Comments on: What Big Game Houses Can Learn From Indie Game Teams?

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 09:52:20 +0000

It’s okay to comment… but unfortunately I don’t know what’s the deal with them. I suppose they are concentrated on doing BFME 2 rather than updating the (better ;) BFME 1.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 13:39:25 +0000

Hi, dont knw if this thread is still open, but any news on any kind of save of pause feature, so many times ive had to go in the middle of the game just for ten mins and its ruined! Thanks,
Max

By: Mac

Mac — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:13:54 +0000

I believe it to be network code inefficiencies. There were 3 of us playing BFME2 on a 100Mb switch in my basement yesterday on the same side vs 3 AI players. Everytime we hit the first major battle we would get an out of sync message. There were no modded game files or maps and nobody had any cheats enabled. This has to be addressed. I agree the game should pause and re-sync vs just disbanding. However, I also feel the game should have a pause and save game feature in multiplayer mode. Older games like AOM and WC3 both have this feature. I can’t imagine why they didn’t include this.

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:41:30 +0000

@Duncan: If somebody could answer that.

I must also point out that I don’t know the actual reason for out-of-sync. I just know it happens, and that’s irritating when it happens.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:55:51 +0000

Assuming that the Out of Sync condition is reached due to a timing mis-match, why can’t they correct it? They obviously have enough data to detect the offset, and know when the offset is affecting play. Why not implement a system to dynamically correct for offsets? If the games really do get un-synced, then the system should be able to pause, re-sync, and recover without disbanding the game. Ending just because of intermittent lag is a poor way to “recover” from a bad situation.

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:34:08 +0000

The idea of the out of sync system is to halt cheating, if one file is modified on one machine but not the other the game will go OOS. It’s an anticheat feature and it’s the most effective one.

Yes, that’s true in generaly, but not totally true in this EA’s case, because it happens pretty much randomly! Sometimes it happens just when the game is launched, sometimes after few minutes, sometimes not at all. It has also happened with friends (who I know that they aren’t cheating). It usually happens in player made maps (even when you play on the same side!).

By: TheGoodEvil

TheGoodEvil — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:28:56 +0000

The idea of the out of sync system is to halt cheating, if one file is modified on one machine but not the other the game will go OOS. It’s an anticheat feature and it’s the most effective one.

The problem with it is game mods alter files, yet there are no seperate lobbies for modded games, it’s also pretty eaasy to abuse the OOS system to force an OOS to avoid a loss which is what most OOS cases are.

Game modding is becoming easier because it adds life to games however it also gives people the tools to change files on a whem. change a file and forget which one you changed all you will do is go OOS and be forced to reinstall thus blaming the developer becuase “your game is buggy”.

OOS can also be caused by packet loss which Gamespy is notorious for which is why most RTS players dread seeing “powered by gamespy” on the box. Most gamespy lobbies that I’ve ever seen are just disgusting, unfinished, and useless. This is because gamespy has no rules for how thier netcode is used and how well put together an online service is.

OOS is the fault of developers for half-assing the netcode side, its the fault of the publisher for not instituting proper quality control, and if an outside service is used it’s partly their fault for not setting a standard.

TGE

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:06:12 +0000

That’s possible. And good that you decided to drop that protection. BFME has zero tolerance on cheating, and they have ‘report cheater’ system implement. And as they use centralized game finding system (through gamespy), it’s quite easy to block cheaters. Not sure how well they are doing, but the technology seems to be planned for that.

By: Ville

Ville — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:28:47 +0000

I’m just guessing, but it sounds like they’re checking whether the client player position is so far from the server position that they suspect it’s been moved by cheating. That goes to show that they haven’t tested the feature in the real world, as their network code can cause symptoms similar to cheating.

I was actually planning on something similar cheat protection for our new game, but decided to drop it because of this precise scenario.

By: Juuso - Game Producer

Juuso - Game Producer — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:35:10 +0000

The idea of out-of-sync, as I believe it to be, is (partially?) for copy protection measures. They mention that ‘it seems that somebody has modified the game, this game cannot continue’.

But I also believe that is not the real reason, the real reason is the problems with the network code (and perhaps *problems* with the cheat protection, also)