DescentBB

Great, so we can see messages like this ingame again:

Ryujin melts DT with a well placed fusion blob.
Ryujin has been promoted to Admiral!
DT lands a perfect mortar in Ryu's colon
Ryujin has been demoted to Rear Admiral!
XGMX rapes yet another Obvious Alias
XGMX has been promoted to Demigod!

PJB wrote:DT lands a perfect mortar in Ryu's colon

XD I am going to tweak my .str file now!

BTW, I love your avatar. Firefly. The best show ever, only to be canceled for absolutely no reason! Jane was the best!

NUMBERZero wrote:I love your avatar. Firefly.

I had a feeling that's what that was.

Oooh! Forgot to say something that I'd like to see.


Geordon has entered observer mode to harass the game.
Geordon has been demoted to a Thorn in Your Side!
or
Geordon has joined.
Geordon has been demoted to Boot Licker!

I'm sorry, but I'm with Grendel and Lothar and others here.

The only reason to bring PXO back would be to prevent new players from being turned away because the integrated service is gone. But that's an easy fix! Just change the v1.5 menu to point to the current trackers and IRC (and add a D3Stats lookup, if people scream about it). Done!

Foil wrote:But that's an easy fix! Just change the v1.5 menu to point to the current trackers and IRC (and add a D3Stats lookup, if people scream about it). Done!

yes, really. i don't know how many newbies you picked up from pxo chat and introduced to descent (patches, "noooo, sol ascent won't work", etc.), but unless you somehow get all new copies sold out there to be 1.5 off the shelf OR placed a huge sticker (which still doesn't guarantee to be read) on it that says "go get the patch to v1.5 or you cannot play with the community", over 90% of the newbies are still lost (see my post above, too), and the new addresses are just convenient for us. (it would be much better to be able to change the urls in that module anyway).

the game is cheap now.

If once plugged in and it doesn't work or they can't find anyone nearly immediately, most will give up.

Like Floyd said. They won't know where to get patches. Some will think to google it. .. then lets assume they accidentally get it right in the first 3 tries without any problems....

Then resolution problems, or the GL glitch.. or stick incompatibility.

We are used to all this, we've been at it 15 years (some of us)

THIS generation of gamers need everything handed to them. They are lazy. They are used to Consoles.


It can only help, it won't hurt. We are atrophying. Barely 10 people play a night. \"Exploiting ranking\" is a rather feeble bleet in the light of the numbers. We won't have to use it, as Krom pointed out.

I agree with Duper. People find Descent hard to play so if they can't find games and patches instantly, they will leave. It's best to get PXO back up but maybe try to have it better(if that's possible.)

Have the MOTD show links to the DBB and Planet Descent. Advertise the 1.5 patch. Etc etc.

Floyd wrote:... but unless you somehow get all new copies sold out there to be 1.5 off the shelf OR placed a huge sticker (which still doesn't guarantee to be read) on it that says "go get the patch to v1.5 or you cannot play with the community", over 90% of the newbies are still lost

That is exactly what i was thinking. Yes this patch will be great, yes it will re-enable ingame trackers (god willing), but if it does not ship with the game, a vast majority of the people who install D3 will find that they cannot find any online games and uninstall it as they don't care to do the extra work to get it working online properly. Can't be bothered.

Auto-updates are the only reason I see to bring PXO back. That would be great, actually!

But once that's done (if it can be...?), I'd rather see v1.5 integrate with our current trackers and IRC. Going back to PXO trackers/rankings/chat would be an unecessary move for the community.

I thought this would be worth mentioning.

If I am correctly informed, the PXO source code has been released to the FreeSpace community by Volition. If PXO were to be revived, it would benefit both D3 and FS2 if the service could be restored for both, even though FS2 has FS2Net to keep it going right now. Contact Taylor in Hard Light for more information. I checked with one reputable member and he said to ask Taylor about it; Taylor is an administrator and SCP programmer on HLP.

Whoa! Nice find Zan!

Duper wrote:Burly, we just don't want to hammer Kevin (and friends) with a "want list".

I know... I know none of the things that really need to be done can or will be done, so it was sort of a joke. xD

But the point is that any 1.5 patch is in all probability too little, too late. :)

Seriously, though, I am actually expecting Kevlar to do whatever he wants or whatever he can finish, and then I'll accept it as it is, and hopefully there will be a few more players, because we weren't even supposed to get a patch in the first place. :)

Foil wrote:But once that's done (if it can be...?), I'd rather see v1.5 integrate with our current trackers and IRC.

that doesn't exclude pxo as a first hand newbie option. as soon as we have the specs for the .d3c, we can include any tracker we want, like or dislike.

Foil wrote: Going back to PXO trackers/rankings/chat would be an unecessary move for the community.

judging by that statement with the assumption you've read my previous posts, you're definately not long enough with this community, so be forgiven.
you can't excpect everyone to think like someone with a degree in mathematics and/or computer science (read: you)

Floyd wrote:judging by that statement with the assumption you've read my previous posts, you're definately not long enough with this community...

Floyd,

I've been playing Descent since '94, and I've been around all the Descent-related forums for at least five years. I'm the only one to build a D3 gametype in the last few years, and I've been hosting servers since 2005.

Please don't dismiss me as some kind of inexperienced newbie to the community.

-------------------

Back to the topic at hand, here's my opinion, for what it's worth:

Bring back:

• Auto-updates - Getting new players easily patched to v1.5 would be excellent!
• Integrated tracker - Simply include all current servers.
• Freespace PXO? (Not sure what this entails... Zantor, can you provide some more info?)

Don't bring back:

• PXO rankings - Frankly, the ranking system hurt D3 gameplay, because it was often an incentive for selfish/unsportsmanlike tactics. I'd rather not see the return of rank-assassins and players ruining their team because they're only interested in rank.
• PXO chat - It was often nothing more than meaningless babble that kept players out of the game. If there has to be an integrated chat, just use the existing IRC channels.

I love Descent3 and I love this community. Having an integrated system back would be a good thing in some ways, but the ranking system needed to die, and the gameplay has been the better for it. Let's not revive that corpse.

Oh, and try not to tell Geordon of this. >.>

Zantor wrote:I thought this would be worth mentioning.

If I am correctly informed, the PXO source code has been released to the FreeSpace community by Volition. If PXO were to be revived, it would benefit both D3 and FS2 if the service could be restored for both, even though FS2 has FS2Net to keep it going right now. Contact Taylor in Hard Light for more information. I checked with one reputable member and he said to ask Taylor about it; Taylor is an administrator and SCP programmer on HLP.

From what I remember reading, Taylor did say that he and the SCP team were essentially able to run PXO on their own server and have it work for both FS2 and D3, although I'm not sure whether or not they have any plans to implement that, or whether they'll just stick with the FS2NetD replacement. I do know that Taylor re-wrote a whole bunch of the back-end server code, but I don't know if that impacts D3 at all. It probably would be a good idea to get in touch with him to see what the FS2 code status is, and if there's anything that could be beneficial to both games.

Foil wrote:Frankly, the ranking system hurt D3 gameplay, because it was often an incentive for selfish/unsportsmanlike tactics. I'd rather not see the return of rank-assassins and players ruining their team because they're only interested in rank.

I voted yes, with ranking just because I didn't CARE, but I think you and Lothar have both made a good point here. If I could CHANGE my vote, I'd switch it to YES, WITHOUT RANKINGS.

I voted \"Yes-With Rank\".

I could easily do without ranking. I never paid much attention to it anyways. I'm not good enough to care.

and if it did indeed cause all that fuss, then meh, ditch it. Personally, i think players should be banned for acting like that, but that's me.

So I could waffle to \"With out\".

Foil wrote:Don't bring back:

• PXO rankings - Frankly, the ranking system hurt D3 gameplay, because it was often an incentive for selfish/unsportsmanlike tactics. I'd rather not see the return of rank-assassins and players ruining their team because they're only interested in rank.
• PXO chat - It was often nothing more than meaningless babble that kept players out of the game. If there has to be an integrated chat, just use the existing IRC channels.

I love Descent3 and I love this community. Having an integrated system back would be a good thing in some ways, but the ranking system needed to die, and the gameplay has been the better for it. Let's not revive that corpse.

It's homeslices game let him turn pyros into penguins if he wants to. You love this community, Foil?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

C'mon man... I just can't take that much passion from one person... it's just knockin' me out.

TheWhat wrote:You love this community, Foil?
HAHA

Are you questioning whether Foil actually DOES care about the descent community, or whether he SHOULD?

Yeah, that was a rather useless comment there.

Not a big deal, guys. Adam can rag on me - he's a fun guy, and doesn't take things too seriously, which is cool. He's good in my book.

from another Thread



Reguards to PXO Debacle

Simply point chat to gamesurge(descent,2,3,rookie, tournament are all there) and DescentForum IRC's (like vortex/Gate) that way if one goes down chat can continue on another

game trackers via Gamespy. and Descent.CX (like vortex basically)

they even have a player stat tracker database out there with participating servers

Simple because it's there and you have to code to change it with a simple stroke of control-x and control-v - just please include a perform on connect option maybe as external cfg files just like irc so that the IRc servers can be added and special join features included

We even have some fun twists with a Server tool developemnt over at the Server Ops Board

you can include this in another post if you create one, I was just mentioning only what has already been established around the community to support this great game

I will happily repeat myself:

Grendel wrote:An in-game game tracker support (configurable !) would be handy, point the default to gamespy and/or d3.descent.cx.

If you have to have in-game chat, drop in an IRC client preconfigured to point to the gamesurge D3 channels.

Burlyman wrote:To be quite honest with you, Mr. Bentley someone should just finish a new game without all the bugz and design flaws that D3 had.

A common lunch topic, I assure you.

Duper wrote:the game is cheap now.

If once plugged in and it doesn't work or they can't find anyone nearly immediately, most will give up.

Like Floyd said. They won't know where to get patches. Some will think to google it. .. then lets assume they accidentally get it right in the first 3 tries without any problems....

Then resolution problems, or the GL glitch.. or stick incompatibility.

We are used to all this, we've been at it 15 years (some of us)

THIS generation of gamers need everything handed to them. They are lazy. They are used to Consoles.


It can only help, it won't hurt. We are atrophying. Barely 10 people play a night. "Exploiting ranking" is a rather feeble bleet in the light of the numbers. We won't have to use it, as Krom pointed out.

Wanted to quote this for truth.

And I've seen D3 on sale at 7/11 as well. With this development (how the hell did D3 end up at 7/11?) revitalizing PXO could really lead to a boost of new players.

And when I say "revitalizing PXO" that doesn't necessarily mean bringing back the PXO of old - what matters is some way to view and join multiplayer games after a new player clicks on "multiplayer" in the d3 menu instead of having to google it or find the forums to figure it out.

I voted yes with rankings. It would be the best way for new players to find games. I would use it and I think a lot of people would you played Descent 3.

Given that a thread in a forum other then ethics and commentary got to 3 pages in a week is a good indicator that the answer is yes.

If PXO worked, I would've been playing online years earlier then I did. I think a lot of new players would arrive if it wasn't such a maze to play online.

I voted Yes with no rankings mainly because I didn't care about the ranking. I just wanted to have fun. I think I agree with what most are saying in here I think:
* If bringing back the chat, make it less clunky and have it connect to some well known server/channel for the Descent community
* Have the tracker ability connect to something that has already been set up but not going away anytime soon. Also make it seamless, integrated directly into Descent 3, and not some third party tool.

In relation to that last bullet though, make sure it is all cross platform. Like, for example, if the tracker would plug into Kali (which is not out for the Mac), please make it so that the tracker would work all the same on any OS.

Thanks Kevin!

First off, THANK YOU Kevin for deciding to do this for Descent 3. It has remained my most favorite game because of its multiplayer element!

Second- PXO as a matching service worked very well and was great in that it connected players to games quickly and easily despite the \"clunkyness\" complaints from the peanut gallery here.

The day PXO went offline is probably the day that Descent 3 saw its steepest and hardest drop in online players.

Most people will not bother with a 3rd party interface to join multiplayer games. Keeping it simple is best (despite the commentary above by the chat hippies.) If they want a chat room, they can go fool around on IRC. Gamers want a list of servers they can pop into and/or swap to from inside the game and not in a goofy \"Gate,\" \"Vortex\" or other 3rd party chat program.

- A GAMER's opinion

ThunderBunny wrote:First off, THANK YOU Kevin for deciding to do this for Descent 3. It has remained my most favorite game because of its multiplayer element!

Second- PXO as a matching service worked very well and was great in that it connected players to games quickly and easily despite the "clunkyness" complaints from the peanut gallery here.

The day PXO went offline is probably the day that Descent 3 saw its steepest and hardest drop in online players.

Most people will not bother with a 3rd party interface to join multiplayer games. Keeping it simple is best (despite the commentary above by the chat hippies.) If they want a chat room, they can go fool around on IRC. Gamers want a list of servers they can pop into and/or swap to from inside the game and not in a goofy "Gate," "Vortex" or other 3rd party chat program.

- A GAMER's opinion

X2

X3

I'm all for anything that gets more people playing. Bring it back.

ThunderBunny wrote:First off, THANK YOU Kevin for deciding to do this for Descent 3. It has remained my most favorite game because of its multiplayer element!

Second- PXO as a matching service worked very well and was great in that it connected players to games quickly and easily despite the "clunkyness" complaints from the peanut gallery here.

The day PXO went offline is probably the day that Descent 3 saw its steepest and hardest drop in online players.

Most people will not bother with a 3rd party interface to join multiplayer games. Keeping it simple is best (despite the commentary above by the chat hippies.) If they want a chat room, they can go fool around on IRC. Gamers want a list of servers they can pop into and/or swap to from inside the game and not in a goofy "Gate," "Vortex" or other 3rd party chat program.

- A GAMER's opinion

Spoken like a true D3 n00b.

x4

Sniper wrote:Let's just say I stopped playing D3 because of PXO going away. I didn't feel like bothering with Kali or some third party add on. Most games today have the multiplayer community built right into the game - I think that's a value add.

X2

Put the ranking in…

The people who don’t like it can whine as they all like to do anyway, and the others can enjoy it as before.

So...


Any news on this project? Kevin?

Also curious!