@mdstevens0612@mas.to it's a managment problem, not a technical one. All these games could've easily allowed you to host and use a custom server but they didn't ​:cirno_shrug:​

@mdstevens0612 I mean, that's one of the things that kept Minecraft so relevant. They eventually started Realms but there's nothing stopping you and five friends from making a server to make giant dick statues on

@mdstevens0612 thanks, I thought about this, too, recently. :)

Edit: thanks for talking about it

@mdstevens0612

Minetest.

@mdstevens0612 BRING BACK STARSEIGE TRIBES

That's it when I get back back home Im looking that up. I used to host a 20 person Tribes server on a P2 or P3 with 64 MB of RAM on a home broadband connection (albeit a really good one). The server app was a different executable that ran in headless console mode with a little graphical admin app. Quite simple and elegant really, even to add in mods.

@mdstevens0612 Furthermore it meant servers could have communities. Playstyles, settings, social values. I used to go back to the same few counterstrike servers again and again and you'd get to recognise other players.

@mdstevens0612 its not gone. I still host games for friends and small communities. Its not ALL cloud based.
Project zomboid, terraria, unturned, 7 days to die, anything made by valve, all have self hosted server options.
And the list goes on.

About around when diablo 3 came out and shit the bed i realized i needed to learn to host games. Ive since evolved to all kinds of services

@mdstevens0612 listen servers, so sad we lost that

@mdstevens0612 you mean like #Matchmaking and #SystemLink and #LAN gaming?

Yeah, that still exists and both #GOGgalaxy and #Steam support this including #Crossplay between the two...

Also you can thank the #Copyrightmafia that literally made braking #DRM a felony for causing #GamePreservation to be legally impossible!

@mdstevens0612 heck you can still play battlefield 1942 because they shipped a server as part of the disks bought.

@mdstevens0612 @gearlicious Games such as Minecraft, Terraria, Factorio, Astroneer, and Satisfactory, all function in a similar way, where one running instance acts as the server/host and all others join in.

It's not a dead system by any stretch of the imagination. :)

@mdstevens0612 @aks Darn NAT is making things complicated. #IPv6 was supposed to solve this, but we're nowhere near enough adoption, especially in the gaming space.

@mdstevens0612 There are still quite a few Neverwinter Nights servers running like that. Game is 25 years old and still going.

@mdstevens0612 sea of thieves is coming back to it ! And counter strike hasn't stopped it in the update either. It's not looking great but also not completely dead yet.

@mdstevens0612
Maybe that’s the next feature of the Fediverse — federated game servers? 🙂

@mdstevens0612 yeah but hear me out... Every tick there's a new ledger added to the call of duty 87 server blockchain that describes exactly what's going on

it's only gonna take, say, 3 hours to update to the next tick 🙃​

@mdstevens0612
from my experience crypto will poison anything it touches and will destroy it I lost my second home because of this

@mdstevens0612 I’m happy Minecraft actually has server hosting and isn’t just realms only

Imagine if every Minecraft server was just hosted on mojang’s servers? That probably would’ve been a thing if Minecraft had been made 5 years later though

@mdstevens0612 The old games keep going, but nobody makes money on them anymore.

They'd rather things not exist than exist and not make money on them.

It's designed to break or be broken whenever their profits drop.

@mdstevens0612

i don't know you, just an internet rando here, but.. You're absolutely right, and I wish more people understood this.

🍻

100% agree. At least nowadays we can stream our screen and play the local co-op mode online in many games, but of course that doesn't apply to all games "/

@mdstevens0612 This suddenly brought back memories how Carmageddon or Carmageddon 2 only supported IPX, and there was some proxy for TCP which we rigged up.
It wasn't as enjoyable back then, as internet speeds were too slow and LAN parties still ruled :)

@mdstevens0612 It's not that it's easier. It's that it's more profitable. Subscription fees, ads, data harvesting, and all.

@mdstevens0612 Not even that long ago! TF2 was big recently, right? All the wacky community servers were such a joy.

@mdstevens0612 I get what you say and I totally agree as a concept, but making the client also behave as a server is not trivial work, and can often make the host not enjoy gameplay in the same way. And using network services frees game developers from doing lots of backend work that players want: friends integration, searching for servers, etc.
There is a reason devs use online services. That being said, there should be a process to free game from those services once support dissappears

@mdstevens0612 Oh yes, that's why in my game you can just host/join via IP, as well as there being official MP servers.

@mdstevens0612 I think a big part of it is that, back in the 90's and esrly 2000s, the people the games were aimed at had a lot more technical knowledge & ability compared to the target audience now.

@mdstevens0612 playing age of empires with my pals... in the same room.. or Diablo ll with pals that are far away... The old version. And everything works... blessed times

@mdstevens0612 but.. but… then you can’t nickle-and-dime your players with micro transactions! And let rich kids get ahead orhers with loot boxes.

@mdstevens0612 Been hosting a Xonotic server for a couple of friends, but it's listed publicly and people do join sometimes, it's honestly pretty nice to be able to contribute to infrastructure like that :3

@mdstevens0612 Setting up XLink Kai was one of the coolest things I had done in the last couple years. A friend and I used it to play Timesplitters and Doom 3 on the original Xbox LONG after Xbox Live 1.0 closed.

It only supports games that have LAN support but that makes up a lot of the multiplayer games on that console

@mdstevens0612 this is always a huge consideration for me when it comes to the games I like to play

unfortunately what comes with that is I never have anyone to play with lmao

'hey wanna play mhfu? you'll have to get this emulator and connect to this server and then... oh ok I'll start downloading mhworld again i guess'

@mdstevens0612 i want web4.0 or whatever the future version ends up being to follow digital socialists princibles, like if its cool it had better be easy set up and reproduce and be open source and all that jazz that was cool about web 1.0 (like how neocities is a thing now)

@mdstevens0612
Quakeworld with GameSpy got so many things right