'Finding' hosts on the Internet

F

flyboy

New member
From reading the manual, I get the impression that the only way to 'find' a host on the Internet is to somehow be given the IP address, ie from the person running the host, another contact, via your online chat room or some other communication method.

If so, may I make my first (and hopefully last! :) ) criticism of G2 and say that this seems rather cumbersome and primitive.

Why not have one (or more) central servers that store all the available hosts - so, when a new host goes online it lets the central server(s) know that it is available and also that 'x' number of players are connected to it. Every so often the central server(s) will contact the hosts to check that they're still available, how many players are online, etc, etc, etc. When someone wants to join a new session the program simply contacts the central server(s) to see what is available, where it is and how many are playing.

This is effectively how the hosting in Quake III works and it works very well. (I realise RealFlight G2 isn't Quake III, but I'm just using it as a good example in this instace :) )

As noted above, the method currently implemented seems to be rather non-user friendly. Because dynamic IP addresses are assigned to many people who log on to the Internet it makes it especially annoying to have to announce a new IP address every time you set up a new host.

I can appreciate some people requiring privacy and not wanting just anyone to join with them and their selected friends, but if so give the host an option to be hidden, so in that case the only people who know of its existence will be those that are allowed to know.

That'll do for now. :)

Overall though, even though I don't yet have the program, the features outlined in the manual are impressive to say the least! As I was so looking forward to Multiplayer gaming I guess the above issue has disappointed me a bit.


Thanks,
Phil
 
Sorry to disappoint. At this time I can't tell you specifically what we have planned for multiplayer.

I CAN say that it will get better. Multiplayer is something we will be working on almost constantly to make G2 easier and funner to use.

Keep checking in the Annoucements area and we'll keep everyone up to date.
 
Thank you Jim - obviously you understand there are some limitations at the moment so that's fine by me if you say that you're still working on it. Here's hoping for an easier way to find G2 hosts. :)

Phil
 
KnifeEdge chat

If you are serious about wanting to play with others, The best way as of now is to go to the New Knifedge chat. I am there quite frequently, and so are many others on any given day. We would love to have more people to come join our m-play sessions. If we dont answer right away when you join, just sit tight, we check in often to make sure we catch up. :)
 
What Richard said!

The KE web site has a chat room that's perfect for this. The link is on the left side, at the top of the "get in touch" section.

If you're into helis, you can also sometime find people to fly with in the #rcheli room at chat.planetz.net

A dedicated server would be *really* cool though.

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
 
Multiplayer Hosting

I think it would be a GREAT for KE or Great Planes to host an online "zone" for RF G2 owners, like MS and other S/W companies do for their mulitplayer games. This would provide a destination for their customers as well as drive people to their site. It could develop into a great meeting place for R/C aircraft fans, and could even become a place to conduct commercial transactions (tie into GP's or Tower Hobbies site?)
Another feature that would help is if a non-owner of RF G2 could log onto the mulitplayer site and just "observe"...this is a feature of online gaming that has been attempted before with limited success on the MS gaming zone. I think it would be fun for folks to just be able to observe a multi-player session. Might be impossible to do this without owning RF G2, but even then, being able to log in and just watch would be fun :)
 
Some excellent ideas there that I would LOVE to see implemented. Sadly though, while I think Knife Edge is perfectly capable of developing such features, I have little or no faith that Great Planes would sanction it. Why? Just a feeling, that's all .........

I hope to be proved wrong! :)

Phil
 
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