Ranger Giando

this feature would be very useful maybe in ofp2 ...

If you have really played that mission millions of times you should already have it in your mpmissionscache folder lol

I live in Italy, I play with ppl from canada and even US (NY, etc) to Russia. I don't think the problem is timezone-bound. It's so obvious that so many ppl fear the "beta" in 1.94 or are too lazy to search for it in BIS forums. For me the only thing that has not implemented yet is CD-check, and I suppose that is the problem. 1.94 beta + hotfix is the best patch ever as many users say in this forum. That's a serious problem for european multiplayer community, since the big competitor (Soldner) will hit the shelf soon. We're doing our best to keep ppl playing our beloved OFP, but we need help.

Have you ever noticed that since most servers have adopted 1.94 beta, theyr average users count has dropped drastically? Ok OFP's multy is on a descending slope nowadays but that's not the only reason. Servers with 1.91 are still full. I bet the reason is the average guy (without clan) goes to www.flashpoint1985.com, reads "last patch is 1.91" and happily goes to play multy. BIS plz update the download page with the new patch. Expecially for linux severs ofp 1.94 hotfix is the best release ever, so why waste it being forced to put back 1.91 to get players on server?

On most dynamic IP connections IP address is "recycled" if you reconnect too fast. I.e. you get the same IP as before. But depending on ISP and country YMMV. In Italy ISPs usually have pools of 60000+ IPs, i.e. 80.116.x.y. You can even temporally (say 5 mins) ban all the subnet if you have problems. Just to slow down cheaters/id copiers. I don't think you can actually play OFP behind a proxy, I mean with decent pings and bandwidth Anyways that's true, every system is breakable, but slowing crackers works (actually that's the only thing that works in security)

Ok your methods for IP banning should work. But you need root access on the machine. The easiest way is to let OFP log IPs together with IDs and nicks. That's so easy! Why BIS doesn't implement this? Privacy? lol

Yeah in OFP it is not possible, but... if you have root access to a linux ofp server and good programming/scripting abilities you can sniff traffic coming to game port and check connected IPs, and compare IPs with info from the logfile (nicks & IDs) and with some clever code you could even find a correspondance between nicks - IDs - IPs yeah I know that's sci-fi, but in really bad cases (ppl ruining the game to others) you can do this. Anyway BIS could easily implement a correspondance between nicks-IDs-IPs, for example logging the IP in the logfile when players connect, together with the other info (date, nick, ID). For my experience IP tempban works, or at least slows down those lame cheaters (They must reconnect). At least it's a good deterrent.

LOL I was told Glide is a limited OpenGL implementation. so from Glide to full OpenGL the gap should be narrow ----- Another idea about minor gaming platforms like Linux-x86 & Mac: although M$ OSes are overwhelmingly wide spread in gaming communities, M$-gamers have also much more choice. You'll easier find long-lasting fans in linux or mac gaming communities than in windows ones. So you can be sure you'll find them in the shop when OFP2: resistance or OFP3 come out ----- BIS: please think about letting your marvellous game be ported to other OSes/archs by iccus or other groups, maybe with a NDA.

I just WANT OFP for linux, even for multiplayer only (I would still play sp missions by starting a local dedicated server ) The road to porting is not long or difficult, it just needs good planning. If you think at the fact that: 1) Glide and then OpenGL is supported in OFP1. 2) The core of the game engine, plus AI, plus netcode have to be implemented under Linux anyways, since netgaming market NEEDS a rock-solid, efficient & net-centric OS to put dedicated servers on it. 3) Linux's recent clustering technologies could in the future simplify most of the boring parts of a gaming provider's job while enforcing reliability ... and maybe they could give OFP2 the computing power it deserves 4) A Unix port, using SDL for graphics and standard library functions (trying to avoid glibc issues!), would make the game & dedicated server on many unix-like OSes, including Mac OS X, that has it's own share in gaming industry. 5) Many of OFP2 direct concurrents (will) have a UNIX/Linux port, Americas Army just to say one. So releasing OFP2 for Linux and/or Mac has to be seen more from a strategic point of view than a convenience one. The cons of a Linux port are: 1) In military personell speech "off the shelf" means "Micro$oft", expecially in US/NATO countries, but I hope OFP2 will be bought by other ppl also. 2) In order to port their code to other OSes, BIS needs to use other developing environments than the graphical ones (I assume) they use now. I see graphical IDEs as the PLAGUE of platform independent progamming, since most of them limit you to little choice of compilers and libraries. 3) Last but not least: Support & mantainance. Yeah I admit that this is the hard part of a multi-platform applications, different bugs from different ports all to be corrected consistently. But Modularization and strict separation between interface and core logic could help a lot ...

I'm not an expert of OFP1's architecture. But of one thing I'm sure: at least a part of OFP engine (AI+world engine+netcode, no rendering) has actually been ported to linux to make the dedicated server. I don't know if an OFP2 linux dedicated server will come to life soon, but surely I won't sleep well having my server on the net all the time running on a buggy OS (I've heard of ppl running OFP1 ded server even on BSD for ultra-security!!!) So why don't make a little effort to build/use a compatibility layer for the graphics engine to work on both OSes ?