End of SWBFII Multiplayer

[MileHighGuy]

Wow! that's incredible. I think you addressed all major complaints with the service we had! I'm interested to hear what someone who runs a server has to say about this.

[_DeltaForce_]

You, Sir, are awesome! That's incredibly great news, really glad to hear that - as I would prefer GameRanger much over Tunngle. With the Dedicated Server feature I don't think there is any additional advantage to Tunngle...

Also, thank you very much for that information about the sound fix. Probably someone will develop a stand alone version sometime which could help quite some people. And it definitely feels good to know what causes this bug and being able to tell people for what exact reason they have problems playing - and not a wishy-washy "plug a headphone in, fixes things because god knows why" (people also don't believe you sometimes ).

[RacoonLR]

Finally new about the Sound fix =)
I've thought I'm the only one who had this Problem sometime...

[ScottKevill]

Ironically enough, I tried to get friends playing SWBF2 at a LAN party I hosted a couple of months ago. Everyone was psyched, but some people kept crashing, and we ended up not playing because of it. We assumed it must have been a difference in video cards, or Steam vs non-Steam, etc. Needless to say, I'm very satisfied to be to kick this bug's Diet Dr. Pepper.

Other trivia about this update is that as part of supporting Internet mode, the GameSpy backends are simulated locally (in fact, inside the SWBF2 process), which makes all that even faster than any other solution going around. Just use a dot (period '.') as a pasword if you really want to login, but it's not required.

[Cleb]

I was online a few minutes ago and heard everyone talking about this, came to investigate. So it sounds like we will still be able to play online, to a certain extent?

[MileHighGuy]

Once you install Scott's gameranger or other options (by June 30th) you can. Its not a hands off thing.

[Noobasaurus]

Well, there always is that patch that was released...

But if you like Gameranger more, go right ahead!

[ScottKevill]

The patch is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

[_DeltaForce_]

Are you refering to the patch EyesOnly published? If so, why should it be a bad idea?

[[TFA]Padawan_Fighter]

Is GameRanger taking over SWBF2's master server (and thus still have access to the public lobby)? Or will we have to download it independently?

[_DeltaForce_]

It will not take over any GameSpy servers... I don't think anyone will.
GameRanger is a stand-alone alternative which you have to download and install seperately.

[MrPeter]

The guys from swbf3.de (which have been mentioned here before) finally finished their work and made a replaceable .exe which connects to their own gamespy masterserver instead of the original one.

Forum post (Google translator)

Download/Information page

Furthermore they made the same for Battlefront 1.

[[TFA]Padawan_Fighter]

Sweet!

[LRKfm946]

The patch is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

I don't see any advantages that Gameranger has over the patch (referring to FreeGST). For the patch, you don't have to install any new programs, make any new accounts, etc. All you have to do is swap out the .exe, then you play your game the way you did before. The patched server .exes come with the latest exploit patches, as well as features such as instant spawn that are not available anywhere else. Plus, FreeGST is implementing new functionality to the leaderboards, etc. so they will be useful once again. They (the FreeGST devs) have built their own master server completely dedicated to SWBF2, and even released the FreeGST exes as an open beta to iron out all the bugs.

[Teancum]

The patch is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

I don't see any advantages that Gameranger has over the patch (referring to FreeGST). For the patch, you don't have to install any new programs, make any new accounts, etc. All you have to do is swap out the .exe, then you play your game the way you did before. The patched server .exes come with the latest exploit patches, as well as features such as instant spawn that are not available anywhere else. Plus, FreeGST is implementing new functionality to the leaderboards, etc. so they will be useful once again. They (the FreeGST devs) have built their own master server completely dedicated to SWBF2, and even released the FreeGST exes to iron out all the bugs.

Haven't tried the FreeGST fix, but generally I'd agree with ScottKevill. I really don't like the idea of a third party patching a .exe, especially when network capabilities are involved. I'm not saying *this* patch is malicious, but I've seen it happen before. Guess I've been burned enough that I'd prefer to look elsewhere.

[Twilight_Warrior]

Not to mention GameRanger was the majority vote from the beginning (thanks to reddit), and while I don't care how multiplayer gets "saved" one way over the other, splintering the community into now four different solutions (GameRanger, this .exe, Tuungle, and swbf3.de's .exe) doesn't help, it hurts. The community leaders should swallow their pride and herd their players into one unified solution, not create new ones they think are "better" for the sake of being "the saviours of SWBF2 multiplayer"

[ScottKevill]

The patch is a bad idea for quite a few reasons.

I don't see any advantages that Gameranger has over the patch (referring to FreeGST). For the patch, you don't have to install any new programs, make any new accounts, etc. All you have to do is swap out the .exe, then you play your game the way you did before. The patched server .exes come with the latest exploit patches, as well as features such as instant spawn that are not available anywhere else. Plus, FreeGST is implementing new functionality to the leaderboards, etc. so they will be useful once again. They (the FreeGST devs) have built their own master server completely dedicated to SWBF2, and even released the FreeGST exes to iron out all the bugs.

[Long post, and will no doubt upset a few people]


You're being somewhat disingenuous.

Installing the patch is still installing. And if they plan to add real leaderboards, did you think that through? Guess what? People are going to have to create new accounts. Unless you think the idea of everyone using the same password (and whatever name they want on the day) for their leaderboard account is a good idea.

Due the fact that GameRanger supports so many games, many people have it already installed, and already have an account. They are already familiar with it because it works the same for every game. They don't need to do anything special for SWBF2. You left out that part of course.

You also left out the part that Steam users are going to have to keep re-patching any time they verify-local-content or re-install. In fact, even non-Steam users are going to need to remember to do this. If they don't remember, they'll be greeted with no indication on how to fix it other an an empty list. This could happen a month, six months, a year later. People won't remember, especially if they only play casually.

The FreeGST guys did not even have the sense to patch with a domain name of equal or shorter length than the original gamespy.com. They got lucky with SWBF1/2 by munging the existing ones, but they'll have problems extending this to other games (as they are claiming they will). They can't hex-edit pure "gamespy.com" to "u.gameshare.de". They've broken the functional separation by making "master" equivalent to "available" (while they currently resolve to the same IP, that doesn't make it less wrong). This will cause problems further down the line. Their instructions are also inconsistent. Previously it was gameshare.info. Now it's either u.gameshare.me or d.gameshare.me, or even gameshare.de. This is pretty basic stuff to get right.

When they eventually abandon running servers for it (and they will), their changes will make it difficult for others to diagnose/fix the problems, because there will be some users out their with modified exes that make subsequent patching (or even detection) more difficult.

Regarding functionality, GameRanger already fixes the biggest bug that actually affects players, the crash on level load due to missing sound input device. It does this without modifying any files. The other changes you mention can also be incorporated into GameRanger if the demand is there, again without modifying any files. The leaderboards could also be revived with GameRanger quite easily, though I doubt there's much point with the size of the community.

GameRanger has additional advantages that pretty much anyone can host their own server without needing to do port-forwarding -- not everyone wants to play with randoms on public servers. It also means they can easily host a dedicated server but have it set to friends-only access. GameRanger also has the effect of causing old games to grow because of the exposure they get. Other players are seeing these games being hosted even if they aren't playing them at the moment. That's possible because you don't have to be in the game staring/waiting at the server list to see. In-game server lists are great while a game is at its peak, but they isolate and compartmentalize it, and lead to a gradual decline in activity.

GameRanger is widely accepted because it has been providing multiplayer for many games since 1999 (and its precursors back to 1997), and because it is so easy to use. It has a proven and trusted track record and it isn't going to vanish like hobbyist efforts do all the time. This is going to sound harsh, but it's the brutal truth. GameRanger has been around longer than any other active online gaming service, and I've watched many appear with bold promises only to disappear without a trace later.

[LRKfm946]

Installing the patch is still installing. And if they plan to add real leaderboards, did you think that through? Guess what? People are going to have to create new accounts. Unless you think the idea of everyone using the same password (and whatever name they want on the day) for their leaderboard account is a good idea.

They don't plan on turning it into an actual leaderboard, but rather using it for important information and updates that the community should see.

The FreeGST guys did not even have the sense to patch with a domain name of equal or shorter length than the original gamespy.com. They got lucky with SWBF1/2 by munging the existing ones, but they'll have problems extending this to other games (as they are claiming they will). They can't hex-edit pure "gamespy.com" to "u.gameshare.de". They've broken the functional separation by making "master" equivalent to "available" (while they currently resolve to the same IP, that doesn't make it less wrong). This will cause problems further down the line. Their instructions are also inconsistent. Previously it was gameshare.info. Now it's either u.gameshare.me or d.gameshare.me, or even gameshare.de. This is pretty basic stuff to get right.

I think you're getting patches mixed up. GameMaster is completely separate from FreeGST. GameMaster (and their server u.gameshare.de) is the German version, while FreeGST (which is conveniely hex-editable from gamespy.com to freegst.com) is the American patch that I'm suggesting we use. FreeGST will only support SWBF2, nothing else.

Not to mention GameRanger was the majority vote from the beginning (thanks to reddit), and while I don't care how multiplayer gets "saved" one way over the other, splintering the community into now four different solutions (GameRanger, this .exe, Tuungle, and swbf3.de's .exe) doesn't help, it hurts. The community leaders should swallow their pride and herd their players into one unified solution, not create new ones they think are "better" for the sake of being "the saviours of SWBF2 multiplayer"

I don't think GameRanger currently has the majority. From playing on the most crowded servers every day, I've observed that about 80% people (sadly) still have no idea what's going on, ~10% say they're looking at the SWGO forums for whatever patch they decide to use, ~5% say Gameranger/Tunngle, and the other 5% say they're just not gonna play anymore (all these numbers are very rough estimates). Given that SWGO's servers drive the most traffic to the game by a large margin, I feel like most people (American players, at least) are going to follow whatever they do, and SWGO has officially announced that they are going to use FreeGST.

[KeepAmazinn]

Quit yall's bitching! Dam grow up a little bit and stop bagging on the fact that someone made a patch so that you could continue playing a decade old game. If the very small remains (and I mean very) of this community have to be split into 4 different locations then so be it. At least you guys can still play this game online in some form. Before bashing anything other then gameranger take a step back and think that someone took time out of their day so that you could continue still playing this game.

[Kingpin]

Well said. If you do not like something, you are not forced to use it. We all have preferred methods and we can all use them.