemen.

Dreamcast Online, and now more than ever since we have a new game to rock the house with, Toy Racer.

bba? expensive. few games support.
pc dc server? even with the very simple and amazing guide made by greeman, its a technical barrier for your average gamer. and the fact is rooted: most people get a gaming console because they dont want to bare with set ups, configuring, and all that tech stuff that comes with the PC gaming terriroty.

And I would bet anything that countless people google and found "how to connect the dreamcast with a pc dc server" (or related keywords), found a good guide, did a few mouse scrolls and said "Well, I tried it.." and moved on.

And since last I spoke about the "new DreamArena", a new fancy gadget has come along that even for non tech-ish people is okay, the Raspberry Pi

What the hell is this thing? May some people wonder. For those who knows: skip the next parragraph.

Ever made use of a program that needed your computer to be online all the time? Like some examples: downloading stuff (torrents and alike), synching the cloud, streaming services, and so on. Tiny services that, its a shame to waste electricity for a whole computer just to run a tiny program. Most of us have feel that at least a few times, right? Well; this is a fix. Needles to say this device doesnt take that much power, and its a micro computer of sorts.

My point? you can plug in a dial up modem. And from my basic research, im farily positive its posible to set up a PC DC server with hardware like that.

The beauty of it: as we would all run the same hardware (raspberry pi + same generic usb 56kb modem, which I can already assure you would be at an interresting price) there would be no need for user config as a universal config will do for all. PLUG AND PLAY. pun intented.

I (hopefully, we) build a script (and like i said im already learning python, heres my first working project already:
GitHub - audricd/AmdAtiUtils: tools for AMD ATI GPUs on linux using FGLRX driver

that runs of an sd card inserted to a raspberry plugged to a generic usb 56k modem thats connected to the dreamcast, magic happens and BAM BABY, YOURE ONLINE! no hassle. minium cost. not to mention the raspberry is anyways a good investment as you could use it for anything else besides that!

Remember the overall project will be a HUB. It will not shadow any projects/community, on the contrary, it will make a spotlight for each.

Into more "tech" details. Have a slack platform for the contributors. I wont explain it in details as this is only meant for contributors, and I know they can google.. Ill just say its an amazing platform.

GitHub, for developing needs. So that connect script, and more tools if we want to (like for the sd card adapter)

Facebook twitter blablabla. This is 2015 (almost) people, I think that part is obvious.

I for myself need to purchase that raspberry and modem but should be able to afford it soon, and once I receive, ready to rock this project. If this gets good feedback of course.

wall of text over.