Who's Going to Multi-play?

[mcguirel]

Initial Test Results

1. Port Ogden playing locally not in MP - 48FPS; In MP 15FPS :'(
2. Driver leaves session and consist does not reset to default location ( had two blockages due to unassigned consists )
3. Network Data transfer needs refined and compressed for better efficiency. Consists sometimes abruptly appear, and slow signal changes causing opportunity of conflicts. Other issues also realized by me as described by JadeBullet and feel it is the network data transfer needing additional work / effeciencies.
4. If you choose to focus on a particular individual in the dialog box, the only way to obtain your claimed consist I could figure out is scrolling to the past in the dialog box where it notes you claimed a particular consist.
5. May I repeat: Horrible FPS in MP and not in the same local game environment (potentially ruining this as a great feature).
6. Had to adjust firewall quite often to figure out why my latency was so high preventing me to connect and then defaulting to setting up my own server but with loss of internet connection following the latency rejection.
7. When exiting MP and returning to the main interface screen whereas now the update section states if you are online or not, I found I was disconnected. Only way to obtain the connection was an exit/enter strategy to the game

This has great potential once the network data transfer is compressed for efficiency.

This has great potential when the FPS are more in line with local game performance.

This has great potential when smaller less demanding and better routes are accessible which may improve FPS. Not a huge fan of Port Ogden, but it is being used due to it is so large of a map and understand the logic why it was used as a Beta Test Map.

The turnout lock feature is somewhat an issue as seems sometimes with low FPS it is hard to change.

The equipment defect detector (which is not fully active or fully scripted ) is pretty sweet.

That's about it for my findings. Hope the FPS and Netwrok Data Transfer is fixed ASAP.

 

[mcguirel]

having a quick look at sessions in surveyor, couldnt we add the mutliplayer rule to any session, put it on the download station and it should work?

Barn700 and Hert attempted this and left when I was in play. I can not say if they were successful. Barn700's route has all built-in content. Maybe they can chime in on results. My theory is that they were indeed successful.
As you say, make a session adding consist to match you max. player settings and the multiplayer rule in the session. Email the session to others, and there you have it - new MP map hosted by local server.

 

[Euphod]

See? That didn't take long...

 

[philskene]

Aint so

"Email the session to others, and there you have it ... ."

I believe that the requirement for multiplay is that all content has to be either built-in or from the DLS.

E-mailing sessions to others just will not work.

Phil

 

[Mouse84]

I gave it a try for awhile, it was fun. Very good for the first beta.

When I installed 2010, I knew that this was coming so I loaded the game, and then sent a copy of my 2010 folder to a different drive. I had one copy that I put all of my content in and one bone-stock copy that I could patch and use for MP.

 

[mcguirel]

"Email the session to others, and there you have it ... ."

I believe that the requirement for multiplay is that all content has to be either built-in or from the DLS.

E-mailing sessions to others just will not work.

Phil

In theory, not proven. Barn700 needs an existing session on the DLS.

1. He adds multiplayer to it.
2. Use the Sandbox mode to add default built-in consists as well.
3. Saves as same KUID (DLS approved and requirement).
4. Emails the updated MP Session to the others (easier) or they all do the same.

Again, in theory and now with more details I did not get into on first new MP Route Opportunity post above.

If this works, do not shoot the creativity/messenger of my post N3V.
If my theory does not work, don't shoot the creativity/messenger of my post Forum Members.

 

[Mike10]

It wasn't bitching or crying. It was posting legitimate points.

Really.... looks like bitching and spouting un-truths to me..... but there you go, we all have opinions don't we

Whoa, whoa whoa! It removes compatibility mode? Why in the **** would you do that! Bad move Auran, bad move. And I was actually looking forward to MP.

Why is it that every time AlwysFail improves the game, they tend to take two steps backwards by destroying other parts that made it good.

The loss of compatibility mode renders 99% of the routes made for TRS useless.

First it was the lazy, and just plain stupid idea not to support 3rd party assets in multiplayer.

Actually, I told auran constantly what I wanted in Multiplayer. Windwalker essentially called me an idiot and ignored me.

Auran is just trying to attract new ones, and be like Railworks, while constantly screwing over their existing customers. The ones who made the game good.

While I do agree fully that auran should focus on getting the core up, then expand, they have made it quite clear that they are not going to do that. They are just going to get the core up, and then do nothing. This wastes alot of potential.

Perhaps rather than stamping your feet and waving your arms around complaining loudly about what you didn't like in multiple posts you could have sat quietly and considered that maybe you weren't aware of the full story and/or may have been mistaken about something. Or, of course, that your opinions weren't the only or correct ones, just like mine may not be

Mike.

 

[KEA]

I am a dedicated online player so iam going to give it a shot TRAINZ AND MULIYPLAYER SWEET.

 

[bear_ludd]

1. Driver leaves session and consist does not reset to default location ( had two blockages due to unassigned consists )

1. 
   
   I have not tried the Beta yet, but reseting the train to a default location when someone leaves seams realy stupid. It will also make anything beyond arcade style play impossible. A player might have been asked to run a switcher over to a mine where it will be used hours later by an other player. How would it look if that switcher magically jumped back al of a sudden. We are talking about a simulation here, not some kind of first person shooter with respawnpoints when people dies. If someone leaves in the middle of a session, it's a matter of either letting someone else drive the train, or send out an extra engine to tow it away, which is a realistic handling of breakdowns.

 

[barn700]

No, my small test route (Shunting Test) was made up of complete built-in and DLS items. Just added the MP rule and uploaded.

It was done to test the functionality of uploading MP routes, and to allow others a very simple test route. It will teach MP, and the rules you should follow for 4 players. Its so simple and small to allow for good performance.

So its not a question of emailing routes, it HAS to exist on the DLS, same as the non built-in assets.

It was a start for the other MP route builders out there to get their skill converting existing routes into MP.

 

[mcguirel]

I have not tried the Beta yet, but reseting the train to a default location when someone leaves seams realy stupid. It will also make anything beyond arcade style play impossible. A player might have been asked to run a switcher over to a mine where it will be used hours later by an other player. How would it look if that switcher magically jumped back al of a sudden. We are talking about a simulation here, not some kind of first person shooter with respawnpoints when people dies. If someone leaves in the middle of a session, it's a matter of either letting someone else drive the train, or send out an extra engine to tow it away, which is a realistic handling of breakdowns.

While your view on prototypical running is valid and concur, there will be to many occurrences of this to leave it as prototypical. It will become a huge nuisance more than prototypical functionality. There will be many who will apply proper etiquette and leave once they park their consist on a siding, but let's face it there needs to be a control measure as I described. People's PC goes haywire, internet connection drops, emergency or distraction causing immediate disconnect, or other.

How to accomplish this without a huge negative impact I can not say at this point.

 

[WindWalkr]

While your view on prototypical running is valid and concur, there will be to many occurrences of this to leave it as prototypical.

I don't really agree. Small interruptions will generally be scheduled around. In the event that a player does permanently drop out leaving a train in an inconvenient location, our take on this is that the Multiplayer Session admin or officers can clean up the mess or assign other players to do so.

It is possible to automate this kind of cleanup with an appropriate Rule, so I'd expect that we'll see some Multiplayer Sessions which do provide this kind of automated cleanup behaviour, but I definitely don't think that it's necessary or desirable across the board.

cheers,

chris

 

[WindWalkr]

MP is pretty fun. This is just stuff that I noticed that should be addressed. Does anyone know where we go to post what we find bug wise?

Here on the forums is a good starting point.

cheers,

chris

 

[mcguirel]

OK Chris ( Windwalkr ). I've tested, my findings are on the forum. Seems pretty solid but hope to see performance improvements.

My input is now complete, unless find a massive bug from here.

 

[JamesMoody]

While your view on prototypical running is valid and concur, there will be to many occurrences of this to leave it as prototypical. It will become a huge nuisance more than prototypical functionality. There will be many who will apply proper etiquette and leave once they park their consist on a siding, but let's face it there needs to be a control measure as I described. People's PC goes haywire, internet connection drops, emergency or distraction causing immediate disconnect, or other.

Further to Chris's reply, a consist is likely to be in quite a different condition when someone disconnects or quits as to when they joined or claimed the consist, and could well be different again from when the session was started. It is quite likely to have been shunted or switched many times, and have a few cars from over here, some from over there, and some that were in it originally are now left in sidings or loops.

Consequently, identifying where a train "came from" is not anywhere near as simple as you seem to believe. Also, even if a location could be established, what if someone has been switching at that location and has left some vehicles there, or is still there with their own loco? What then?

Trying to move it to another location automatically is a lot more fraught with danger than simply stopping it where it is, and letting the players deal with it.

In a lot of cases, the player who first spots an unclaimed train in the way can claim the driver and move the train. Even if the session is set up in such a way as to disallow this (e.g. by only permitting the player to own one driver character), a session officer or admin will be able to shift the train for you.

 

[pw3r]

The "Click to Focus" on a person enterring the game who claimed a driver/consist is cool, but a pain to get back to your consist. I had to scroll thru the chat dialog all the way back to where I claimed my engine.

The quickest way to focus back on your train is probably to use the "Player Details" dialog.

Simply open the multiplayer dialog (click the red/amber/green multiplayer icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen), find and click on yourself in the player list and choose "Player Details". The displayed dialog will list all of your assigned drivers and allow you to focus on any one of them.

Alternatively you could use the mini-map. Just hit 'm' to display it, if you zoom out you'll notice that the trains are now displayed with their driver names. You'll also notice that any driver assigned to you shows in green, drivers assigned to other players show in yellow, and unassigned trains will show grey. Move the mini-map view back to the desired train and press 'm' again to go back to the normal 3D view.

Terry
N3V Games

 

[pw3r]

On this note, Multiplayer is pretty fun. It is showing quite a bit of potential. I have run into some bugs though.

If you accidentally ram another person, the game goes screwy and may or may not derail the train. (Instead just throwing the trains down the tracks.) We also had an issue where one driver couldn't see the other driver until his train mysteriously derailed.

There is a bug related to player-on-player train collisions. It was spotted a bit late for the fix to make it in for the initial beta release but I'll be trying to get it fixed ASAP. Thanks for reporting it.

I was also switching a cut of cars when the cars three tracks over teleported onto my track and derailed me.

This sounds like an interesting one. Were the cars that 'teleported' being controlled by another player?

Also, do you happen to know what your latency may have been like at the time? The multiplayer rule icon on the menu bar will change colour depending on your network latency (for a quick & easy indication). If you hover the mouse cursor over it, it will provide a more precise value.

Any more info you can provide about this would be great.

Also, for some reason, some cars are ghosts and you can't hook up to them.

Yeah there's a few of these around, there nothing specific to multiplayer, just session errors. The ones that I'm aware of should be fixed shortly.

This isn't bitching and moaning btw. MP is pretty fun. This is just stuff that I noticed that should be addressed. Does anyone know where we go to post what we find bug wise?

Anywhere on the forums should be fine, but the TS2010 forum is probably the best place as for the moment multiplayer is a strictly 2010 feature. If the post has the word "multiplayer" in the title I'll be reading it

Terry
N3V Games

 

[pw3r]

Port Ogden playing locally not in MP - 48FPS; In MP 15FPS :'(

That's really rather strange. Not just because I can't think of any reason why it might happen, but mainly because I've never seen, or heard of it happening in any of the multiplayer games we've had during internal testing. Were both of these frame-rates from the same build (45467) and session?

Any more information you could provide would be great. ie was the framerate consistently bad, or did it seem to stutter? How long were you in game with 15fps, did the framerate get better, or worse the longer you played?

Thanks in advance for any help.

If you choose to focus on a particular individual in the dialog box, the only way to obtain your claimed consist I could figure out is scrolling to the past in the dialog box where it notes you claimed a particular consist.

Check this out

Terry
N3V Games

 

[mcguirel]

Sorry to have developed a focal point for disagreement / arguement.

PW3R,
My latency was under 1000 (after firewall reconfig) and steady at 500 mostly. In the same build, I could operate effeciently at 3000m and have 48fps steady.
Take it to Multiplayer, stutter every 1/2 second and around 15 fps consistantly thruout and paly 3 times at about 1 hr each (MP settings 1000m, low quality on all sliders). If I host, then fps greatly improved to around local play fps.
System: E8400, 4GB DDR2 (temp from 8), Nvidia 1GB 9800GT, 1680x1050 resolution (performance setting, anti-alias set at 4, core gpu speed), Directx 9.0c, xp Pro 64 Bit. Even defragged system and rebuilt windows indexes to further assist. Steady 2mb dsl pipe one wireless 54mb connection 20 feet from router.

Just tried to reconnect to available game. latency shot up to 113,900ms and got booted after about a 2 minute wait. Tested isP and 2.68mbs and ping at 68ms, upload at .7mbs at 50 mile distance test.

Rolling back to my backup to utilize compatibility mode. Beta Test completed due to horrible FPS in MP.

 

[mcguirel]

Major Bug

Before going to the back-up, I decided to try and isolate my connection issues.

There is a major bug. If you are pulling Network Data and have high latency to the server you are connecting to and someone posts a comment in the chat window, it stops my network data pull and my latency starts to skyrocket from 780 to 111,450ms and then I time out.

I uninstalled Commodo Internet Security as a precaution after allowing all exe's and all 3rd party protocols with the same result thus the uninstall and yet again can't connect to the same server I was one 6 hours ago.

Adios Multiplayer. Where do I send the crash dump report?