Service Status Update - 05-11-99

[WPS]

Another opportunity to come-across with the low-down about what's-up at the Wireplay Labs:

Nothing startling about the fact that work is still ongoing with the Wireplay 3.0 client. Currently the aim is to have a limited beta-release (to Club Captains and other Wireplay officials) on or around 20th November, with the bug fixes being implemented quickly. This means that a full release should follow on very quickly.

In terms of Content, most of you will know by now that this week saw the release of Age Of Empires 2 (http://www.wireplay.co.uk/html/games/aoe2.htm), plus support for the Age Of Empire 2 Trial version (http://www.wireplay.co.uk/html/games/aoe2_trial.htm). The Trial version is available on the FTP site (a whopping 47Mb!) at ftp://ftp.wireplay.net/pub/downloads/AgeOfEmpires2/AoE2demo.exe . So far I've only seen one person who said he couldn't get it to work, which must be some kind of record low, so I guess the game is pretty stable (mumble, mumble, grudging respect to Microsoft). Obviously you can buy the game and get it delivered direct to your door from Gameplay (http://www.gameplay.com) http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif

Currently we're testing race-games, as we have long been searching for a really decent race game for the service. We've tested the Sega Rally 2 demo, and it works a treat. We've also looked at Re-Volt, which is, in my humble opinion, possibly the best race game ever written, and it looks like it will work on Wireplay too! Both games should be available from next week. We'll assess the full version of Sega Rally as soon as we get a copy. We unfortunately had to write off Homeworld, as it is well-and-truly tied into Sierras own service in the States...unless LACUTIS petition (http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001869.html) really takes off and has an effect http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif . Finally, we had a quick look at the GTA 2 demo, which unfortunately had no multiplayer code. The full version of GTA 2 has got multiplayer code, however, and is scheduled for test next week.

Down on the server farm, things have been busy for the server admin team. As well as concluding the startlingly brilliant Counterstrike deal (http://www.wireplay.co.uk/html/games/counterstrike.htm), the lads have been upgrading all existing Counterstrike BETA 3.1 servers to BETA 4 for a smooth transition tonight. Fingers crossed! http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif Also, they created three more Counterstrike servers, currently running BETA 3.1, ready to be switched to BETA 4 this evening. These were added to give us a total of four 12 player servers available to the Internet.

Bizarre request of the week was for the team to convert a TFC Clan server to 64 max player limit to host the "Who can build the biggest human tower" competition http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif

Apart from that we've been slugging away at the performance, doing a lot of comparitive testing and server-load balancing acts. All the results from this testing will directly effect our strategy for maintaining and upgrading the system.

That's it for this week, have a good weekend, and remember the 'Free The Homeworld WON' (http://ftp.sierrastudios.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002663.html) campaign!

WPS out ---


[This message has been edited by WPS (edited 05-11-1999).]

Someone hasn't brushed up on their UBB (o:

[WPS]

What do you mean http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/tongue.gif ?

[Spam]

that wasnt a bizarre request at all. By Saturday morning the WORLD will know the name WP and TFC and the phrase "daft sods".

BWAH........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Spam.

um.........erm who was the 1 person who had problems wit AoK,was it my blue screen,terras blue screen or the other minkee who names ive forgotne http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/teeth.gif

[Rug]

AOK is having big problems when loading the game.

Sometimes it will enter the setting up screen , then just crashes out, causing Wireplay to time out.

This problem occurs for everyone, and happens in about 2 out of 5 games. I'm not saying its your fault, but this does not happen on the zone, so maybe you could look into it.

It is also impossible (as far as i know), to create a restore game on Wireplay, the zone has special rooms set up for restoring games. As this is a huge new feature of AOK, it obviousely needs support on WP. The only way i can think is to put restore in as a different game. IE 'RESTORE AOK', so you effectively have it as a different game. This is because the multiplayer screen you link to is beyond the screen where you can select RESTORE games. Please look into it asap.

It would be nice to have an AOK chatroom, and if you could set up an AOK ladder aswell please, also asap.

Sando is the club captain for AOK, incase you didn't know.

Rug

------------------
Clan Organiser &
Co-captain of CHAOS

Age of Empires Clan Pages (http://www.btinternet.com/~daniel.kennedy/index.htm)
daniel.kennedy@btinternet.com

[Poltergeist2000]

why can't we play rogue spear (officially) on
wireplay yet?

ta

Brett

[baztd]

gosh !
WPS has life outside of Air Attack !
(is this allowed ?)
http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif

------------------
[Hawks]Baztd
My Web Site (http://members.aol.com/baztd/index.htm)

[WPS]

I'm hoping to get Rogue Spear up today or tomorrow, all being well.

[Terra99]

rugs statment above should be ignored as this is and has been being dealt with by myself on behalf os sando.

the restore game feature is being discussed with the relevant wp staff at the moment by myself.

rug...please can you ask your club captain about these problems as most if not all of them are being dealt with.
i know your not a patient type of guy... http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif but honest we are dealing with at as you type http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/wink.gif

------------------
WWW.BTINTERNET.COM/~mkterra/mkterra (http://www.btinternet.com/~mkterra/mkterra)
MKTERRA@BTINTERNET.COM
SWIFT, DEADLY ,SILENT

[Rug]

No it shouldn't Terra, i have the right to say whatever i like, and it should NEVER be ignored.

I was extremely polite, and unoffensive in the above post, and merely stated fact, and i think it's pathetic that you have reacted by saying it should be ignored. You have been extremely abusive to me over the last week, for simply stating fact and trying to get Wireplay to fulfil their duty, which has made me realise what sort of a person you really are.

Lets look at the facts shall we:

FACT: AOK has severe problems loading and often crashes whilst loading

CONCLUSION: The problem has NOT been fixed.

FACT: It is impossible to create a restore game on Wireplay.

CONCLUSION: It is still impossible to create a restore game on Wireplay.

FACT: We have no AOK chatroom or ladder.

CONSLUSION: We have no AOK chatroom or ladder.

Based on the above i really don't see why i should not make this heard to Wireplay, as they are the only ones who can solve these problems, whether it goes through, you, the club captain, or an official like me.

I am only impatient if someone fails to do something they are bound to do. I accept the chatroom, and restore game problems are not a priority, or atleast they needn't be, but the problems with loading the game should be a priority, so i don't feel this demonstrates impatience on my side, rather failure to act on Wireplays side.

Not to mention the fact that i was merely making wireplay/Gameplay aware of these problems, in an informative, polite way, now how is this wrong?

It would be nice if i could pass all problems onto you Terra, and feel assured that they would be fixed, sadly this is not the case, as i have no faith in your ability to solve problems like this QUICKLY,(note the emphasis on QUICKLY).

It's no good supporting a game, if it doesn't work properly, so maybe, WP/GP could look into this problem, and try and sort it out.

Rug

p.s A simple statement saying yes, this was being looked into, and that Wp were attempting to fix the problem was all i asked for,(aslong as it was true that is).

------------------
Clan Organiser &
Co-captain of 'The Jolly Rogers' - the all new AOK clan

AOK Club Website (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~psando/1.htm)
daniel.kennedy@btinternet.com

[WPS]

Rug - No we are not looking into the problem, and no we are not trying to fix it...

The problems for this failure to load correctly can be one of either two things - either the code is flawed, in which case there's absolutely nothing we can do about it (and therefore must decide whether to support the game or not - given the clamour for this game there was very little choice), or the problem is caused by incompatibilities in our current DirectPlay application (which contains legacy code from older clients and has some negative effects on some DirectPlay games - now this application is being replaced in Wireplay 3.0 by a much more up-to-date version of the DirectPlay application - this should leave to better peer-to-peer performance, and launch reliability. Any problems after that are Microsofts problems. Unfortunately, due to the development team working full belt on the 3.0 client, there is no chance that this will be fixed for the current client. However, 3.0 goes into open beta at the end of the month, and it is highly likely that AOE2 will be our primary test-case games for DirectPlay launching of peer-to-peer games. Hope that suits - practically speaking it's as good as we can do right now.

As for the save game feature, I wasn't aware it existed until you mentioned it. In reality we don't get the time to become intimately familiar with the games when we test them - you guys want them up as quickly as possible. I'll look into it, but until then I can't comment about whether it is possible or not. Remember that AOE2 is a Microsoft game, Zone is a Microsoft service - it's always possible that they have got some code that we don't and that isn't generally available. In any case I will look at it as soon as possible.

[[DSH]Bigun]

When Thief2 comes out are WP going to support its multiplay co-op option?