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Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

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Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#41

Post by Raudius »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #19

I'm sure the answer could be found in this repo somewhere but its above my head- does aoe2 DE rely mostly on p2p for multiplayer? I assume it does and the regional servers are just used for matchmaking, and all the actual game logic is running on the clients. I base that on the fact that map hacks are possible and that one player lagging lags the game for everyone, but there are often conflicting claims when it's bro…

In professional tournament games a server is chosen that lies between the two players. For example, a Brazil-China match might be played in an EU server.

Given this, I suspect the server is used as a central source of truth between the clients where all game data goes through the server, with all the calculations still being done client-side.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#42

Post by mrweasel »

nurettin wrote: post #36

Experimental * AIX I wonder how they got an AIX.

Emulator maybe? It's a weird and intersting platform to target, but I suspect that it's because Go supports it, so it might not be to much hassle. On the other hand reading the article from yesterday regarding porting Tailscale, it might be more involved that I imagine.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#43

Post by herewulf »

Rohansi wrote: post #26
o1o1o1 wrote: post #21

Thank you for sharing this, it is truly amazing. While I like Steam for the convenience and also appreciate their efforts in developing SteamOS I am concerned about the lock-in. Projects like this really help to own more of what you paid for again, luskaner is a hero for me.

I feel like it is important to point out that Steam does not require games to have any DRM. Not even Steam's DRM. It's entirely up to the game developer and/or publisher. Many games on Steam are already DRM-free where you can just back up the files and play without Steam.

Does this apply to AoE? I never played it much in its hey-day but it would be interesting to get into properly. I have no interest in buying an old game with DRM given the obvious potential for maintenance issues though.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#45

Post by dominicrose »

brink wrote: post #13

I hope AoE2 lives as long as Chess does. It really is one of the "perfect" games.

It's a brilliant game for sure. The randomness, the fact that it's not turned-based and the multiplayer also make it interesting compared to chess. However Chess has 1000x simpler rules that never change, and you don't need high APM to play competitively.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#46

Post by Dunedan »

bryancrisso wrote: post #12
Rendello wrote: post #4

Classic AoE-playing Hacker News-types might also enjoy 0 A.D. It's free and fun, but definitely humbling if you consider yourself a master strategist: https://play0ad.com/

i love 0ad so much but it runs AWFULLY as soon as you get a fun number of units on the map.

Alpha 27 of 0 A.D. has a notable performance regression for a subset of users, compared to earlier versions. Users not affected by this regression should see improved performance, thanks to improvements like the added Vulkan support.

The regression in performance seems to be caused by a change in Spidermonkey. For details check out https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7714

That said, even without this performance regression, 0 A.D. is prone to run slow in late game when lots of units are on the map. There are several reasons for that, but maybe the most intuitive one is that 0 A.D. is still largely single-threaded and therefore doesn't make use of the multi-core capabilities of modern CPUs. As you can imagine changing that is no easy feat and takes a lot of effort. As the number of volunteers to 0 A.D. is limited, nobody has picked up that topic yet.

If you enjoy 0 A.D. and want to improve it: it's Open Source and contributions are always welcome!

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#47

Post by Panzer04 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #30
HideousKojima wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (not all) RTS games use a networking method called lockstep synchronization that requires the gameplay to be deterministic, but has its own downsides. One of those being that if one player lags, everyone lags. I know AOE 1 and 2 use it, and I assume 3 as well

The good thing being that you get replay for free.

It's got downsides. There's often no way to recover game state without actually running the simulation, and often no way to go backwards either. If you miss a moment in the replay you gotta watch the whole damn thing all over gain.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#48

Post by RUnconcerned »

Rendello wrote: post #4

Classic AoE-playing Hacker News-types might also enjoy 0 A.D. It's free and fun, but definitely humbling if you consider yourself a master strategist: https://play0ad.com/

Wow, this is still being developed? I still recall the Heavengames forum thread that spawned it...

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#49

Post by Seanambers »

Remember we used to have Aoe2 sessions on LANS when we were kids back in the 00s and like 1 in 3 games just crashed after everyone had played for like 2-3 hours.

In a way it was even better because then nobody had to loose, and everyone believed they were winning.

Re: Web Server for AoE 1, 2 and 3 DE supporting LAN multiplayer 100% offline

#50

Post by immibis »

IshKebab wrote: post #39
matsemann wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is a classic, 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/1500-archers-on-a-... Edit: original where the pictures work https://web.archive.org/web/20180719170411/https://www.gamas... > Rather than passing the status of each unit in the game, the expectation was to run the exact same simulation on each machine, passing each an identica…

Which was great until there's a bug and it just says "sync error" and your 3 hour game is gone.

When this happens in Factorio, the game pauses, one player (the server?) saves the game and sends it to all other players who load the savefile and the game resumes when that's done. It's not a nice experience, but it's a lot better than "you can't play today, goodbye!"
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