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A Valkyrienet AAR

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unmerged(11573)

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Nov 5, 2002
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hello, my name is cannonfodder, and I hate myself. not in a "please end it all" type of way, but in the way that i will spend 2 and a half hours to play HOI for a grand total of ten minutes online. This is the story of some of the truly faithfull HOI followers. And I should say that, despite the ardious journey, I hold no grudge against HOI, and will keep trying to get an online game working. One of these days i really ought to get a life. perhaps 1.04 will include that feature.:rolleyes:

At around 9pm on monday the 4th of march, I thought I would play a nice long game of HOI online. For some reason, I optomisticly thought this would be a simple affair, taking just a few minutes to maybe a half hour to set up, and would last me the rest of the night. Why I thought this, when even my LAN games take over an hour to get working, is anyones guess. Perhaps blinding optomisim was put in 1.03b, since stable net code certainly hasnt found its way in yet.

Once I was online, I found that the HOI channel was empty. Not discouraged in the bit, i searched through the EU2 channels until I found a group of four about to start a EU2 game. Figuring one world conquest game is as good as the other, and since 1.06 just came out, I quickly switched games. My attempts to join the actual online game resulted in an immediate CTD. So much for the multiplayer patch. Taking this as a sign that EU2 just wasnt going to work (if only I wasnt so blind to HOI!), I switched back to HOI.

In the HOI channel once again, I found a group of players trying to continue a savegame of fall 1936. This group consisted of the following people:

Slautermyer: our host and player of poland.
Lore = france
Hutton = Germany
Daniel Sawyer = Soviet Union
jason = Japan
Czar = Italy
Cannonfodder(me!) = UK

What countries we played did not matter much in the long run. The only thing that really mattered to me was that the UK had been played by the AI in the saved game. Thus, I had my work cut out for me simply getting the UK on an even setting once the game began. Also, at the same time I was trying to get into the game, I was carrying on a conversation with Oldman via instant messenger. Ill include selective quotes from that conversation that speak of my general attitude as time went on.

guess I should get some sleep, I shall continue this in the morning.
 
Finally...

A friend of mine has been bugging me lately. He wants to know why I'm not playing MP HoI. Soon I'll pretend that all this happened to me, and tell him that is why I don't play.

The real reason is of course that some shred of sanity prevents me from HoI induced dementia and suicide ;)
 
The download (part 1)

slautermyer, daniel sawyer, hutton, and lore were looking to continue their saved game when I showed up. They invited me to join them, and soon we were all in a game together. thats when the problems started.

Initially, I began to download the save game. But it dragged to a screeching halt at 8%, refusing to budge. Perhaps the problem was that two other players had joined, one of which was jason and the other a player who's name i forget. the unknown player apparantly had mods installed which not only stopped him from recieving the file, but also messed up our game. Slautermyer immediatly rehosted the game when he realized this, and in a blink of the eye I was back at my desktop.

in retrospect I wish I had a more interesting desktop, since I spent quite a bit of time staring at it last night. Anyways, still undiscouraged, I jumped right back into HOI eagerly. Perhaps a bit to eagerly, because I immediatly tried to change the channels on Valkyrienet before it had gotten the channel list. This of course crashed the game and woo, Im back at the desktop.

Finally, I manage to get back onto the HOI channel, were I see that everyone is still trying to regroup in the lobby. Slautermyer then hosts the game again, and I of course join. This time, by the grace of a merciful god/diety/unholy dark lord I begin the download and in about a minute recieve the file:) . The pure joy I felt at that moment was tempered with the fact that czar had begun to recieve the file, then left, only to return again. And the unamed player returned yet again while czar was still downloading. Once czar got done, slautermyer once again rehosted. Wow, my desktop needs to be organized. But no time for that, HOI beckons me back:D

At this point, I started talking to Oldman, saying that I was close to getting into a massive HOI game. Up to that point, the most I had ever played with was 5 people on my home LAN. Obviously, we were both excited about this. Well, I was excited. Oldman seemed amused by the fact that the attempt had already taken more then a half hour, but frankly I was excited enough for two people anyways. I mean, imagine it! Seven people! Almost a+ll the majors being human controlled! truly, it was pure gaming bliss that tempted me to load HOI yet again.

Once again, I get ahead of myself and end up back at the desktop. Undetered, I jump right back in and this time get back into the HOI channel. Appears I was one of the lucky ones, since the guys are still waiting for everyone to get back into the game. Apparantly, some peoples computers react much worse then mine to a host leaving his game. But after a while, everyone had gathered into the slautermyers game again, and the countdown began!

Slautermyer: "launch in 5"
"4"
"3"
"2"
"1"

Yes! the game is loading:D Soon The axis will tremble before mighty England! Hmm, waiting for other players... Someones probably got an ageing pentium. No matter, Ill just plan my conquests while I wait. Hmm, I think I shall build subs to deal with the japanese, and focus the rest of my research into getting me advanced medium tanks. Monty shall then lead an invasion of germany from the north, forcing germany into a three front war along with poland and france! Huh, perhaps something is wrong, since Ive been waiting for quite some time. A quick control-alt-delete and I tell HOI to close, and then start HOI yet again.

Unfortunatly, I again was getting ahead of myself, since HOI decied to infact not close, while it loaded up yet again. I once again did the ctrl-alt-delete deal and finally got the waiting HOI to close, but also managed to screw up the loading one. Fine, I closed everything, and started fresh. I got back into the HOI channel to find that again some people were missing, but to make a long story slightly shorter Ill just say we we waited in the game for awhile, had to rehost a few times (though I had finally learned to exit before slautermyer closed the game), but finally managed to get into the game! Ill leave that whole deal for the next update.

Wow, what a mess. Anyways, I hope everyone likes my AAR so far. If this goes over well, Ill try an AAR of my next big LAN game, or perhaps Ill do one of my last five person, three night game.
 
WOO! I had finally made it in! A trivial problem came up, were thanks to my router I could not recieve anyones chats but the hosts, but that did not matter. Poland would simply have to relay messages to me as needed. But, everyone respoded to him, and all seemed to be well on the connectivity front:) Time to get into the game!

As I mentioned, the UK had been AI controlled in the saved game, so it was one giant mess. I had to hunt around the globe to get industry construction started and get some semblence of order out of my units. The construction queue had just been emptied of meaningless crap (pre war naval bombers indeed!) when the host said that France (Lore) had dropped. Dillema! with him dropped, France had no AI to speak of. No more research after its list runs out, ditto for units, and no AI to make use of them!

Like an idiot, I agreed that we should leave and rejoin, to wake up the AI. I mean, we just pop out and pop in, no problem. The host even saved the game, so I wouldnt have to restart my work on the UK.

I go to leave, and indeed make it to the multiplayer menu, but HOI then decides its been running for long enough. Everything just stops, can even ctrl-alt-delete my way out. Thats the first hard lock of the evening, but certainly not the last. I restart my computer and eventually meet up with most everyone in the HOI channel again.

At this point, its been almost two hours since I first got online. I believe at this point I asked oldman why I would easily accept spending over an hour and a half trying to get into a HOI game, but give up on a FPS shooter if I cant get into a perfect game after 5 minutes? We laughed, and I guess in theory, HOI multiplayer goodness should make it all worthwhile. My games in the past have been massive fun, so much so that I swore off singleplayer HOI for quite some time. Anyways, back to my own personal hell:

Those of you follwing along through this whole mess have probably already guessed what happened next. Yep, since the host saved the game, we had to start ALL over with every person downloading this time. Needless to say, with 5 people leeching off of one host (Jason had dissapeared since we dropped the last game), it was SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. eventually, after all sitting around like idiots, slautermyer points out it would be faster to split up the load. So, daniel sawyer goes and hosts the game, since through witchcraft he got it before anyone else. Hutton went off to get it from him, while Myself and Lore finally got a decent speed finally. Soon we all had the save, and slautermyer closed the game so we could regroup in the lobby.

It was around this time that we found out Lore had left the last game by choice, because it was lagging him baddly. Unfortuantly, he decided not to mention the problem so the host could try to fix it, but just left. I assume everyone was a little mad about that, but I couldnt really tell, since by this time we were in slautermyers hosted game again, and again my router only let me hear from slautermyer (yes, even in the game lobby the router issue pops up).

Now, we all got back into the game, and decided that Jason wasnt worth waiting on. Japan isnt that important, is it? So, in relative short order, we start the game! and Im back staring at the waiting screen again. despite my barrage of payers to various gods, someon had infact CTD and ruined the game. Trying to get out of the game, I managed to crash my computer too.

So, now on hard crash three, I start up my computer again and jump straight into HOI. seems I went a little to fast though, and my computer wasnt done loading up. oddly enough, my moniter goes into standby mode for a minute or two. Then, slowly, HOI comes up and laods all the way. I make my way back into the HOI channel, a glutton for punishment to the end.

well, we got a game going again, but now Czar and Hutton are gone. Czar as Italy we can do without, but Hutton was Germany and leaving it AI would suck. We wait some more, and finally decide to just go.

slautermyer: "launch in 5"
"4"
"3"
"2"
Hutton has joined the game
"1"

just barely, Hutton got in, and the game began!. I sent some excited messages to Oldman, that finally everything was grand! And now that slautermyer knew Lore was having problems, we slowed down to "slow". Ok, I guess that would make a 1936 game quite the undertaking, but it didnt matter, we were in!

I went back to cleaning up the UK. after testing to see if my communications worked (nope, router still cursed me), I noticed that my resources were going down. how this was possible baffled me, until I looked at the convoy screen. The AI had over 50 convoys, using up all my shipping capacity, and still had me lacking resources. So, I begin cancelling every convoy, so i could rebuild my shipping network from the ground up, when it happened.

I blink, and Im back at my desktop. No error, no lagging in game. just in one moment and out the next

Cannonfodder says: God hates me

I think that message to Oldman sums it up nicely. I went back into the HOI channel, to look for everyone else, but it seems I was the only one booted. finally, without any other game to join, I had to stop. I then began talking to oldman about this whole damn thing, and thats when we both hit on the idea of an AAR. After finding that no history was saved, I rushed back into HOI so I could take the names of the players off the savegame. I got them, but HOI got one last jab in on me. I had just told oldman all the players, to see if he recognized any from the forums, when HOI hard crashed my computer yet again.

well, thats most of the story. I know theres more, just cant remember everything. So, just assume for every crash there was actually two, every server rehost was actually three, and so forth. Anyways, thats all. I hope this has served as a cautionary tale for all those who would play HOI online. And for those of you who are too stupid to get the hint, Ill probably bump into you on Valkyrienet:D
 
Cannonfodder,

You my friend have fallen prey to the MP newbie syndrome. Never ever expect Valk "pick-up" games and be successful. Valk is great for recruiting new players for existing groups but the chances of a successful game (much less finishing one) with random joe's brings up several parables I won't bore you with now.

rules of thumb for successful MP game

1. no one with dial-up (cable or dsl)
2. send the save file via winrar or winzip to the various players on icq.
3. after d/l via valk - exit out and "rohost" or you connection will fry
4. shut down all other internet programs (d/l progs, IM, ICQ, etc..)
5. make sure no one is "alt-tabbed" when you're loading

btw - an AAR of my group (which is on session 10 of a concurrent game) - world of wAARmongers III is on the MP thread. Just so you can see it actually works when care is taken
 
thanks for the advice. Ill try looking for a group to play with online then. Im quite the seasoned vet when it comes to multiplayer though, thanks to my lan. The problem is most of the people I lan with cant play it online for various reasons. And, even on a lan, new problems come up that rival the crap I went through in this AAR. I guess the first thing I should do is work something out with that evil router before I get into any more multiplayer.
 
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