End of SWBFII Multiplayer

[Kingpin]

Scott, can you tell me some of the differences between Tunngle and Gameranger? We are making a large clan decision and would like your expert advice.

For SWBF2 specifically? Or in general?

For SWBF2.

[bobcattycat]

so whats happening now?

i tried the modified exe file on this website http://swgohome.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.ph ... 7&start=30

but there are only three servers up,

are more people going to make the move?

i play swbf and a modified exe is easily the best and most convenient solution if you want to retain the maximum amount of players

[ScottKevill]

i play swbf and a modified exe is easily the best and most convenient solution if you want to retain the maximum amount of players

Apparently not, or you wouldn't be making this post. 8 active servers at the moment in GameRanger, varies depending on the minute.



EDIT

Scott, can you tell me some of the differences between Tunngle and Gameranger? We are making a large clan decision and would like your expert advice.

For SWBF2 specifically? Or in general?

For SWBF2.

There are a ton of reasons, but a few are..

GameRanger is safer because it's not a VPN. It does not install any network adapters on your system. VPNs expose your whole computer to everyone else in the network. They are designed to protect you from people on the outside, not from those within the network, and as a result you are often not protected with a firewall. Even if you trust the other people in the VPN, they might unknowingly have malware on their systems. GameRanger only transports traffic from the game itself, and nothing else.

With those VPNs, you have no idea if anyone is actually in the game until you launch it. You can't tell from the "outside."

GameRanger does not use the LAN mode for SWBF2, it uses the Internet mode, which means any optimisations designed for Internet play are applied. I'm not sure if SWBF2 itself specifically does this, but often games assuming they can use far more bandwidth if they are in LAN mode.

[AnthonyBF2]

Gameshare is by far the best choice. It supports PC 1.0 and 1.1 with server support. And it supports swbf2 for the PS2 (by swapping the DNS during network config on the console)

For PC server and PC game client it's an exe swap, and they show you how to mod your own exe if you don't trust it. It's currently got more than 3 servers too.

http://gameshare.co/gamemaster

[_DeltaForce_]

The GameSpy servers finally went down today, about 10 EST someone told me. No chance retrieving any server list from the master servers.

I tried out GameMaster as well as FreeGST, the latter didn'd work for me, however GameMaster did without a problem. About ten players on some SWGO server an hour ago, most or all of them joined via GameMaster. The server list of GameMaster is not incredible at the moment, but I am sure it will be extended in the future.

[bobcattycat]

i dont have a gamespy id account, so cant log in through the gamemaster exe...


does anyone know where i can create a gamespy id?

http://www.gamespyid.com doesnt seem to exist anymore

[LRKfm946]

FreeGST is working fine for me. The servers using it have been fairly active as well.

[_DeltaForce_]

i dont have a gamespy id account, so cant log in through the gamemaster exe...

No GameSpy account needed, as it was never needed before GameSpy went down. Simply click on Join and therefore skip the GameSpy login page. You will play with your singleplayer account name.

FreeGST is working fine for me. The servers using it have been fairly active as well.

How many servers do you find with FreeGST? Currently I get displayed only two. Oh, and it works fine for me now, too, don't know what was up with that yesterday.

[LRKfm946]

At one point there were 10+ servers. When i was on last night there were 5. However, if FreeGST were to do what gameshare is doing and simply enter the IP and port numbers into their database, they could have all the servers that are up anywhere (I was told this by a friend, I haven't confirmed if it's true).

FreeGST also supports gamespy ID login so you can have a longer name w/ special characters if you want. Just enter freegst as the login password.

[Kingpin]

We are contacting Branzone, the people who host the Sith Empire server, to see if they will swap the .exes.

[TWINKEYRUNAWAY]

If I want to use gamemaster for online, will I need to modify the battlefront II exe? I have the steam version and I would prefer not to modify the exe or it might violate my steam account.

[_DeltaForce_]

Not necessarily do you have to modify your exe. The only modification which needs to be done is changing the Gamespy server address. You can do this with creating an advanced firewall rule or using the hosts file. However in this case all queries to the Gamespy servers will be redirected to the GameMaster servers, no matter from which application. For example if you have two games for which you want to change the Gamespy address you'd need to change it at least for one game locally in the game's exe file or change the global rule every time you start the game. (However you could do even this automatically with a simple batch script of something similiar.)

To create a hosts entry to reroute the Gamespy quaries, you have to modify the hosts file that resides in the following folder: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc. Open the hosts file in notepad editor. Add the following lines:

Hidden/Spoiler:

5.230.233.61 swbfrontpc2.ms4.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 swbfrontpc2.available.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 available.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 master.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 swbfront2pc.master.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 motd.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 key.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 peerchat.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 gpsp.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 gpcm.gamespy.com
5.230.233.61 natneg1.gamespy.com

Or, if you want to use the master server located in New York instead of the one located in Frankfurt, Germany, paste the following: (However, your ping ingame will not suffer if you use the German server (or the US server if you are located in europe).)

Hidden/Spoiler:

162.243.230.247 swbfront2pc.ms4.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 swbfront2pc.available.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 available.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 master.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 swbfront2pc.master.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 motd.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 key.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 peerchat.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 gpsp.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 gpcm.gamespy.com
162.243.230.247 natneg1.gamespy.com

Alternatively you can do the same using advanced firewall rules. Thinking about it, it may be possible to create application specific rules with firewall rules... However, the hosts file will work as well if you want to reroute queries only for SWBF2.

EDIT
@ bobcattycat: I just wanted to say that GameMaster (by gameshare.co) now supports "GameSpy" accounts as well so you can play with longer names. You may register by logging in with some e-mail address and password on the GameSpy page in the game. If you downloaded the GameMaster exes already some time ago you may have to download them again for the GameSpy account system to work.