Joining during a battle

[COL KNIGHT 0]

well I hate to bring up another game but this is a real good game lobbyhttp://208.231.90.239/df3lobbyq7.htm

[Recon 0]

How is the play online?

[Bronco 0]

Since JIP is not an option would it be possible to have a little more information in the list of servers. Just two things would help out.

1. "Waiting for players."

2. "Game in progress."

If you could see this information at Game Spy or ASE on the listing of servers there would be no more hit and miss about getting in a game. Problem solved, get to work BIS and Game Spy and get this done ASAP !!!!!

[Scorpy 0]

To all off u.

Create ure uwn server so ull always play

[natas 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from Bronco on 4:29 pm on Oct. 19, 2001

Since JIP is not an option would it be possible to have a little more information in the list of servers. Just two things would help out.

1.  "Waiting for players."  

2.  "Game in progress."

If you could see this information at Game Spy or ASE on the listing of servers there would be no more hit and miss about getting in a game. Problem solved, get to work BIS and Game Spy and get this done ASAP !!!!!

<span id='postcolor'>

ASE already has this.

[Bronco 0]

Well if ASE has its not working just looked and this information is not there. Ping. flux,PL, players,Map(not working),Game(not working),address. And thats it no waiting for players or game in progress. Can you point out where to find this info ?

[natas 0]

There's another list under Oldies/OFP.

[Bronco 0]

Found it. Got to dig deep to see it needs to be moved to front page. Now if BIS and GS would work together and get this info to show up we might have something. THX natas for pointing this out.

[MajHavoc 0]

Join in Progress:

Last night I downloaded All Seeing Eye to try it out, esp, after reading about it here. Here's how it went.

I found a number of dedicated servers in the 1.27 folder and started to join them all, one at a time starting with the lowest ping. About 38-50 servers in all with pings under 200ms to me, some dedicated some not.

Out of all the servers that I joined, almost all games were in progress and when I asked how long till the game was finished, I usually got a reply like "Dunno", or "No set time", or "we just started". The most surprising answer I got was "How did you find my Server?!", I would explain how I found it, using ASE etc. and the responce over all was "less than welcome", like I said surprising esp. how tight the OFP community is or seems to be. I digress.. At anyrate I opted not to wait and just moved on to the next server.... Out of the 2 hours I spent looking for a game to play, I found 1 server that I could play as soon as I got on, it was deathmatch. I prefer Co-Op or team DM, team CTF so I played for a bit and left. I went back to playing the SP Campaign....

My take on this is that JIP is essential if you want to maintain an active/healthy/growing online community and such. Let's face it, with the way the world is now, we want to play when we want to play =), maybe in Europe the attitude is more laid back. I think most of us come from a Quake, Tribes, Unreal background and loved joining a game almost instantaneously.

Another solution is to give the user something to do while waiting for the game to get to a point where the user can join it. If I remember correctly in Unreal Tournament you can be playing in practice mode while you are downloading one of the huge maps from the server you are going to join. You can see the maps dl progress while playing right on your screen. When the DL is done click on your MP game and your playing. Why not allow the user to play "scirmish mode", ie MP maps that have AI troops or Single Mission/Campaign mode and then just send some message to his screen or send him directly to the MP join screen.

This is just some stuff I've seen, I'm a rookie to the community as I just got the game last sunday. I do know this......... I'm not playing online alot, even though I prefer it. My enthusiasm for the game is becoming somewhat diminished.

IMHO

Maj

(Edited by MajHavoc at 6:41 pm on Oct. 19, 2001)

[Cle Hicks 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from Capitaine Haddock on 8:30 pm on Oct. 17, 2001

Cle Hicks...

I know nothing about the code, I know nothing about script states, I know nothing about init phases, I know nothing about the game engine, I know nothing about programming, I know nothing about what BIS is doing now, I know nothing about what they are going to do next, and I know nothing about most things in life...

But I know other games have this feature and OPF should have it.

It may be something impossible to change now, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a big mistake not having it, you like it or not, mate (Unlike me, "u" can read very well, so you won't have any problems understanding this simple concept).

Please, be a bit more positive and help us making this game a little bit better. That's all we are doing here. No hard  feelings mate, we are all trying to find a solution... that's all.

Dawler suggestion is quite interesting. Maybe that's all we need.

Dan "Haddock"

<span id='postcolor'>Plz mate, note that I've *NO* "bad feelings".

And asking for some feature which is *NOT* possible to implement the way the game is will *NOT* make it any better.

So I am bein' positive, whereas those who cry "I want JIP or I won't play OFP anymore" don't help in any way.

It doesn't matter a thing if other games have JIP: those games are *NOT* OFP, they aren't in any way as sophisticated as OFP is.

Think about this: "Hey, I see some games let U pilot star-fighters and destroy enemies with lasers from orbit. I want this feature or I won't play OFP anymore..."

From a logical point of view, the abovementioned stupidity is not far from what u r sayin... Did u catch the point?

Stated that BIS (not me or someone else who understands a little of programming) declared JIP *NOT* feasable, I just wanted ppl to stop complaining and start proposing something alternative - as I did. Do u understand this?

Thx

Peace

(Edited by Cle Hicks at 5:12 am on Oct. 20, 2001)

[Hotdognz 0]

Well in that case Suma your game will die as a MP game online for the net as it all ready has with me, I just got fed up of waiting for servers to finish there games, so I jumped back in to CS as it was easy and I could join anytime. Shame I really think you didnt think out your MP straterdy too well BIS you have a great game that could have kicked the number one online game into dust with some thought from your team.

For a LAN though OPFP once the netcode is fixed will still be great and Will be played a lot at our LAN sessions.

[COL KNIGHT 0]

I agree my squad has went back to land warrior for now. The game has a lot of bugs, lag problems and conection issues. For a game of this magnitude you need to have it set up to where people can join in the middle of the game.. It real simple just have a base for each team, with the battle in the middle. When some one enters the game they start at the base. Now from here they can be trucked or flown or heck they can evan run to the front line. just like reinforcement . They should fix the respawn that way to..

[quiet 0]

I hate to spam the same thing over and over, but it's important...

Mid-game join isn't a big deal anymore:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=534

[mckolley 0]

Thank thank you. It was like you reading my mind. If ofp guys have replay to this indeed frustration will have the effect that all players will be gone in the moment a simular but more mp friendly game arrives. I speak not about rejoing the slaugher with a keystroke but as "reenforcement" and I am happy to wait 5 minutes becasue this keeps the dm type of players away.

I spend roughly 1 hour trying to play for 1 hoiur actually playing and still have trouble with getting stuck, loosing connection perheps because the server guy calls it a day and i still hope that ther will be a bunch of "official servers" established. Emotionally it has been from wow THE GAME to ...

[Dawdler 0]

"I spend roughly 1 hour trying to play for 1 hoiur actually playing"

That describes OFP VERY well. I just spent 15 mins waiting for a game, then the game server seemed to crash... Before I waited 10 mins at gamespy trying to find a game where the host was awake, about the same time in the EYE finding a game with more than 0 players.

Then I found a server! But it was automated without a host and we where two people... on a CTF mission...

We really need ingame server listing...

I have restarted OFP 5 times today, for about 30 minutes play. It is an extremely stupid way of handling MP. And my firewall still locks it up so i have to shut it off every time...

[Capitaine Haddock 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">By: -= C.le Hicks =-

Stated that BIS (not me or someone else who understands a little of programming) declared JIP *NOT* feasable, I just wanted ppl to stop complaining and start proposing something alternative - as I did. Do u understand this? Thx Peace <span id='postcolor'>

Yep. I have to agree with you, mate. You're right... As BIS says they won't do it, I'll stop moaning and try to find alternatives... I love this game too much to stop playing it.

What about including something like ASE or Gamespy into the actual game, a bit like in Unreal Tourney?

With an option to filter games by "Waiting for players" only?

That way we could load the game, refresh the server list and choose any of the "open and waiting" servers. All inside the game, to speed up things.

Does this sounds possible?

Dan "Haddock"

[Puke 0]

You lot wont believe this but...it happened! - kinda

there was six of us playing a 1.27 coop game with NO respawn, one of our squad - "Porta" crashed & so disconnected...we played on and about five mins later Porta reconnected but he didnt start in the lobby no, HE JOINED OUR GAME IN PROGRESS!

ok, he was there from the start but the fact is he did join a game in progress - i have witnesses!

If the bugs in ofp can make this happen why not the rest of it?

[Dawdler 0]

about alternatives, I posted what I think is an exellent one a while ago, "alternative to joining during battles", but no one reply not even devs...

And Puke it might have something to do with the fact that his character, the soldier was already IN the game when he started...

Did he join like, before there was a man just standing there then suddenly it was player controlled, or what? describe it closer. Or did he came in as a seagull? Or did he just pop up?

[Puke 0]

Dawdler

"And Puke it might have something to do with the fact that his character, the soldier was already IN the game when he started...

Did he join like, before there was a man just standing there then suddenly it was player controlled, or what? describe it closer. Or did he came in as a seagull? Or did he just pop up?"

- All i know is he was in game at the start as a soldier, crashed + disconnected, a few minutes later he reconnected and there he was at the start of the map as the same soldier + all his gear (i think)

[COL KNIGHT 0]

Look let me vent a little:) ok OPF is very different from the game im use to. Me and my squad are from the DF series. The one thing I hated with DF was the fact of quick respawn. With that option on there was no way you and your squad could truely work as a squad. So OFP has good marks there. but now I have to B***h about that there should be respawn like in my previous post. we can call it reinforcement. If you get killed you have a time out like mckolley said and then arive back at your base to make your way to the front lines. 2nd issues: They will have to fix the game were you can join the game in mid stream. I have been in many servers where the host was waiting to fill up 10 slot and we set there for 10 to 15 min. waiting until he finally got tired of waiting and just started the game. Now during that time a # of people would jump in and wait a bit than leave and go some where else. So that why I believe they should fix that... 3rd GAMESPY SUCKS... like I said earler we need a game lobby like NOVA got. real easy to find your game http://208.231.90.239/df3lobbyq7.htm and join it all it take is for OFP to make a game browser that will link up like they do in game spy and let everone host there on games. Guys dont take any of this the wrong way im not try to compare the 2 but I am try to take the best out of both games to make on a better game..

[Dawdler 0]

COL KNIGHT, see my alternative thread, I think thats what you are thinking, and thats what we need.

Puke, if that is true, it proves that the delay that would appear when someone joins ingame is not that bad. We should really need his own thoughts on this...

If he only could tell us EXACTLY how he started the game.

Or we should try to replicate the bug (THE BEST BUG EVER IN GAME HISTORY), if it can be done...

It all comes down to whether its true or not.

[Bmeister 0]

You could implement a rounds concept similar to CS. When you are killed then you are dead until the round ends i.e. either your team or the enemy is wiped out or objectives are met. This would allow new players to join the next round, and you could return state of all objects back the their original, game beginning status. This would prevent the mass amount of data that needs to be sent to someone joining during play. Now if you allowed a spectator mode, then you would have to send the data to the user. Just an idea.

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

Joining while a game is in progress is absolutely VITAL to OFP MP. I've run tons of dedicated servers and that's the only thing that keeps me from running one for OFP. See, I and many other dedicated server ops have access to T-1's and up so the bandwidth isn't a problem from the server side. Even if it is a problem with the client, there are things that you don't have to update immediately when a person joins. It needs to be done incrementally.

First they choose a side, and then are placed in the game. After that soldier positions are updated, then vehicles, etc and bullet positions are updated last primarily because they change the most. Just ease the player into the game. This will work. There's no need to immediately update everything on the map because there will be a number of things that they can't immediately see.

OFP does have a much grander size map with more stuff available but BIS must try this or it won't last. I refuse to join games in progress and wait in the waiting room. Rather I start my own games and play them. Unfortunately running a game from my own machine lags it more than neccessary but I can't just set up a dedicated server because when only one person joins they have to wait forever for someone else to join and then the game starts and anyone else joining can't playing immediately until the current game is over.

Anyway I will continue to put up with the aggravatingly long time it takes to set up a game of OFP and pray for your willingness and success at making this game what it truly could be...the king of all games.

Thanks!

[Dawdler 0]

Whats the point of this?

We have 6 pages, almost a hundred posts, more than 2000 views, which seems to be the greatest number ever achived in the forum, I at least havent seen anything larger.

Yet, the last dev response was at page 2...

Does the devteam has a policy of not posting when the number of posts surpasses 20-30?

This is not all about us nagging on joining in battle, we give suggestions to.

We should continue posting untill it hits more posts than its on the general forum, and more views than posts on the old forum.

In short, we should continue posting untill this thread is all that is allowed due to lack of server space for anything else.

[quiet 0]

Either that or give up and read this:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=543