Is online MPI on a dialup pretty much a wasted effort?

[Col Klink]

It seems I get auto kicked every time I try to join a game because of my pingy thingy.

Am I better off hosting a game myself in regard to playing BZII online? Or is dialup just too slow for BZII MPI's?

I don't play much BZII on my home network anymore, so I'm thinking of junking 6.2 altogether as it's proving to be pretty disappointing for online game action.

I think I'm going to revert back to 1.2 and the many mods originally made like FE, and Starfleet and stick with Instant Action, Single Player and offline MPI. After 1.2 I pretty much got lost in all the Beta's and miscelaneous mods that were version specific. Currently I only have 1.2 and 6.2 installed.

Now that I don't really mod much anymore Nielk1 may get his wish and get rid of one of us supposed bad apples that have plagued the forum for all to long. I guess this would be a good time to ask that my BZII account be deleted. If possible keep my posts as I still want new members to know about Truespace as a decent 3D modeling software option for BZII.
Oh, I have a ton of BZII models still on my system for any interested parties some of which I may upload on my modeling forum. Some of them I may convert for use with LT's Genesis project. I may also eventually delete the forum I setup for BZII modeling tutorials to revover some server space again. I think there's a link somewhere on this forum to my forum, but I don't remember for sure.

Oh and sincere thanks for those of you all who help me get over the bumps I experienced over the years trying to learn the modding thingy.

It's been fun people later. Col Klink aka Feenix aka BNG aka Bump N Go aka Got Silk?; this was my original nick back in 2005.

[General BlackDragon]

because of my pingy thingy.

Found a new siggy quote


You should keep both 1.2 and pb6.2

And, try to find a way to get better internet?

Though BZ2 was designed to run on 56k, i think, so it should be able to work.

[TheJamsh]

Totally unrelated, personally I think you should have kept your username as Bump'n'go...

But as GBD says, BZ2 was designed with old-school dialup in mind, Im sure its not too difficult to get a reasonable game going, but it'll never be as good as broadband. Surely theres a way for you to get broadband in this day and age? Hell satellite would probably be an improvement...

Stick around and play the game, there's still a good few mods due for release soon(ish). maybe...

[Iron_Maiden]

I see.

[TheJamsh]

Wait and see.

EDIT: Ninja'd like a baus

[MrTwosheds]

You have to try to join servers that you have a low ping to, your looking for servers with <250 ping anything bigger than that and your presence will piss off everyone else on the server. Strat servers are likely to kick you just for being on dial up.
Few people are prepared to put up with a dial-up-speed server these days, so hosting your own games is probably a waste of time. It probably won't make allot of difference which version you use, but I seem to recall 1.2's mpi being rather limited and I don't expect there will be anyone to play with using it anyway.

[Fulmen]

I don't expect there will be anyone to play with using it anyway.

sheppy

[APCs r Evil]

Sheppy's still running around? I'd almost forgotten about him...

[AcneVulgaris]

In the old days, we played on dialup, on Pentium 166MHz machines, uphill both ways in the snow, and we liked it!

[Fulmen]

Sheppy's still running around? I'd almost forgotten about him...

Last time I checked 1.2 (a few weeks ago or so) he was still playing 1.2 MPI by himself. I never got that guy.

[Col Klink]

When I did a ping test> ping www.google.com -t; it came back at around 200ms that doesn't seem that high? Is it? For a dialup that seems about average I guess, so why do I have so much trouble joining a game?

The default in BZII MPI setting is 1500ms, so why isn't my ping well within the max? Like my old ME laptop I'm pretty much stuck with dial up for the forseable future. I might suggest that you other players cut us dial ups some slack and allow us slow pokes to join if possible otherwise what's point is there for playing onlne? Sorry, for a long time I never even played online and now that I want to it's not much fun if I can't join a game from time to time.

[MrTwosheds]

Your ping is from your pc to the other bz2 server, it could vary from around 100ms up to several seconds, dial up only works well if the other server is close in network terms, because players run there own bz2 servers your ping will vary wildly depending on their distance from you. Servers in the same country would be best, attempting to join one of the other side of the world is probably not going to work or be of such poor quality that allot of your data will be fried.
Dial up is not broadband, it is really only designed to make telephone calls.
I used to use it to play bz2 years ago, If the ping reported by bz2 /pinglist is greater then 250 or so, or fluctuating allot, do not bother to join that server, if the connection does not fail of its own accord, then the server will probably kick you anyway.
Don't feel aggrieved about this, Its no fun playing on an unstable connection anyway. Back then I would know that at certain times there would be UK bz2 players hosting games I could join without problems, but now most players will be on broadband and it is unlikely that they put up with a fluctuating dial up connection, so you really need to join a server fairly close to you so that you can maintain a stable connection.
These days I guess the answer to your question would be yes, it is pretty much a waste of time trying to Game on a dial up.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I used to use it to play bz2 years ago, If the ping reported by bz2 /pinglist is greater then 250 or so, or fluctuating allot, do not bother to join that server, if the connection does not fail of its own accord, then the server will probably kick you anyway.
Don't feel aggrieved about this, Its no fun playing on an unstable connection anyway.

That is one of BZ1's biggest network pains. It has no ability to filter or kick very high ping, so BZ1 players have had to deal with ultra lag players since day one.

[HitchcockGreen]

That is one of BZ1's biggest network pains. It has no ability to filter or kick very high ping, so BZ1 players have had to deal with ultra lag players since day one.

*Somewhat* fixed in 1.5

[GSH]

It depends on what MPI map(s) you're trying to run. The stock MPI maps have far fewer props and objects on the map. That means less data to transmit. GH's MPI maps look great, but the props have a cost to send over the network. I recommend you stick with simpler MPI maps or DM for now.

In BZ2, ping requests get queued up, same as any other packet. When there's a lot of data to transmit, the pings get delayed too, so the effective ping is increased.

-- GSH