General vs. MP

[Mr.BoDean]

 First off, I want to say what an incredible resource this site is for the OFP community!   I have learned massive amounts of info here regarding editing. I do have one sore spot, though. There seems to be a real separation between the General Editing  board and the MP board . If a person asks a Q on the General board and barely mentions the words "Multiplayer" or "MP"  ....whoosh.... u are banished to the land of MP  ... a place which gets MUCH less traffic (and answers) than the general board. A post on the general board is usually answered in hours, if not minutes. A MP post can take several days , if it is ever answered. That can be frustrating if you're in the midst of editing.
    I realize that the people answering Q's are volunteering their personal time. For that, I am very grateful.  Is it just that there aren't that many people knowledgeable in the techniques of MP editing or is there a SP bias going on here?  From my viewpoint, MP is much harder to edit and control things happening because there are more variables involved  ...(no. of players , human leader, AI leader, etc.).
      I just look at creating a MP mission so that it could be played in either SP or MP mode. Therefore, many times the questions are relevant to both boards. It is, after all, called the GENERAL board and not the SINGLE PLAYER board.  Speaking to some other MP mission makers, I don't feel I'm alone here.
    Also , would you not say there are plenty of people who regularly visit only one or two sections of the Forum? I only ask that because I notice how much it is frowned upon to link to a thread on another board.

   At any rate, this site has so many helpful sections and knowledgeable people . I would have given up editing any missions in OFP if it were not for this site.

                                                            Thanks ....Mr.B  

[deaddog]

Of course there is a SP mission bias.  For one thing, how many of us have more than one computer to test MP missions on (I do)?  But, BIS requires me to purchase TWO copies of the game just so I can TEST mp missions without FADE kicking in.  I did not but two copies so I can't really test MP missions completely without the help of someone else.

And you are also right concerning the special issues with MP games.  It can be a downright pain in the ass to create scripted mp missions.  Even the simplest things require extra work.

I've found that playing MP missions against people I don't know is really not very fun.  It's great to poke fun at your friends when you just blasted them with a RPG  ;D , but try that with a stranger and you're asking for trouble.  So basically, I just avoid MP missions altogether anymore.

And as far as the MP forum is concerned, the best reason for it to exist is to handle the tons of respawn questions.  If folks would just READ THE TUTORIALS, there wouldn't need to be so many respawn questions.  Those tutes are pretty damn good    Please use them.  (that's directed at everyone, not you Mr.BoDean)  ;D

[Mr.BoDean]

Thanks , deaddog .  

  I agree about the tutorials , and whnever possible have downloaded and printed them . ...as evidenced by the huge pile of stapled sheets on my desk!       ;D

   I ,too only have 1 PC to test MP missions ....that's what GameSpy is for .  I prefer Coops for OFP and RES , so I'm still playing against the AI , just that I am teaming with REAL people. Yeah, since it can be tough to fill a coop room sometimes, it's good to play a mission where the AI can be useful and not just needed to be turned off!    I didn't realize how differently the game sees AI , server player and client players and why some commands just don't work the same for all ...human or not.  Guess I'd need to be a programming whiz at BIS to know that.  :-\    :hmm:

   I'm really kind of surprised how many people would rather play by themselves than with others in a game so perfect for MP format. I mean, isn't playing with our PC's all night anti-social enough WITH  others online, much less alone!?  :wow:   :hmm:   :tomato:  Besides, after spending weeks and months creating the perfect mission , what better, faster way to share it with tons of people than MP?  :cheers:
 
   Ever heard of BlackOpHALO  ?    I remember when that came out for 1.46  ....it was so new and good that everyone wanted to play it and some still do. Word spreads fast in MP.  

 Anyways , just my 2.5 cents .      :beat:

[Black_Feather]

We move topics to MP editing from general because there's a lot of differences, if your question is multi player specific like respawning post it in MP editing but if its about relevent to Mp & Sp (detecting if a units dead or something) put it in general.

MP Editing does seem to be a lower traffic board but that means your question will still be on the first page after a couple of days, if we left it in general editing it would get knocked down to page 2 quickly and probably wouldn't be seen by most people. Also moving topics helps when people do a search on the forum, if they know a question is in MP editing there's no need to search the other forums. Hope that helps.

[Kaliyuga]

 Black_Feather pretty much summed it up...


 There are people who only visit certain boards of the forums and aren't here on a daily basis, often these are some of the more knowledgable veterans as well...

 I would agree that the traffic on the MP board is alot slower, heck I've been coming to the forums on an almost daily basis for the last couple years and I can honesty tell you that I've never even been in there  

  Now once I get my Cable connection in the next week or two that may all change  ;D

 In the end though we're just keeping things in their place (from a Moderator's standpoint)

 At least when a topic is moved to another board a redirection topic is posted as well with a link....  so if the topics subject line makes the problem readily apparent you may get some answers just from that..

:cheers: