The core issues with GunZ

[ThePhailure772]

As we all know by now Gunz is a dying game. I wanted to discuss same of the core issues with Gunz and what can be done to solve them.


1. The networking is on the level of the Wii.

What could I possibly mean by that statement? The Wii is the butt of all jokes when it comes to how networking is implemented. In Gunz we're transmitting more data than we need to. We have no central connection that's controlling the match being made. To put this in simpler terms we'll use a simple equation. The packet we're dealing with in this example is Peer.Shot.

struct ZPACKEDSHOTINFO {
	float	fTime;
	short	posx, posy, posz;
	short	tox, toy, toz;
	BYTE	sel_type;
};

So we have:

packetSize = 23 + sizeof(ZPACKEDSHOTINFO)
packetSize = 40
sentCount = packetSize * (numOfPlayers - 1);

So when we shoot our gun we're sending a packet to every player in the game. If we just shot a shotgun then multiply that by 12 as Gunz sends a packet per bullet. To solve this we would need to move Gunz to a networking system similar to Xbox Live. Where we have a control and each client sends a status update and the controller will send out the information needed.


2. Gunz's engine is outdated

With Gunz we're using DirectX 9 with simple shader creation. The engine has had a few optimizations over the past years but that hasn't really done anything at all. We have the source, we have access to open libraries, and we have the ability to implement new design structures. We have ALL of the requirements to recreate this engine or just optimize it to a level of usage. No one wants to learn anything new except maybe Wucas when it comes to 3DS Max. We need innovation in this community not staying one that won't move because they feel comfortable with old non-optimzed methods of creation.

3. Every server is lackluster.

What do ANY of you bring to your server that is actually unique? At most you bring a balancing system that hasn't even been thought out. Donation weapons ruin servers; trust me I ran Trinity and I know how that goes. Why not sit down, map out the specifications of your ZItem in a database and run over them to see what can be altered to what can be balanced.
Next, be innovative on your ideas. Why would you want to clone another server just because they have a cool feature. Why not make an even cooler one? Why not bring something unique to the table.

4. Gunz's community makes Xbox Live kids look harmless.

There is more egotistical assholes in Gunz than there is on Xbox Live. That's one thing that can be fixed simply with strict rules on a server, but people seem to think '1v1 ME SCRUB' is perfectly reasonable to say. Why do we allow demoralization on this game without any repercussion?

More to come soon ;_;

[MentaL]

[Gunblade]

As we all know by now Gunz is a dying game

Gunz Dying? Its already dead.

[Wucas]

As for the new engine, which is of most concern to me, if anyone were to update the engine or replace it, I would definitely provide guides and help others in the conversion. Why have I stopped my documentation of RealSpace 2.0? I can count on my hand the amount of people who have switched from Blender to 3DS, which is highly disappointing. I have done my fair share of searching various servers to see new creations, and I see none, everything being made could have been made back in 2007.

I did see the RealSpace 3.0 visual loader being used in the Show Off section, but if not provided to the public, things like this are useless to the rest of us.

[WizCoder]

No please stop these kinds of threads, Their pretty much all the same thing. How 'Gunz' can be improved blabla, Gunz has died and there is nothing we can do.

I truly don't understand how people are still having fun hopping from server to server, I've been doing that for a long while now and I've came to realize a few months back that it's pointless and now a days servers just close down and they are all the same.

Might as well wait for Gunz the second duel but then again that game doesn't seem any similar to Gunz 1 at all, when I look at it I have flashbacks of S4 League. They've taken so long to release the game that tons of people and myself have lost interest in it.

As for Gunz people start projects and get their team all set and ready then boom it's cancelled or things happen to never work out has planned.

~Just sharing thoughts

[Anju]

Your number 1 statement is the same for all online/mutiplayer games.

[Joe9099]

No please stop these kinds of threads, Their pretty much all the same thing. How 'Gunz' can be improved blabla, Gunz has died and there is nothing we can do.

I truly don't understand how people are still having fun hopping from server to server, I've been doing that for a long while now and I've came to realize a few months back that it's pointless and now a days servers just close down and they are all the same.

Might as well wait for Gunz the second duel but then again that game doesn't seem any similar to Gunz 1 at all, when I look at it I have flashbacks of S4 League. They've taken so long to release the game that tons of people and myself have lost interest in it.

As for Gunz people start projects and get their team all set and ready then boom it's cancelled or things happen to never work out has planned.

~Just sharing thoughts

That's where ur wrong, i believe, with the right touch to gunz, we can bring it back to life.
All you have to do is make it different an unique to gunz the duel.
by this i mean changing EVERYTHING but keeping the same, idea...

So interface changes TO THE MAX, LOADS new gamemodes and obviously a new graphics engine.
The main reason people actually play "Later" games on the xbox is because they are visually buetiful, whereas gunz graphics are very dull.

As i said, i think if we all chipped in as one and all made 1 big server, it would bring a lot of good.
Wucas tried this with his gunz project, but it failed as he stopped working on it.

All i am trying to say is, i know what jacob is trying to say, these things just need to be improved to bring gunz back to life (around the private server area ofc).

<3 Joe

[Gunblade]

That's where ur wrong, i believe, with the right touch to gunz, we can bring it back to life.
All you have to do is make it different an unique to gunz the duel.
by this i mean changing EVERYTHING but keeping the same, idea...

So interface changes TO THE MAX, LOADS new gamemodes and obviously a new graphics engine.
The main reason people actually play "Later" games on the xbox is because they are visually buetiful, whereas gunz graphics are very dull.

As i said, i think if we all chipped in as one and all made 1 big server, it would bring a lot of good.
Wucas tried this with his gunz project, but it failed as he stopped working on it.

All i am trying to say is, i know what jacob is trying to say, these things just need to be improved to bring gunz back to life (around the private server area ofc).

<3 Joe

Making it 1 big server would be an easy target for MAIET/Aeria for a takedown request.

[Secured]

Making it 1 big server would be an easy target for MAIET/Aeria for a takedown request.

I havent heard of maiet sending DMCAs to anyone actually. But even if they suprisingly did target your guy's public development server (or w/e u wanna call it). It wouldn't be hard to just not comply, and use offshore hosting ect.

@#2
The Gunz Engine has been worked on for months now, mostly implementing realspace 3. I've seen some others work with different engines though (not as much progress). There are some people who got fairly far including the ability to load gunz2 maps, which has been seen in the show-off thread. I've also seen people getting Gunz2 models to work as well. I'm still trying to get models to work, but ya I'm not as good as some of those others who have more experience working with game engines.

And about the interface, I think a big improvement would be to add flash support or another idea that warren (i think it was him) had which is html5, css, and javascript.

[Dave]

I havent heard of maiet sending DMCAs to anyone actually. But even if they suprisingly did target your guy's public development server (or w/e u wanna call it). It wouldn't be hard to just not comply, and use offshore hosting ect.

They've done it in the past. I guess they gave up.

[Gunblade]

They've done it in the past. I guess they gave up.

Afaik MAIET only sended DMCA's to Legacy Gamers and Euro.
IJJI was a bit more active with DMCA's but I have no idea about Aeria, Looking at their GunZ forum, they don't really seem to care about GunZ, neither does MAIET anymore.

[Dave]

Afaik MAIET only sended DMCA's to Legacy Gamers and Euro.
IJJI was a bit more active with DMCA's but I have no idea about Aeria, Looking at their GunZ forum, they don't really seem to care about GunZ, neither does MAIET anymore.

Back when the server of FG was in the USA, we received a DMCA takedown notice twice every week or so.
(By some guy called Ching chong w.e lol.)

[Gunblade]

Back when the server of FG was in the USA, we received a DMCA takedown notice twice every week or so.
(By some guy called Ching chong w.e lol.)

Haha, Where's the server hosted now if I may ask?

[Dave]

Haha, Where's the server hosted now if I may ask?

The Netherlands.

To be on-topic:
What kind of advanced features have you got in mind? What would make a server unique?

[a1tl4]

One of the worst things that did fail was the GunZ hacks, especially the very underclock that helps you lose to a noob any.
Perhaps also to prevent people with clients are modified, we can edit the MatchServer if the MatchServer not receive any socket we put Customer, you can not connect to MatchServer, for example.

[Secured]

One of the worst things that did fail was the GunZ hacks, especially the very underclock that helps you lose to a noob any.
Perhaps also to prevent people with clients are modified, we can edit the MatchServer if the MatchServer not receive any socket we put Customer, you can not connect to MatchServer, for example.

This isn't unique most of these "GunZ Hacks" were patched a long time ago. And it was never hard.

Edit Wasnt*

[Wish Q]

This isn't unique most of these "GunZ Hacks" were patched a long time ago. And it was never hard.

i think people are still making hacks for 1.5 but not know maybe later like 07-08.

[jumparound]

I think what people need is a good reason to work on GunZ, i got some knowledge of 3DS myself, but i dont see any reason to work on GunZ anymore, and pulling something GunZ revival didnt really work.

[Hashed]

Honestly, I don't believe that GunZ is a dead game. I believe that it's only dead because it's DULL.

Those who actually program and make new features for the game, are the only ones that see GunZ as being "alive", that is how I see it anyways.

For GunZ to be active and remain alive, there needs to be contributation and a lot of effort into it.

Topics such as these are what drives GunZ into motivation.
The people that disagree with it being alive are the ones who are hurting the game the most.

We should be getting our heads out of the gutter, cause in this gutter, all we do is complain how dead it is.
Want it alive? Start learning.
Want to keep playing GunZ? Start getting motivated.
Want to improve GunZ for always and for better? Start walking down the road, cause it's going to be a long journey ahead.

The reward is what matters the most, the ability to play the game you've all been playing for so long, but better than before.

[dacharles]

There is many people coding and not releasing their stuff. They will not contribute. I wouldn't.

Is better coding than playing so you won't have to deal with the egofags in-game.

[Wucas]

There is many people coding and not releasing their stuff. They will not contribute. I wouldn't.

Is better coding than playing so you won't have to deal with the egofags in-game.

I haven't played GunZ since 2008 and I'm still here releasing stuff o.o (not lately, but meh, I've been busy personally). Just because you don't play isn't an excuse to horde information, I mean look at Phantom*, the guy didn't even play GunZ at all.

Personally, I try and give back 2x what I have gotten from this site, that is just my pride making me pay back what I think I have due. I understand many people have gotten little or nothing from here, in which they probably don't understand that feeling (you may be in that category as well), but without ragezone I would have never even been interested in 3D/ GFX design. Honestly, without this forum I would probably still be playing RPGs like any one of my friends.

I guess my point is, the only reason ragezone and forums in general exist is because of that give and take mentality, simply suggesting that it is okay not to contribute is basically stating that things like this are worthless, which I do not agree with.

@topic: I have gotten a few requests via PMs to help with MAX related issues, and I'll think of something to aid them soon. The fact is, (A) Blender/ GTK and it's scripts need to be thrown out (they are legacy tools, it's like using a BB gun when there is an AK sitting right next to it...) and (B) if anyone is seriously thinking of using another gaming engine, or even updating RS 2 to run more efficiently with more data, you need to understand simply how to create assets with the tools we have first.

RS 2 has it's faults, I know, but it is a good testing ground for the simplest of graphic design. You have set parameters you cannot pass, touchy settings to the exporters, and limited methods to work with, but hell, even with such strict guidelines I see people consistently take short cuts and create useless materials. From a comparative standpoint, being a "good" designer for RealSpace is much easier to achieve then a "good" designer in another engine like UDK or Unity.

"Customs" as you people love to call them, shouldn't be something bad for a server. If created right, these "customs" should appear as though it is simply a MAIET update. I mean how hard is it to get around the idea that you must keep something extremely low poly and paint a similarly small texture. I may turn out some more tutorials on the subject of modeling, but gosh, I learned completely on my own, and I can say the learning curve is much easier then that of any other game development catergory. Every game uses certain things like mesh modeling, UV mapping, diffuse textures, and collisions, understand those things first before even trying to get your stuff ingame.

TL;DR:
(A) Reply to dacharles;
(B) Before anyone attempts to work with a higher level gaming engine, they should understand how RS 2 works. I may provide some more guides on the subject, but things like mesh modeling, UV mapping, diffuse textures, and collisions, and used in every single development, you might as well understand this cookie first before you just take the whole jar.

[KillerStefan]

Phail is making a valid point and I'm glad to see you came around as well.
I've always had a non-donation policy when I was doing Gunz servers because of ethical grounds.
I mean, why would you want money for something you didn't create.
My only goal was to provide an alternative experience since I believed ijji and MAIET didn't really cut it.
I really hope to see people digg into Gunz development and actually make those changes required.
Issue is, I think that 90% of the people here are not capable to pull this off, those that remain seem to be those exact arrogant self-centered assholes you described.
You have been one, you should know.
If I could contribute to Gunz again by stepping into a project like this, I would certainly do so but I'm well aware the complexity of this goes beyond my knowledge at this point.

[jur13n]

After reading every comment here.
I just have to say. Didn't we all have this discussion before..

I see phail has a point. But for gunz to be all alive again we need more people with the knowledge to pull these things off.

Back in the '07 days i remember howbit was unique if you pulled it off to create a retexture and add it to the game.
Damn what a developer you were those days.

These days you need to know how to code. I never was a wonder boy in coding languages. I am a quick learner and that's why I got myself motivated to create a repack after getting my mind on it for 1 day.

But there aren't many of those people. And nowadays the people who do have lots of knowledge don't share anymore.

That's where we gone the wrong way. Being aelfish and money hungry for our own servers.

Without these forums. I would never be interested in developing nor web development wich I am following my study for now.
Just as for wucas the same counts for me. GunZ made me do things I never imagened to do if I didn't follow these forums for all these years.

But now it feels like it's dying.
What is being released these days?
Snippets for the source. Things most of us can pull out. But why? Because every other server already have it.

It's nothing better then those retextures we had back in '07.



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[Vusion]

Imo, the product is not worth the effort.