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Scott_Kevill

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#1 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
It makes me wonder why some developers shut down their online service and others keep it going.Edwardo212
There are a lot of reasons for why they do that (I may write a detailed article someday), but I agree it's a bad thing. That's actually one of my motivations for GameRanger. You should be able to continue playing a game you bought (even if it's only with friends) for as long as you want. There are over 500 games supported already, with more being added. Quite a few of them have had their built-in online services shut down and had nowhere to play until now.
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Scott_Kevill

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#2 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
Valve aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They are a business like any other. Of course Valve are going to push PC gaming as hard as they can. There's no way they'd be able to make as much money on the consoles because it would be impossible for them to do something like Steam there. On the PC, they can dominate digital distribution which is where they make their real money. The result of this is currently great for PC gaming, but let's not pretend they're only doing it because they love you. It's in their interest to make PC gaming viable for other developers and publishers, because they stand to profit the most from that.
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Scott_Kevill

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#3 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
hey take it easy, i just know him in real life is allbuddy_head
Hah, no problem. At least others know this now. :)
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Scott_Kevill

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#4 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts

[QUOTE="Chopmo81"]

Is it just me or does the matchmaking take ridiculously long most of the time?

Ondoval

Is about 10 times worse than in Dawn Of War, even taking in consideration that Gamespy arcade was not the shining part of the interface. But this Games For Windows Live takes the cr4p to a utterly new level of dumb.

There's actually a better alternative for DoW1 now. You can now use GameRanger instead of GameSpy. It supports over 500 other games as well, and sorts out router problems automatically.
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Scott_Kevill

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#5 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
buddy_head's informative post aside, here's some more info.

So, I want to know your feedback on GameRanger. IT's a program that allows for easy connection and hosting of games online. So I have 3 questions.

  1. Are there any critical flaws it has that I should be aware of? Like, will it seriously mess up my computer or cause instabilities?
  2. Will its programming leave me vulnerable to attack from outside sources?
  3. How well does it work (in terms of connectivity, any hitches?)

Thanks in advance GS community; you guys are fantastic!

Adam_the_Nerd
1. No. GameRanger does not install anything other than the application itself, and it does not even need to be installed as Admin. It's about as least-system-intrusive as you can get. There's no way it can make your system unstable. 2. No. It's actually safer than using other methods since it usually doesn't require you to keep ports open with firewalls and routers. VPN programs like Hamachi are far worse because they expose your whole computer to anyone's network you are in. 3. Extremely well. I get tons of excited feedback from people who've never been able to play certain games online before. Even though GameRanger has only been out on the PC since November 2008, it has been the standard online gaming service on the Mac since 1999. That makes it the longest running multiplayer online gaming service on any platform. That's a long time to perfect any potential issues. As well as getting more popular every week with PC gamers, PC game developers are already starting to add special support for GameRanger into their games.
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Scott_Kevill

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#6 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
It's a small comunity, according to Xfire, there are 305 guys playing it in a day, but it's a hardcore tactical game, so I think the number is quite good...rmfd341
That includes people playing it in single-player, so doesn't really give much of an indication by itself.
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Scott_Kevill

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#7 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
Hmm, if it is GfWL, it must have been a last minute decision. The box art here is just plain GfW, no Live, but the Amazon box art does include the Live. The recently released multiplayer demo did not use GfWL.
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Scott_Kevill

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#8 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
This developer does.
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#9 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts
Did you know that Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds had an expansion as well? Clone Campaigns. If you're wanting more of SWGB, that might be the way to go. For what it's worth, you can still play both Galactic Battlegrounds and Clone Campaigns online with GameRanger. If you're having trouble finding these games anywhere, and are still feeling nostalgic, the demo is still available (and can also be played online with GameRanger).
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#10 Scott_Kevill
Member since 2008 • 134 Posts

[QUOTE="vitriolboy"]

[QUOTE="Enosh88"]

god the blind fanboyism for steam is incredible around here

anyone remembers the issues steam had at the begining? anyone remembers last week for a lot of TW players and 2 weeks ago for a lot of dow2 players?

gfwl is fine, it works fine for me, the matchmaking is fast and I have no issues with it

Deihmos

But Steam now is a very good service, why start again with a duplicate service? Plus matchmaking is anything but fast. And having to use 2 services at once like in DOW2 is just silly

Steam only use in DOW 2 is DRM and the slow updating. When you think about it how many games actually use Steam for online gaming? Besides the first party games I can only think of one.

You're right that Steam does very little to help non-Valve games for the actual online-gaming part. There haven't really been any good solutions for this, and that's why I introduced GameRanger to the PC. GameRanger is a fast, lightweight client that's dead easy to use, and supports over 500 games already. In particular, there's a strong support for RTS games, which Steam doesn't really help with. One of the advantages of GameRanger is that it solves all the router and firewall problems that often get in the way of setting up multiplayer games (especially RTS). Everything about it was designed to make online gaming easier. It was only launched a few months ago, but the numbers are getting higher each week as new users tell their friends about it. Check it out.