makeshift dedicated server kinda thing?

Chilvence · Post by **Chilvence** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:34 pm

I think its a bit of a shame that regular Zdoom users are pretty much at the mercy of Zdaemon and Skulltag when it comes to playing over the internet. Not that I have anything against either of those ports, both of them have a much more desirable way of starting network games. But waiting for them to catch up with the latest Zdoom features, or even just plain Hexen or Strife support is incredibly frustrating...

Of course, I have no idea what difficulties there are in implementing a decent client/server system, or how much maintenance it needs between upgrades or anything like that. But I think it would be nice if it were considered a feature at least as desirable as polymost, or the extendible inventory system, or any other of Zdoom's great features.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 2:53 am

Bio Hazard wrote:keyword: "makeshift"

oh well I guess... you can't fight Graf, its just like trying to fight HotWax...

Yes, 'makeshift'! As in: unstable, buggy and prone to causing more problems than it solves. No, thank you! Either do it right or not at all but with ugly hacks like this you're easily shutting yourself off from future improvements.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:08 am

Chilvence wrote:I think its a bit of a shame that regular Zdoom users are pretty much at the mercy of Zdaemon and Skulltag when it comes to playing over the internet. Not that I have anything against either of those ports, both of them have a much more desirable way of starting network games. But waiting for them to catch up with the latest Zdoom features, or even just plain Hexen or Strife support is incredibly frustrating...

Of course, I have no idea what difficulties there are in implementing a decent client/server system, or how much maintenance it needs between upgrades or anything like that. But I think it would be nice if it were considered a feature at least as desirable as polymost, or the extendible inventory system, or any other of Zdoom's great features.

You are absolutely right. A coordinated effort to merge all the ZDoom derivatives into one powerful source port might help. But considering that the Skulltag source is not available I have absolutely no idea how much work it would be or even how compatible the source is.
But the fact that it is still based on 2.0.60 which is 1 year and 3 months old by now is certainly disappointing. It used to be an alternative to using ZDoom but right now it is so outdated that it is more like a separate source port. Most newer ZDoom maps won't work with it anymore.

ZDoom has changed a lot in this time and the next big change is coming right now so it might easily be possible that it has shut itself off from future upgrades forever.

Carnevil · Post by **Carnevil** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:55 pm

Graf Zahl wrote:But the fact that it is still based on 2.0.60 which is 1 year and 3 months old by now is certainly disappointing. It used to be an alternative to using ZDoom but right now it is so outdated that it is more like a separate source port. Most newer ZDoom maps won't work with it anymore. ZDoom has changed a lot in this time and the next big change is coming right now so it might easily be possible that it has shut itself off from future upgrades forever.

I fully plan to upgrade the ZDoom version. I'd like to be able to play wads with DECORATE monsters, too. I had a major hiccup towards the end of the 96b development process (my computer crashed, and I got the flu), which was when I planned to upgrade the ZDoom version. On top of that, I don't have VS.net (which I need to compile the latest ZDoom), and 96b turned out to have quite a few bugs, which require immediate fixing. The plan was to upgrade with 96b, but thanks to a bit of a bump in the road, it didn't happen then.

When I have the 96 series to a point in which it's quite stable (which should be 96c, unless there's something horribly wrong with it that I don't know about), then I can worry about upgrading/adding more stuff. It doesn't make much sense to add to something that's unstable. While you might fix all the bugs that existed before, you might very well be introducing new bugs, resulting in neither build being stable. That's not something I want.

Anyway, I WILL upgrade the ZDoom version soon. Just not in 96c.