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First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Want To Play The Multiplayer FPS Games You Bought? 57

Posted by simoniker from the delicious-vanilla dept.
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing why it's sometimes impossible to play multiplayer FPS titles as the developers intended it. The author argues: "I certainly don't think that every mod I've ever run across is better than the core game that ships in the box but yet there's often no one running the boxed game", before noting that most game publishers "...do not run their own servers for these games so you can't count on them supporting the boxed game either. There are exceptions to this rule but for the most part when it comes to PC games, you're at the whims of the many fan owned and operated servers... [which may] limit the maps to a select few in a deathmatch game or change the settings of the game to make it play very differently from what you expect."
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Want To Play The Multiplayer FPS Games You Bought? More

Want To Play The Multiplayer FPS Games You Bought?

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  • This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by obeythefist ( 719316 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @03:17AM (#8914074) Journal
    What it shows is that, if you have a situation like CounterStrike where the modded game servers way outnumber Half-Life game servers, the customer is really showing the publishers what they want.

    It's rare nowadays to see market forces so easily detectable and free from the controls of the publishing monstrosities.

    • Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cbirdsong64 ( 410584 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @03:48AM (#8914184)
      Mods are a very good thing, yes, but the companies should not leave it to the fanbase to run all the game's servers. EA runs many Battlefield Vietnam servers, without any sort of tweaks or oddball mods, so I know I can play there if I have a free half hour or so.

      • Re:This is a good thing (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Grand ( 152636 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @04:06AM (#8914255)
        but the one problem with this is that Battlefield mods gain popularity, then EA makes the same 'mod' and then sells it. They first saw the popularity of mods with more weapons and vehicles, so they came out with Secret Weapons. EOD was a pretty popular mod, then came BFV. Now they are coming out with Modern Combat for a clone of Desert Combat. I also heard they are coming out with a starwars clone. Yes it makes them money, but they totally screw over the modding community. I refreshed the EOD servers the other week and there were just a handfull of servers available with people playing. If no one is playing the 'free mods' why would the modders even bother continuing with development.

        You also get more for your money. You may not like all the mod's, but at least there are more variations to choose from. So if the game does get 'old and boring' you can try something new.
        • What you're forgetting is that Electronic Arts are the epitome of evil and represent everything that is wrong with the game industry.

          I was going to say about Counterstrike (parent of the parent mentions it... Or maybe the parent of the parent of the parent. I've clicked now. I forget.) I was a HUGE Team Fortress Classic nut. The instant CS started to take hold, the servers dwindled, and dwindled, and dwindled. Back in the day there were around 2000-3000 TFC servers. These days, while CS still has a ton, yo
        • So, should EA then not develop expansions for their games? People don't HAVE to buy them, you know. As has already been stated, this is freedom of choice in action. If more people are playing the company-created mods/expansions than are playing the user-created mods, then it's probably because they prefer the former. It's not like EA was necessarily stealing from the user-mod community. They would have had expansions and sequels in some stage of development for BF42 before the thing went gold.

          Then ag

    • Hey, at least the publisher isn't relying on the customers to write bug fixes!

      Oh, wait...

      I was going to say "This is why I play console games," but then I remembered BG&E...

  • Atari/Epic are a notable exception (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spiffae ( 707428 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @03:23AM (#8914093)
    Whenever I play UT2004 online, I almost always play on an "ATARI/EPIC OFFICIAL EAST #" server - I am guaranteed the game as they intended it, with no extra distractions, and a fast consistent connection.

    I think it's a very good idea for them, and I think other game developers should be thinking along the same lines.

    • Re:Atari/Epic are a notable exception (Score:4, Interesting)

      by shadowcabbit ( 466253 ) <cx AT thefurryone DOT net> on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @06:39AM (#8914718) Journal
      Only problem with that is, the game [UT] ships with dozens of mutators-- always has, always will.

      How exactly do we know that the "official" server is playing the way "the creators intended"? Has CliffyB come down and said, "OK, guys, our official, canon gameplay is to ignore all of the kickass mods and 0wnage maps we provided to our players and just go with this vanilla setup"?

      There's something to be said for having a baseline, true, but there's also a damn good reason FPS games almost always come with the server software.

    • Re:Atari/Epic are a notable exception (Score:4, Interesting)

      by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@g m a i l . com> on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @09:05AM (#8915395) Journal
      While there is something to be said for "stock" servers, one major issue is that for hardcore gamers, they get boring fast. When you've played all the maps fifty times, you're often ready for something new.

      On our server, we run Mapvote with fairly expansive options. While we have a lot of mods and user-created maps, all the stock options are there as well. If enough people are feeling nostalgic, they are welcome to choose them.

      Well, that is, other than the Matrix Moves. That's one mod that's been a standard on all of our UT servers. Why? Because the tranny is a cheep way to travel without getting shot at, and the Matrix Moves requires a great deal of skill. Granted Epic nerfed the tranny in the last two editions, but still, if you aren't on a map ¼ of the time, that's a pretty lame way to play a FPS. We'd rather jump and bound, hover in the air and wallrun, because at bare minimum people can splat us while we do that. And vice versa.

      Oh, this was about stock servers...sorry - can't help you there. Stock servers often suck (see tranny rant above) and the only way to get a decent server is to make one.

      Incidentally, while our UT2K4 server isn't fully up to speed, (PhD thesis defenses, astrophysics research projects, etc) and it is kind of empty because we don't show on the "vanilla" master server list, you can find it listed as the Apoc Matrix Moves Official Server at 128.151.144.195:8000 (The moves were coded in-house by our own Apoc Death, and a total-conversion Matrix mod using his Matrix Moves placed 4th in the Make Something Unreal contest.)

      • Nerfed the Tranny (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "nerfed the tranny"? Using foam weapons against people with gender identity issues isn't very nice...

  • Savage (Score:4, Informative)

    by MegaT ( 672432 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @04:00AM (#8914229)
    Savage [s2games.com] is a team FPS where one player commands the team RTS style. There's a linux version available which I've found tends to run faster than its windows counterpart. As far as this game goes, the balance is so subtle that any changes made by server admins can completely ruin the dynamics of the game... fortunately this rarely happens and I think s2games run quite a number of servers themselves (though I don't use them because I'm in europe).

  • Simple... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ooPo ( 29908 )
    ...run your own server. Then you can play the way you want instead of crying about people who run their own server to play the way they want.

    I REALLY hate instagib, but who am I to tell them how to run their own server? Sheesh.

  • Not an issue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @04:21AM (#8914294) Homepage
    Ok, I really think this is NOT as big an issue as people want it to be. For any decently popular online FPS, there WILL be plenty of servers. Look at bf1942, it has thousands. And thousands more for Desert Combat.

    You almost NEVER have a problem finding a server that's fun to play on. The real server problems arise with the new mods that MIGHT have good potential, but unfortunately only a few servers......and only a few good ones out of those. Forgotten Hope is a good example, as is Pirates.

    • Yeah, and in this case (Battlefield 1942 and expansions), Electronic Arts are hosting a number of pretty decent servers themselves, although the server settings could be better. But hey, at least they are out there.

  • Finding a balance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @04:23AM (#8914301)
    As with so many things, this issue isn't as simple as it first appears. Certainly, where "official" servers are offered for an fps, I tend to use them. The servers for Battlefield 1942 are a good example here.

    However... running servers isn't free and, if you plan to do it on a large scale, it isn't particularly cheap either. With something like Battlefield 1942, megabucks publishers like EA currently seem willing to foot the bill for hosting these servers. However, I doubt that many of the smaller companies out there can afford to to this on the scale that their game might need.

    Ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised to see the online fps market moving in the same direction as the MMORPG market; with customers paying monthly fees (albeit probably a bit lower than the fees for MMORPGs) and being restricted to official servers. GSPs that have tried to implement a pay-to-play policy, such as Barrysworld, have unfortunately failed miserably, but once the publishers start implementing this, things might change. Indeed, I'd see the (very successful) X-box Live as already being a slight move in this direction.

    Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. At least, not for gamers like myself, with an income sufficient that I don't mind a few pounds a month on monthly fees if it ensures a quality service. I've virtually given up on playing fpses online these days, owing to the difficulty of finding decent servers with pleasant settings and admins who aren't on a power-trip. Ultimately, I can pay $15 per month (which at current exchange rates, works out at virtually nothing for UK residents like myself) to play a MMORPG on a stable, well maintained, well admined server, resulting in less stress all around.

    The biggest loser if this does happen will probably be the mod scene. This will obviously struggle if deprived of the ability to run unofficial servers.

    • Re:Finding a balance (Score:4, Interesting)

      by pdboddy ( 620164 ) <pdboddy.gmail@com> on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @06:25AM (#8914671) Journal
      If you're willing to pay $15 dollars a month to pay for an MMORPG, why not do the same to play a FPS? There are numerous places to rent servers and run game as you see fit. Get together a small group of friends, or form a clan, and a server rental will be a couple of dollars, each, a month.
    • I personally prefer having private servers. Sure some admins may seem like they're on a power-trip, but most I've seen are those who kick out teamkillers and ones that sit around typing abuse the entire game...

      I'd prefer to have an admin that a bit more power-trippy than most, than not have an admin present at all..

  • Quite the opposite. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I disagree with that. I haven't got much experience in terms of online play because even broadband is too laggy for my taste, but from what I saw most servers run on a completely out-of-the-box config. That means all settings are default, maybe fraglimit disabled or something. That can be frustrating if the defaults for a game suck. Descent 3, for example, doesn't allow mouselook in the default setup, which means you cannot aim properly unless you have one of these joysticks that only make sense with about
  • ... if you can't find what you want, you have to create it yourself. If you can't find a "stock" server, then why not create one? Surely you can't be alone in wanting to play stock Half Life, or Quake ]|[, or Battlefield 1942. Get together a few like-minded individuals and rent a server somewhere. A quick google on "game server rental" brings up quite a few places to rent servers. If you have a good, fast connection to the internet, get a second computer and set up a dedicated server. If you aren't wi

  • So True (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FriedTurkey ( 761642 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @07:37AM (#8914894)

    I am glad somebody said this. For every good mod there are 20 bad mods. For every CounterStrike and Desert Combat there are 20 that just tweak a few weapons or add a couple of new textures. I think its great that people are spending time developing mods but its frustrating to download a mod and then realize it sucks. Too many games don't label the games on server lists as mods, so the only way to find out is to get the boot. It is sad to say but sometimes the best play is with OTB settings and graphics.

  • Tribes 2 is the perfect example (Score:4, Interesting)

    by trippcook ( 529339 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @08:25AM (#8915093)
    I loved T2 so much, but after a few months of play (and I got into the game a few months after it came out), I could find no unmodded servers. Some mods just altered the way scores were kept and reported, but most did bizarre things with gravity and weapons, the most egregious (and, for some reason, popular) making sniper-rifle-turrets that never failed to get a headshot. Not really sure what the point of that was, but one or two official Sierra (or VU or whoever) servers running the latest patches and nothing else would have kept me playing to this very day!

    Attention VU / Sierra / Tribes people --- pay attention when you release Tribes Vengeance!!!

    • I liked Tribes 2. One of the nice things was that the game browser was good at filtering mods, so unlike some other games, you could find exactly what you were looking for. Personally, I played vanilla for a while, but soon became a fan of the shifter mod. (more vehicles, more weapon modes, more classes, and not usually too unbalanced) It was almost like getting a whole new game without having to buy anything. Mods can be fun, but maybe what the online community needs is something more like the UT votin

  • No problem here, just use your server browser. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @09:47AM (#8915906)
    This is easily solved with a server browser that lets you filter servers based on their settings. So you don't just filter for your vanilla gameplay mode, you also filter for the default settings for that gameplay mode. You can also filter based on levels, etc...

    I have been playing Quake since 1996. I still play it today using Fuhquake client and a Qizmo proxy / server browser. Qizmo lets you run such heavily filtered searches, and so I get a list of about 5 servers that match exactly what I want: low ping, non-empty, vanilla ktpro deathmatch.

    This lets me pop onto a server, get in and get my quick fix of intense fast paced deathmatch. Even though Quake, after 8 years of being modded, has splintered into several common variations, mods, server settings. You have a slew of CTF varients, a slew of Team Fortress varients, a chunk of deathmatch varients, and even vanilla deathmatch with really lame settings (like Nobody's servers with "teamplay 1" so llamas don't kill themselves with splash damage).

    However, every skilled deathmatch player knows that ktpro is the standard for competitive Quake deathmatch. All of the other DM varients are for lamers. I am sure Team Fortress has a similar standard.

  • A weightless argument (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inkless1 ( 1269 ) on Tuesday April 20, 2004 @09:48AM (#8915917) Homepage
    I've read the same argument on Penny Arcade, that mods and mutators ruined Unreal Tournament 2003. Being the author of one of the larger mutator packs for UT2k3, I thought this was a bit suprising.

    #1) Mods and mutators are actually fairly hard to proliferate online, they aren't some kind of virus that seeps into servers - they get put on and stay on because the people enjoy playing them. If people didn't enjoy playing them, they wouldn't be there.

    #2) If people preferred to play vanilla games, people would run vanilla servers. For those people who prefer to play vanilla games they should run vanilla servers.

    #3) If you can't afford renting a server by yourself, find some like minded people and share the cost. Or, just up your broadband and run a very low-end server (most decent connects can run at least 4-6 player games, and yes - those can be fun too with the right players).

    #4) If you can't afford a server, don't have any online friends, and are still running off a 56k modem, then, well, tough. Sorry, the internet gaming world isn't a democracy and never has been (you don't think the term Low Ping Bastard came from nowhere did you?).

    Now - the part where I do give this complaint sympathy is in -finding- vanilla online games. Here is where UT2004 really shines, giving much better filters for mutators or no mutators or custom maps or no custom maps and comes with a complete voting package right out of the box so that people on your server can choose to play what they want.

    (and btw, the reason Quake III is so tweaked is that many people mastered this game years and years ago ... you don't want them playing vanilla Q3 - they'll likely rocket jump your ass out the door ;) )
    • So you're saying if you're not a hardcore gamer, then fuck you, if I understand it correctly? I"m sure game companies will back you up there, because I know they certainly don't care about getting any money by selling their game to more people. You're so right though about renting your own server. I know everyone who buys a game and doesn't rent their own server to play it on is a worthless human being. In fact, I think not only should they not be able to play the game without a bunch of mods, but I think w
      • Where did I say anyone was worthless? I'm just saying that they don't really get a vote. Users don't admin a server, the admin does. (duh)

        I rent a server. It's my server, it's my money - I'll run it how I see fit and have fun with it.

        I open a server on my broadband, that's my broadband, it's my money, I'll run it how I see fit and have fun with it.

        Now, does that make someone who isn't running my server a worthless human? No, it makes them a potential guest, nothing more. Don't want to join my serve
      • Pfft. Firstly, hardcore gamers make a big chunk of money for the gaming companies, so of course they're going to want to cater to them.

        Second, hardcore gamers are more likely than a casual gamer to buy any expansion packs, sequels, etc... from the developer, since well, they're hardcore gamers.

        Third, the last thing I want is for game publishers to add on another $10 to the box price of games just so they can subsidize a handful of casual gamers that want to play a bunch of games nobody else does.

        Yeah,

  • I've been playing BF1942 for over a year now. Most of the big problems I've seen with people (Team killing or blowing up a vehicle because you got to it first) have been with the mod versions of the game like Desert Combat and the like. I'm not sure why this is but ever since I started playing on Co-op servers I've rarely had any problems. People just seem to be more mature on the classic version.
    • I agree. The vanilla servers have more mature players than the latest mod. I think vanilla servers have occasional players like me just trying to get a quick fix for an hour. The latest mod has the 13 year old with nothing better to do and trying to raise there statistics or something. The worst is mods that add voice chat. I don't want to hear some annoying 13 year old scream in my ear. Voice chat is ruining games. If you want to insult me, do it with a text message, I don't even read those. :-)
      • I hate to go off on a tangent, but one feature/bug about BF1942 that I really like is that if you hit the chat button while holding a movement button you can continue to move while typing a message. That really cuts down on boredom when running long distances and gives you a decent opportunity to strategize while otherwise doing nothing but run. It also makes you a slightly tougher target then while standing still!
  • I used to love this game but I can hardly play anymore. Every server has their own stupid campaign, even though most are the same. They have a different name so guess what, you have to download it again. The custom maps SUCK. The mods suck. Lately there have been a few that utterly crash clients in certain combinations, even of the same mod. And what do the mods do? Oh, your guy drops his binoculars when he dies. Oh goodie! Medics spew out medpacks when they die, wtf is that? This is one game that

  • Mods aren't that difficult to avoid (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My experience with online FPS is limited to less than half a decade (RtCW, ET and CoD). I haven't had quite the problem that GamerDad has. I locate a server that runs map rotations that are to my liking and I keep going back. Most of these are run by clans or communities that host forums. Go to their forums and interact. Let them know what you like and don't like. Find out why they have the rotation the way it is. Frankly, I think the mods are far less irritating the the foul-mouthed-mental-midget-12
  • If you have a relatively decent internet connection and a machine handy for a server, run your own server.

    Actually I had exactly the same problem mentioned in the article. I couldn't find any decent vanilla deathmatch Q3 server. So I ran my own. I was surprised how quickly it got filled.

    I guess there were more players like me who wanted to play vanilla deathmatch.

    So..

    Yuioup

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