(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. I support Dizzy's position to require software firewall's and AV software to be OFF while playing on the Dynaverse. I propose the community try it his way for three servers, and see how it goes. I'll bet his solution ends up fixing a LOT of the connection issues.
I've been watching this thread with interest. Since I'm retired, and am not going to play, I really don't have dog in this fight. But I have some thoughts, based on seven years of online play.
It takes a MASSIVE amount of work to set up a Dynaverse server. I imagine server admins take a great deal of pride in their work, and their storyline. It must be very, very frustrating to get all the angry e-mails and PM's from players that are CONVINCED that some dirty so-and-so is a cheat, because they contunually drop when the are to play.
I don't think anyone is a cheat. Maybe some people really push the envelope, and we have some rules lawyers, but I have serious doubts at this stage of the game that anyone in this community fires up the computer planning to cheat. So the problem of dropped connections is not a cheat, but a more innocent, but troublesome, technical issue.
If you have a flaky connection, and everybody and their mother is fighting for a critical hex 30 minutes before the VC count, the temptation to sneak in and take just one quick mission must be overwhelming. Unfortunately, the moment you try to do so, you draft three legendary opponents (who took sick days and have been playing for 20 solid hours) in the best ships their side has, everyone crashes, one of them gets the Hand of Bethke and loses their ship, and the cries of anguish are a thing to behold. Or you go somewhere where you think you are off the front lines, and get jumped anyway. And CTD.
When the game started, we had connection issues, but I remember playing 3 v 3 campaign battles in SFC1. We did it on dial up. We slowed the game down to speed 6, and connected via IP. Each fleet made sure that their players used voice settings that were easy on bandwidth. We all used the same voice client, Battlecom. We made sure that we ran a lean system, and did not have non-gamin programs taking up memory or clock cycles. I remember taking pride in having NOTHING in my system tray, and having 93% system resources free on boot-up. I had a GAMING rig, and the other programs I used, such as Office, were for the other things I did when I was not gaming.
Then with SFC2, and the Mirak, we had all those missiles, and lots of new players that connected via AOL. Some of us gently suggesgted the AOL folks get a better ISP, and the outrage from the AOL players was huge.
People with dial-up have a problem with playing the game and dealing with voice chat. That's because we don't bother anymore to get everybody to configure their voice setting in a bandwidth-efficient manner, and data packets between dial-up and broadband are not standardized . If someone has bandwidth to burn, those people tend to forget our dial-up brethren, or feel they should get broadband.
Keep in mind that this game should be able to run on dial-up and a P-II 500 64MB memory, using W98. Many of us have done it. But in 2006, we have processor and memory to burn, so maybe we don't worry so much about how to run a lean system. Many users have applications running that may grab critical resources at a critical moment.
I use Zone Alarm, and have the thing properly configured. My router is also configured right.
But Bonk has convinced me with his networking API technobabble that, even when I have taken all reasonable measures at my end, many AV and software firewalls cause random instability.[/u] If I were to play this game again, I'd disable the software firewall, and my AV program, and have big post-it notes everywhere reminding me to set them up again after a gaming session.
I don't see intrusions anymore through the software firewall. The router takes care of it. My software firewall is mostly a final check, and I like knowing when certain programs try and access the Internet. But I can do without that security blanket while gaming.
I suggest that the community go along with Dizzy's rule (since the server operator community is pretty tight, you might as well, or you could get locked out. Or STFU and set up your own server.
) for the next three major servers, and see what happens. Again, I'll bet Dizzy's plan fixes a lot of problems.
People spend too much time playing this game, and the server admins spend too much time on this game, to not take this simple, reasonable step to ensure game stability.
Topic: After a week banning. let's pick up where I left off. (Read 18039 times)