The Death of Descent III, Multiplayer.

[Bold Deceiver]

Gentlepersons,

I don't want to look like some kind of prophet of doom, but the situation from where I sit ain't looking good.

Unless I misread (Volition's) Rory Prendergrast's statement (see thread entitled "pxo" by jj), Descent III multiplayer is in a precarious state. It looks like Volition is moving its offices, and as a consequence of that, the company will "revisit" the question whether the PXO computers will be resurrected is an open one ("We'll look at it again after we move"). I think that may be corporate-speak for "this may be too expensive to maintain anymore".

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about the history and/or license structure of D3; there are many here who can give us insight about that. But I do know that the proposed workarounds I've seen to this latest server drop-off seem . . . complicated, and a number of players will probably fall by attrition as a consequence of that alone.

With due respect to Grendel's reluctance to press the issue (I might feel the same way, G), I think a present statement of intent from Volition is appropriate, maybe sooner rather than later. I haven't taken any surveys, but it seems as though there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 active players out there in D3, and that isn't counting the Freespace pilots. That may not be enough to constitute maintenance of PXO from a short-term cost-benefit perspective, but Volition has earned plenty of our goodwill by its prior operational commitment to PXO. They have an interest in keeping that goodwill, I would think.

The question is, what can we do as a community to help the board of directors at Voliton understand that 1) We're here; 2) We should be considered in any operational decisions re PXO; and 3) we may have some technical and or financial clout (or assistance?) that should be considered.

I don't want to get too far ahead of things, because I understand this condition may only be temporary. But my instincts tell me this might be the beginning of a long term problem. I propose, then, that if we aren't offered a statement of intent in the next week or so from Volition, we should consider forming an investigative committee to investigate, gather data, and report back to the group on status.

Otherwise I believe this may be the beginning of the end. And that would be a bummer.

BD

[Suncho]

What if we don't want PXO back?

[Bold Deceiver]

What if we don't want PXO back?

Fair enough. Maybe the alternative is GameSpy, or some other similar gathering ground I'm unaware of.

[Suncho]

No. There is no single "the alternative"

We have synchronized game lists on Kali, GameSpy, http://d3.descent.cx, and soon All Seeing Eye. Many of us are chatting at irc.shadowfire.org #descent but it's a free internet and now anyone can chat wherever they want.

[kurupt]

its 5 years old, remember the good times and buy something else.

[Top Gun]

its 5 years old, remember the good times and buy something else.

Some of us haven't been here since 5 years ago. And some people are just showing up to this game. With all due respect, are you going to tell us/them to just write this game off? I don't know about the rest of the inhabitants of this board, but I for one will continue to play Descent online until the very last person signs off. There is no "something else" for me, and I highly doubt there ever will be.

BD, I didn't get the same vibe from the Volition post as you did. I read it as saying that the Volition guys will take the time to look at and fix PXO as soon as they move. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, but I still think they care about this community.

Suncho, you've expressed your views in the past, and I'm not going to argue with you again. Suffice it to say that many of us want PXO back, in both the D3 and Freespace communities. It's the game browser D3 was designed to work with, and there's something to be said for 5 years' experience. We can still get the word out about D3 without ditching PXO. It may take some effort, but I truly believe that we can keep this game alive for years to come.

Edit: All of this being said, I do not believe that PXO going down would cause the death of D3. As Suncho truthfully noted, players have still been getting into games without PXO, albeit in somewhat smaller numbers than before. Even so, I think that PXO is a very influential component of D3, one that should not be lightly dismissed. Let's face it, it's still the sole option that a new player is presented with for free online play.

[Suncho]

We can still get the word out about D3 without ditching PXO.

I suppose it's technically possible but we obviously hadn't been succeeding at it. Why should we do things the hard way? It's easier to get the word out about Descent 3 without PXO.

Let's face it, it's still the sole option that a new player is presented with for free online play.

Hardly. You gotta keep up with stuff man! We've got Gamespy, All Seeing Eye, See Me Play Me, *and* Descent.cx!

It's now possible to find and join games more quickly than it ever was with PXO: http://www.suncho.com/ipgames.html

[TheCops]

Many of us are chatting at irc.shadowfire.org #descent but it's a free internet and now anyone can chat wherever they want.

it worked for me the other night. i chatted with stresstest and psionik. it no longer works for me.

whatever.
it's prolly better that it does not work.

;-0

[Top Gun]

Suncho, I was referring to the only option within D3 that a new purchaser of the game is presented with. I am well aware of, and thankful for, the alternate game browsers that allow access to D3 games. As strange as it may seem, we know from the growing ranks of team [NuB] that there are still a few people who buy this game off the shelves or online. It's of those people I'm thinking of. That's why I feel it's important to keep PXO alive as long as we can, even run by the community if necessary. After the new player learns about other game browsers, they could join games however they wish. However, they'll never learn if they can't get in contact with the D3 community in the first place. This is where a removal of PXO's login requirements would go a long way; servers could show up on PXO while still being accessible on every other game browser. Maybe then, both sides would be happy .

Edit: I still think that the best way to spread the word about D3 is by old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Talk to your gaming friends, ask them if they've ever heard of/tried D3, and try to show them a game or two. Hopefully, we can get some more people intrigued. However, as LiquidFire posted in the Soupe at PD yesterday, trying to describe the mechanics of Descent gameplay to someone who's never seen it is very difficult. "Well, it's a sort of first-person shooter, only you're in this small combat spaceship, which has complete freedom of motion, so you can go in any direction, and you pick up floating missiles and guns...":P

[kurupt]

you have to expect this with old games. its not their fault you didn't pick this game up in 1999. its old, its outdated, and its impossible to find for the average consumer. what you have now is the best it will be, so enjoy it by playing the game now instead of spending all of your d3 playing time in vain trying to save a game that only 23 people want saved.

[Do_Checkor]

The Death of Descent III, Multiplayer will NEVER come until D4 is ready for Win, Linux and MAC. There is NO alternative yet so why should it die? I saw MANY users that have left the community. 66% came back; new users came; others left again and overall: We should get rid of the lamers and whiners. D3 still rules and everybody who feels uncomfortable:

Go to mummy and cry there but not here.
If only 50% of the "spammers" in these forums would play instead of flaming or whining, D3 would come back into it's golden days again...

[Suncho]

Suncho, I was referring to the only option within D3 that a new purchaser of the game is presented with. I am well aware of, and thankful for, the alternate game browsers that allow access to D3 games. As strange as it may seem, we know from the growing ranks of team [NuB] that there are still a few people who buy this game off the shelves or online.

I believe we should be targetting the people who haven't bought the game yet rather than the people who already own it. There are many more people who've never even heard of Descent 3 than there are who already own it and just need to find a way to play.

It's of those people I'm thinking of. That's why I feel it's important to keep PXO alive as long as we can, even run by the community if necessary. After the new player learns about other game browsers, they could join games however they wish.

No they can't. If PXO is up, the only possible way to join the games is via PXO. PXO causes all the other alternatives *NOT* to work.

However, they'll never learn if they can't get in contact with the D3 community in the first place.

There are plenty of people who will never even buy the game unless they get in contact with the D3 community in the first place. How's that gonna happen if we're all hiding in PXO (a place they've never heard of).

This is where a removal of PXO's login requirements would go a long way; servers could show up on PXO while still being accessible on every other game browser. Maybe then, both sides would be happy .

Yes. We've been talking about this for years and it hasn't happened. Shutting down PXO is almost as good though.

Edit: I still think that the best way to spread the word about D3 is by old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Talk to your gaming friends, ask them if they've ever heard of/tried D3, and try to show them a game or two.

Word of mouth is the only way. People are not finding Descent 3 on shelves in significant numbers anymore. It's impossible to spread word of Descent 3 when we're all locked in our own private little room (PXO). Sure you can tell your real life friends about it, but that's only a small percentage of the people who are finding out about Descent 3 now!

The best thing to pique anyone's interest is learning that the game is actually being played. The only way they can learn that is if we have public servers that they can see before they even buy the game.

Go to mummy and cry there but not here.
If only 50% of the "spammers" in these forums would play instead of flaming or whining, D3 would come back into it's golden days again...

Exactly. As long as we keep playing D3 will survive. Now that PXO's gone, more outsiders will see us playing. Forget about the golden days again. Here come the golden days for the first time!

[DigiJo]

what i really miss if pxo is down is the d3-build in gamebrowser. just start d3, look for a fun game, jump in. if you dont like the game, jump out, look for another, jump in.

not one of he other trackers and gameservices provide this feature and i think its one of the reasons the playercount goes down if pxo is offline. if i use kali etc. i have to close the game go back to the tracker list, start d3 again and so on. (hope kali will fix the port-bug soon)

for the rest i 100% agree with checkor. man if you guys hate d3 and its players so much and love your halo, ut2004 or whatever, why the heck you waste your time posting here and sitting in d3-chats, busy with flaming?

sweep the dust of your joysticks and come back into the mines or shuddup heh

[Top Gun]

Suncho, I do mostly agree with you. I think it's great to be able to join D3 games from multiple locations. But while it's true that more people will see full games, do you think that this will influence them to go out and ask someone about it? For example, there's many older games in Kali that still have some full servers, and I'm willing to bet that this fact alone doesn't attract new players. Maybe I'm wrong; in fact, I almost hope I'm wrong, for the sake of the community. If your theory is right, then maybe getting rid of PXO would be in the best interests of everyone. For now, however, consider me a skeptic .

DigiJo also raises a good point about the relative ease of use of PXO. No other method of leaving a game and entering another is as simple as what the built-in browser does. There's no real way to fix this, and I realize that when PXO finally goes down for the last time, we'll just have to live with it, but while we have the easier method, why not just use it? As I said before, the elusive removal of the login requirement would solve a lot of problems, but as Suncho noted, that's not going to happen.

It's nice to know that a few of you guys here still care about playing the game, instead of something like Halo . If anything, I think that this community is undergoing a revival; look at the old-timers, such as Koolbear and Sup, who have stopped by recently. They're just part of a larger pattern. Personally, I don't think it's possible to really leave Descent; it's just too ingrained in our blood .

P.S. I'm hoping that one of these posts might qualify me as "hardcore," to debunk earlier comments .

[Sergeant Thorne]

I've always liked PXO (rankings are fun! ). I am a little more optomistic about PXO coming back up, but I feel you, Bold Deceiver.
If you want to do something really productive, Suncho, why don't you work on getting PXO to be Gamespy/Kali/etc compatible, that would be the best way to go, I think.

[ReadyMan]

If a new game is announced that incorporates what makes Descent such a great game, you'll see hundreds, if not thousands of descenters skimming the forums for news and interacting there all in anticipation of the new game and what it offers.

Until then, you may occasionally see a dozen or so pilots checking in from time to time (again, in hopes of seeing something on the horizon).
It's all about current games. Online D3 multiplayer died quite a while ago...though there are active servers, 25 or so people playing at any given time accurately describes the current state of the game.

Offline is a different matter....and harder to gauge

[Krom]

So far every game I have been in on TCP/IP has had players "from the wild" join.

[Suncho]

Yep. I played with one guy the other day who didn't even know what PXO was. I had to tell him to press f8 to talk. =)

[Krom]

Yeah, and with the duration of this outage there are plenty of people in alt-chat as if it was PXO. I think that anyone who really wants to play D3MP when PXO is down like this will find planetdescent, or the DBB or whatever and will find the info they need to play online TCP/IP.

I only wish D3 had a better method of connecting to TCP/IP games, I normally run regedit and paste the IP directly into the D3 registry.

[Suncho]

http://www.suncho.com/ipgames.html

[Duper]

Kali has a great TCP/IP browser that sees D3.

[Suncho]

Indeed. Also, you can make Kali launch your game successfully by adding a file with the following contents to your Kali directory:

Code: Select all

[Game 177]
ConnectTemplate=-launched -directip {HOSTIP}:{HOSTPORT}

Name it custom.kgi.

[kurupt]

the good players have taken their ball and gone home. the remaining players who have become good after they left have no competition and have picked up other games. a large percentage of the community asked for this, and now they have it and low and behold they are some of the leaders in this W.L.M. 97% of the remaining d3 players are either nub's just coming in or sour veterans who got what they wanted and it turned out not being so glamorous. that leaves 3% of the people who enjoy the game and play while they still can.

here's an idea, why not give that 3% some targets instead of coming here to a BB that hasn't been focused on descent in years and crying about how nobody wants to play with you anymore?

I'll introduce you to the 3%, stand up bunyip. take a bow.

[Mickey1]

Excellent Maneuver.
Ha, Ha, Ha KaBoom.
Mickey1 from the Fort of Wayne greets you.
Thank you, Thank you very much.
D4E

[Bold Deceiver]

Excellent Maneuver.
Ha, Ha, Ha KaBoom.

Hmmm. I'm having a difficult time following the last two posts. Maybe I just need some expresso. mmmmmm. starbucks. ...........

As for the other responses -- thank you. I learned some stuff. I get the sense there are already two established camps. Those who believe that PXO actually holds back the game itself, in terms of expansion, because of its restrictive qualities; and those who think the loss of PXO may signal a slow, lingering demise to the game.

I think we all got here from different places. I started playing in 1996; I've got a pretty low Kali number. I loved the multiplayer thing, and joined the Rangers to get more of that. I don't play other games. I never have, really. I'm not a hardcore "gamer." Now you can say to me - Dude, time to grow up and get connected with the gaming community so you can learn all the lovely myriad ways of finding other players -- but I'm not all that interested in developing that level of sophistication. I don't think I'm unique, either.

I have the Descent.cx game link for my browser, but it has never worked for me in terms of connecting to a game. I was advised (years ago), that Kali and D3 didn't mix (I suppose that was bad advice, given the posts). Gamespy is a good fallback; it does work for me. But if it truly detects all the games being played, then the bad news is that maybe a quarter to a third of pilots are even playing since PXO died -- and no one is in chat.

I understand and appreciate that if I want to play multi-player D3, I may need to work harder now to find games. I will need to educate myself on some of the programs mentioned earlier, and get familiar with using them. But I think these hurdles are going to prove onerous to lots of players, old and new. Look around since PXO dropped off, and judge for yourself.

There are good reasons to take the straightest line between two points, in terms of stripping away levels of complexity to joining a D3 game. For example, Deaddmeat's Team NUB is and has always been the single most important group assembled for D3. It is not even a close contest. While all these other clans come and go, NUB is actually growing. And I don't know if any of you oldtimers have noticed, but some of those NUBs are getting pretty dang good. NUB provides a conduit for new players interested the game, and they give new life to D3.

Take away PXO, and I think you take away the ability of new guys to find that central meeting point (Suncho's apparent disdain notwithstanding). Maintain a central meeting point, and you facilitate communication by like minds. Facilitate communication, and the new guys are finding out there's an excellent support group for new players, and joining. That's just one small example.

If, as I predict, the PXO computers are headed for the recycling bin, I think the D3 community will have to gravitate to a unified, PXO-like environment to survive. Maybe that'll be Kali, or Gamespy, or one of these others. Maybe everyone will disperse and reform somewhere else. Sort of like the Big Bang theory.


The coming days will tell, I suppose.

BD

[Pun]

I don't worry so much about the future of D3. As long as the ops keep serving, there will be games to be found. There are not many nights that I can't find some kind of action. There is no replacement for D3, and no other gaming community has the same "feel". We are an island in an ocean of 5h1t. If PXO does go down, people will adapt.

There are plenty of great D3 pilots still behind the stick. Some of the guys that one would have written off as noobs 6 months ago are now damn evil. My advice is to relax, crack open a cold one, clean the thumb grease off your hatswitch and hop into a game.

Don't listen to the pessimists, BD. The fact remains that there are resources available for you to use to find games. Use em and play. <3

[Tricord]

I'm going to reiterate what I've told almost two years ago. We need a better alternative than PXO.

I went ahead, and designed such an alternative. I called it D3GT (Descent 3 Game Tracker). I have written server code for it, and with the input from many players (including Suncho) I selected features and functionality to put into it. The blueprint plans for this system are complete, and some of the code has already been written. However, in order to make it work I needed a small part of the D3 netcode source which I had to get from Outrage. Matt Toschlog accepted to provide it to me, but after several requests (and even attempts to phone Outrage and get the receptionist to get Matt on the phone) I still hadn't what I needed to complete my project.

So, it has been sitting collecting virtual dust for two years. I can try to resurrect it if there is enough demand. Maybe Kevin Bentley can provide the source I need, I suppose it's no longer such a legal problem to give it to me.

For details, see this document.

What say you?

[Santrix]

I'm not a very good multiplayer player anyhow I'm more of a singleplayer player.

[Do_Checkor]

However, in order to make it work I needed a small part of the D3 netcode source which I had to get from Outrage.

Dear Tricord. it may be a good Idea to ask DE-Hunter on this. I know that needed that part for his servertool too and got it from Kevin years ago.

Hopefully Kevin will come back to us soon since he said that he is planning a pxo-alternative for the 1.5 patch himself.

[Top Gun]

Nice graphs, Tricord . Actually, your proposal sounds very cool. I really don't promote hanging on to PXO out of any specific love for it; actually, I'm well aware that its interface is decidedly sub-par. As I said before, the only real benefit to PXO is its incorporation into D3. If there was a way to do likewise with another interface, or to at least build an option into D3 directing new users to a new tracker, then I'd be all for it. However, I know this wouldn't work without a patch and/or overhaul, and we all know the story there.

[Bold Deceiver]

. . . My advice is to relax, crack open a cold one, clean the thumb grease off your hatswitch and hop into a game.

Don't listen to the pessimists, BD. The fact remains that there are resources available for you to use to find games. Use em and play. <3

Great advice. Thanks.

BD

[Duper]

Any way this can be added to the "up-coming" D3 patch?

Tri, shoot bently an e-mail and get something going with him.

oh.. uh.. please?

[WarAdvocat]

Kuru, thanks man, but there's plenty of like minded players out there. In fact, there are too many to name.

All I can say is that I'm in here for the duration.

[Bet51987]

.

[Deadmeat]

Thanx BD, much appreciated. Does this mean I have to write you into my will?

Team [NuB]'s main purpose has always been to keep newcomers around long enough for D3 to get into their blood. And lately it's been difficult enough doing that what with "I can't see games", "Do you have the patch?","Go get it here because the autoupdate is broken", "Get GLMax so you can chat and see games at the same time", etc, etc. We've recently made it easier by putting everything under one roof at our new website www.teamnub.com [shameless plug].

But now, with PXO down, there's no new blood for us to work with. Say a guy picks up D3 ($4.99 at Frys) loads it up and trys to register at PXO? Zip, zilch, nada. And let's say he knows about the other game servers. Am I supposed to spread my team around Kali, Gamespy and SeeMePlayMe in hopes this guy will drop into the D3 chat room there? You see where I'm comming from?

Now I'm not saying we're the only ones to do this. I know a lot of people in this community share this same feeling and work, one way or another, to keep newcomers on board. And I'm not saying we have to have PXO. Its chatroom pissed me off from my first days in the game and I'd be more than happy to bid it farewell as it faded into the sunset. However, as others have pointed out, without some kind of communal gathering place it's going to become increasingly difficult to keep this community from turning into a bunch of old, diehard descenters reminiscing about the "good old days".

I'm not trying to sound like a defeatist here, but it's hard enough for us to even get some of our members to use the alternatives to PXO. Imagine the difficulty in trying to recruit new people.

I sincerely hope something can be worked out. If not PXO, maybe Tricord can get the piece of code he needs to give us a central place to start. From there, and with no login requirement, we can follow Suncho's idea and venture out to the other game servers. That could make it a win-win for everybody.

[Suncho]

But now, with PXO down, there's no new blood for us to work with.

Station at least one guy in Gamespy chat at all times. New guys are in there every day. Don't worry about Kali and SMPM. Kali already has plenty of Descent players and SMPM doesn't really have much of anyone right now.

Say a guy picks up D3 ($4.99 at Frys) loads it up

Those are not the people I think we should be targetting. Instead we could target the people who don't own the game yet... or even people who already own the game but have never heard of PXO, or were unable to log into PXO, and therefore never knew there was an active multiplayer.

Now that everyone's chatting in windows, you'll be able to give people URL's for patches more easily and there's no need for GLmax and the like.

[Suncho]

Tricord, I have one question about D3GT. Will I be able to join games that are listed on D3GT without having a D3GT account?

[Sapphire Wolf]

Me too.....
I'm not quitting. I will go anywhere and use any program I can to play D3. I play multiplayer every single night (after homework) till 11pm edt. Two nights ago I played with dwnunder, and a few others.
I was born in Subway Dancer, and I will die in Subway Dancer.
I think you guys should stop typing and meet me in the tunnels. I'm gonna kill you.
Bettina. (kiss)

Eep! Hi Bettina.

Did you just follow me here to this forum Bettina?
or
Did you just join?

[AceCombat]

I think you guys should stop typing and meet me in the tunnels. I'm gonna kill you.
Bettina. (kiss)

BETTINA!!!

[Bet51987]

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