Sponge echoes my own sentiments about this. I agree that it's great that we'll have alternatives and fallbacks, but while the opportunity exists for us to maintain official EPIC Master Server support - seamlessly, without anyone having to make any changes to their client configuration whatsoever - I think that has to be the route we pursue most emphatically, while also encouraging those who are working on the 'unofficial' (if I can put it that way) replacement servers.
Realistically, as Sponge points out, if the only future for online UT is via third-party Master Servers, player numbers are going to dwindle
drastically. The people who are interested in these things - what do we call ourselves? The UT diehards?
- we know about them, we know where to comes for news about them. But it doesn't matter how much we shout about them on this forum, or any other UT forum, those communities only server a small proportion of the UT player pool, and any potential future player pool. The majority are not going to hear about the replacement servers unless they happen to stumble across mention of them somewhere. But even then, I doubt many would go to the trouble of updating their INI files to support them. I also think, while we have this short window of time before May 31st, that work should begin on a server mod for updating the Master Server lists of visiting clients where consent is given to do so. Things are starting to drag, and if we put that off until the last minute, it's going to be too late to catch players before the big switch off (if that happens).
But returning to the discussion about the EPIC Master Server, I'm still confused. I really need someone else to sanity check my findings. I'm also confused about the separate entries in the UnrealTournament.ini file which mention Master Servers, and what purpose each serves. So, in my UT.ini file I have:
Code: Select all
[Engine.GameEngine]
...
ServerActors=IpServer.UdpServerUplink MasterServerAddress=unreal.epicgames.com MasterServerPort=27900
ServerActors=IpServer.UdpServerUplink MasterServerAddress=master0.gamespy.com MasterServerPort=27900
ServerActors=IpServer.UdpServerUplink MasterServerAddress=master.mplayer.com MasterServerPort=27900
The further down I have:
Code: Select all
[UBrowserAll]
ListFactories[0]=UBrowser.UBrowserGSpyFact,MasterServerAddress=utmaster.epicgames.com,MasterServerTCPPort=28900,Region=0,GameName=ut
ListFactories[1]=UBrowser.UBrowserGSpyFact,MasterServerAddress=master0.gamespy.com,MasterServerTCPPort=28900,Region=0,GameName=ut
I don't know why there are two lists, why the servers names are different, why the ports are different - I need someone to educate me here.
Again, if I open my hosts file - which, on my system (Windows Vista) is located at:
and add an entry at the bottom:
Save the file and start UT, I
always get:
Code: Select all
Master Server Failed: Connecting to the master server timed out: master0.gamespy.com
By the way, to edit the hosts file you need to run your text editor of choice as administrator. The hosts file comes from the UNIX world, it's a sort of simple local DNS resolution file, it used to be a favourite way of blocking ad servers when you were web browsing online. The entry above tells your system to divert any communications with "master0.gamespy.com" back to your PC - which of course does not have a Master Server running on it, so the communication fails. But the point is to definitively block the gamespy master server, to make absolutely sure that UT isn't able to use it at all, and to force it to try other entries instead. But those other entries never work for me. I've tried the bKeepMasterServer flag, and other ports and every other combination of settings that has been suggested here, and I just can't get the EPIC master server to reply to me at all. It's perfectly likely I'm doing something stupid or missing something obvious, so that's why I need someone more knowledgeable than me to look at what I'm doing and say either "yes, this is a real problem, we need to talk to EPIC" or "no you bloody fool, you need to do x,y and z instead".
Edit----------------- by papercoffee
As a quick addendum: the *will* seems to be there from EPIC to support UT... I just don't know whether things are actually happening there the way that they *think* that they're happening. It's as if they've pressed a few buttons and assumed it's all running as intended, but that no-one has actually fired up a copy of UT99 to test that things are actually working correctly.
No double posts please!
