MGE Tournament Manager (C++)

A C++ application that acts as a bridge between a Team Fortress 2 MGE server plugin and the Challonge tournament platform, enabling fully automated tournaments.

This project is a modernized C++ replication of an older Rust-based system, featuring an improved communication protocol and robust testing tools.

Core Architecture

The manager operates with two primary WebSocket connections:

1. WebSocket Server (Admin UI): It hosts a server on port 8080 that serves a web-based admin dashboard for starting and stopping tournaments.
2. WebSocket Client (MGE Plugin): It actively connects as a client to a WebSocket server provided by the MGE game server plugin (expected on port 9001) to receive player data and send match commands.

Features

• Real-time tournament management via the Challonge v1 API.
• Connects to an MGE server plugin to manage players and matches.
• Web-based admin dashboard for tournament control.
• Automatic match assignment to arenas based on a priority list.
• ELO-based seeding for initial player ranking in the tournament.
• Includes a Python-based mock MGE server for easy testing and development.

Building

This project uses CMake.

# Clone the repository
git clone <your-repo-url>
cd mge-tournament-cpp

# Create build directory
mkdir build && cd build

# Configure and build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Configuration

1. Challonge API Key: Create a file named api_key.txt in the executable's directory and place your Challonge API key inside it.
2. Challonge Username: In tournament_manager.cpp, update the ChallongeAPI constructor with your Challonge username.

Running the System

You need to run two components: the MGE server (or the mock server) and the tournament manager.

1. Running the Mock MGE Server (for testing)

The mock server simulates the TF2 game server plugin, allowing you to test the full tournament flow.

# Make sure you have Python 3 and the websockets library
pip install websockets

# Run the mock server
python3 mock_mge_server.py

The mock server will start and wait for a connection on ws://localhost:9001.

2. Running the Tournament Manager

The manager requires the URL slug of a pre-created Challonge tournament as a command-line argument.

./build/mge_tournament <your_challonge_tournament_url>

Example: ./build/mge_tournament my_weekly_cup_42

The manager will start, connect to the mock server, and host the admin panel.

3. Using the Admin Panel

Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080. From here, you can start and stop the tournament.

Communication Protocols

Admin UI WebSocket API (Server)

• Endpoint: ws://localhost:8080 (protocol is tf2serverep)
• Direction: Admin UI connects to the manager.
• Purpose: Receives commands like TournamentStart and TournamentStop from the admin.

MGE Plugin WebSocket API (Client)

• Endpoint: ws://localhost:9001 (or your configured game server IP/port)
• Direction: The manager connects to the MGE server plugin.
• Purpose:
  • Sends commands like get_players and add_player_to_arena.
  • Receives events like match_end_1v1 and responses with player data.

All messages use a JSON format:

{
  "type": "MessageType",
  "payload": {
    /* ... message data ... */
  }
}

Dependencies

• libwebsockets
• libcurl
• nlohmann-json (handled automatically via CMake's FetchContent)
• CMake (for building)

License

MIT