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Post by MMV on Apr 29, 2006 23:52:29 GMT -5
Can anyone guess what game this is?alpha - let's play a game! bravo - I can't host, anyone host? charlie - I can host, I'll put one up bravo - can I invite delta? charlie - delta can't connect bravo - can I invite echo too? alpha - sure (long wait......) bravo - echo can't connect, charlie can you leave so delta can connect? charlie - sure bravo - echo still can't connect, I'll leave so he can connect echo - I'm in alpha - bravo can't connect now delta - I'm in! bravo - I'm in too! let's go! apha - launch launch launch! (long wait) charlie - I'm in bravo - I'm in alpha - I'm in charlie - delta? you here? echo - I don't see him alpha - dleta? delta? Are you here bravo - someone check lobby echo - he's not there! bravo - oh jeeeeeeeeeeeez, here we go again. bravo - re-host charlie - lobby echo - lobby alpha - who's hosting? charlie - let bravo host bravo - I can't host, lobby (sigh) echo - ffs, I'm out. what game is this? Name? Name? Name?
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Post by MMV on Apr 29, 2006 23:54:36 GMT -5
OH how quickly we forget, it's CIV3 Multi-Player, of course, lol!
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Post by Bantams on Apr 30, 2006 2:17:07 GMT -5
;)Oh eck I thought it was Civ4
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Post by tommynt on Apr 30, 2006 5:11:29 GMT -5
Pls dont post only negatives - but take game as it is
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Post by whiplash on Apr 30, 2006 8:11:54 GMT -5
That really doesn't happen in CIV3 anymore. The CIV3 crowd has a handful of players who cannot connect to certain other players. Also there are a few who can only connect if they are the first one in the setup screen (slot 2). The players with the connection quirks have learned what to do.
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Post by zerza on Apr 30, 2006 8:45:32 GMT -5
The players with the connection quirks have learned what to do. Or more likely they gave up long ago
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Post by Tony on Apr 30, 2006 10:39:35 GMT -5
I dont know why people compare connection issues with CIV3, CIV3 was written in 1999, give or take a year. Very few people even knew about gaming over the Internet at this time. We are now in 2006, LOADS of games out these days have issueless MP.
When CIV3 was written i doubt they even planted to eventually make it MP, it was almost forced upon the exsisting code.
So its a silly comparison, the fact that people are even comparing connection problems between the 2 games should be embrassing for CIV4.
But i do agree that in CIV3 relaods could often take a while, which was awfully annoying, and CIV3 did have bugs. But connecting was ALOT better, with people connecting 9/10, after giving slot 2 to people and doing little tricks like that.
NOT BEING ABLE TO CONNECT IS THE WORST POSSIBLE BUG
Stuff like host dropping bug, and retire bug I can live with aslong as someone can rejoin quickly, but currently when host drops he will almost certianly conflict with someone when trying to rejoin. This "not being able to join" stuff is easily causing the most fustration IMO.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 30, 2006 11:35:56 GMT -5
Well MP mechanics are a little older than Civ3, I was playing good MP games with Hotjoining, with Civ2MGE, the internet has not changed since then either. So making comparisons is not totally out of line IMHO. I could not host with C3C after I installed DX9 and many people had this issue. Firaxis had good intentions with using GS's NAT system to try and address routers and firewalls, and the tried to elliminate the many ports used by C3C by going with a single port solution. But it didn't work as well as planned. Hopefully solving the "dead player leaving the game" bug can be fixed, and who knows what that will effect. In the long run the peer to peer mechanic is showing it's weaknesses, but it also is cheap and requires no expensive servers or monthly fees like some games.
CS
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Post by zerza on Apr 30, 2006 16:12:36 GMT -5
but it also is cheap and requires no expensive servers or monthly fees like some games. CS Typicly games that require monthly fees are always adding new content, so this justifies it. As far as P2P being cheap, thats a poor excuse, unless using it to describe why Firaxis took the cheap way out to impress Take 2 with production costs This game is not cheap by any means. Its priced as a high quality game, with low quality standards of testing, its frustrating really. The game STILL costs 50 bucks in stores, all these months later. And its still selling like mad, making them lots of money. Now to talk about an expansion, people will be buying civ4 and the expansion making them twice as much money. Sad thing is the expansion doesn't add much that the mods out dont already add I love the game and will play it even with its low standards of quality by industry standards. And I think thats what they were banking on, they are definately taking us for a ride here, and unless its CIV5, neither company can hope to make another dollar off many of us. :: puts on eye patch ::: avast ye land lubbers
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Post by salqadri on Apr 30, 2006 18:09:25 GMT -5
P2P isnt really that bad. Starcraft was P2P. So was Age of Empires. Even in Civ4 the gameplay is not that bad. They just have bugs like the Retire Bug to solve (which they are working on and need our help to capture it; see Canucks thread). The problem with establishing the Connection in the first place is what they need to solve. Personally, I dont plame P2P as I think it is a good, reliable method for games, especially if the number of peers are only like 12 or so. The Client-Server models are overkill for this and serve a different purpose; i.e, supporting 100's of people, as in an MMORPG. And yes such servers are costly, and are only worth it in games that are entirely based on Multiplayer.
I wouldnt blame P2P. I'd blame the code for establishing connections, whosever fault that is (Firaxis or Gamespy).
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Post by Ellestar on May 2, 2006 0:26:03 GMT -5
P2P isnt really that bad. Starcraft was P2P. Starcraft is NOT P2P. All battle.net ladder games are hosted on Blizzard servers. Only UMS maps aren't hosted, but even then, one player acts like a server for all other players so it's not P2P either. In the long run the peer to peer mechanic is showing it's weaknesses, but it also is cheap and requires no expensive servers or monthly fees like some games. Err you said not to accuse you of lying. Ok, please don't try to mislead people by hiding the truth and making statements that may lead people to wrong conclusions ;D Servers for games without a monthly fees do exist. Namely, battle.net exists for 10 years already (it hosts Diablo I, Diablo II and non-UMS maps for Starcraft and Warcraft III). Arena.net hosts servers for Guild Wars. As i already said on this forum, Guild Wars sales are about equal to Civ 4 sales - more than a million. And Arena.net hosts servers for EVERY Guild Wars player, it's impossible to play without connecting to their server. Certainly, it's not as expensive as you want others to think.
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Post by Elledge on May 2, 2006 0:53:34 GMT -5
Hold on, Civ4 has sold as well as Guild Wars? Really? I would have guessed like a tenth as well.
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Post by zerza on May 2, 2006 7:05:32 GMT -5
Doing a quick google search. Both Guild Wars and Civ4 claim to have sold over a Million copies in the first 5 months of release. So about the same.
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 3, 2006 0:08:28 GMT -5
P2P isnt really that bad. Starcraft was P2P. Starcraft is NOT P2P. All battle.net ladder games are hosted on Blizzard servers. Only UMS maps aren't hosted, but even then, one player acts like a server for all other players so it's not P2P either. In the long run the peer to peer mechanic is showing it's weaknesses, but it also is cheap and requires no expensive servers or monthly fees like some games. Err you said not to accuse you of lying. Ok, please don't try to mislead people by hiding the truth and making statements that may lead people to wrong conclusions ;D Servers for games without a monthly fees do exist. Namely, battle.net exists for 10 years already (it hosts Diablo I, Diablo II and non-UMS maps for Starcraft and Warcraft III). Arena.net hosts servers for Guild Wars. As i already said on this forum, Guild Wars sales are about equal to Civ 4 sales - more than a million. And Arena.net hosts servers for EVERY Guild Wars player, it's impossible to play without connecting to their server. Certainly, it's not as expensive as you want others to think. I wasn't trying to mislead anyone. Those servers may not charge the customers that does not mean they are not expensive for the company to operate. Firaxis has never sold a server based game and has no infrastructure in place to do so. So to build this from scratch is not a cheap undertaking for them, which is why they have gone with GS even though its a far from perfect system. I'm hoping the sales figures of Civ4 and Warlords will make the idea of putting that money into a Server system more likely, but PTW/C3C certainly did not have the critical mass of MP players to make the developers consider a server system for Civ4. As it is Civ4 was the first ever Civ game to have MP from the start, so I guess we should be happy we didn't have to wait for Warlords for MP CS
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Post by loki1023 on May 3, 2006 0:55:19 GMT -5
Well they don't have to run their own servers they could just include a server aplication with civ 5 and allow users to run their own servers and perhaps include code in the server app to report the game information back to firaxis to list the game on a list. Half life and it's mods allow users to run their own servers and list them so I don't think it's to far fetched for firaxis to come up with a similar method thus considerably lowering any infrastructure costs on there end. just putting in my two cents again
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Post by tommynt on May 3, 2006 1:05:37 GMT -5
CS, wtf such a statement - if they didnt write on package that it was a MP optimized game i d have never ever bought it and be pisssed again and again -in fact made it the patch unplayable - at least sometimes and bigger games (up to 6 players it works often)
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Post by Ellestar on May 3, 2006 4:44:17 GMT -5
I wasn't trying to mislead anyone. Those servers may not charge the customers that does not mean they are not expensive for the company to operate. Expensive is a relative term. If it's possible to host servers for a million customers then it's more than possible to host servers for a smaller playerbase when another company got about the same money from a million of customers. Firaxis has never sold a server based game and has no infrastructure in place to do so. So to build this from scratch is not a cheap undertaking for them, which is why they have gone with GS even though its a far from perfect system. I'm hoping the sales figures of Civ4 and Warlords will make the idea of putting that money into a Server system more likely, but PTW/C3C certainly did not have the critical mass of MP players to make the developers consider a server system for Civ4. As it is Civ4 was the first ever Civ game to have MP from the start, so I guess we should be happy we didn't have to wait for Warlords for MP Everyone started from scratch. And MP become popular AFTER there was a good MP game, not before it. High-quality and easy to use product makes a big difference. Well they don't have to run their own servers they could just include a server aplication with civ 5 and allow users to run their own servers and perhaps include code in the server app to report the game information back to firaxis to list the game on a list. Half life and it's mods allow users to run their own servers and list them so I don't think it's to far fetched for firaxis to come up with a similar method thus considerably lowering any infrastructure costs on there end. just putting in my two cents again Well, half life is too new to be a good example. Quake I has a dedicated server, but IIRC it was released after a game release.
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Post by Elledge on May 3, 2006 6:43:31 GMT -5
This is silly. Multiplayer functionality has been around for ten years, and peer-to-peer multiplayer for about as long. Given the sales Firaxis did a piss-poor job of it. Can we do anything about that? Not really. Did they f**k it up on purpose? Almost definitely not. Is it going to be fixed soon? Probably not, and we won't speed it up. So what's the use?
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Post by Ellestar on May 3, 2006 8:22:44 GMT -5
This is silly. Multiplayer functionality has been around for ten years, and peer-to-peer multiplayer for about as long. Given the sales Firaxis did a piss-poor job of it. Can we do anything about that? Not really. Did they f**k it up on purpose? Almost definitely not. Is it going to be fixed soon? Probably not, and we won't speed it up. So what's the use? Well, to say the truth MUDs appeared in 1978. That's significanly more than 10 years I'm not sure which game was a first PC real-time multiplayer game. Probably it was Doom (1993).
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Post by Elledge on May 3, 2006 8:37:47 GMT -5
This is silly. Multiplayer functionality has been around for ten years, and peer-to-peer multiplayer for about as long. Given the sales Firaxis did a piss-poor job of it. Can we do anything about that? Not really. Did they f**k it up on purpose? Almost definitely not. Is it going to be fixed soon? Probably not, and we won't speed it up. So what's the use? Well, to say the truth MUDs appeared in 1978. That's significanly more than 10 years I'm not sure which game was a first PC real-time multiplayer game. Probably it was Doom (1993). Yeah, yeah. I mean common effective multiplayer functionality in more-or-less realtime games.
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