PlayFab Party release notes

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PlayFab Party is available on Nuget.org!

Release notes for the Xbox Live Helper library can be found here.

1.0.1

Party API Changes

PartyManager::SetMemoryCallbacks Changes

This release of Party adds fixes for SetMemoryCallbacks() and also restrictions about when this API is safe to call. Check the reference documentation of the API in Party.h for details.

Removal of PartyStateChangeResult::TitleCreateNetworkThrottled

The PartyStateChangeResult value TitleCreateNetworkThrottled has been removed from the API, since the Party library will never generate it.

0.7.0-prerelease

Windows Packaging Changes

This release of Party introduces a new NuGet package, Microsoft.PlayFab.PlayFabParty.Cpp.Windows, which replaces and deprecates the NuGet packages specific to Windows 10 and Windows 7 (Microsoft.PlayFab.PlayFabParty.Cpp.Win10 and Microsoft.PlayFab.PlayFabParty.Cpp.Win7, respectively). The new unified Windows NuGet package contains two new DLLs, PartyWin.dll (supports Windows 8.1 and up) and PartyWin7.dll (only for use on Windows 7). With the new Windows unified NuGet package, the correct Party DLL is loaded based on runtime detection of the OS version, so both PartyWin.dll and PartyWin7.dll should be included in the game distribution package.

Android Changes

The Android flavor now uses a shared object for Party (libparty.so) instead of a static library (libparty.a).

This release also contains Android-specific bug fixes for audio device selection.

iOS Changes

The iOS flavor of Party now has the framework package included for dynamically loading libparty instead of the statically built libparty.a.

API Changes

UpdateEntityToken API

This release of Party makes a change related to the handling of PlayFab entity tokens. In the previous version, the game provided Party with a user’s entity token in the CreateLocalUser() API. Thereafter, Party internally refreshed the entity token and kept it up to date.

In this version, the internal token refreshing behavior has been removed and is replaced by a new API, PartyLocalUser::UpdateEntityToken(). The caller is now responsible for monitoring the expiration of the entity token provided to PartyManager::CreateLocalUser() and PartyLocalUser::UpdateEntityToken(). When the token is nearing or past the expiration time a new token should be obtained by performing a PlayFab login operation and provided to the Party library by calling UpdateEntityToken(). It is recommended to acquire a new token when the previously supplied token is halfway through its validity period. On platforms that may enter a low power state or otherwise cause the application to pause execution for a long time, preventing the token from being refreshed before it expires, the token should be checked for expiration once execution resumes.

The rough flow is as follows:

  1. The game calls a LoginWith* PlayFab API
  2. The response from PlayFab contains the entity token and also the expiration time
  3. Provide the token information to Party with the CreateLocalUser() API, as before
  4. [New] Make note of the expiration time in order to know when to refresh it
  5. [New] At halfway through the token’s expiration time (or soonest opportunity after that time), acquire a fresh token by calling LoginWith* again and track the new token’s expiration time
  6. [New] Call UpdateEntityToken() to pass in the new token to Party

Additional notes:

  • The act of acquiring an entity token does not invalidate any previously obtained entity tokens. They remain valid until they expire.
  • The internal refreshing functionality was removed because most games are expected to make their own PlayFab calls and so having both the game and the Party library fetching entity tokens causes unnecessary service load to basically manage two sets of tokens.

Chat API Changes

The PartyVoiceChatTranscriptionReceivedStateChange now includes a languageCode field, which indicates the language of the transcription.

The PartyChatTextReceivedStateChange now includes a languageCode field, which may indicate the language of the chat text. The languageCode field will be populated when chat text translation has been enabled via PartyLocalChatControl::SetTextChatOptions().

0.6.0-prerelease

Added support for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch platforms.

For more information, see the following links:

iOS/Android

Nintendo Switch

0.5.0-prerelease

Released July 18, 2019

API Changes

Accessible Chat

  • Added support for text-to-speech narration. (see PartyLocalChatControl::SetTextToSpeechProfile())
  • Added more options for controlling when speech-to-text occurs. (see PartyLocalChatControl::SetTranscriptionOptions())
  • Added text-to-text translation to the API, although it is not yet supported. ( see PartyLocalChatControl::SetTextChatOptions())
  • Reduced text-to-speech bandwidth and memory usage.

Network access control

  • PartyNetwork::SetAccessControlList() and related methods have been removed from the API. Use the new PartyInvitation class and related methods to create open invitations or grant access to specific PlayFab users to your Party networks.

0.4.6-prerelease

API Changes

Added new public API PartyLocalUser::UpdateEntityToken().

0.2.0-prerelease

Released April 08, 2019

API Changes

  • PartyManager::Initialize now requires a valid PlayFab Title ID to be passed in.