DOOTF Multiplayer - Anyone still playing

[UCyborg]

Nobody's working on new textures AFAIK.

Yeah, consoles are popular platforms, so it makes sense developing for them from business perspective. If you've accumulated more PC games than you can stomach, then few exclusives there and there on consoles don't make the world crash and burn. At least that's how I see it. Each platform has some hidden gems, which'd be nice to play. I'm not generally against them, just never had the incentive to get one. You also have people that go way overboard with this whole PC master race bullshit.

Speaking of $$$, if someone convinced some publisher that a game like Drakan would sell, I bet we'd eventually see something new in that genre, perhaps even something innovative.

I think you're right about certain games being better played with gamepads. I suppose it's just the kind of games I play that I see no other good option but KB + MB. I just remembered I played FIFA 2 or 3 times in my life, an example where I wouldn't miss the keyboard.

Who knows when OpenOOTF will be done. These things take years, especially to perfect all the small details.

I just mentioned Tunngle as alternative to Hamachi and GameRanger when it comes to virtual LAN gaming. I don't remember if I just had something misconfigured in the past, but Hamachi involved manually inputting IP addresses. I know for a fact that Tunngle emulates LAN, so games can discover servers on their own. Though port forwarding may still be required, at least for the person who hosts the server. But yeah, multiplayer is pretty much dead. We tried running servers few years back, but nobody ever joined.

[Mechanist]

Shame about the MP - but at least the technical capability exists, which is somehow reassuring.

Console exclusives, yeah. That's what "Let's Play"s are for, at least for the platforms too new to emulate well (eg. PS4).
TAG is an obvious exception for me - because well, duh. 'Nuff said.
That, and it's been silently mocking me for years - but now it is finally time. Emulation time!

if someone convinced some publisher that a game like Drakan would sell, I bet we'd eventually see something new in that genre, perhaps even something innovative.

I've already mentioned that in another thread, but the plot of one of the Witcher books would make for an excellent Drakan-esque game.
Dragon riding/flying + Witcher ground combat. Amazing. Devs, take my money... or not? Apparently, the major game devs have bigger fish to fry...
Perhaps also because due to the plot, it would have to be fairly linear (like Drakan), and that would fare poorly in this era of open-world/sandbox games?

It feels really weird, economically speaking, since at work I regularly see (and sometimes even talk with) people who buy our $2,000,000 CNC laser cutters, which then cost roughly $1000/hour to operate, and yet somehow manage to make a decent profit out of it? And some of them even come back for more of these machines? Multiple times?
Sounds absolutely unbelievable, not to say outright insane - but the cold, hard facts (and my paycheck) speak otherwise.

Who knows when OpenOOTF will be done. These things take years, especially to perfect all the small details.

No doubt about it. Heck, I know at least one recent Unity game (KSP) that spent a good few years in development for that very reason, and that was with a whole dev team, and a large & dedicated fanbase.
Still beats 20 years of staring at a wall doing nothing, I guess.

[UCyborg]

I forgot to address 2 questions last time. VSync does cap the frame-rate to the monitor refresh rate. Version 445 of the game doesn't specify the refresh rate, which on modern Windows versions means the desktop refresh rate. Windows 9x supposedly defaults to lowest available refresh rate, though I don't have the means to confirm this. dgVoodoo re-implementation of old DirectDraw/DIrect3D definitely goes for 60 Hz if desktop refresh rate is higher.

And that status regarding Tunngle networks, it shows the current number of users on the network.

One thing about the multiplayer, server tends to crash occasionally when you start adding certain player-created levels to the mix. I also wonder about the remaining vulnerabilities in Drakan networking code. This game is so unpopular that not a single security vulnerability has been registered with CVE. Drakan server without AiO Patch can be easily crashed remotely by exploiting a bug in the Drakan's implementation of server query protocol.

[Mechanist]

Speaking of multiplayer - any chance we could get together in the "near" future for some MP action?
Say, around the summer holidays maybe?
(not too soon, preferably - my new computer isn't quite ready yet, and the old one is rather knackered)

Based on what I've seen so far, that makes for at least 4 active users: AT, YanGez, UCyborg and me.
And that's without having to resort to very "generous" definitions of activity.
The 4 of us live more or less in the same timezones, so at least this shouldn't be an issue; in fact, me and YanGez are pretty much a stone's throw away.

As for me, I'm free on most weekends and workday evenings.

Also, for the record - I'm behind a NAT (my ISP's, so totally outside my control) and a router (my own), which I presume could cause problems. Just the NAT by itself sure does break a bunch of other, seemingly unrelated things.
Then again, I guess we'd be using some sort of VPN anyway?

[yangez93]

I've tried with my brother to play some matches and WE DID But I had to reinstall Drakan in terms of "Changed data" or something like that Of course we had server on LAN. We played only ground maps such as :Relic and Sanctuary. We had multiple bugs when we played Air maps.

Attract players to the game can make special modes to Drakan Multiplayer, for example Survival mode, InstaGib, CTF, onslaught,cooperation or defend castle/place and many others. So unfortunately isn't included in Drakan. This is only my imagination at the moment

I do not see any event in Steam Group yet. Maybe only I cannot see this If it'll be some matches I can play with you. It would be nice to play using microphone on TeamSpeak or Mumble in 2vs2 or 3vs3 matches to make tactics and of course some intergration with users. I have also question, what modes are you mainly play? Ground, Air or Master of Dragon?

[Arokhs Twin]

Summer holidays sounds good to me. I'm typically free Saturday afternoons and work day evenings but I'm planning to take some time off work to do some work on the house which I'm hoping to do within the next 3 or 4 months. Builders, plumbers and decorators always seem to be booked up and trying to get them all to come the same week is a nightmare. One of those weeks would be ideal for a match.

NAT does cause problems so a VPN such as Hamachi might be a better idea. I haven't played for a long time (well I suppose none of us have really) so it should be interesting...

I used to play air matches mostly.

BTW if anyone uses Steam (I guess you do) adding each others as friends might be a good idea. You will see me as one of the steam group admins - username currently teekus.

[Mechanist]

Ok, now because I have absolutely zero experience with Drakan MP (or mostly any other MP for that matter), I could use a bit of an explanation - at least beyond what little I can infer from the manual/readme.

All that I really know regarding the OOTF MP is:
- it's more or less imaginary and nonexistent ,
- dragon alt. attacks are disabled (for good reason!),
- all players must be using the same patch version. (in this case, preferably the most recent AiO patch?)

I see 4 shortcuts for running a dedicated server: "All levels", "Air only", "Ground only" and MotD.
Questions:
"Air only", how literally? As in, no landing at all?
"Ground only" - I assume it's roughly along the lines of Dark Souls online invasions, just without the ludicrous lag backstabs?
MotD - I can't quite reconcile the description with the singleplayer experience (as in, one-sided slaughter ). I presume an abundance of bows, and/or nerfed dragon attacks?
Also, what does "All levels" mean? That it supports all of the above modes (presumably selectable when beginning a match)?

Is there anything else important that I should know?

I do not see any event in Steam Group yet. Maybe only I cannot see this

Nah, it isn't just you. Me and UCyborg can confirm the same. Emptiness, as far as the eye can see

Attract players to the game can make special modes to Drakan Multiplayer, for example Survival mode, InstaGib, CTF, onslaught,cooperation or defend castle/place and many others. So unfortunately isn't included in Drakan. This is only my imagination at the moment

If you mean for OpenOOTF, then yes, I agree. It would certainly make it appeal to a wider audience.
Especially seeing how nowadays, singleplayer (story) mode is little more than an afterthought in many modern games; they tend to be heavily MP-oriented. Console titles even more so.

[UCyborg]

Attract players to the game can make special modes to Drakan Multiplayer, for example Survival mode, InstaGib, CTF, onslaught,cooperation or defend castle/place and many others. So unfortunately isn't included in Drakan.

CTF can be implemented since patch 445, there are few CTF maps, Hovertrain comes to mind. I'm guessing InstaGib would be possible by modifying weapon damage values, not sure if any level comes with such weapons. I think there is one big weapon already present in game files that deals a lot of damage, not sure if instagib, but very powerful regardless. I think there's one level that's about fighting with that weapon exclusively. This is from my memory, I don't recall more details. There's also special arena mode for duels.

I see 4 shortcuts for running a dedicated server: "All levels", "Air only", "Ground only" and MotD.

Those shortcuts just specify different file containing list of levels the server should loop through. The first option doesn't specify anything, so the server goes through all levels it finds in Multiplayer directory.

"Air Only" - only dragons walking/flying, no Rynns
"Ground Only" - only Rynns
"MOTD" - Master of the Dragon - Rynns fight for control of a dragon

Just the NAT by itself sure does break a bunch of other, seemingly unrelated things.

The concept behind NAT is simple; to allow multiple computers to share the same IP address and be able to access the internet. It's designed to be transparent to applications and this certainly works for client applications. Servers are different beasts, since they usually just wait for incoming connection and since they don't initiate connection themselves, NAT device can't know (without port forwarding) where to send certain packets coming from outside. Transparency when it comes to the client-side however breaks when you have client-side application that makes assumptions it shouldn't.