Just when i wanted to host some TR and have fun, I realized the master server is down, and so I went onto twitter and Gamespy's official website only to find out some seriously disturbing news.
Gamespy as much loved or hated is going to be shut down completely. What this means is that all games that no longer receive regular patches and do rely on Gamespy master servers will never see online action again.
This perfectly explains why Swat 4 server went down, it wasn't gamespy, it was big corps who force-shut it and the fragmented console business. In a way, the entire PC gaming world as we know it is being destroyed.
Recently Bohemia Interactive announced that Arma 3 will be Steam Exclusive, simply put, Steam offers similar services Gamespy did, and in fact it's the only credible PC gaming support left out there.
The future developers will be forced to either use Steam, similar services or build their own, otherwise use console support only...
I won't describe anything further, refer to original and official links for more information.
Gamespy says goodbye - http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/122/1227460p1.html
Gamespy accuses Microsoft's Live service of corrupting PC gaming and purposely destroying it - http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/122/1223378p1.html
Gamespy examining feature cutting from games - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/sim-city-5/1224978p1.html
Gamespy's take on War Z, the Day Z's 'clone' - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1226980p1.html
Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide
Thats quite dramatic news really, a lot of games use gamespy.
Although, if the game runs on the unreal engine, i know it is possible to mod it.
Lt_Col WIZ, VC, MiD (Ret)
Exactly.
Can you help get The Regiment modded so that we bypass the Gamespy server check and use a custom port for custom games then bring the game back to life?
Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide
I cannot
I know next to nothing about game codes, I just know that such a mod has been made for Rvs, should the need arise.
Lt_Col WIZ, VC, MiD (Ret)
Great so Steam is the new medium for which all game developers will now use.
SAS_Capt_Sniper
Head of Recruitment & Tactical Training
GCHQ - 22nd SAS Elite Virtual Regiment
Oh dear, this isn't good. I mean, nothing against Gabe or Steam, but we can't just have THE reliable PC game support provider. Time for the underdogs to go big, we need more competition on the PC, dev support market. Granted, they'll need to get their belongings together if they're going to try to fill in GameSpy's shoes. I hope they can do it, for the sake of the PC gaming community.
As for the discontinued online experience, well, how's does Hamachi look as a viable alternative now, eh Maven?
Well, as a software developer myself, I can say that entering an ecosystem such as Gamespy or Steam can be beneficial because it brings clients in exchange for lower earnings. However, what is really bad about this type of business is reliance, what if Steam gets dropped off like Gamespy?
The first signal - Steam adds support for Macs, and also added support for Linux. The next step? Other platforms and eventually consoles will start to dominate because of lower piracy levels and higher revenue due to overpriced products and hype that still sells by millions.
Another bad thing is, Steam's architecture. It forces developers to build upon it in a way porting their games to other ecosystems or OS'es other than those supported than Steam take a lot of effort, and in a rapidly evolving gaming industry there's no time to lose or extra money to spend on multi os supports.
Steam is good. Reliance on it, I don't think so.
With PC sales dropping sharply followed by laptops and netbooks, developers are abandoning the industry for easy-cash grabs such as App Store, or Android Market where you can make an fart app and earn 500k a year. It's sad, very sad for the gamers.
About hamachi, I tried it. The tool is actually very good for off-the-radar game sessions you can enjoy with friends without intruders. But, there's a problem, some games don't support necessary features. For example, The Regiment game crashes once you click on Internet tab, and I'm not sure there's a direct ip button either...
Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide
Hmm, I was under the impression that Hamachi emulates a Local Area Connection. Therefore, we could use the LAN tab instead of the Internet one.
I'm afraid gaming has reached its adolescence: it now wants to become independent and, as a consequence, distances itself from its parent: the PC.
While I don't expect a full shutdown of PC support, we'll probably be seeing a decrease (from slight to moderate) in major game titles for the PC. Still, look at the bright side, we probably might get a larger share of well designed games from the indie industry, as well as the rekindling in popularity of some good old games. Out of all of the potential held by the indie developers, the PC might get a new set of grand, more competent game providers.
As for piracy, piracy is where the interest is, so we can expect those console piracy rates to rise. Much to the dismay of the console developers, that is.
From my experience Hamachi can not fully emulate a LAN. The LAN-browser of most games don't work (probably some broadcast issue). So you can't "see" the server and need to connect via direct IP. If the game doesn't offer this option, it's not possible to play via Hamachi.
Besides that Hamachi can not be used for public sessions (at least not without additional effort). Similar tools which allow that are for example tunngle and GameRanger.
A general problem of these tools is that they run the game in LAN mode. The network configuration for LAN gameplay of most games is slightly different from Internet configuration, simply because one can expect much lower ping-latencies in a local network. But in fact you are still playing via internet and you have pretty high pings. It's like setting up a race car for good weather and then driving in the rain.
For example is Swat4 via Hamachi just awful. A ping of 50 feels worse than an Internet server with ping 150: frequent, huge lags.