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'Make a private hosted version of your game': Knockout City dev's top tip for studios shutting down a live service game is to give players the keys (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 8 months ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[-] kogasa@programming.dev 78 points 8 months ago

I was one of the last ~50 active players on War of the Roses when they shut down the backend. I had a bit over 1000 hours almost entirely in 1v1 dueling servers. Everyone knew everyone else. Tons of tribal knowledge about weird mechanics and glitches, blood feuds, and just generally interesting emergent gameplay within this tiny little niche. Since they shut it down I've been through college, grad school, a couple jobs, moved across the country, etc. and I still miss it. I really wish we'd been given this consideration.

[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago

Oh man, what are the odds, I don’t play the game, but came across This, 3 weeks ago someone got it working again it seems.

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 46 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

WHAT

edit: oh my god https://i.imgur.com/idGN4L1.png

edit edit: literally today a bunch of old players started gathering in a discord to revive the community

[-] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There’s a Reddit post too on the game subreddit about some people getting something going on the weekends.

Cheers mate.

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 20 points 8 months ago

I haven't been able to get it to run, but I'll figure it out. Thanks very much.

[-] Grimpen@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago

Wholesome thread of the day, thanks all! As an anonymous internet stranger, In hire it works out!

[-] TheOakTree@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Hop in that discord and ask someone for advice on setting it up! A similar thing happened to a game dear to me, and I was struggling with the setup to play on privately hosted servers.

I hopped in the Discord, and three people were eager to help me. They just want to build their communities back up :P

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I got it working, it just doesn't work in WINE or a VM for some reason. There's like 250 people in here now and a single server with 40 people playing

Unfortunately it looks like the people spearheading the reunion are turbo racist anti-LGBT dickheads, which checks out from memory, but it was a nice idea.

[-] TheOakTree@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago

Unfortunate...

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

private servers on cs 1.6 felt very similar to me.

except it still isnt completely dead because people can actually self host.

[-] bitwolf@lemmy.one 27 points 8 months ago

It's a shame they waited until the end to do it. I'd have bought the game just to support the gesture had they done it earlier.

Will be setting up a server and trying it out now 🙂

[-] thantik@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago

It would be hilarious if in like, 8 years from now, it somehow blows up out of the middle of nowhere and becomes super popular; simply because they opened it up to privately hosted servers.

[-] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 8 months ago

I don't get why day-1 private servers aren't a thing. If nothing else, it allows them to cast off some problematic customers: the guys in Outer Slobavia with 1750 ping can set up a private server and have a better experience, the chuds can set up their own servers where the gameplay is just exchanging slurs without burdening the official GMs.

I suspect it's about economics; someone will setup a PS with the microtransactions turned off, or not enforcing license keys/accounts, and people will crowd it.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 8 months ago

Because most people want to play without the hassle of setting up a private server and punching through NAT, or worse, CG-NAT. They want it to Just Work, and having the company run the servers is the best way to do that.

Ideally, they'd just set up the private server software for release and then just run some servers themselves, but I suppose it's faster and cheaper to make the software just good enough for internal use than to polish and package it for public release, and have to support it too.

[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago

Nah, that doesn’t explain it if you work through the thought. Most servers have GM tools built in, it would be impossible to police the game otherwise. And even if they didn’t, most users would be fine with barebones server software.

Trust me, as the resident “good host” for our clan, all I really want it a whitelist, the ability to manually save the server data if it isn’t automatically stored, and maybe password stuff. Anything else is just frills.

[-] Navigator@jlai.lu 12 points 8 months ago

No shit Sherlock!

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 points 8 months ago

"Does standard business practice contradict ethics and hinder my ability to create? How could this be?!"

[-] Navigator@jlai.lu 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

What a minute, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one ....

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

I remember when they took down Marvel Legends after the Disney buyout. I was so pissed because I loved that game

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 8 months ago

I hope more companies do that, but I'm not holding my breath.

this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
244 points (99.2% liked)

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