The DoD team has been working on this for some time, and I just wanted to announce here to you guys. We've managed to code up a client side server for HL - which decidedly blurs the distinction between client and server. Now, any client can be a server and any server a client. What this means is that a client can join a server, then launch their OWN server at the same time. Biggest thing you'll be able to do with this is run games with more than 32 players, as the players on the initial server and the "client server" combine. We've done some test games with the DoD 2.1 test code, and have managed to run very smooth 64 player games with little problems. Mugsy recently redid the spawn code to allow for a "all spawn points busy so please wait" system - which greatly has reduced the number of telefrag/spawns.
Theoretically by the way, one should be able to have 32x32 players total (where all clients connecting to the master server then become client side servers, and then take on 32 players themselves). The catch is that the bandwidth between the master server and the 32 client side servers must be VERY good. Another catch is map sizes - as clearly the old 8000x8000x8000 limitations are going to be a bind for huge #'s of players. Therefor we'll probably be tweaking the player hulls in DoD 3.0 to scale players to 16 units tall, thus effectively quadrupling the effective map sizes. We think this is really going to revolutionize HL mods. Tim "Waldo" Holt & DoD team -- I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check. -M.C. Escher _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
