4th Entry of Online Autobiography
So there I was, just getting into school, and I was all alone, in a sense, again. Though around this time, my father got DSL installed at his office. So now I played most of the time at the office since I could host atleast 8 people.
I started makeing my own servers, and I eventually fell into Sniping. On Renegade there are 2 different main types of gameplay, sniping, where everyone just gets sniping characters and battles each other in up-close or far away battles or AOW (acronym for All Out War), which is the intended gameplay, where you use all infantry classes and vehicles to destroy the enemy base while protecting your own.
So through August-September I would host a sniper server everyday, usually labled "Forsaken Battlegrounds: Snipers Only". I was told it was a pretty nice sever for it being hosted by and ingame host. There are two different kinds of hosts in Renegade (host are people who make game servers for other people to play in): One where the host plays with the clients (clients or the people who just join up) and another called a Dedicated server, where the host doesn't play.
The most preferred choice, as far as hosting options go, made by players is a dedicated server (will now be called FDS, not sure what the F means, might mean File). The advantages of an FDS over an ingame host are the following:
1. There is a greater server FPS. FPS usually means First Person Shooter in game terminology, but in online hosting, or if your talking about graphics cards it means Frames Per Second. The more FPS you have the smoother you computer runs while playing games. If there is a low FPS, symptoms will choppy gameplay, and it is annoying as hell to have such.
In online gameing there is a Host FPS and a Client FPS. Even though a client might have a good graphics card and get a constant 70-80 fps (which is pretty good on mostly all games), if the host has a bad graphics card and can only churn out 20 fps, the client may not have choppy gameplay, but a variation called warping. This is where you are in one place at one moment, but out of the blue your 20 steps ahead of yourself, or behind yourself, or stuck on a wall sitting there. Other effects that are even more common or seeing other players have these symptoms. While it seems on your end you are fine, you see other clients warp and shift here and there, making it difficult to hit them.
2. Ping,I do not know what ping means exactly as far as acronyms go, but it is your connection with the server. The lower the Ping the better, low ping (which is usually around 100 or less) is needed or there will be the most common symptom of online gameing called LAG (or as in games WTF LAG, OMG LAG!>!!, and many more variations).
When the client has a high ping LAG occurs, the symptoms range far and wide with the following:
Sliding (whenever you walk 1 second, it seems you are running in place, slide back to where you were, or run in place for 10 secs then all the sudden you are where you would be if you ran for 10 seconds without LAG)
Unregistered shots, whenever you hit an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the opposing clients side....so basically you shoot a guy, but no damage is inflicted upon him, then even though your shot would of killed him, making you the winner, whenever he fire his shot lands on you, killing you instead. This is where WTF LAG comes from, LAG arises much anger. So having a server capable of hosting the amount of players it is setup for is a necessity. This being said since many hosts lie to their server browser so they can host more than their connection can handle.
Unusual events, LAG phenomena happens often, whether be glitched inside a wall, stuck on a wall (stuck on anything for that matter), character model messups, tanks stuck in buildings/ground/other tanks. Tanks floating in air, spinning in the sky just in faint visibilty. Seeing through entire maps. Disappearing gun models, or a disappearance of anything.
3. Host advantage, whenever a host plays in the game they are hosting, they get a somewhat unfair advantage. Since the host is playing, they have 0 ping....that is right 0, the lowest you can go. So all of their shots have a much higher probability of registering. Whatever they see is usually happening (Clients of games usually have a slight slower perspective on all moving objects in the game. Objects in the game might not be exactly in the same place as they really are on the clients screen. For instance, a client will see another client running in a straight line perpindicular to himself, but he must posistion his cursor a little bit in front of the body of the other client, because of the connection, he might be seeing an after-image, this image may only be a smidgen off of where the person really is, but when you are going for headshots, even the smallest LAG as such can alter a direct hit.)
With that being explained to about the fullest extent I can explain it, that is why in games an FDS is more preferred than a ingame host.
Though even all of the factors above can be the reason to only play in FDS, there are still people who don't quite mind playing in a host game, since most people like small games, and most ingame hosts make small game servers (1-12 or so), while FDS host hosted large servers for AOW (16-60 clients at once).
So I began hosting around 8-person sniper servers. People said it was a nice server, and didn't really mind me being host at all, it presented them with a challenge, or that was the thought of my most friendly aquainted rivals. There would be the occasional newcomer who would get whooped, and say "It is only because he is host". Even though it is somewhat true, it isn't, because once you get used to hosting games, you can only host and do well. If you change from hosting to playing in other servers, your skill goes down a ton, since your not used to the lag. So nowadays, especially for competitive purposes, clans involved in online gameing make sure they do not play as a host, since they will get used to no lag, only to avoid getting a butt-whipping against those who are used to the casual omnipresent lag in servers.
Anyway, it is still around August-September, been hosting, and made lots of sniping aquaintances, and had many new "join my clan" proposals thrown at me. Well I ended up joining a clan whose leader was name killalotb. It was an alright clan, didn't seem like we really participated in the ladder (ladder means competing with other clans on a ranking system) much at all, just an occasional map here and there, and I would always be the clan host. Killalotb also had a brother by the name of Blazea56, he was mainly an AOW guy, and interesting to talk to. I would usually have conversations about paranormal activities that have seemed to occur, and still do often. The subject matter would range from ghost to extraterrestrials, and once he even told me that he saw a UFO. I'm always skeptical, but always open-minded to anything I'm presented with, so I believed him. He described it being in a triangular shape, with red beamed lights on the back, when I heard of this I thought of the much depicted StarDestroyer from the StarWars universe. Also I have read about such triangular UFOs being spotted.
(OT(off topic)----> It does seem like these days it has hard for people to come out an admit if they witness or experience such abnormal activities. They have an inner fear that is similar to what a young child that had been abused by their parent have, they want to tell, but are afraid what might happen to them, not sure exactly what the consequences will be. For the better, or the worse? By reading many books on paranormal activities it seems like most events that have been recorded by members of the community date back from 1900-1960s some rare reports in the 1970s-1980s (Most had anonymous as the siganture for their story). Why is this? It seems like these days the larger portion of the community would see such stories as made-up nonsense, and the one telling their experience has the fear they'd be considered crazy and ridiculed. It only seems there are a few readily availible sources these days to such information, and no not the tabloids, although there might be some true stories in the mess. So much out there, and so little we know.)
So, after awhile killalotb started to show up less and less, the game called Jedi Academy was drawing him away from Renegade, and I being committed to anything I do, still loved Renegade with the same passion. So I finally withdrew from killalotb's clan, and still had contact with his brother. At this time it is around October-November 2002. I started to wane on my sniper server, since I have been playing in sniper servers and hosting them for about 3 or 4 months now. So I started to play in the big FDS AOW servers, and this re-presented me to the gameplay that made me like the game so much when I first bought it (sorta like when we're young and we get a toy and tire of it after a week, but a few months later you look in the bottom of toy box and your like holy cow! what a neat toy!). So I basically stopped hosted sniper servers just out of the urge of sniping, but always in the middle of an AOW game I'd get a page (private message) with "Where is your server?" "Can you host please?". I might not have totally felt like sniping, but would always host when someone asked me too.
So after a couple of months of AOW, I started to tire of it, and started to move back to sniping again around the end of November, everything seemed just as usual, was still doing my own thing until December something happened to me that would forever change and has still effected my Online gameplay..............
To Be Continued....
I started makeing my own servers, and I eventually fell into Sniping. On Renegade there are 2 different main types of gameplay, sniping, where everyone just gets sniping characters and battles each other in up-close or far away battles or AOW (acronym for All Out War), which is the intended gameplay, where you use all infantry classes and vehicles to destroy the enemy base while protecting your own.
So through August-September I would host a sniper server everyday, usually labled "Forsaken Battlegrounds: Snipers Only". I was told it was a pretty nice sever for it being hosted by and ingame host. There are two different kinds of hosts in Renegade (host are people who make game servers for other people to play in): One where the host plays with the clients (clients or the people who just join up) and another called a Dedicated server, where the host doesn't play.
The most preferred choice, as far as hosting options go, made by players is a dedicated server (will now be called FDS, not sure what the F means, might mean File). The advantages of an FDS over an ingame host are the following:
1. There is a greater server FPS. FPS usually means First Person Shooter in game terminology, but in online hosting, or if your talking about graphics cards it means Frames Per Second. The more FPS you have the smoother you computer runs while playing games. If there is a low FPS, symptoms will choppy gameplay, and it is annoying as hell to have such.
In online gameing there is a Host FPS and a Client FPS. Even though a client might have a good graphics card and get a constant 70-80 fps (which is pretty good on mostly all games), if the host has a bad graphics card and can only churn out 20 fps, the client may not have choppy gameplay, but a variation called warping. This is where you are in one place at one moment, but out of the blue your 20 steps ahead of yourself, or behind yourself, or stuck on a wall sitting there. Other effects that are even more common or seeing other players have these symptoms. While it seems on your end you are fine, you see other clients warp and shift here and there, making it difficult to hit them.
2. Ping,I do not know what ping means exactly as far as acronyms go, but it is your connection with the server. The lower the Ping the better, low ping (which is usually around 100 or less) is needed or there will be the most common symptom of online gameing called LAG (or as in games WTF LAG, OMG LAG!>!!, and many more variations).
When the client has a high ping LAG occurs, the symptoms range far and wide with the following:
Sliding (whenever you walk 1 second, it seems you are running in place, slide back to where you were, or run in place for 10 secs then all the sudden you are where you would be if you ran for 10 seconds without LAG)
Unregistered shots, whenever you hit an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the opposing clients side....so basically you shoot a guy, but no damage is inflicted upon him, then even though your shot would of killed him, making you the winner, whenever he fire his shot lands on you, killing you instead. This is where WTF LAG comes from, LAG arises much anger. So having a server capable of hosting the amount of players it is setup for is a necessity. This being said since many hosts lie to their server browser so they can host more than their connection can handle.
Unusual events, LAG phenomena happens often, whether be glitched inside a wall, stuck on a wall (stuck on anything for that matter), character model messups, tanks stuck in buildings/ground/other tanks. Tanks floating in air, spinning in the sky just in faint visibilty. Seeing through entire maps. Disappearing gun models, or a disappearance of anything.
3. Host advantage, whenever a host plays in the game they are hosting, they get a somewhat unfair advantage. Since the host is playing, they have 0 ping....that is right 0, the lowest you can go. So all of their shots have a much higher probability of registering. Whatever they see is usually happening (Clients of games usually have a slight slower perspective on all moving objects in the game. Objects in the game might not be exactly in the same place as they really are on the clients screen. For instance, a client will see another client running in a straight line perpindicular to himself, but he must posistion his cursor a little bit in front of the body of the other client, because of the connection, he might be seeing an after-image, this image may only be a smidgen off of where the person really is, but when you are going for headshots, even the smallest LAG as such can alter a direct hit.)
With that being explained to about the fullest extent I can explain it, that is why in games an FDS is more preferred than a ingame host.
Though even all of the factors above can be the reason to only play in FDS, there are still people who don't quite mind playing in a host game, since most people like small games, and most ingame hosts make small game servers (1-12 or so), while FDS host hosted large servers for AOW (16-60 clients at once).
So I began hosting around 8-person sniper servers. People said it was a nice server, and didn't really mind me being host at all, it presented them with a challenge, or that was the thought of my most friendly aquainted rivals. There would be the occasional newcomer who would get whooped, and say "It is only because he is host". Even though it is somewhat true, it isn't, because once you get used to hosting games, you can only host and do well. If you change from hosting to playing in other servers, your skill goes down a ton, since your not used to the lag. So nowadays, especially for competitive purposes, clans involved in online gameing make sure they do not play as a host, since they will get used to no lag, only to avoid getting a butt-whipping against those who are used to the casual omnipresent lag in servers.
Anyway, it is still around August-September, been hosting, and made lots of sniping aquaintances, and had many new "join my clan" proposals thrown at me. Well I ended up joining a clan whose leader was name killalotb. It was an alright clan, didn't seem like we really participated in the ladder (ladder means competing with other clans on a ranking system) much at all, just an occasional map here and there, and I would always be the clan host. Killalotb also had a brother by the name of Blazea56, he was mainly an AOW guy, and interesting to talk to. I would usually have conversations about paranormal activities that have seemed to occur, and still do often. The subject matter would range from ghost to extraterrestrials, and once he even told me that he saw a UFO. I'm always skeptical, but always open-minded to anything I'm presented with, so I believed him. He described it being in a triangular shape, with red beamed lights on the back, when I heard of this I thought of the much depicted StarDestroyer from the StarWars universe. Also I have read about such triangular UFOs being spotted.
(OT(off topic)----> It does seem like these days it has hard for people to come out an admit if they witness or experience such abnormal activities. They have an inner fear that is similar to what a young child that had been abused by their parent have, they want to tell, but are afraid what might happen to them, not sure exactly what the consequences will be. For the better, or the worse? By reading many books on paranormal activities it seems like most events that have been recorded by members of the community date back from 1900-1960s some rare reports in the 1970s-1980s (Most had anonymous as the siganture for their story). Why is this? It seems like these days the larger portion of the community would see such stories as made-up nonsense, and the one telling their experience has the fear they'd be considered crazy and ridiculed. It only seems there are a few readily availible sources these days to such information, and no not the tabloids, although there might be some true stories in the mess. So much out there, and so little we know.)
So, after awhile killalotb started to show up less and less, the game called Jedi Academy was drawing him away from Renegade, and I being committed to anything I do, still loved Renegade with the same passion. So I finally withdrew from killalotb's clan, and still had contact with his brother. At this time it is around October-November 2002. I started to wane on my sniper server, since I have been playing in sniper servers and hosting them for about 3 or 4 months now. So I started to play in the big FDS AOW servers, and this re-presented me to the gameplay that made me like the game so much when I first bought it (sorta like when we're young and we get a toy and tire of it after a week, but a few months later you look in the bottom of toy box and your like holy cow! what a neat toy!). So I basically stopped hosted sniper servers just out of the urge of sniping, but always in the middle of an AOW game I'd get a page (private message) with "Where is your server?" "Can you host please?". I might not have totally felt like sniping, but would always host when someone asked me too.
So after a couple of months of AOW, I started to tire of it, and started to move back to sniping again around the end of November, everything seemed just as usual, was still doing my own thing until December something happened to me that would forever change and has still effected my Online gameplay..............
To Be Continued....