cya on the ROC
shane
VROC isn't like the Quake2 crowd (the only other online *** I do)-
GPL racers are infinitely more polite and in general well behaved on
average. Lots of "sorry" and "NPO" [no problem]. My biggest problem is
lapped cars racing leaders too hard, and starts are kamikazee
expeditions all too often.
I can't stomach a lot of the online stuff like you suggest. But then
it is a lot like that in the Newsgroups, isn't it? The GPL crowd
strikes me as a lot better than the par I see in USENET. Well, at
least as far as *** is concered. I don't hang around the chess
group much though ; )
I'm strictly one of those lotus bums, so I'm no help.
[...]
All GPL needs to do is implement a way of cycling through tracks
automagically. I think Q2 has the best model of this around, giving
you not only the choice of maps to cycle through, but also literally
hundreds of individually configurable options with which to set up
your server.
Then people could truly leave their home machines on (with their
unlimited cable connections or whatever they are using), and let their
machines serve all day while they are at work! No real wear and tear
for them, and they sure make an awful lot of people very happy.
Servers could wait until there is more than one person to start a race
(perpetual practice), cycling to new tracks after a give time if noone
comes, and certain individuals could be banned from certain servers.
Or just password the whole server to begine with- although I am not
for passwords. I can't handle malicious racers, but I don't see them
often- usually is is just bad racers, and frankly, they are part of
the challenge! Save passwords for series races.
Gamespy is unbelievable. One of the best pieces of software I've seen
by hackers in a long time. I can't believe the amount of information
it gives you; in fact, I don't understand how it gets all the
information so fast. I check hundreds of servers in a matter of
seconds, and each one has not just my ping, but every player's name
and ping and score and how long they've played... and I see when I
last played that server, and I see my last ping at that server, and I
can organize the list according to pings or type of play or anything I
can think of almost. Truly unbelievable.
I don't care too much about other people's pings for racing- so long
as everyone is at worst .333, it is adequate. Fact is, in Q2, the
relationship between ping and player advantage is a gigantic flaw,
making the game unplayable for me most of the time. With a 300 ping,
you may see lpbs and fire before they are even facing you, but they
still kill you. Who needs that! Also, CTF Q2, the only flavor I like
anymore, is nevertheless deeply flawed too- having more people on a
team means you automatically make more points per capture, and your
score doesn't reflect the amount of time you were on the team (so
noone wants to switch- you lose everything you had on (and gave to)
the old team).
So Q2 isn't perfect- but it is close to perfect in it's multiplayer
architecture, and should be a model for GPL.
Being able to ban certain cars would be a server option, and using,
say, a VROC version of "gamespy", you would automatically see what
options were set at that server.
BTW- while I remember: here's a major gripe with GPL. lately my phone
line has disconnected all too often in the middle of a race, and the
default action GPL takes is to go to the "join server" screen. I hope
in the next "update" (if they were indeed Id, the updates would be
monthly!) they default it to the main track screen, so I can view my
times and study my tyres, etc. Last night I spent 45 mintues at a
track, and am sure I did some of my best times ever... and when my
modem discoed, I was dying to see my tyres and look at those times. It
was frustrating enough being booted out of the race, much less not
being able to see what I'd done and how to improve my setup.
