T2 Multiplayer Beta Released

[Tos]

Again, the amount of work required to switch over to a different .exe would be prohibitive, to say the least. In addition to changing all the offsets, I'd have to basically throw out my IDA database for the Thief .exe (which contains function names and comments, and has been worked on continuously for the past year; it'd take me months to get up to speed with a new one) and start over.

It's possible that the differences between the .exes aren't large enough to break multiplayer, but I very much doubt it. You can certainly try applying those changes to the -400 byte version, but it may not work. The fact that the zeroes begin at a different location makes me think that all of the addresses are going to be slightly different in that one.

They're both the same .exe in reality though, they've just been unwrapped differently. They should be functionally identical, so I don't understand why you wouldn't want to use the supplied .exe. All of the patches you mentioned (the imagecfg affinity fix, widescreen, and ddfix) should be able to applied on top of T2 MP. I'm not sure why widescreen isn't working for some people, but I'm sure we'll get to that bottom of that eventually.

I don't believe I included this in the documentation, but you don't even need to re-apply ddfix; you can add the line UseDDFix=True to the [General] section in ThiefMP.ini and it will load ddfix.dll instead of ddraw.dll at startup.

[Dainem]

@ tos: I have no idea how much time you spend working on the MP for Thief, but it was worth it. I can´t remember the last time when I was so excited to try something new.

I just completed "Equilibrium" together with Gecko. And before that we started the first Thief- Deathmatch in "Heretics and pagans". That was funny. When I was running out of arrows, I throw the light flares on him, and he died...

Some questions:
1. It´s not possible to re-use arrows. But water-arrows can be picked up. Is it possible to create a new kind of arrow which can be picked up like water arrows and fly just like normal broadheads?
2. Could you fix the bug in the chat menu that every nickname is the same? (it does not happen in the in-game-menu btw)
3. Let´s imagine I would create a real deathmatch- FM: can I create different starting points for every player?
4. Imagine an other modus: you have a big house with lots of loot. The player wins, who has stolen the most loot afer 10 minutes. Could this be possible?
5. You mentioned some issues in your readme: Do you think they can be solved?


Cheers and thank you very much for yur great work!

Dainem

P.S. here are my best screenshots:
http://www.bentraxx.de/thief/screens...tipl/t2mp.html

And a video mady by Gecko:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=beCqOhd1G88

[jtr7]

We have entered Thieves: The Multiplayer Age!

[Gecko]

And a video mady by Gecko:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=beCqOhd1G88

and a video with FM´s =)


http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqUdXoLs0U

[DrK]

Wow ! It even works with fms !? Fantastic !

Art of thievery is a must play

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Nice job Gecko! Way to show off the multiplayer

I can think of three great multiplayer experiences.

1.) Hammerite Deathmatch, which you showed in your video Gecko.
2.) ThiefKart by TypeRED.
3.) A "doom-like" FM.

I don't believe I included this in the documentation, but you don't even need to re-apply ddfix; you can add the line UseDDFix=True to the [General] section in ThiefMP.ini and it will load ddfix.dll instead of ddraw.dll at startup.

Nope, you didn't. Thanks for heads up.

I'm really not sure why the widescreen patch is only working for some people. I just tested again with the latest version of the widescreen patch (I think I had an older one before), and was again able to apply it without any problems at all onto the multiplayer .exe. Are you both using the latest version?

Hmmm... I'm using widescreen v6, on my laptop that has widescreen. I could try again, but I don't think it works. No biggies, as I switched to a newer ddfix (1.3.8) and can use the unsupported resolution I need.

[RavynousHunter]

Quick question: If I were to set the max players to 0, would it allow an infinite amount of players to join, or would it cause ThiefMP to go haywire?

[bikerdude]

Wow ! It even works with fms !? Fantastic !
Art of thievery is a must play

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqUdXoLs0U

Oh that is F***ing AWESOME -

One person could be in the control room talking to the other via skype/msn

b.

[RavynousHunter]

Methinks we ought to set up a ThiefMP public TeamSpeak server (considering Vent is really flaky).

[edit]
Who's up for some Life of the Party action? I think someone other than I should host, as I'm behind a router, and that can cause all sorts of problems.

[jtr7]

It's really funny to see all those taffers just jumping around and crouching and trying out their weapons. It looks like a big celebration.
"Yay! We're here! We're all here! Look at us! Look at me! Look at you! Haha! You look funny! We look funny! How fun is this, eh?"

Wheeeee!

[Tos]

That's great. We actually didn't test too many FMs -- I think we did try Equilibrium, but didn't manage to finish it (or any other fan missions, for that matter). I'm glad to hear that you were able to.

1. It´s not possible to re-use arrows. But water-arrows can be picked up. Is it possible to create a new kind of arrow which can be picked up like water arrows and fly just like normal broadheads?

Water arrows can be picked up because their pickup object (the crystal) is separate from the actual water arrow projectile. If all other arrows were like that, this problem wouldn't exist.

It might be possible to do what you're suggesting, but you still wouldn't be able to pick up broadheads that were pre-placed on the map using the old object. You also wouldn't be able to retrieve broadheads that were fired into wood, since that will use the actual projectile object that cannot be picked up.

If the CollisionStick script for broadheads and rope arrows could be modified to change the object's networking category to hosted (but only for the real object, and not the local copies that appear on other player's machines) upon running, it might allow you to retrieve your own arrows at least. It wouldn't allow you to pick up pre-placed ones though.

2. Could you fix the bug in the chat menu that every nickname is the same? (it does not happen in the in-game-menu btw)

I'm not familiar with this one. Do you mean every player's name is shown as being the same in the top left when they're chatting? Can you reproduce this bug?

We noticed some odd problems with the player names during testing, but they only happened infrequently and were thus fairly difficult to track down. If you can figure out how to cause it though, I might be able to fix it.

3. Let´s imagine I would create a real deathmatch- FM: can I create different starting points for every player?

I believe that the engine is limited to a single starting point for each map, and T2 MP will always respawn dead players at that point. There may be some sort of elaborate trickery you can do with DromEd to get different starting points though -- I don't know.

4. Imagine an other modus: you have a big house with lots of loot. The player wins, who has stolen the most loot afer 10 minutes. Could this be possible?

Yes, that should be possible. It'd probably require having different starting points for each player though, or everyone would end up killing each other over and over again after the game starts.

5. You mentioned some issues in your readme: Do you think they can be solved?

I'm still working on the project, so I'm sure some of them will be eventually. You can expect an update to fix some text rendering issues and add an option to disable player vs. player damage, if nothing else in the near term.

Quick question: If I were to set the max players to 0, would it allow an infinite amount of players to join, or would it cause ThiefMP to go haywire?

My guess would be that it would prevent anyone from joining. I'm fairly sure that the game will crash with more than 8 players anyways, since one of the arrays that holds player object data is only large enough for that many. If this is the only thing preventing 8+ players from working, I might be able to increase the size in the future.

Support for 8 players is actually just theoretical at the moment, anyways. The game was originally hard coded to only allow up to 4 players to connect (like SS2), but I changed it to 8 since I didn't find anything in the code to suggest that that wouldn't work. It's never been tested with more than 4 though, so we'll see how that works out once someone tries it.

(Are you changing this directly through the .ini, by the way? I didn't think you could select fewer than 2 through the interface.)

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Two things I want to mention. I noticed a strange bug related to water arrows. One time I fired a water arrow on one computer (not sure whether it was the host or not) but it froze in mid air and I could not pick it up. Now I understand why, as you explained that we cannot pick up our own arrows.

Second, one thing I've been thinking about for a long while is the ability to change your character model. I'm sure it must be possible. I noticed in dromed that by default there are like 4 "default avatars." I know this would be on the back burner for your "to do" list Tos, but it'd be awesome if you included this ability in the future one day, IF it is possible.

Oh, and see here, I answered your question about widescreen ver.

[bob_doe_nz]

I'm giggling like a small girl. That looks like fun.

[RavynousHunter]

Yeah, I was just peeking inside the ini and saw that, which prompted that little inquiry. I could only imagine a Thief session with like... 16 different taffers running around. The chaos that could potentially ensue would be horrendous, but funny as hell!! Have all the other people in LotP wait in the hallway outside Karras' office while one guy goes inside and jenks the plans; then his homies outside ambush the guards at the doors and cut em down in like... seconds. That would be... epic.

[jtr7]

Oh man, talk about an exploit! Have taffers standing at the spawn points for all the guards that appear when the blueprints are frobbed. I've already placed mines in those spots before.

[RavynousHunter]

OH EXPLOITABLE!!!

Sorry, it had to be done.

[Tos]

Two things I want to mention. I noticed a strange bug related to water arrows. One time I fired a water arrow on one computer (not sure whether it was the host or not) but it froze in mid air and I could not pick it up. Now I understand why, as you explained that we cannot pick up our own arrows.

Hmm, that bug has been around since day one. I hadn't seen it in a while though.

It may be being caused by a bug I inadvertently introduced into the build you're using now (184), and has already been fixed in the latest one. It will be in the next update. Funnily enough, I stumbled across the problem while implementing the option to disable player vs. player damage that you suggested. So, thanks.

Second, one thing I've been thinking about for a long while is the ability to change your character model. I'm sure it must be possible. I noticed in dromed that by default there are like 4 "default avatars." I know this would be on the back burner for your "to do" list Tos, but it'd be awesome if you included this ability in the future one day, IF it is possible.

That may be possible.

The game no longer uses those default avatar archetypes though -- T2 MP creates its own archetype (named MP Avatar) when the gamesys is loaded and uses that for all players. This was necessary to get multiplayer working with an unmodified gamesys, but it unfortunately means that the avatar properties (including the model used) are now hard coded and can't be changed with DromEd. I might be able to add a few more archetypes with different models, but it won't be user-editable.

Oh, and see here, I answered your question about widescreen ver.

I'm sending you a PM about this. Hopefully we can figure out what's wrong...

[clearing]

and a video with FM´s =)


http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqUdXoLs0U

Cool.

[Hiatus]

@Tos:

I've looked at both .400 and .445 .exes and I think they are practically identical (offsets are the same, I think) - only meaningful diff. is that .445 has something from (probably some function call - GetSystemInfo?) from 1FDAC6 to 1FDADD whereas .400 is zeroed there (no call). Could you check it out (what's at that offset)? Size difference is because sth is appended at the very end of .445 file (missing in .400). So I think manual edit/patcher should work for .400 as well (I'll try it out later). That means generic patcher is no problem.

[seventyfour]

One person could be in the control room talking to the other via skype/msn

b.

Isn't it possible to chat in-game?
I think I read about it in the readme...

[bikerdude]

Isn't it possible to chat in-game?
I think I read about it in the readme...

yes, but you have to tab back to the desktop, where as if you both players are talking via voice on skype/messenger its far better.

biker

[bikerdude]

I'm giggling like a small girl. That looks like fun.

then his homies outside ambush the guards at the doors and cut em down in like... seconds. That would be... epic.

LOLOL, classic ...

[sNeaksieGarrett]

No you don't, in-game text does work. (hit the letter t on your keyboard when in-game.) But yeah, voice would be easier.

[TTK12G3]

Should I post this in comm chat? You know.......just because. Yes glutton for punishment, I don't care, there are people in comm chat that do play thief. For those that might have missed this.

They'll all start crying about playing Thief at one point in the past and relating it to other life experiences.

[jtr7]

Naw. They'll deride us for still caring about it as much as we do.


Rock on!