A server is you!

[Great Rumbler]

Famitsu reports that Chunsoft's Japanese RPG entitled Homeland will have online play. The game will be sold as two discs, one is for offline and the other for networked use. However, it isn't the kind of online gaming that you might envision. Players don't connect to an outside server. The GameCube itself becomes the server and players then can connect to it. The one who is hosting can't play normally, but instead has some controls over the game. It doesn't cost anything and the homebrewed server will be able to hold up to 30 people.

It's definitely an interesting idea.

N-Philes

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, one that's been done already on the PC about a million times, but still...

Do they mean the two disks are sold seperatly, or that the two disks come in the same package? I sure hope it's the latter.

[Great Rumbler]

I think they'll be sold together.

[A Black Falcon]

It's called the Client-Server model. The one virtually all PC FPSes use for multiplayer, BTW. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Indeed, as I pointed out. However, there's one thing. They will still have to have a service for you to be able to find the servers out there without typing in IP addresses.

[A Black Falcon]

Like Gamespy is... but that's a fraction of the cost of a full network like Battle.Net or a MMORPG with EVERYTHING running off the central servers.

[Laser Link]

I haven't played a lot of networked games, so what I want to know is when you get a bunch of computers on a LAN and play like this, does one have like God powers, or are they all just regular players. This sounds more like the server GC lets that player be a game master, where you get to control things to some extent. That reminds me of the good old pencil and paper rpgs I used to play in junior high.

[Dark Jaguar]

Ya know, I've never played one of those D&D type games. I tried finding a way to get into it, but the books I apparently need are VERY expensive, and reading them there is NO real tutorial. All the books I've seen are written with the pro in mind it seems, nothing for the complete beginner. They should do like the Magic: the gathering starter decks and provide some sort of training scenario, where the dungeon master and the players all do everything step by step exactly as the tutorial says, in order to get used to how things go for when the players go on their own. Until I find something like that, I really don't think I'll ever be able to play those games without going into a coma of confusion.

So you know LL, a game CAN be designed so that one person is the administrator or dungeon master or whatever you want to call them. However, generally those games are rare.

For example, in the average FPS, there IS the person who actually STARTS the game, and that person has the ability to basically setup the whole experience, from the number of open slots to the map to the layout of the weapons and the game type, but once it starts they are just another player. Maybe that's what you were talking about anyway? Anyway, in a game like Neverwinter Nights, the person who creates the scenario can either join in as a player letting the scripts manage everything or they can be the DM and add a human live element to the whole experience, able to dynamically alter the whole thing. In fact, Neverwinter lets one do both.

So, it depends on the game, but unless it's Mario Kart style, where the game is setup completely randomly, there are always people starting games rather than just joining them, and they customize the game to their liking.

[A Black Falcon]

What do you mean 'play one of those D&D type games'? Pen & paper RPGs? I've always wished I could do that more but that needs 'friends'... :)

And yes, RPGs with multiplayer where there is a DM with real power and mission creation and stuff are rare. The only ones I know of are the older Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption (I think that's the title) and Neverwinter Nights... haven't played NWN, but that multiplayer mode does sound pretty cool. If complex and very hard to make missions for...

I've noticed various kinds of multiplayer in online games. Some use a system where one person hosts and the others are connected to them. Often this means that the host has no lag and the others may have much more... most RTSes seem to use this model, actually. It's very obvious in Netstorm for instance... hosting is good. :D That game is a lot easier to play when you can bridge and build without waiting for the lag to say that your bridge exists (that can cause huge frusteration when bridges you 'built' when someone with lower ping cuts across before the server recognises them...)...

In a FPS it's similar really (that is if the host plays... frequently they do not, as hubs are often run around the clock on dedicated servers), but FPSes are even more lag-reliant and having a high ping can make playing really hard...

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, that's what I mean. ABF, being another who has played this elusive hobby, can I ask you if there's a tutorial guide of any sort for this sort of game? As I said, everything I can find is written with the professional in mind. I need something like a beginner's scenario that guides me by the hand for the first adventure, so I can know how to play for when I go on my own. That's the only way I'll have any idea what's going on.