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Multiplayer: Difference between revisions
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==Original multiplayer== | ==Original multiplayer== | ||
[[Image:Oni MP at MacWorld NY 1999 3.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Kevin Armstrong, Oni's networking programmer, is seated at the computer in the background (Macworld NY '99)]] | [[Image:Oni MP at MacWorld NY 1999 3.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Kevin Armstrong, Oni's networking programmer, is seated at the computer in the background (Macworld NY '99)]] | ||
When Oni was first being shown publicly, multiplayer (MP) was promised, at least in a LAN setting. Some words from the Oni staff on multiplayer (back when it was in development) can be found in the interviews with [http://oni.bungie.org/special/part1/kevin.html Kevin Armstrong] (networking programmer) and [http://oni.bungie.org/special/part2/steve.html Steve Abeyta] (3D animator), as well as with Brent Pease himself (see video link below). Eventually, in May of 2000, it was announced that there would be no multiplayer feature in Oni due to issues with latency. | When Oni was first being shown publicly, multiplayer (MP) was promised, at least in a LAN setting. Some words from the Oni staff on multiplayer (back when it was in development) can be found in the interviews with [http://oni.bungie.org/special/part1/kevin.html Kevin Armstrong] (networking programmer) and [http://oni.bungie.org/special/part2/steve.html Steve Abeyta] (3D animator), as well as with Brent Pease himself (see video link below). Eventually, in May of 2000, [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=3185 it was announced] that there would be no multiplayer feature in Oni due to issues with latency. | ||
The lack of multiplayer in the final product may have been the biggest blow to Oni's reception. Combined with complaints about the AI, players wanted to be able to play against other humans. The public viewed this as another sign of the game's incompletion, comparing Oni to FPS titles with multiplayer such as Unreal and Quake, and failing to recognize that melee combat over the Internet was nearly impossible at that time (and still is; [http://wolfire.com/overgrowth Overgrowth] a.k.a. Lugaru 2 promises LAN support only; a notable exception from Oni's time period seems to be [[State of Emergency]], a melee-oriented game that apparently had reasonably fluid online multiplayer). | The lack of multiplayer in the final product may have been the biggest blow to Oni's reception. Combined with complaints about the AI, players wanted to be able to play against other humans. The public viewed this as another sign of the game's incompletion, comparing Oni to FPS titles with multiplayer such as Unreal and Quake, and failing to recognize that melee combat over the Internet was nearly impossible at that time (and still is; [http://wolfire.com/overgrowth Overgrowth] a.k.a. Lugaru 2 promises LAN support only; a notable exception from Oni's time period seems to be [[State of Emergency]], a melee-oriented game that apparently had reasonably fluid online multiplayer). | ||
Some questioned why Bungie did not at least include LAN play functionality, since visitors to Bungie's booths were able to play 4-8 player LAN games (pictured at right, video below) at the [[wikipedia:Electronic_Entertainment_Expo|E3]] of May 1999 in Los Angeles, the New York City [[wikipedia:Macworld_Conference_%26_Expo|Macworld Expo]] of July 1999 and the San Francisco Macworld Expo of January 2000. However, multiplayer seems to have had latency issues even on LAN; Hardy LeBel [http://web.archive.org/web/20010816164220/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/00/lebel/ stated], "The biggest factor in the decision to remove multiplayer support was the technological hurdle. We had been playing Oni over our office LAN and consistently experienced serious problems synching up the characters in multiplayer battles." Additionally, without more time to | Some questioned why Bungie did not at least include LAN play functionality, since visitors to Bungie's booths were able to play 4-8 player LAN games (pictured at right, video below) at the [[wikipedia:Electronic_Entertainment_Expo|E3]] of May 1999 in Los Angeles, the New York City [[wikipedia:Macworld_Conference_%26_Expo|Macworld Expo]] of July 1999 and the San Francisco Macworld Expo of January 2000. However, multiplayer seems to have had latency issues even on LAN; Hardy LeBel [http://web.archive.org/web/20010816164220/http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/00/lebel/ stated], "The biggest factor in the decision to remove multiplayer support was the technological hurdle. We had been playing Oni over our office LAN and consistently experienced serious problems synching up the characters in multiplayer battles." Additionally, without more time to develop content for MP mode, the developers did not want to frustrate players with an incomplete netplay feature. | ||
For a period of time, starting from the announcement that MP had been cut, until some months after Oni's release, it was hoped that Oni would be patched to add in multiplayer. However, as Bungie no longer owned the code, it would have fallen on Take Two to perform this work. Whether due to the difficulty of learning and building on Bungie's code, or lack of financial motivation, no patches were made to Oni. | For a period of time, starting from the announcement that MP had been cut, until some months after Oni's release, it was hoped that Oni would be patched to add in multiplayer. However, as Bungie no longer owned the code, it would have fallen on Take Two to perform this work. Whether due to the difficulty of learning and building on Bungie's code, or lack of financial motivation, no patches were made to Oni. | ||
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[http://oniplayer.oni2.net/ OniPlayer] was a project coordinated by typhen and involving [[User:Admin|Alloc]], Kumo, and [[User:Ssg|SSG]]. Up to the departure of typhen in 2005, the project remained in the address-finding phase, with applications limited to Alloc's OniTrainer and typhen's OniFly (the Trainer allowed the user to set or freeze most of the known variables on demand, whereas OniFly performed elaborate freezing on character positions based on their aiming vector). Later, [http://neonew.oni2.net neonew] put the knowledge to use with OniHook, actually tracking and patching a character's animations as if synchronizing action over a network. | [http://oniplayer.oni2.net/ OniPlayer] was a project coordinated by typhen and involving [[User:Admin|Alloc]], Kumo, and [[User:Ssg|SSG]]. Up to the departure of typhen in 2005, the project remained in the address-finding phase, with applications limited to Alloc's OniTrainer and typhen's OniFly (the Trainer allowed the user to set or freeze most of the known variables on demand, whereas OniFly performed elaborate freezing on character positions based on their aiming vector). Later, [http://neonew.oni2.net neonew] put the knowledge to use with OniHook, actually tracking and patching a character's animations as if synchronizing action over a network. | ||
The next attempt at incorporating MP into Oni | The next attempt at incorporating MP into Oni was the [[Flatline]] project, started in 2008 and made possible by the [[Daodan DLL]]. Development progressed up to the point where gameplay was smooth with two or three players, though gunplay was not yet supported. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeWr11QVjU This video from 2011] was the latest footage of Flatline's progress. | ||
[[Category:Oni history]] | [[Category:Oni history]] | ||