Reflections on Multi-player

Well I finally took the MP plunge and have zero regrets, but on reflection some concerns. What is on your 'pro and con' list for multiplayer?

Pros:
1) Unrivaled jaw dropping, adrenalin pumping, A2A combat with real people!
2) In most cases a good selection of buses and crates.
3) Dozens of servers to choose from.

Cons:
1) Some of those 'real' people! There are b@stards everywhere , and we will always have to put up with them.
2) When the server rotates, or you change servers, you might have to change your bus/crate, which can be a big adjustment that can embarrass you
3) Nobody on 95% of the dozens of servers... WTF?
4) My hand turns into a claw (a la George Costanza) after a mighty session...
5) Occasional disconnects, but I'm a newbie, so not sure if this is sampling bias from my few experiences.

I'm sure I'll add to my list as I reflect more, and get back to more MP. See you in the sky, hopefully before you see me!

CONS

1. Low level dogfights/recon planes/bombers

2. Use of comms, teamspeak/ventrilo

3. Inconvenient, like you said nobody is online in 95% of the servers.

4. Constant disconnects, happens to everyone it's a ROF thing, apparently ROF.exe crashes are also common in MP.

PROS

1. Real people pose a better challenge, human error and cooperation using real combat tactics.

2. More excitement and feeling of fear when you're at risk of being shot down.

3. More opponents to fight at one time if you get online at the right time of day and I like being able to just take off, form up on someone and hunt.

I get tired of the way the servers rotate so fast. Normally by the time I log in and get a good bit of altitude it tells me I have 10 minutes to land.

I wish they would set the servers to a more dedicated map and only rotate it every other day or so.

Like everything in the online world there are limitations. In the case of rotating maps its a "damned if you do, damned if you dont" kinda deal where one guy wants fast rotating maps and the next wants day long jobs.

Im surprised about the "disconnect" issue, mind you. I cant remember the last time I had one. I can only assume the quality of some ppls isp is letting them down.

Multiplayer is a love/hate relationship. Yes human to human fighting is best imho but it also brings along the fact that there are real ppl there...and real ppl have real opinions....mostly wildly different from everyone elses.

Im glad you took the plunge. Join one of the servers which are regularly full and have some fun.

oh yeh:

Pros: Real human on human fighting, online stats to monitor how you are getting along, being part of a "community"

Cons: Trying to please everyone all of the time while running a server :P

EDIT: I do not wish to come off as all negative (and it seems I may have), far from it, I've had some incredible moments online. I spawned on New Wings with a Camel and an N17 one time, and we all took off together and headed over the lake. We quickly engaged a Dr1, and I think an Alb was there too, and while distracting both the N17 merchant put down the smug Dr1! It was great fun, and good teamwork. If you haven't tried multiplayer, it really is worth just logging onto a server to give it a shot. Expect to be shot down, and expect to learn more in one evening than a year of fighting AI...

You'd never know it from the way some people (I use that term loosely) act. I had to do a double take when I read that the 'New Wings' server condoned vulching, yet allowed for a flare to be fired to say one is 'giving up' to land. Sorry, in for a penny, in for a pound. If you vulch don't expect ANY quarter from me (and I'll say none was given for vulchers...).

While online stats are likely a selling point, I think it leads to a lot of juvenile behaviour among men who should know better.

ANYWAYS, another observation from last night. I find in my brief excursions online that the Central pilots seem to be better at grouping up and flying as a unit than the Entente pilots. Must be that teutonic erg to organize...
Entente folks don't seem to like it when I try to fly formation with them, they get all edgy...

It is remarkable how you can tell the experience level of a pilot just by the way they maneuver, not that I'm any better most times, but I can hold my own (sometimes ). I probably shouldn't choose the Camel so often, but I'm still getting the hang of radiator management, so choose to fly rotaries.

I was hoping to find more teamwork, more of a historic feeling to fulfill my interest. I tried the Vintage mission on the weekend, and was hit by ground fire both times, then had to get back to RL, so maybe I'll give it another chance. Any other options to achieve that 'squadron feeling' ???

Join a group of people who use a TS server. While TS might be historically inaccurate for this time period there was a lot of other means of communication that these pilots used that we either can not do in game or is not feasible to do.

Besides if you have ever been on a TS server when a fight breaks out you would know that it does not help you at all but it does help grouping up and launching/flying together right up until the fight.

I think to get that "squadron feeling", you probably need to join an online squadron.

Our little group met online at the old JCN server, flying Fighters Anthology.... 14 years ago? We've flown each other's "wing" in a variety of sims since then.

We've just started flying RoF together, flying Co-op and "hybrid" co-op missions (based on Team Deathmatch, but with AI planes in the mission, so it flies like a human versus AI co-op, but allows respawn and join-on-the-fly)....

We are not "noob" pilots, but are still very much "noobs" in RoF

Pro's and Con's:

1.) The "cons" of THIS type of multiplayer (squadron-based)? You do need to set a very specific date & time for everyone to meet and fly together for a couple-few hours. Voice comms (we use TeamSpeak 3) are mandatory. Finding a time to fly that works for everyone can be the biggest hurdle for most people. Conflicting real-life schedules and different time zones create challenges.

2.) The "pro's" are unsurpassed cooperation and "immersion"; and FUN!! You get to fly with your online buddies.

So, if you are looking for a "squadron" atmosphere.... look to see if any RoF squadrons are "recruiting".

Best wishes.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing, and have heard about many of the RoF squadrons and seen their members in the forums, and have been invited to one or two.

One would think that given the difficulty of getting everyone's schedules lined up that squadrons would want a surplus of people to fill in the spaces, but what do I know about managing a squadron

So are many of the empty servers squadron servers, used only once in a while? When I see a few people in an open server I sometimes join in, always introduce myself and ask, but then like pixie dust they just disappear in a pinch.

Yes, most fights always seem to be in the weeds, though so far I've had a few good encounters higher up, that of course ended up low...
What have you against recon and bombers? That seems a strange thing to look upon with negativity.

I think I ran into a bunch of huns using TS last night, they were all over me like a pack of hyenas. Should have know better and escaped vertically as I was in a Tripehound and they in Albs. but foolishly decided to try to even the odds. Reamed me a new one they did and not so much as a S!

If I may shamelessly engage in stereotyping, I think there are real cultural differences between how the opposite sides approach RoF... (and I'm not talking about our wives...)

I was wondering why do people use TS in this sim? I can see using it to organize the flights while on the ground, talk about your plan of attack etc., but using it in flight? Just doesn't seem right in a WWI sim.

In wwi planes communicated with hand signals, plane movements and various other things. We currently only have a few hand signals.

WWI Pilots spend most of their day practicing signals, getting to know their fellow pilots, learning the terrain, memorizing emergency procedures and flight plans. It was their job and their lives depended on it.

We today play this as a game. As such no one is going to spend 4 hours a day practicing communication techniques and memorizing the terrain. We also do not have any form of ready room to share our plans, photos or maps. 4 hours of preflight time is compressed into the 30 seconds before you click fly and 99% of the pilots out there are only looking for a bit of fun and do not take this so seriously.

So the environment is nto the same from wwi to a game about wwi. Why would you expect people to treat it any differently?

I would go even further and say that squad communications in flight back there were better than communication over team speak now for most squads.

Instead of everyone in the squadron knowing the map, plan, plane recognitions, basic and advanced flight techniques and hand signals for communication it all comes down to the flight leader generally. That one flight leader can not spend all day printing maps and trying to explain a flight plan to pilots for a server that rotates to a different map every 30 minutes. Instead you have to generate what would have taken 4-8 hours in a matter of minutes and explain that plan to your pilots in even less time.

To cope with that change most people just log into team speak and explain what they are doing in flight while climbing out of the aerodrome.

WWI is not anything like a WWI sim and the limitations of the sim mean that you can not use historic methods of communication because people do not have the time give RoF a full time job's worth of hours. Maybe you feel differently about it than I do but I find the argument ridiculous.

Well, I can see both sides so don't find it overly ridiculous. It does provide a tremendous advantage to gaggles of friends who come online together; but would it have been equivalent/the same as WWI methods of communication? Don't kid yourself.

That said, it is just a game (although layered on a very realistic flight simulation and environmental engine), and perhaps we're just jealous of those who can 'get it together' and fly as a hyena pack.

Off to give it another go! It is super addictive. I lasted a really long time this morning (it is a day off, kid in school, why not?), almost running out of gas before the left-hand spin of the Camel let me down...

Our group began flying cooperatively in the days prior to voice comms. This presented HUGE challenges:

1. Meeting online pregame.
2. Communicating pre-flight (before entering the mission).
3. Communicating during the mission.
4. Communicating post-flight

And, if connection was lost by any player (remember, these were the days of dial-up connections for most people), communicating with those still inflight while you sat at desktop trying to figure out why your game crashed.

We used ICQ, server lobby text chat and ingame text chat, but these solutions were less than ideal.

Voice comms solved those daunting problems.

No, having "radio comms" is not realistic, but when I sit in front of my computer here in Hawaii, and fly with others half a world away, hand signals are bit hard to interpret

Best wishes.

No I meant recon planes and bombers flying low to the ground. I've had some multiplayer matches with higher up fights but never at the altitudes historically flown.

@Bandy,

My view is that the fighting is often in the weeds as people want the most from their limited time online and additionally it is not fun to spend 10-15 minutes climbing to altitude to be shot down withing the 1st few minutes of being there; again and again and...

I love high altitude fights as the planes really do start to distinguish themselves as well as requiring more flying. But nearly all the online missions require you to take off so we are always at the weeds.

Pro's
Some great people online
The madness of combat that currently only comes from humans
Not being the only target; though sometimes I do wonder

Con's
Snipping at long range
Long range shots cause more damage than close range
Missions that cover the front line so that it is difficult to see other aircraft which makes for boring
Missions that include AI bombers that do nothing of value
Missions that do not have the AI bombers waging a war so as to make the player have to defend their resources or help attack the enemies
So many Camels and DR1's
Virtually no-body online and this would be OK if the offline missions were no so canned

Another con, for me anyway, is that I often find myself flying for a half hour without meeting a single airplane. I'm always in the wrong place. Also, AI pilots don't use head-on attacks as much as humans! A collision almost every time.
I don't why more people aren't on-line. It really is too much fun. I don't really play off-line at all.

I love the multiplayer and I am part of a squadron myself, but I have a couple of nitpicks now that we are all airing them out.

1.) The silly tendency for pilots in some servers to expect to fight only one other person and they whine when a passerby gets them first, some of us use TS and don't read the chat box, nor are we going to ask if it is okay to bounce you, they have a duel server for a reason and I wish people who just want to duel with each other would use it and clear the air for team play.

2.) the whining in general, sniping is bad but worse if it happens to you, keep your eyes peeled and it becomes a bit less likely however. I cannot understand why vulching is considered bad when you can easily overcome it by using teamwork, on top of that, if you find that the enemy has pushed you to your own aerodrome, well, that is kinda like vulching but it was your fault as a team.

3.) Limited aircraft selection based on "balance", this is absurd to me, we spend good money on these crates only to find that our Bristol or Pup is not welcome. I cannot seem to wrap my head around the arbitrary judgment some of these aircraft get when they "seem overpowered" or "require a FM review", this is not Call of duty, balance is based on skill and not the machine, you can kill anything with anything in this sim.

There we go, my little venting spell is over, sorry if this came off as harsh but I needed to let it all out.

Other than these things (kinda minor in the grand scheme), I love the multiplayer, it is one of the best communities I have ever had the honor to play with online.

Well, I had a really good time on the Oceanic server this morning. Cheers fellows! Thanks for letting me visit and be a target for you all, though I gave some back, occasionally.

There were just a handful of us, and guys who like to fly high (altitude). We didn't have any issues with finding each other, though yes it did take some time. Maybe it is a generational thing... older farts with time on their hands, youth who just want everything right away... Go fly an iPlane.

EDITED reactionary statements, apologies for any offense...

Whoa there. Not trying to make an argument about it. I was just asking a question as to why people use TS on this sim. I've not played online with this sim yet and was curious as to whether anyone out there actually tries to maintain some sort of simulation of those communication issues from WW1. I can see the signal commands in the sim are limited and not everyone understands what the flares mean...plus the fact as you and others have stated...that servers out there not really conducive to long, planned combat operations.

I guess what I'm asking is are there any online squadrons or flying buddies who play "co-op" alot together and limit the use of teamspeak while using the ingame handsignals and flares?

The RoF multiplayer community has long demonstrated that it has little concern for history or realism. The fights are typically on the deck, people shoot each other down from incredible distances, and if you question it there are those who actually think it's alright.

That is an overly generalized statement RoFfan. I have concern, and I'm looking to perhaps join a squadron where it is a little more historical with missions etc. And I'm pretty sure they are out there.

Fights don't always start on the deck. I've only been on MP for a week or so now, but I've had about two-thirds of my fights start at 5000-8000 ft, but they do end up going low as they did historically. Yes, not many of us up there, but I prefer it that way for now. It is quite exciting to finally spot someone in the distance and try to sneak up on them using clouds etc. Haven't figure out the whole approach-from-the-sun bit, that would take a lot of time to position yourself in many instances.

Not perfectly historical altitudes, but he!!, the majority of real WWI missions were uneventful, so have a reality check. A full-fledged WWI sim would get boring very very quickly to the majority, and then where would the development budget be???

Fly RoF the way you want to, go to the server where things happen most like what you want to see happen (I'm still searching). If this does not appeal, stay in the Career Beta, that is everyone's prerogative.

By no means an old fart and I hate low altitude fights. But I partly agree with ROFfan, 'most' of the multiplayer community doesn't bother to care about flying how they should, at high altitude etc. etc. but another reason for that is simply that there's no ground fire to give them incentive to fly up high.

Unfortunately there's not a lot of choice in multiplayer servers, the only real active ones are the newbie dogfight(now renamed I forget to what), fast food, syndicate, hellequins and occasionally oceanic. Most others are just smaller squad servers that don't usually have many people on if any.

Syndicate and hellequins kind of try to be somewhat historical but the only place you'll really get the proper experience from what I hear are the big events like Bloody april and FEOW type things, but that requires you to actually schedule time to play ROF

No, the HQ server does not try to be historical. That is part of their MO.

"Constant disconnects, happens to everyone it's a ROF thing, apparently ROF.exe crashes are also common in MP."

I didn´t experience disconnects and exes for more than a year now. It´s the internet connection that is responsible, if you have problems. What is your result on pingtest.net ?

If it's my internet then very few have hope of ever not getting disconnected. When I play other multiplayer games, I don't lag and I never DC; no it's ROF.

I played on the Syndicate server a second ago and people disconnect left and right, it's just the way it's been for a long time. ROF.exe erros are more attributed to memory problems, or memory leaks on ROF's part, something like that.

I played for 4 hours today on Syndicate and not one problem (other than getting 'lost' on my first sortie ). In fact I had a blast! Thank you kindly gentlemen, and hope to see you soon.

I played as well for an hour and didn't get disconnected, but plenty of others were and I do as well on other occasions.

May I?
There is a group of dedicated people that is trying to run a kind of "Persistent Warfare Server".

Here the forum has both a local-language part(italian) and an international one(english).
Please give it a try, it's still a beta but VERY promising!

http://www.rofitalia.it/feow/

There's people from all over the world playing! High values and constructive behaviour.
Highly recommended.

^_^

Concerning "disconnects" of the over 1200 people that flew on SYN server thus far in February the guy with the highest number of discos was 9. The next 7 and it fell off rapidly after that. In fact only slightly over 100 of them had a single disconnect during Feb.

Its hardly the huge problem some of you might think it is. Check your settings is my advice.

Glad to have you on comms last night, Bandy....looks like you are hooked

1200 unique users?

Damn my 150 estimate is way off.

Are people then just quitting in midair deliberately, giving the appearance of a disco when in fact it was intentional?



The Jedi Master

Odds are they just suffer a warp from bad lag and by the time they reappear they are out of sight and you never reestablish contact.

I know if you land and dont hit "finish flight" but rather just leave the server or quit the game it counts as a disconnect....but I dnt think thats what we are talking about.

Oh...and it is 1200 unique users this month, yes. We usually get 1500 unique users on our server every month after a stats reset. Mind you, it was only 500 unique users this time last year...so new users are climbing rapidly....must be some of the media stuff going on. That and top 100 games of all time cant hurt. :P

Yeah I was one of the guys who had to wait in line to get on the server sunday. I guess that's a good problem to have!
As far as disconnects are concerned: for me they were much more prevalent 6 months ago and are now somewhat rare. Not coincidentally,
that is the same time my little area of Kentucky got a big upgrade in online bandwidth. I was fluctuating wildly from 10mps (what I pay for) all the way down to <1mps! After the upgrade I was fluctuationg at between 8 - 10 mps and the disconnects dropped right off.

ps Yes, as a matter of fact I was lodging near daily complaints with my ISP back then

It sounds like very little has changed in the MP arena since my last foray there about 1&1/2 years ago:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3067316/Yup_still_pretty_much_hate_mul.html#Post3067316

Reread the advice in that thread and try again in 6 months.

Why didn't I think of that?!?

It was so much fun back then, I can hardly wait to subject myself to the experience again!

Seems you can't get past your preconcieved notions Hedge.

...still bums me out that you don't enjoy MP. To each his own though...

But honestly, RoF-MP is nothing like it was 6 mos a year ago.

I played a few times on a server with icons and then took the plunge today on a full realism one. Really enjoyed myself. Have had no disconnection issues while playing on US servers.

I have done zero MP in RoF. Not likely to, either. I’m not angry or disappointed about it. It just doesn’t sound like my cup of tea for the following reasons:

Practice. How many time have I read people say “You must die 100 times before you can get anything done. “ or words to that effect. That doesn’t sound fun to me at all. I don’t have time to “practice” a game. I want to play the thing and do the missions. Getting sniped by folks who play MP a lot because I haven’t “paid my dues” is not appealing at all.

You must suffer but it’s worth it. Not for me. The prevailing story seems to be “Kills, while hard to get, feel great!”. Perhaps, but shooting down a human would mean no more to me than bagging an AI plane. I do not subscribe to the notion that “It is not enough that I succeed, others must fail”. It’s not like I down the AI controlled aircraft with the greatest of ease as it is. Those gunners are deadly!

Teamwork. This makes perfect sense. It is still problematic. I would be expected to play at certain times when acquaintances are flying. Not good. I want to play whenever I want. I don’t want to schedule the play time. This need to adhere to a schedule limits the time I could ever invest and we’ve already established that a lot of time is required to become proficient enough to get beyond the “suffering” phase. Ugh.

TrackIR. I don’t have it. Do you really need it? Is it a big advantage? Do you need two or three screens? This is not a whine. But if this equipment does convey significant advantages then folks without it need to know that the playing field is not level. What percentage of what might be called “accomplished” MP pilots use TrackIR? I’m just curious as I have no idea.

I’ll let others show up to be a target drone for folks who dig MP big time. I have no desire to do the whole “padawan” thing with an MP Jedi master. I do not have the endurance, determination and passion to put in the time. These three traits are indispensible from what I've read around the forum.

I bring these things up because there must be many others who eschew MP for the same reasons. This is why the career beta must continue to move forward.

To you all for whom MP lands right in your wheelhouse, good luck and have fun!

You can always play on a coop server with humans vs AI on a scripted mission.

I dont think most of what you said is true about MP. Yes you can get jumped without knowing they are there but you can also just as easily jump someone else who is not paying attention. I know a lot of people who fly just fine without trackir.

Mainbrace, I hear you. I was 'you' not too long ago, but one morning, very early, I don't know what got into me I just tried multiplayer. I didn't get shot down for a while, but when I did, it was my fault for not paying attention to my low 6. While pissed off (mostly with myself) I learned that lesson, and moved on.

Perhaps I've always had some romantic notion that I would have survived and succeeded to be an ace in WWI. Well, that first kill (of me) put an end to that, but I got back up and persevered. I do not have all the experience in all the airplanes that some have, and maybe I'll make a fool out of myself every-now-and-then when I left-spin a Camel, but so what...

Yes, TrackIR is worth the money if you fly SP or MP, it doesn't matter. There are freeware versions too. Spend the money if you have the chance, or work to get FaceTrackNo IR running. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. Seriously.

OK, I have no idea how many hours I've flown in MP, I'm sure there is a statistic somewhere (there always seems to be...) but I've shot down 5 people, so I suppose I'm an online 'ace' now. Well, that doesn't mean much because the real high end stats will frighten you. What means more is that I can survive, and that took a little time to learn those skills.

If things go right I've found that many times I can join up with unknown people in small groups of 2 or 3 to forge a loose alliance and then go hunting. You don't need to be on Teamspeak, but it can help. Some people argue against TS, but it is a facilitator.

If you are challenged by the AI, then by all means keep going and having fun in career beta, or Pat's campaign. But know that playing with people is a lot of fun too, and presents its own challenges. When you start having a nagging itch, then give it a try. Just jump on a server with just a few people, and fly around keeping your eyes open. Survive first, then attempt to make a kill, but don't get down on yourself for being killed if it happens. It's OK, because you'll then be in good company.

Yeah, pretty much sums up the oft-repeated "advice."

"You must pay your dues as fresh meat for the leet snipers before you can earn worthiness to fly amongst those with 10,000:1 kill ratios in the MP servers. And, oh yeah, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and put on a happy face, but get back in the air because we leets need more noob targets."

Is that the attitude that I am supposed to aspire to?? I'm supposed to get mercilessly hammered and shot down 100 times so I can get as "good" as that and do it to others?

No thanks. Apparently definitions of 'fun' differ.

Hedgehog. I have finally taken the plunge into MP.

I am by no means a good RoF pilot playing with most "cheats" in SP. However in just a few games with Full Realism MP I know I am getting better with every flight.

Sure I get shot down more often the not but I've also held my own on more than one occasion. I had a great scrap against 4 or 5 Albatros scouts. The fight lasted about 5 minutes before my demise. It was the best 5 minutes of MP I think I have experienced in many years of gaming.

I have enjoyed joining up with a random team mate and flying their wing as best I can.

I have yet to experience this getting "mercilessly hammered and shot down 100 times" that you talk about.

Mate, take the plunge, you just might enjoy it