Server listing...

[roelbartstra]

Hey everyone,

I tried to use Tunngle a couple of times now to play online. I don't use it that often because I hate the fact that 90% of the people there have an illegal copy of the game. I don't care people downloading games who play it one or twice and then uninstall it, but if you play it "full-time" you should just buy it.

Anyway, what I was trying to say in this discussion is why Ubisoft just doesn't patch the matchmaking to a server browser. I first thought that it was to much work, but there already is a server list in the LAN section, so why don't they just do the same for online, I don't understand.

When I use Tunngle, Conviction shows me a nice list of available servers, it works the way every PC gamer want it.

Ubisoft should just throw away there matchmaking, since the only good thing coming from it was the really funny announcement trailer. But the matchmaking website doesn't work and it doesn't work in-game either.

They should also hire a new guy for the menu's. The design is just terrible. Online friends should be shown on top, and invites should be show above the online friends.

I'm getting a little off topic here, I just hope Ubisoft knows when something doesn't work, and just accepts it. Admitting you made a mistake is hard, but ignoring it and doing it twice is just really dumb. We saw the matchmaking issues with Double Agent versus mode. I think the game died after 1 week because of it. Because if it had a server list people can focus on playing a fun game instead of waiting hour for an automatic system to drop you in a server.

There is one thing Ubisoft didn't think of when creating the matchmaking. There game is not popular enough online to do so. If there was a server list and there isn't a gamemode I want to play at the time, I could immediately click on another server in the list and play something else.

I remember playing Pandora Tomorrow versus mode. The gameplay sucked but people kept on playing it, coming up with there own rules. Coming up with a name for there rule-set and put that as a name in there server. If you give people these options, you can see what people like and come up with by only taking 1 look at the server browser.

I would advice Ubisoft to also play-test there games with real PC gamers who have played previous Splinter Cell games. Not only because of the "console based" online play, but also because of the terrible controls lay-out. It just looks like you guys printed out a peace of paper with a keyboard on it and thought darts at it. It feels to much like Konami, who always f*cks up there PC controls.

I wanna end this rant by saying that the few times I have played online, I really enjoyed it. Probably the most fun I've had in a game since the first Left 4 Dead.

[braiog]

Actually Ubisoft is rather known for porting from console to PC, without really giving the PC platform much thought. In this case, Ubisoft felt that P2P matchmaking, which is the norm on console, would suffice for PC.

They keep their expenses low by not converting anything for PC and assuming "What's good for the goose is good for the gander"

This wouldn't be a problem is the matchmaking actually worked, or when you got a match going if it wasn't plagued with the most horrendous performance issues I've ever seen in a game that can only JUST BARELY be called "multiplayer" (cause it's not even 2v2.... it's 1+1!) There simply is no excuse for this type of performance, and the only reason is that Ubisoft did not test it at all and just ported to PC in order to, as always, gain whatever sales they can from the PC community.

And look at their post-sales patching... It doesn't address any of the major issues with the game. The UI is very console-esque; the lack of basic features like text chat is apparent. What good is voice chat when it all comes in amazingly stuttered? And how come on Ubisoft games have these issues with "synchronicity" between clients?

Ubisoft is holding onto ancient, outdated, circa 1980's networking coding even with their latest flagship products, and they don't seem like they are going to change that anytime soon.

But the sales are made; Ubi has the money, and to expect them to actually implement a fix is beyond what I think we can reasonably expect from them.

[roelbartstra]

The low fps is very strange, I wonder if it's because of putting a.i. online. I notice my singleplayer deniable ops is also running a lot slower when there are many more enemies, and that has nothing to do with the extra polygons, it's just the a.i. calculations. That's why SvM was the only thing working well in the splinter cell series. No A.i. and no dynamic lights. It's hard to make that kind of stuff work online. The should have just made a 1vs1 and 2vs2 without a.i. and dynamic lights.

[braiog]

Well, my singleplayer runs at 60FPS locked (probably due to vertical sync) It NEVER drops below that (meaning my system is able to handle the load and then some, no problems)

The only time I get framerate drop is in multiplayer. As with the network lag, there's no excuse for it. I think it has to do with Ubi's archaic method of multiplayer networking.

[roelbartstra]

What pc do you run it on? I only have:

-Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 (3.00GHz)
-6144MB RAM
-Geforce GTX 260

Is it my processor that it ruining the FPS?

I run it at a 1680x1050 resolution with Vertical Sync, anti-aliasing & SSAO turned off.

HDR is turned on, environment detail is high and the soft shadowing is on medium.