Multiplayer LAN?

[rdangela]

I can't wait for this game to come out! any news on having multiplayer Lan option?

[Proud Honest Dad]

The only thing I can say is that it's being advertised as multiplayer so I assume so :D

[Laptop]

I asked them about this. They said they would release more information about this closer to the release day.

[Alley Cat]

It'll be a requirement for me to purchase the HD version. I'm not going to buy this "upgrade" if I can't take it on the road. I'm completly fine with playing the old version on widescreen laptops, if that kind of thing isn't included in the new version.

[Stefan]

What I'd like to know about multiplayer LAN is : if I'm playing with my son at home on 2 computers, do we need to use 2 Steam accounts (and therefore pay 2 times for the game) ? Or will multiplayer LAN be enabled for single purchase of the game ?

[MS Ryz0n]

Originally posted by Stéfan:

What I'd like to know about multiplayer LAN is : if I'm playing with my son at home on 2 computers, do we need to use 2 Steam accounts (and therefore pay 2 times for the game) ? Or will multiplayer LAN be enabled for single purchase of the game ?

Technically even on the original it was supposed to be one copy per computer :p

Regarding LAN: The multiplayer is handled entirely through Steam. So, you will need to be connected to Steam in order to start a MP game. The games are P-P so if you're on a LAN environment you'll see pings of like 5, but the MP connectivity is through Steam.
A side note that is important (in recent light of some other games experiencing online requirements). If you wish to play campaign or single player skirmish - you may do so with STEAM in offline mode.

[Pwnna]

For those still on the old version, you can always get Age of Forgotten Empires, an unofficial expansion. They've included wide screen patch, you can play on LAN or hamachi (or any other VPN solutions, or direct internet if you want).

They also have ADDITIONAL civs, tech, units, and textures as well as balancing changes (cartography costs 0 and takes 0 time to research for example). They also have insanely good AIs compared to the original (Barbarian being the best in my experience as its macro is very good, micro could use some work but eh.)

[Stefan]

Originally posted by ulti no sound LINUX:

For those still on the old version, you can always get Age of Forgotten Empires, an unofficial expansion. They've included wide screen patch, you can play on LAN or hamachi (or any other VPN solutions, or direct internet if you want).

They also have ADDITIONAL civs, tech, units, and textures as well as balancing changes (cartography costs 0 and takes 0 time to research for example). They also have insanely good AIs compared to the original (Barbarian being the best in my experience as its macro is very good, micro could use some work but eh.)

Thank you, I didn't know about this mod. I tried to run AoE2 on my widescreen Windows 7 PC about 1 year ago and gave up mainly because of display problems. This Forgotten Empires stuff may be what I needed.

Back to the AoE2 HD version: thanks to MS Ryz0n for the reply. It's cool than single player will be enabled when offline. It would be even better if multiplayer LAN was enabled offline too! (though I understand the reason why it's not going to work like this...)

[Alley Cat]

Originally posted by MS Ryz0n:

Originally posted by Stéfan:

What I'd like to know about multiplayer LAN is : if I'm playing with my son at home on 2 computers, do we need to use 2 Steam accounts (and therefore pay 2 times for the game) ? Or will multiplayer LAN be enabled for single purchase of the game ?

Technically even on the original it was supposed to be one copy per computer :p

Regarding LAN: The multiplayer is handled entirely through Steam. So, you will need to be connected to Steam in order to start a MP game. The games are P-P so if you're on a LAN environment you'll see pings of like 5, but the MP connectivity is through Steam.
A side note that is important (in recent light of some other games experiencing online requirements). If you wish to play campaign or single player skirmish - you may do so with STEAM in offline mode.

Well as I mentioned above I guess than that I'll be staying with the old Age of Empires II. It's a pity producers can't update old games or create new games for the players, but feel the need to create these games for their platforms, business models. It seems impossible to get new, or updated LAN based games these days.
FYI, if you don't understand yet Steammultiplayer is equal to Online Multiplayer. LAN is Local Area Network. In Effect LAN means you CAN play it offline, automatically. There are steam MP's that can go offline, just saying. It just is almost unheard of anymore these days. Obviously doing an online version setting like that would mean any effects are not included in rankings/awards.

The fact that you can play online multiplayer games on lans, doesn't make them lan games. It just means, that the people Organising bigger LAN events are very skilled at keeping their venues connected to the internet. Smaller lan's often don't have as much need to keep online.

[MS Ryz0n]

Originally posted by Alley Cat:

Originally posted by MS Ryz0n:

Technically even on the original it was supposed to be one copy per computer :p

Regarding LAN: The multiplayer is handled entirely through Steam. So, you will need to be connected to Steam in order to start a MP game. The games are P-P so if you're on a LAN environment you'll see pings of like 5, but the MP connectivity is through Steam.
A side note that is important (in recent light of some other games experiencing online requirements). If you wish to play campaign or single player skirmish - you may do so with STEAM in offline mode.

Well as I mentioned above I guess than that I'll be staying with the old Age of Empires II. It's a pity producers can't update old games or create new games for the players, but feel the need to create these games for their platforms, business models. It seems impossible to get new, or updated LAN based games these days.
FYI, if you don't understand yet Steammultiplayer is equal to Online Multiplayer. LAN is Local Area Network. In Effect LAN means you CAN play it offline, automatically. There are steam MP's that can go offline, just saying. It just is almost unheard of anymore these days. Obviously doing an online version setting like that would mean any effects are not included in rankings/awards.

The fact that you can play online multiplayer games on lans, doesn't make them lan games. It just means, that the people Organising bigger LAN events are very skilled at keeping their venues connected to the internet. Smaller lan's often don't have as much need to keep online.

I'm the producer on this title.
The entire existence of the game here IS or the players because it was requested by the community.
With the prevalence of internet connectivity at this day and age, the need for offline LAN play just isn't there, when having some form of network connectivity can help make the experience better on the whole (friend invites, achievements, stats tracking, cloud saves, etc). As mentioned, your network performance on a LAN environment will be preferable due to low latency - and the traffic likely will stay in your local network once you're connected due to the router. By definition it makes it a LAN game after you're connected. But you need to be connected to steam to partake in multiplayer.
In terms of production value, spending time on the multiplayer experience through Steam was more beneficial to the end user than redoing an offline LAN environment for the rare circumstance people have LAN parties but can't connect to the internet.

[Trippy]

@MS Ryzon:

If i'm not wrong, connecting through steam but on the same lan would not make the game run on LAN.
My understanding is that despite being p2p, it still has to route through Steam, so network traffic would leave your network, go through a Steam server, and come back to your network, and not be limited to your own LAN. I may be wrong, but this is the behaviour i've observed with other steam games.

Also please remember that you're addressing an international audience, everyone won't always have an online internet connection all the time, but might have friends over for LAN.

Or, for example, in college, we could simply set up an ad-hoc network, which obviously wouldn't be connected to the internet, but would have much better performance than our flakey college WLAN (802.11g).

Or what if you're travelling with someone? In a train or plane for example? Or even a bus? After all, laptops have become very portable, and Windows 8 tablets exist too.

Also if i'm not wrong, in terms of production value, you've stripped out the LAN support that already existed...you've spent time and money doing that. How does that make sense?

I mean, see, you're allowing single player offline anyway, you just have to keep a LAN or Direct IP option enabled in offline mode. This wouldn't have stat tracking enabled. Steam is required for activation, multiplayer, purchase, etc so piracy isn't an issue. I don't see how you folks lose out on anything, but we certainly do.

After all, we're paying $15 to $20 for a 14 year old game. We at least deserve to get everything that the original game offered...and LAN was the soul of games like AoE and Halo. In fact, in the good old 90's, developers understoond the importance of LAN (and made great games) that they don't anymore (evidenced by the recent plethora of big-budget remakes).

Think about it, give players the original game at the minimum, and polish whatever was lacking (pathfinding, bigger unit groups, unit queuing, anti-aliasing), and you'll sell loads, people will be happy too...do what EA has done with SimCity, for example (give the fan base a middle finger), and you'll lose out (so will the people who still thought they'd give your game a chance).

You have to live up to Ensemble Studio's legacy too...

Cheers.

p.s. Please don't listen to MS execs. After looking at how they've treated PC gamers with the Halo series and decisions made on Windows 8 and Office 2013, I truely believe MS has a deep disconnect with what's actually happening in the world, and too busy trying to be Apple.

p.s.2. People are already aksing for a remake of Rise Of Nations and Age of Mythology. If you manage to pull this off perfectly (you'll get huge respect for including LAN mode btw, can't remember any recent game from a major publisher that does), I'll probably hope you remake Halo CE and FreeSpace 2 and port Halo 3, Reach and 4 to the PC as well.

[MS Ryz0n]

Suicide King,
Not quite. Think of Steam as an introductory service or....craigslist. It lists the games and allows you to search for games, but once you see a game you want, you connect directly to the host and handle the negotiation (gameplay). If that host happens to be on your lan, then hey look - you get pings of 5! Attempting to route ALL game traffic through Steam servers would be a technical nightmare for them and a markedly worse experience for everyone.

We ended up doing a lot with the game, as you know the original was Direct Draw and used Direct Play. We had to axe a good deal and rebuild because...well a lot of things from 14 years ago just don't work anymore, especially when it comes to computers. It wasn't a "rawr lets remove XYZ just because", it was a "XYZ is antiquated and has to be scrapped, so lets build ABC feature in". And ABC was steam multiplayer because that will benefit more users.

Small side note, FreeSpace 2 was Volition. Amazing game, I prefer not to admit how many hours I played that game. And halo 1 PC (Gearbox on that one), which actually got me into the competitive scene eons ago. I'm a part of the Age of Empires team though, so i'm not really the right person to be asking about those regardless.

[Trippy]

Hmmm so Steam is sort of a tunneling/VPN service, like Hamachi (as in, after you chose a game)? If it is, i'm not sure what to think...becuase sometimes Hamachi can't connect to the other person, or uses a relayed tunnel (here's where the "routing through steam" thing came from)...but i guess it wouldn't be an issue on the same LAN.

Thanks for the clarification though, i really hope it'll work as you say.

Though no thoughts on the "what if you're on a train and want to play with a friend" scenario?

I do understand what you mean with regards to older tech not working any more. I have AoE and AoE2 along with the expansions, a lot of graphical glitches with the grass (could be fixed by switching Windows 7 to the basic theme and atl-tab-ing out and back, but too much work).

And yeah, older games like Halo and RoN used to start dropping packets after a certain load...

I know, FreeSpace 2 was Volition...they don't seem to care about it any more, not even with all the recent space sims in development (Star Citizen, for one), so i sort of ask anyone who's remaking old games to remake FS2 :|

But what about AoM and RoN? Seeing that you didn't rule them out, (*wink wink*) should we expect something? Though i completely understand if you won't comment on them :D

EDIT: What'll happen if you're playing on a LAN (via Steam) and one of the clients or the host gets disconnected from Steam? Will your game continue?

[BALD CYPRESS]

Originally posted by SuicideKing:

Hmmm so Steam is sort of a tunneling/VPN service, like Hamachi (as in, after you chose a game)? If it is, i'm not sure what to think...becuase sometimes Hamachi can't connect to the other person, or uses a relayed tunnel (here's where the "routing through steam" thing came from)...but i guess it wouldn't be an issue on the same LAN.

I understood the explanation more in the sense that Steam basically collates the player IPs, then hands them out, then the clients sync-up and take over?

Though no thoughts on the "what if you're on a train and want to play with a friend" scenario?

He said it wasn't a common enough use-case to merit consideration/resources. This being 2013, even as I sit here typing this in a developing country, I think they're right.

[MS Ryz0n]

Originally posted by Shad:

Originally posted by SuicideKing:

Hmmm so Steam is sort of a tunneling/VPN service, like Hamachi (as in, after you chose a game)? If it is, i'm not sure what to think...becuase sometimes Hamachi can't connect to the other person, or uses a relayed tunnel (here's where the "routing through steam" thing came from)...but i guess it wouldn't be an issue on the same LAN.

I understood the explanation more in the sense that Steam basically collates the player IPs, then hands them out, then the clients sync-up and take over?

Though no thoughts on the "what if you're on a train and want to play with a friend" scenario?

He said it wasn't a common enough use-case to merit consideration/resources. This being 2013, even as I sit here typing this in a developing country, I think they're right.

Shad, your interpretation of the network play is accurate. Steam isn't doing any sort of tunneling between players.

[Trippy]

Ah alright. Thanks both of you. Ryz0n: All the best with the game!

Shad: I'm in a developing country too...