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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

#51

Post by red_admiral »

lightingthedark wrote: post #22
CursedSilicon wrote: post #20

Does anything like this exist for the original Age of Empires games? Battle.Net has "PVPGN" that covers Diablo 2 up through Warcraft 3, and the Westwood Online games (ish) but searching for an AoE equivalent turned up nothing

I believe the originals just supported offline LAN play. I remember getting my friend to have his modem dial my modem so we could play together, no Internet connection required.

From memory, there was a patch that added a new-fangled option "internet" as well as LAN play. I remember the days of fiddling with port forwarding and then calling a friend over the telephone to read out my IP address for them to type in.

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

#53

Post by red_admiral »

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…

AFAIK, it's server-based rather than p2p for DE, but the way it works is all clients/servers simulate the world in lockstep and hold a full copy of the state. That's what makes map hacks possible.

You don't need anything paxos-like for this, the game desyncs and stops if any machine messes up but you can usually restore from a save point in that case.

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

#54

Post by _the_inflator »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #29
recycledmatt wrote: post #2

Awesome to see AoE, and games in general being future proofed. Sad when functionality is lost because someone turned off a server.

As someone who spent an immeasurable amount of time on AOE 2 online multiplayer, it has been a steadily refreshing experiencing the rise of AOE2 DE over the recent years. The game not only received updates that brought in the total civilization count to 50+, but also a ton of visual enhancements and improvements in the overall gameplay and performance. This is nothing short of stunning to see new developments happeni…

Imagine AoE being owned by Nintendo. :D

A no small wonder. I never thought that MS, as the IP owner, would allow such an open community to grow and thrive. MS is notoriously bad at game community growth development.

I remember that right after the acquisition of ES through MS in 2001, Microsoft went on a rigid IP enforcement role and, for example, targeted people at MFO.

The story of DBD_Jinx losing his account to MS

Legendary DBD_Jinx lost his account and had to start anew under _IamJinx because MS suspended his ZONE account due to copyright infringement for using MS trademarks without a license.

What did he do?

He advertised at MFO to help people increase their early game through his academy training, which offered advice on micro-management, game planning, strategy, and scouting.

Together with a couple of other 2000+ Zone Rating dudes from the US, they started to make a few bucks on the side using AoE as a vehicle.

What a knee-jerk reaction from MS back then.

And today? Red Bull Wololo - I hardly can hold my pants compared to 2001.

I hope this keeps going, even though I am a purist "old-schooler" who prefers the AoE 2 classics game.

Cheers + gl + hf!

_CN

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

#56

Post by matsemann »

Seanambers wrote: post #49

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.

And since everyone was "turtling" the games would almost never end anyways.

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

#57

Post by matsemann »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #20

Does anything like this exist for the original Age of Empires games? Battle.Net has "PVPGN" that covers Diablo 2 up through Warcraft 3, and the Westwood Online games (ish) but searching for an AoE equivalent turned up nothing

I've LANed them "online" many moons ago by using software that made a virtual lan that we all installed and managed to find each other ingame. "Hamachi" I think?

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

#58

Post by doublerabbit »

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.

Same with RA2/YR.

All it took was for some salty player to activate a trainer or prez IFS and kill the game.

I like that the lobbies were ran over IRCd.

Dreamforge IRCd with the server password being "supersecret".

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

#59

Post by lionkor »

herewulf wrote: post #43
Rohansi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could buy it and then download a cracked one

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

#60

Post by rightbyte »

matsemann wrote: post #56
Seanambers wrote: post #49

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.

And since everyone was "turtling" the games would almost never end anyways.

That is how kids play Monopoly too. It is part of the fun :)
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