Taps for Multiplayer

[Vasco 3]

I downloaded the ROF demo so I could possibly fly with you guys and my old buddies from Red Baron, but I get stutters and stall all over the place when flying offline. Have FPS from 25 to 60 but it isn't as smooth as OFF then it just plane stops for a second or two. Don't no what to tell you guys, I'll keep trying to tweak it, but if I can't fix it its a no go and I will pass on buying the actual game. By the way my system should run it fine according to what I have read.

 

Beard

 

Beard,

 

 

I've PM'd you the Black Haze TS3 details. Jump on and grab me and I'll talk you through the settings. Some of them are designed with very powerful systems in mind and give a real performance hit for not much extra eye candy.

 

 

 

Vasco

[Burning Beard 14]

Thanks Vasco,

 

I'll try to catch you. By the way Hawkeye and Pit Bull are from my old RB Squadron. Recognize some of the other names too.

 

Beard

[themightysrc 5]

Well, I've finally got a more powerful PC, so I might download RoF again to see if it's worth running, but I'm still fairly dubious about the online necessity and the business model. File this one under 'maybe', particularly if P4 is as gorgeous as it promises to be. Why would it look less good in MP?

[Deadmeat1971 0]

I have just loaded OFF Phase 3 again. My friend and his dad are in the process of playing multiplaying and we will be using the 'old' patch that works still (which is v.1.30c) plus the OFF Essential Multiplaying Files installed which you kind folks have put together. My question is that there's any other good folks still playing OFF at all anymore here. I'm just curious. By the way, we are using Windows 7 operating systems which seems to work great by tweaking a few things...

[Winston DoRight 3]

Sorry Deadmeat, multiplayer has been confirmed dead in this sim. It was wonderful while it lasted but interest has faded away plus the old Microsoft multiplayer engine cannot handle the improvements that the OFF team have put into this game, not to mention other multiplayer issues that exist in OFF.

 

Still it's the best single player WW1 sim ever, and Phase 4 might add a new dimension to that if and when it ever gets released.

 

For multiplayer I suggest you download Rise of Flight. The full version is free now with 2 aircraft to fly, you'll have to buy other aircraft as you see fit. It works very well in multiplayer and many squadrons currently fly it and are always looking for new members. I've had my eye on Phase 4 for the last 1-1/2 years. If it gets released and people here report that multiplayer still works, and some people here want to try it again, I'll buy it and give it a go again. But I'm not holding my breath anymore!

[Deadmeat1971 0]

Sorry Deadmeat, multiplayer has been confirmed dead in this sim. It was wonderful while it lasted but interest has faded away plus the old Microsoft multiplayer engine cannot handle the improvements that the OFF team have put into this game, not to mention other multiplayer issues that exist in OFF.

 

Still it's the best single player WW1 sim ever, and Phase 4 might add a new dimension to that if and when it ever gets released.

 

For multiplayer I suggest you download Rise of Flight. The full version is free now with 2 aircraft to fly, you'll have to buy other aircraft as you see fit. It works very well in multiplayer and many squadrons currently fly it and are always looking for new members. I've had my eye on Phase 4 for the last 1-1/2 years. If it gets released and people here report that multiplayer still works, and some people here want to try it again, I'll buy it and give it a go again. But I'm not holding my breath anymore!

 

 

Thanks for you response. It's a shame it has faded away... I have been out of the loop for so long (busy travelling for work and such) that I was still curious the playability for this game. My friend and I had played it last night for a short time other than the fact his gamepad was giving him trouble...

 

I have thought about Rise of Flight but I think my computer isn't faster enough to play it---I can't play "Cliffs of Dover" either.

 

Anyway, I was glad I have kept this old patch for OFF anyway, which was version 1.30c, and I was wondering if some of you had this version still to play. Oh well, thanks for the short fun with you guys. Take care.

[swetye 0]

Figured I would jump in on this thread...just to express what I have been thinking....First let me say that there are so many different sims out now ,not just flight sims, and it is difficult to keep up all of them. They all have good things about them and all have shortcomings in some ways...I have tried to support the ones I have chosen to purchase and give them all a fair shake...Recently I have decided to work with the old CFS1.....has many shortcomings but I still enjoy it even though it may not be the most realistic.I am pretty well frustrated with the PC gaming industry in general.... Updates and patches every time you turn around...New expansions to pay for.....individual aircraft to pay for....I even see some that you purchase an entire sim and get one aircraft to work with...then before you have even really worked with it they want you to buy an expansion or some hyped up new development....I like to support the companies but I feel the way the sims are marketed is a rip off......I will still work with the sims I have but only as they are right now....If I was filthy rich I might consider constantly paying over and over.....it is just out of the question for me though....I was flying OFF last night just to get some screen shots....no patches updates or anything extra.....worked really good and my frame rates were good for a change....think I will fly it some more...have plenty of aircraft to fly to...Have not done much multiplayer for a while...kind of miss it..fun to fly with groups and have the extra interaction with others...

Edited February 26, 2012 by swetye

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I don't know if I agree that multiplayer is permanently dead. I agree that it is pretty much dead in P3, but I still hold out hope for P4. Chances are, there will be a lot of renewed interest in multiplayer after P4 comes out and the reviews are in. How long that interest lasts is another story.

[von Baur 54]

The problem with OFF-MP wasn't in the community, Herr Prop-Wasche (not that I'm suggesting that you're suggesting that it was), nor in OFF per se. It was, for me at least, in the way that the CFS-3 multiplayer engine interacted with the additional information that OFF presented it. It simply wasn't up to the task. Not that it was a complete bust...it worked fine as long as the enemy planes were piloted by AI. But any time you encountered an opposing aircraft flown by a human you were in store for all kinds of wierd occurances.

 

No! I take that back. My personal experiences can be reduced to three problems that I can recall:

 

1.) Invisible aircraft. Your enemy could see you and shoot you and you would take damage, but you couldn't see him to fight back or even know where he was to try to escape. And (again, if I remember correctly) he didn't even show up on the TAC. Not a lot of fun to be taken apart and not be able to defend yourself because you don't know where the attack is coming from. And even when you're the one who can see your opponent, it's a hollow victory to defeat a blind enemy. Rather makes the experience a collosal waste of time. Admittedly, this was the rarest of the three.

 

2.) Human-crewed aircraft flying in directions other than where their noses pointed. And I'm not talking about tight turns, sideslips or tail stalls. I'm talking about aircraft moving up to 90*s off the logitudinal axis for sustained (minutes at a time) periods. When you got close enough you could even see the exhaust smoke moving straight away from the bottom. I think there were a few times the planes would even fly backwards, but I won't swear to it. This was the most common situation and pretty much guaranteed to happen if you were online for more than a few minutes.

 

3.) Lag. Check that..INCREDIBLE lag!!! As often as not the aircraft you were chasing and occassionally putting holes in from his 5:00-7:00 was the same one shooting holes in you from your 5:00-7:00.

 

And all of these happened too often to too many people against too many people for it to be connection-related. Plus, when we all flew together against only AI none of these things happened. Not even once that I can remember (although the AI enemy would stutter frequently, making it appear that there were two flashing planes instead of one steady one). But if someone switched sides, even in the same session, it would pop right back up.

 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of the weekends I spent flying the Vasco's Volunteers missions. He did a lot of work putting them together (as did several others trying to sort out various other issues with multiplayer) in such a way that one could almost ignore the fact that all your enemies were AI. And with the AI in OFF, that's no easy kill. But it's still not the same as trying to outwit a human being, and at some point it becomes perennial playoff-contending pros taking on a good, but not top, college team. That's why I lost interest. And unless the dev team overhauls mp the way they have so much else I don't see it getting any better; P4, P5, or P100.

 

Sorry to be a downer on the subject, guys, but I must be honest about my opinion. I'm guessing it's not mine alone.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Fair points, von B. I didn't particpate enogh to be aware of the problems that you mentioned. Unfortunately, they sound like they are CFS3 engine related and so probably not much can be done about them by the OFF team--at least until they find a new game engine or become fantastically wealthy enough to buy one of their own!

[Winston DoRight 3]

von Baur, as per your items 1-3 above:

 

Item 1: I fixed all the invisible aircraft with the assistance of Stumpjumper and made the files available to all who played MP with us. The OFF developers never acknowledged or returned our emails about this.

 

Item2: This problem still exists and is related to the low speeds these aircraft fly at and the increased level of detail of the OFF aircraft. This phenomena is absent from the original CFS3 and it's expansions because the WW2 aircraft fly much faster and the level of detail of the aircraft is much, much lower than the OFF models.

 

Item3: Lag is pretty much completely eliminated by disabling virus programs while running OFF in multiplayer, especially on the host machine. Unfortunately most people had quit showing up for MP sessions by the time we discovered this.

 

Developer solution 1: Too bad the OFF devs won't investigate the online code to see if it could be improved upon. If a few multiplayer issues could be fixed in the code, they would certainly put Rise of Flight out of business and OFF would be the definative WW1 sim online as well as single player. All OFF developers would then become rich and retire to their own private island in the South Pacific.

 

Developer solution 2: Give us aircraft models with drastically reduced levels of detail that are either manually or automatically selected for flight when flying multiplayer. How hard could this be?

[von Baur 54]

It's good to hear that the lag and invisibility problems have been resolved. But as I mentioned, the most prevalent problem with opposing humans in multiplayer was (and apparently still is) the aspect issue. That alone makes it barely playable with four or fewer players and unplayable if you have much more than that. While I've never flown RoF, I agree that OFF with a solid mp side would be the complete package we all want, and would probably knock RoF and any other WWI sim available or on the books out of the ring.

[sitting_duck 3]

Have been watching for the release of Phase 4. Will definatly pick it up, and am interrested in seeing how MP goes on it.

[sitting_duck 3]

lol...wow..almost 2 years since a post here!

 

am optimistic P4 is close to being released.  And as the dev's have always made it clear it was never their intention of making OFF a multiplayer game, doubt that much was done to improve on the issues that multiplayer had.   But am willing to put some time into it to see just how well it plays when it is released.  Probably won't be till after the holidays thou.

[von Baur 54]

Hit me up if you want someone to test MP out with you, daaawwwg....sorry, that should be duuuck.   

 

Nothing would please me more than to have full, and fully-functioning, multiplayer capability in this sim. No matter HOW many "P-"s it takes.

 

 

Wellll, there might be a few things.

[sitting_duck 3]

downloading it now VB.  Going to take a while to get everything set up....as I remeber it, the config settings in this are a bear.

 

But if for no other reason than to be able to catch up with you guys, would love to try to see what MP looks like.  Hopefully the old HITR missions will still play on WOFF.

 

We have seveal options for TS.  We can use the ROF one (rub it in their noses....), and I have a server running.

[sitting_duck 3]

hmmmm.....unless I am missing something,,,,I don't think we can play this in MP.  There is no executable that I can find, and when I copied  the old cfs3mp.exe over from BHAH the game did not work........

[Hellshade 110]

Is it safe to kill /delete this topic, since multiplayer has been dead for at least 3.5 years and was never officially supported to begin with.    No posts in 3.5 years and no multiplayer to make new posts about.  Any moderators or anyone else opposed to this getting the axe?