GameRanger: a new place to play the Homeworld series online

[Scott Kevill]

Hi all, just thought I'd let you know about a new multiplayer network I've created for playing Homeworld, Homeworld Cataclysm and Homeworld 2 (and its demo) online called GameRanger.

Basically, GameRanger makes it quick and easy to play your friends online.

It has full lobby support for over 500 different games and demos (including the Homeworld series, of course), without the hassles and headaches that usually happen with network connections (eg. routers & firewalls).

I'm really excited to be releasing it, and hope it helps boost the Homeworld community by allowing people to play that were unable to until now due to problems with opening ports, etc. Or even just from the problems with the WON service. You should find this far simpler than Hamachi.

This is especially important with the recent news of Sierra shutting down the WON servers for Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm.

This is what you've been waiting for!

You can download it from the website in my sig.

[Kapyrna]

From what I can tell, this is limited to Mac OS only, so us Windows users unfortunately cannot take advantage of your development. Good to know, though.

Of note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameRanger
http://www.gameranger.com/games/

[Scott Kevill]

Kapyrna: http://www.GameRanger.com/about/press/64/

[Kapyrna]

Well then. Disregard my above post entirely.

[Elukka]

That's pretty nifty. Thanks!

Provided this works well, i think this should be stickied.

[Kapyrna]

Tested to work well and simply.

Only problem was a desynch on Elukka's end due to having a mod active at the time.

Apparently it creates a micro LAN, so you go through the LAN option in multiplayer.

Great work!

[Rusty]

I love you, Scott Kevill.

[Hiigaran_Vaygr]

Im sure gonna use this... =D

[ORCACommander]

screen shots of the GUI would be nice

[Scott Kevill]

Yeah, trouble with screenshots is they look kind of bad in the beginning if no one is online. A bit of a Catch-22.

[Kapyrna]

The GUI is actually quite navigable and simpler than Hamachi, no mucking about with ports and firewalls and all that junk. It's clean, and usable. Only issue I would see is if you expect Gold features at the Bronze level. I'll see if I can get a screen-cap in the morning, I'm bloody exhausted now.

[Sky_walker]

Yet another Hamachi? Hm... maybe otherwise: unpopular alternative for Hamachi.
When I came there was only 11 games going (All games selected) and 10 people online (IN WHOLE NETWORK).

Anyway: Someone wanted the screen?

[Elukka]

Sky_walker, it's really better than Hamachi. You don't need to muck about with networks, you don't have a limited amount of people you can have in the lobby at once and you can even host without messing around with router settings. It just works.

[Scott Kevill]

Sky_walker, it was only released a couple of days ago. It's natural that it will take a little time to build momentum.

However, even so, there were 199 users online in that screenshot, not 11. GameRanger does not use the "networks" that Hamachi does. The "Main Chat Rooms" are optional and default to being closed. The 11 people you see in that room all opened it specifically to chat or to check it out. You can play in any of the games listed above (or host your own obviously) regardless of whether you are in Main Chat Room or not. Most people just use the game rooms.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

[Sky_walker]

mmmm.... 199 users online? OOOHHH... right... bottom right text. Bleah, I feel blind. o_O
So... anyway: If someone want to try n00bish fight in HW1 - feel free to poke me (whatever here or on Hamachi).

[Malevol3nt]

Awesome! I've allways wanted to play online but I kept having problems.. maybe this will finally do the trick.

Time to find that cd and wipe the dust of it again..

[Starblade]

This is pretty awesome, thanks Scott.

[Malevol3nt]

I'm having problems with the software. Just clicked on the setup but I get connection problems:



I'm not behind any firewall or router..

Edit: You're forums are down aswell. So I'm guessing the whole server went down..?

[Kapyrna]

Looks like there was an update, try again.

[Malevol3nt]

Ye I'm still trying. It says "Connected.." for a brief second and then it just vanishes and I get that screen. Hmmm..

[monkguru]

I doubt this will replace hamachi. Ive tested it myself, and it does work well. The thing about it is no central server. Once the host is gone, so is the game and the server. No place to hang out and wait for players to join.

[Elukka]

How about the lobby that's right there?

[slashplayer]

This is exactly what I've been hoping for. Thanks GameRanger. The HW series is one of the best of all time...almost any syatem can play at least the first 2.

[marmoo]

game ranger looks good and i hear lots of positives about it but i agree with monk re loss of host and server but i will keep giving it ago...will still use hamachi along side...nice one Scott...thanks for sorting this out...anything that keeps HW alive is fine with me. thanks again.

I miss WON
I miss those mad Sunday afternoons playing 4v4's with SF, HG and OMO....i miss it...boo hoo

[monkguru]

hey Id be glad to hear some news about any games going on. but... I dont care to join a lobby that is for many other games not just the one im interested in playing.

BTW for some time ive been looking into other solutions.
granted game ranger works well in its ability to conn. but I dont see anyone willing to shell out 40 Bux a yr to get us a private chat room for our game.

Anyway there is other progs like wippen or I would prefer even better leaf from leafnetworks.com

If we would use this, I may even abandon my xfire program. As it looks very similar to many chat interfaces such as msn, aol aim ect.
Only anyone of your friends you can share conn, play games as a virtual lan ect.

I have not yet tested it as hamachi has been flakey and getting someone to spend the time is like pulling teeth. No one wants to do it. Ive asked a few that manage to get on once in a while.

Perhaps some of us should try leafnetworks get a few freinds together and play some friggin games. amen...end of rant.

[Moleman]

monk i do apoligize for my leave of absence on the hamachi servers but i seem to be locked out of them so i no longer have controll of them, i would be glad to help test out these networks if you would send me a pm

[Scott Kevill]

BTW for some time ive been looking into other solutions.
granted game ranger works well in its ability to conn. but I dont see anyone willing to shell out 40 Bux a yr to get us a private chat room for our game.

Umm no. That's what the Main Chat Rooms are for.

[Starblade]

We get a chat room while we're waiting to ready up anyway so it's not like it's a big deal unless the game manages to not have ingame chat.

[Keeper]

Wow... Epic win!

[23-down]

Your program sounds interesting

but

Is this little tool of yours secure? You said 0 about security before i'm downloading this i wanna know more about security. At the moment i know only hamachi and even there i woudn't join into a network full of unknown people.

You know what i mean. Maybe you can also introduce yourself. What were your previous projects, who are you working for\with etc. Call me paranoid but we know nothing about you. You could be a clever hacker for example.

But to stay serious i really want to know a little more about your security arrangements. It's an unknown software by an unknown provider. All i want to know - is it safe to use this software or will it wide open my doors (ports) etc. for everyone.

I guess there isn't much to find on my computer after all but i like security.

thanks for your understanding.

23-down

[Scott Kevill]

I already spoke to you online in GameRanger, but for the benefit of the others:

Is this little tool of yours secure? You said 0 about security before i'm downloading this i wanna know more about security. At the moment i know only hamachi and even there i woudn't join into a network full of unknown people.

GameRanger is actually safer than Hamachi, because it does not expose your entire computer to random people.

You know what i mean. Maybe you can also introduce yourself. What were your previous projects, who are you working for\with etc. Call me paranoid but we know nothing about you. You could be a clever hacker for example.

Previous projects.. heh.. Quiver, a 3D level editor for Quake on the Mac, and various incarnations of QuakeFinder, a server browser also for Quake on the Mac. GameRanger itself has been the standard Mac online gaming service since 1999.

But to stay serious i really want to know a little more about your security arrangements. It's an unknown software by an unknown provider. All i want to know - is it safe to use this software or will it wide open my doors (ports) etc. for everyone.

It's safe. My experience goes back a long way.

I guess there isn't much to find on my computer after all but i like security.

thanks for your understanding.

23-down

No problem.

[monkguru]

For game ranger to be half as effective, we need someone to set up a dedicated chat room for homeworld. Not a general chat room. Sorry but I dont see anyone offering to pay the 40 bux a yr or whatever it is. And what would the point be in sitting in a generalized chat room for may games that I dont even play. If we had our own chat room, it would prooly be empty, but if someone joined, Id know why they were there.
But I do note that hamachi seems flakey as of late. Seem I can atleast get on, but... perhaps we need new servers.

>>> looks @ moleman.

[Starblade]

If we had our own chat room, it would prooly be empty, but if someone joined, Id know why they were there.

We call that #homeworld around these parts.

[Moleman]

if new hamachi servers be needed, its new hamachi servers that you will get but i was reading that you can only have 16 memebers in the server at once thats why my first few could not be joined or have control retaken

[marmoo]

Happy New Year to one and all!

I think the problem I am having at the moment is the times i join up to Gameranger / Hamachi not many people are about to play HW I live in UK so my timezone is GMT and obviously we all play from around the world on different times

Perhaps a good idea would be for a little organisation on when people will be about to play. With WON it was just a case of sit in the lobby and wait for people to arrive. I see Monk's arguement in the fact that by going into general chat rooms we get mixed up with other players of other games - can a private lobby / chat room be created on gameranger for HW or is that dependant on a lobby host being logged on? question for Scott there i think

I am crap at organising...just ask my boss at work but if we can all get our heads together and work out the best time for when people will be playing i will make the effort to stay up late / get up early to corv ya butts off lol

[Scott Kevill]

Having a chat room lobby dedicated to Homeworld isn't going to magically bring players, like you say. I will be adding a different feature soon, however, that should help a lot.

Hamachi doesn't have a general lobby chat, last I checked. It shows the other users that are online in each network group, but you're going to be limited to 16 users max, and you'd have to send chat messages manually to each person. Unless it has some kind of group chat that I didn't see. There's no convenient way of indicating "intention to play".

[Sparki]

Fascinating.

I wonder about Master of Orion 2. When friends and I tried playing that in multiplayer, LAN, it was a major screw up - and for many others since the game did not evolve to the WinXp age (unless dosbox fixes the problem lol).
Finished rounds in the game needed some 60secs or even longer - which sucks hard.

I wonder if this online gameranger thing solves the issue.

back on topic. Good find there, m8.

I've totally rusted and I haven't even partook on Hamachii times either. Would be interesting to play HW:C online again tho

[marmoo]

I know that having a dedicted lobby is not going to magically bring players of HW but at least we would know why the people are there..I am sick of going into a Hamachi server which has been dedicated for HW and a player who has joined up to this server starts going on about how they only play HW2 - 'then bugger off to Gamespy lobby then which is still running'. All i want is a lobby where people who play HW and only HW join - i dont care if it is Hamachi, Gameranger or the lord baby Jesus who hosts it!

[Scott Kevill]

Fascinating.

I wonder about Master of Orion 2. When friends and I tried playing that in multiplayer, LAN, it was a major screw up - and for many others since the game did not evolve to the WinXp age (unless dosbox fixes the problem lol).
Finished rounds in the game needed some 60secs or even longer - which sucks hard.

I wonder if this online gameranger thing solves the issue.

GameRanger does force Master of Orion II to use TCP/IP instead of the usual IPX, so that may help improve things.

I know that having a dedicted lobby is not going to magically bring players of HW but at least we would know why the people are there..I am sick of going into a Hamachi server which has been dedicated for HW and a player who has joined up to this server starts going on about how they only play HW2 - 'then bugger off to Gamespy lobby then which is still running'. All i want is a lobby where people who play HW and only HW join - i dont care if it is Hamachi, Gameranger or the lord baby Jesus who hosts it!

Agreed, and these new changes I have planned should be an even better solution than that. Stay tuned.

[marmoo]

Cheers Scott

Sorry to rant but it has been over 2 months since i got a game in and i am going stir crazy here

You are very kind to get this all sorted for us and when completed i will be there

Thanks again

[monkguru]

Hamachi servers have been cleaned. Yes they only support 16 ppl each. The only time it goes past this is due to free 30 day trial period of premium license. Yes each hamachi network has a group window chat. As far as game ranger goes, I may as well delete all the hamachi networks, make a new one for myself and be the only one on it. :/

[coldspyderSLS]

just thought I'd ask, and I've been to gameranger for the past two weeks and have yet to run into any one from our pass games and forms.So I use Re-Veda but that can change to my current name, let me know so we can get busy

cold

[Littlebob]

I'm still on win2000

Ah well...

[coldspyderSLS]

hey, any one that has a mac and is looking for a player or player's to run on GR., please let me know when and time that you want a game



cold

[gravity]

thanks scott kevill ... it looks simple enuff to use..
but it is unlikely you will find ppl like on WON....
so we will have to organise a get-together ...say on these forums..
i reckon there is at least a 3 way ffa with marmoo and monk and probably more if we can organise a time on the weekend or something.. i just need an online game with some familiar faces

[marmoo]

i've seen foggy lurking about in the shadows so could be 2v2 Grav....ahh....the good old days lol

[coldspyderSLS]

Salute ....pats foot very hard and chills

[gravity]

if we all join gameranger... we have to add each other as friends so we know when others logon as GR tells you when friends logon. my GR nick is gravitypsa so use control F within GR to find me and add me as a friend ... as i type this i am adding ppl to my firend's list so i will know when u guys logon..

On another note... playing homeworld using gameranger may have a slight technical glitch.. i found when i was assigning delta formation to my scouts... i recieved an audio message from GR.... something to do with mics so apparently F5 is voicechat for silver and gold accounts ... However this is a minor detail since playing on GR is so reasonably easy..

I have had some games on GR and have recorded one or 2 just to see how it plays back but it seems to be incident free so far.

So my advice is ... buddy up, get some friends added in ur timezone and u can chat as if in lobby ... and start playing homeworld again... ima play a little later once Dunky gets home from work ... hf all

[marmoo]

my nickname on GR = marmoo
Account number = 318107

add me as friend guys so if we are on at same time we can have a gme

[marmoo]

guys

stop talking about HW and get on Gameranger and play this...me n gravity just had a game and it was superb...gameranger works like a dream and is easy to use...i take back all i moaned about it..

Grav lives in os and im in uk so we hook up about 7.30am to 8am GMT (for me) - i am going to get a few more of the old players from won to play (foggy - no excuses u must be there) so we can get some allied games going

Monkster---get on GR!

Scott, you are a legend