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A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2


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anax
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A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby anax » 24 Sep 2014, 04:20


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Last edited by anax on 15 Mar 2016, 18:00, edited 1 time in total.
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synthetic
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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby synthetic » 26 Sep 2014, 18:00


Well.. Anax you and two or three others here know what I tried to set up. While one or two people might still be pushing the project forwards inch by inch, I saw the clear failure when I realized these few things:

Most players/people that I'd attempt to cooperate with didn't actually know what DXMP is. Hard to work on something you have no experience or - worse yet - no knowledge of.

Just about nobody was interested in actively cooperating with the other modder/coder. Two keywords here: actively, cooperate. Yes I understand we are not kids anymore and we don't have as much time, but we are not talking about a chore or paid work here. We're talking about a hobby, passion, whatnot. Obviously I wouldn't even mention this topic in any of my threads had I completely given up on the idea of maybe our modders can actually provide some fan-created quality.


As for the other topic: 50% of people involved in discussion are literally both *from* and currently *in* Phantom's and Fullmoon's clan. You can make your own conclusions about their in-game conduct, ive written enough about that. The other 50%, whom I too belong to now, doesnt play. When we look at servers, you have over half of players that are somehow affiliated with Phantom and his teachings, or represent the minority that either doesn't care about those noobs or gets pushed around by them.

It's worth keeping in mind that no single noob or deviant can ever kill entire game. It is illogical. If it appears so, then something has killed it long before.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby anax » 26 Sep 2014, 22:54


synthetic wrote:Well.. Anax you and two or three others here know what I tried to set up. While one or two people might still be pushing the project forwards inch by inch, I saw the clear failure when I realized these few things:

Most players/people that I'd attempt to cooperate with didn't actually know what DXMP is. Hard to work on something you have no experience or - worse yet - no knowledge of.

Just about nobody was interested in actively cooperating with the other modder/coder. Two keywords here: actively, cooperate. Yes I understand we are not kids anymore and we don't have as much time, but we are not talking about a chore or paid work here. We're talking about a hobby, passion, whatnot. Obviously I wouldn't even mention this topic in any of my threads had I completely given up on the idea of maybe our modders can actually provide some fan-created quality.


As for the other topic: 50% of people involved in discussion are literally both *from* and currently *in* Phantom's and Fullmoon's clan. You can make your own conclusions about their in-game conduct, ive written enough about that. The other 50%, whom I too belong to now, doesnt play. When we look at servers, you have over half of players that are somehow affiliated with Phantom and his teachings, or represent the minority that either doesn't care about those noobs or gets pushed around by them.

It's worth keeping in mind that no single noob or deviant can ever kill entire game. It is illogical. If it appears so, then something has killed it long before.


this is true.. i regret and must apologize for not cooperating with that project.
At the time i was firmly within the camp of thinking change could bring nothing good
& more concerned that things stay the same without doing anything myself to help it.

Cause i thought dx would improve by itself, what a fail to think that, rofl.

I can agree with you on those points, i realised at too late a time that dx was taken over by dispicable people.

still playing is for the nostalgia burst, but these noobs make that difficult.
i want to leave and continue at the same time.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Nightcaper » 27 Sep 2014, 00:54


anax wrote:i'm repeating many things, but they are things that need to be acted upon, 75% of players are noobs, cheaters, teamkillers.
This is why we need to bring in new and old blood.



"Send out the invitations, supply the house and the booze, and the party will come." The Steam audience has potential to be reliable new blood, but we're going to have to provide something more to go for than the same old 0augs or augs server. Many of us here have played this game for years online, and have honed our reflexes and skills at it... most people new to the game coming in from Steam probably wouldn't have a chance. I had to learn the hard way back then, getting owned to utter rage and frustration by big name (and small name) 0 auggers and auggers, and learning from those defeats as nobody wanted to teach someone not in their clan, and clans wanted good people to join, not newbies. I don't want to force that same experience on newer players, as let's face it, back then there might not have been as much realistic sci-fi futuristic multiplayer FPS competition as there is now. That is beginning to change, and we can't expect people to play for years before they get to be even half as decent as us, so they can finally have fun.



So to continue with my analogy in the first sentence of my post... people might still drink the beer that you offer them, but they may grow sick of it fast and want to try brandy, wine, vodka for those with strange tastes... something different and unique. Provide that, and you secure the party. For those of us who don't speak in strange analogies, I'm saying that variety will be a benefit to DXMP in this day and age... different maps, gametypes, weapons, NPCs... new content not limited to pre-existing game systems (MTL has security and optomization, but in our haste to have secure and nicely running servers, we did not consider what we would lose: The ability to freely mod and make gametypes. Of course, it isn't impossible, but it is more limiting due to obfuscation, and not newbie scripter friendly.) I have my own ideas on that issue...



Attracting a playerbase is an issue, but not the main issue. The main issue is what can we offer them that would keep them interested in staying. :wink:


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Poor » 27 Sep 2014, 07:42


I'm a bit too cynical to put much effort into it. Deus Ex was always a bad multiplayer game and it's age doesn't do it any favors. Only mods, the community, and nostalgia made it worth playing. Moving on seems like a better idea. But that said, I would like to point out some things that could help revive it:

1. Some people prefer small communities to large ones. It should be possible to find people willing to join in the same way it is possible for losers to find girlfriends and cults to find members.

2. You can play DXMP for free (and legally). The Deus Ex MP patch works on the Deus Ex demo. We can advertise this fact and show them how to do it. DXMP being F2P will certainly aid in recruiting players.

3. Deus Ex is still remembered by many. Not so much the multiplayer but the single-player and its related memes.

Potential places to advertise DXMP:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Deusex/new/
http://boards.4chan.org/v/ (too dangerous?)
http://steamcommunity.com/app/6910/discussions/


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Nightcaper » 28 Sep 2014, 02:44


Poor wrote:1. Some people prefer small communities to large ones. It should be possible to find people willing to join in the same way it is possible for losers to find girlfriends and cults to find members.


True, we may be able to find some key players and attract a niche community. However, is this not what we already are?

Poor wrote:2. You can play DXMP for free (and legally). The Deus Ex MP patch works on the Deus Ex demo. We can advertise this fact and show them how to do it. DXMP being F2P will certainly aid in recruiting players.


THIS would be interesting, I could get a lot more people in to Deus Ex on Steam with this knowledge. Please do explain more, with links to the demo and patch! (How would this affect certain mods though, for MP? Any possibility that they might not be able to play certain mods that require game files not provided by the patch, or use certain models? Will mod making style have to adapt to this "Free To Play" idea? I like the idea, I just want to know if a truck's coming and what side it'll hit us from.)




Reddit, I feel, is a great place to advertise. It has been known to help niche games become quite popular. 4chan is a long shot to be honest, it can go either way and I'd like to see other's opinions on that one. As for the Steam Discussions, I will be making my presence far more known there and working on that front... I've just been really busy this week. I still have to finish my ultimate guide, but for now I'll see if I can contact people there interested in DXMP. Please get back to me on this "Free To Play" trick, it may help in the near future with players on Steam who don't have the game. :D


EDIT: 4chan may not be a good place to advertise the game.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby anax » 30 Sep 2014, 09:44


+1 with that, don't advertise on 4chan! :bwahaha: from some discussions and posts i have seen 4chan has gone to metabolic end product, which i'm sure most people agree has already been the case for a long long time.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Poor » 01 Oct 2014, 06:00


I was able to get on a few servers with the demo version with no problem. There won't be a problem if the demo installation lacks a file. If a required file is missing, the client will download it from the server like it would a mod package. The only potential problem would be mismatch errors, if the demo packages don't match up with the ones in the full game. I was able to join some servers so there don't seem to be any major mismatches but I would need to compare each texture/audio package from the demo to make sure they are the same. If there are any, the packages can simply be deleted and the correct version will be downloaded as said above. Once I fully investigate this I will make a guide.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby synthetic » 02 Oct 2014, 19:09


Here are few aspects, on the topic, that I've observed or experienced when weighing the potential and the future of the game and its community, with focus on development/editing.

Post 2003 (2004 onwards) community does not have DXMP modders. Who precisely worked to improve the original DXMP are largely forgotten, I myself only know perhaps 2 names and even those by proxy.
What this means, is that it is difficult to find the enthusiasm or - more importantly - the numbers to cooperate on a successful effort.
The sole DXMP coder (from 2001-2002 period or so) active in the community since was DejaVu. The mod or total mod communities did manage to put forward a few names that would come to benefit the entire game in very technical and general aspects. Alex, Nobody would create fantastic tools and patches that would improve the stability of DXMP and its mods alike. While strictly from mod communities and with practically no actual DXMP experience or knowledge, these two have yet contributed more to the game than perhaps anyone else since MTL team. When it comes to game-specific issues, things have been less rosy.

The only new generation coder that has seriously played DXMP is Cozmo, but he never seemed particularly impressed by it, and as such his agenda likely lies with the UED and not necessarily with the DXMP itself. And he played pretty well.

DXMP has lot of learning or even some advanced coders, some artists and level designers, perhaps even the odd modeler. And practically none of them knows what DXMP is or has played it. Most of us are playing UED and not DXMP. With this realization, it is no wonder what so ever that everybody wants to do their own thing, or people are less than enthused about doing something for DXMP itself.

Same goes to players, although less significant topic. If you feel like wanting to learn DXMP still and don't like the community, then host private server and play with friends. One will get the idea of DXMP pretty fast like this.

I'd also like to add that I don't think anyone in particular has any shame in this.. its just a bit sad. The game failed early on and people moved on to UED. The average player age from 2002 to 2004 dropped 10+ years, suddenly. Likewise, following custom content and community balance would be shaped after this teen and pre-teen age group.
One of the strongest and largest development groups from late 2003 and through 2004 onward was Alpha that would release numerous mutators, mods, maps. The entire initiative was built almost entirely out of ~12-14 yearold players. Clearly very smart players, but age is what it is and it would go on to determine their priorities and content.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby ShadowRunner » 02 Oct 2014, 22:41


It's not true to say Deja is the only coder.

Face has been at it since he released DXMP_Towers in 2012 and released disclosure mod in 2012.

Getting people to work together is only half the battle, people have unexpected life changes and without funding and support for the team a project is risky.

I think we are in the habit of whining about coders, but the reality is that a lot has been done in recent years. Poor is constantly improving the AI that RG made. Face released a few things and also Ken, he hosted a lot of classic augs too sometimes with default maps. Alex has done a lot of course as well and the masterserver work is awesome.

One central project would be great, but also the diversity of many projects is great too. Crowdfunding is definitely an option.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby anax » 02 Oct 2014, 22:52


Bamz0rz i think did post about coders and coding at some point on HK forum and possibly elsewhere but i don't remember anything coming out of it. I think since a year or so ago he too lost interest.
As soon as the Gamespy metabolic end product went down it felt like a huge drop in player numbers, even though it was already probably the smallest playerbase of any "surviving" ancient FPS, it was detectable for us inside the circle of players.

I'm ready to map and help organize anything we can possibly organize, but without getting new blood that's going to be fruitless.
The 'Netrunner' guy was talking about some way of advertising DXMP or getting new players, either one of those things as i recall, if you're reading this, i can create promotional material, like images and footage, if that helps at all.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Poor » 03 Oct 2014, 08:03


Tell me what modders can do, Ken. I was under the impression that miniMTL fixed the FPS abuse and added important features such as spectating and simplified UI. The past few years we got plenty of great maps from Chin, Anax, Cheese, and others. Is it still lacking something?


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby Hey » 03 Oct 2014, 13:01


Poor wrote:I was under the impression that miniMTL fixed the FPS abuse?


Its fixed the FPS abuse, but there seems to be problems with people who have packetloss/high ping. That and it feels like the movement is different in some way, not sure if it was just my PC speeding up the game before without my knowledge.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby synthetic » 03 Oct 2014, 20:50


IRT Shadow

Face is not modding for DXMP, he is modding out of dxmp, practically UED modder and not DXMP modder. I don't remember him contributing to DXMP in any particular way, and once he is finished with his project it wont affect the original game.


IRT Poor:


judging by what Dejavu and Alex have told me, entire weapons class would have to be recoded from scratch, and Deja was quite blunt about not having interest in wasting time on that alone. Allan has spent a lot of time working on that, but it is a bit unclear as to whether he is able to fix the core issues with the weapon timings. He has done a tremendous amount of work though that hopefully will be useful to this game one day.

Netcode likely needs work but is lesser priority considering all the other vulnerabilities. Deja claims to have improved it for miniMTL but I don't think leaving that to only one single coder leads to reliable results without peer reviewing.

We'd need a patch to automate masterserver entries AND fix common issues that Kentie's cannot achieve without DXMP specific guide (primarily the cache folder permission issues and perhaps something else that ive forgotten. dont remember off top of my head if it fixed multiple cores issue).

speedhacking is currently fixed by using a very robust method that causes issues to some minority of players but by simple logics is a brute fix to something that should be fixed through less "intrusive(?)" means. miniMTL also broke demorecs which is a huge no-no for online shooter community that needs to reliably establish fair play.

And aside perhaps something obvious that Im forgetting here, we're only just getting to a point where multiplayer could use some features such as game types, actually working functions currently scattered across many mutators that may or may not work together, and so forth.

And then the biggest question of it all is whether to do all that work on UE1 or 2.5 or something else. I am absolutely convinced that any one person attempting to port game over to another engine alone will fail. At best the top results will be something that you can perhaps join and shoot gun in once or twice. I think multiplayer gamers are looking for a bit more than that.

edit: on the note of maps

chindemoc is easily our most experienced mapper still active in game, unfortunately he has very little experience playing the actual DXMP and 99% of his maps are exclusively for mods such as 0a. DXMP maps require a bit more 3-dimensional movement and scaling due to Speed Enhancement, and has lot more emphasis on strategic pickup locations, where typical 0a only has medkit as one such pickup.
Anax without a doubt is a DXMP mapper but building a good map takes time and practice as we all know. So far best new generation maps have been by Sike, Ste.


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Re: A Slight Revision: IMPORTANT for DXMP. Rant 2 - Postby synthetic » 04 Oct 2014, 18:33


I guess in a nutshell my point is that to properly mod, map for DXMP you should like the game, or at the very least have some experience in it. For example, if we wanted to put together strong modding team to improve/fix DXMP, it has to have significant number of individuals that like the game, or there won't be much progress.

Coding wise a person with no experience can produce sufficient results when it comes to most all elements, but it is difficult to motivate or even explain game to such a player. Mapping wise its hopeless case.. a player with no experience can theoretically copy existing maps pathing and maybe even pickup placement wise, but I suspect its not going to come along too well when a mapper just doesnt know what he is mapping for. Again, in theory, plenty test-playing could provide feedback to shape the map into something good, but it means lot of work for mapper and testers both. More work than when mapper knew what he was mapping for.

Those two things covered-said, the modders/coders that know DXMP can be counted on one hand. Cozmo and Anax are the more experienced ones, with DejaVu no longer part of DXMP scene. I know Shadowrunner and ChinDemoc have played DXMP, but I also know that they haven't really gotten very far there. I've tried to help, but seems my help has not been wanted. Cant force anyone to play what they dont want to play. So in the end it comes down to working with who actually like the original DXMP and *feel* like improving it. Thats not very lot of people. The rest of you.. go play with your friends, even if its just 2-3 of us. Host passworded server if youd like.. doesnt matter. Least you get the feel of the game.
Remember that competitive online game *always* has assholes - that is why we have server admins and a choice between servers. Players want to play in cheat server, they can do so. Players want to play in ego-dripping epeen servers, they can do so. Noob servers? - go right ahead. Healthy game has those options, but when we talk about *you* learning to play DXMP, you can create your own server for your own friends.

I've said it couple times but I'll say it again: it is true that there are coding elements to DXMP where experience with specific game doesn't necessarily matter beyond plain motivation. If we talk about patching the executable, it has little to do with atdm strength. When we talk about improvements to the actual gametypes, it starts to matter.




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