Stolen Pixels #139: BorderLAN

Hey, want to play some Borderlands multiplayer on your PC? No. You really don't.

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oh deh claptrap is soooo cuuuteeee!

Yeah, it's been quite a shock to find out that all these shenanigans about setting up a static ip, and forwarding ports via the router administration interface, was actually needed to play the games with friends who got the game on day 1. However It was a decent learning experience, but I guess not everyone is taking it as lightly as I did.

But ... yeah .... deh claptrap is sooooo cuuuuteeee!

Movement in Stolen Pixels?! Revolutionary!

Heh, pretty good explanation of all that Claptrap does.
I hate it so much. it's so damn annoying.
I was mortified when I discovered I couldn't kill it. well...

Playing any games, especially multiplayer ones, on a PC is far far more difficult than it is on a console these days, but one thing remains the same: You can always rely on Gamespy to make it worse.

Claptrap <3

You know, i heard alot of good things about Borderlands, this throws those all out and curb-stomps them a couple times. I haven't used Gamespy for, wow, 10 years

The error is always on your end.

I too, was quite disappointed with the multiplayer in Borderlands. After going through all that, you were still lucky to find a game, and for some reason I'd keep losing connection with the host in MP, yet I can play UT3 and whatnot fine online. Annoying.

I lol'd cos its so tru.

"Uh tss uh tss uh tss yeah i think i lost the beat but uh tss uh tss"
Claptrap ftw
For ppl who don't know, if you get hamachi, set it to the highest priority, get your mates to join your network but rather than playing a LAN game play an online game, it works...sometimes.

Be thankful it doesn't use Games for Windows Live.

1.) console has a boot option.

2.) console has a room list showing aproxamate level, current quest, and how many open slots.

3.) Console has muteable mics [360 for sure, not too sure about ps3 [[input from a ps3 guy would be great]]]

4.) Consoles have a boot option.

5.) Theres a quick match option.

6.) there is a BOOT OPTION, and yes, people use it at a whim, a level higher than the host? booted, same class as host? booted. dont/do have a mic? booted. got a gamer tag? booted.
_{okay, its not that bad, but you get the idea}

Holy hell, this sounds absolutely perfect for trolling.

cainx10a:
oh deh claptrap is soooo cuuuteeee!

Yeah, it's been quite a shock to find out that all these shenanigans about setting up a static ip, and forwarding ports via the router administration interface, was actually needed to play the games with friends who got the game on day 1. However It was a decent learning experience, but I guess not everyone is taking it as lightly as I did.

But ... yeah .... deh claptrap is sooooo cuuuuteeee!

Yeah, maybe after hearing the whole "...check me out! I'm dancing!..." the first few times but after awhile I tried to kill the damn thing XD.

OT: Anybody else think the guradian angel is sexy?

oh good it isnt just me, i went out of the way on my generosity trip and bought a version of the game to my pirate friend and my always-no-matter-what-broke friend so we could play together, and so far all we can do is sitting on skype talking about it.

fingers crossed that they make it work the tenth.

unacomn:
Be thankful it doesn't use Games for Windows Live.

do us pc gamers have to pay for multiplayer too?, only have DoW2 and fallout who uses it, and fallout is singleplayer and i hate multiplayer rts (i ALWAYS end up playing against some super human who got killer robots before i have trained one set of cannon fodder)

I wonder, is it the same when your using this game through STEAM?
If so, holy crap man...
I would expect this from the game made in the 90's, but not now
Its not like Online gaming for PC is something new.

Dont ever try to play Borderlands with strangers. Believe me it's way worse than playing alone.
Gamespy is tolerable only with friends.

Dedicated servers...i miss you

You can kick people btw, it's not intuitive but it is possible.

Hit esc.
Choose lobby
Using your keyboard (can't do this with mouse, go figure) select the player to kick
Hit delete
Confirm

saejox:
Dont ever try to play Borderlands with strangers. Believe me it's way worse than playing alone.
Gamespy is tolerable only with friends.

Dedicated servers...i miss you

I host and play with strangers most of the time. Yeah, the FFA mindset is always present, but play nice with some, and it's amazing how they will play nice with you too. Gave some Random kid a Orange sniper rifle the other day, and he didn't even say thanks.

And some random person gave me a few shinnies the other day, we developed a little friendly relationship while we played, and played, and played and had fun.

You can't kill the FFA mentality though, unless you are playing with friends, then you can obviously set up rules based on who gets loot and what's not.

Important: Actually, you CAN kick poeple. I didn't find out about it until after I wrote the text. It's not a menu option like PC players are used to, but it's there.

So: The option exists. It's just hard to find. My bad.

Ori Disciple:
I wonder, is it the same when your using this game through STEAM?
If so, holy crap man...
I would expect this from the game made in the 90's, but not now
Its not like Online gaming for PC is something new.

The game is exactly the same in Steam - it doesn't use any Steam features / matchmaking / friend's list / etc.

Virgil:
Playing any games, especially multiplayer ones, on a PC is far far more difficult than it is on a console these days, but one thing remains the same: You can always rely on Gamespy to make it worse.

It doesn't have to be... that is the mind boggling part. No I am not talking about the no-dedicated server crap that is being seen. I mean of how bloody simple other, older, MP games have it. This isn't the days of ROTT or something, back before the Internet is invented and home networks where scary and difficult things to operate.

Internet gaming was already simplified to the point a child could connect to game servers, as evident by all those whinny little brats you find in most CS severs. Open the game, click find server, maybe modify some filters if you where 'elite' enough to understand what a filter is, click on a sever and... play.

How hard is it to screw that up?
Bloody easy it seems, so much so we need to remove the option of dedicated servers so those poor game designers can't screw it up any more.

Is valve the only one that understands basic server-client connecting procedures?
Did they patent it or something?

Shamus Young:

Ori Disciple:
I wonder, is it the same when your using this game through STEAM?
If so, holy crap man...
I would expect this from the game made in the 90's, but not now
Its not like Online gaming for PC is something new.

The game is exactly the same in Steam - it doesn't use any Steam features / matchmaking / friend's list / etc.

oh god, thats horrible!
its almost inconceivable that they could be so lazy about this.
but there it is.
wow

Jinx_Dragon:

Virgil:
Playing any games, especially multiplayer ones, on a PC is far far more difficult than it is on a console these days, but one thing remains the same: You can always rely on Gamespy to make it worse.

It doesn't have to be... that is the mind boggling part. No I am not talking about the no-dedicated server crap that is being seen. I mean of how bloody simple even older MP games have it. This isn't the days of ROTT or something, back before the internet was invented and home networks where scary and difficult things to operate. Internet gaming was already simplified to the point a child could connect to game servers, as evident by all those whinny little brats you find in most CS severs. Open the game, click find server, maybe modify some filters if you where 'elite' enough to understand what a filter is, click on a sever and... play.

How hard is it to screw that up?
Bloody easy it seems, so much so we need to remove the option of dedicated servers so those poor game designers can't screw it up any more.

Well thats STEAM though.
its pretty simplistic.
I really havent seen much outside of it in terms of online gaming (STEAM fan and all)
so I really cant say if I agree or not to this.
actually, I have used C&C-related online gaming, and thats pretty easy to follow.
it just adds to the fact that the Dev team for Borderlands got lazy about PC online.
Kinda sad, when you think about it. feel sorry for those of you guys and gals that bought it

you'd hope that a really complicated form of making games would encourage sophisticated players.
though it would make them damn frustrated so i guess it would probably cancel out.

Shamus Young:
Stolen Pixels #139: BorderLAN

Hey, want to play some Borderlands multiplayer on your PC? No. You really don't.

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The absolute worst thing about this is that there's a perfectly viable and very easy solution to this that's been in use for somewhere in the neighborhood 15 years, possibly longer: Dedicated Servers.

Honestly, just let the players provide the servers. Don't have a connection that can handle a server at your house? You can rent servers from numerous providers. Seriously, this is the same system that TFC and CS used way back in the day, AND IT WORKS!! There is, quite seriously, no excuse for why Gearbox couldn't have just used the same system for Borderlands.

And that's to say nothing of the bugs in the game. The online (lack of) functionality alone would have required a grand total of about 5 seconds worth of testing time to learn that the online mode doesn't work. I'm convinced that they just slapped the game together and then started mass producing it.

I feel kinda bad for everybody, but I haven't had any problems. Me and two of my friends beat the first playthrough the other night. Lots of fun. Yeah the gamepsy is crap but we didn't have any trouble staying connected.

Shamus Young:

Ori Disciple:
I wonder, is it the same when your using this game through STEAM?
If so, holy crap man...
I would expect this from the game made in the 90's, but not now
Its not like Online gaming for PC is something new.

The game is exactly the same in Steam - it doesn't use any Steam features / matchmaking / friend's list / etc.

This was the largest and oddest disappointment for me. When I went to install gamespy I sat there thinking "Wait.. didn't I buy this on steam?"

Still It's best game I've played since Phantasy Star Online nearly ruined my last marriage.

It's beyond addictive.

Shamus Young:
The shame of it is that on the PC the multiplayer system is broken, archaic, and shamefully lacking in features.

So. Bloody. True! As an owner of a PC copy of Borderlands, I can't help but feel abit cheated. Also, you forgot to mention that:

* Leaving any menu open whilst in game prevents anyone from transisting to another map, adding another sort of griefing - preventing people from leaving an area where they've already slaughted everything and picked the loot dry.

Yeah, multiplayer in this game reminds me why I hate ports to PC. They're never up to PC standards, and the devs don't seem to find a problem with it. However, I still don't want to play this kind of thing on a console, because splitscreen sucks much worse than port forwarding ever could.

Anyone tried this on Ps3? we tried to get a LAN going on two Ps3s with 4 people, split screening on each, you know the thing halo has been doing for years. it would'nt work, neither would split screen online so we could all play together. for a game so involved in it's multi-player seems like this would be a good feature :S

daftalchemist:
Yeah, multiplayer in this game reminds me why I hate ports to PC. They're never up to PC standards, and the devs don't seem to find a problem with it. However, I still don't want to play this kind of thing on a console, because splitscreen sucks much worse than port forwarding ever could.

The sad thing is that Gearbox insists that they built the PC version from the ground up. Yet there are so many console-based inspirations in the entire design that it's hard to not call it a port.

I opened a gamespy account yesterday, and have still not been able to connect to absolutely anyone for the Multiplayer experience..

Seems like real proper shit to me.. Also the game in general was not that good really..

Hang on, what powers do team damage? There isn't any friendly fire, at all. Even if i shoot a barrel, the explosion only hurts me. The rest of it's true, but there definitely isn't anything that does team damage.