Echo Station: To Game or Not To Game

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To Game or Not To Game: Is That a Question?

by Scott Schimmels
A Tactical Officer's thoughts on Star Wars Online Gaming

So you're ready to take the great adventure of playing one of the hot Star Wars on-line games. You've got your lightsaber all polished, or maybe your shiny X-Wing is ready to roll with trusty R2 at your side. Worse yet, Lord Vader and his minions have overcome you and you're ready to throw your life away in one of those ugly Twin Ion Engine (but have no shields) fighters. More's the pity. But now that you're ready to leap into the Star Wars galaxy and wage battle, you have no idea where to go. Or, perhaps you've been playing X-Wing CD (XWCD), TIE Fighter CD (TFCD) or Dark Forces (DF) and want to know which of these on-line games will fill your thrill for head-head action. That's why we're here, to give you the insight on becoming the next hottest Rebel pilot (or dastardly Imperial ace) or the next great Jedi (or Darth's replacement since he and Palpatine are now in the great beyond).

I'm a bit biased towards the X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (XvT) with the Balance of Power (BoP) expansion CD. However, what is covered in this column will also be of value for those interested in Jedi Knight (JK) and/or the Mysteries of the Sith (Mots) expansion CD and the upcoming releases of Force Commander and X-Wing Alliance, both slated for release "sometime" in 1999.

Following the success of LucasArts XWCD and TFCD single player simulations, Totally Games was brought on board to merge them into a single head-head, multiplayer simulation, called X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. XvT was to allow each Rebel or Imperial pilot to do battle over the Internet with his counterpart. Also envisioned was the ability of on-line squadrons to conduct co-operative missions (co-ops) and even 2-on-2 and 4-on-4 combats with opposing units. That was the dream. The reality was something else.

Due to the incredible amounts of data (i.e. 3d graphics rendering) required to support even a 1-on-1 melee, the initial release of XvT was disappointing to say the least. Shortly after the game was released, an Internet patch was released to resolve many of the initial complaints by users regarding lag time and packet loss/drop. Shortly thereafter, a second patch was released to resolve incompatibility issues between XvT and various 3D graphics cards chipsets. To the novice on-line game user such as I was back in early 1997, this was discouraging to say the least. In addition, the dastardly Imperials seemed to have the upper hand, their TIEs were more accurate than in XWCD, and their capital ships seemed to have no "blind spots" which made it nearly impossible for a lone X-Wing pilot to kill them. To top it off, the Imperial capital ships had missiles!

What I soon realized through all of this was on-line gaming was still an art, and far from being a science. The revamped AI in XvT made the game harder, but more realistic. Through the groups of XvT enthusiasts, I was able to determine what settings for my computer and graphics would make the game playable, and therefore, enjoyable. Also, through these same groups I was able to relearn my dogfighting skills and situational awareness, allowing me to win at most of the missions. Then, early 1998, Balance of Power was released and what XvT should have been from the very beginning, Balance of Power seemed to bring to reality. We Rebels received our lovely B-Wing and the 8-kilometer (yes 8!) Super Star Destroyer made its grand appearance. To top it off, now we had campaigns to fly which allowed a series of missions to be tied together in a single theme, much like the Tours of Duty in XWCD and Battles in TFCD. In addition, BoP seemed to incorporate all the Internet and graphics cards upgrades and fixes automatically.

So much for history and what has happened, you're probably thinking, "What does it take to play on-line? What do I need with respect to hardware? Internet connectivity?" Well, let's discuss that a bit, shall we?

First off, do you have only the XvT CD, or are you fortunate to also have the BoP CD? By the way, LucasArts and Totally Games have released both XvT/BoP and JK/MotS on a single CD, which makes the need for swapping CDs no longer necessary (smart move guys). So now you don't have to have more than one CD, and life is much simpler. Depending on which CDs you do or don't have, here's the minimum specs you should have to adequately playing each game over the 'net. For XvT players you'll need:

-Minimum: P90, 16Mb RAM, 3Mb Disk, 2x CD, Joystick or DirectInput compatible device
-Recommended: P133, 16Mb RAM, 79Mb Disk, 4x CD, 28.8 Modem

-Minimum: P90, 16Mb RAM, 53Mb Disk, 2x CD, Joystick or DirectInput compatible device
-Recommended: P133, 24Mb RAM, 79Mb Disk, 4x CD, 28.8 Modem

Here's my specs for comparison purposes: (TacO's X-Wing) P233MMX, 96Mb RAM, 300Mb Disk, 24x CD, CH F-16 Combat Pro Flight Stick, 56.6 Modem

For JK players, the following is what you should have to adequately play over the Net:

-Minimum: P90, 16Mb RAM, 3Mb Disk, 2x CD, DirectX 5.0
-Recommended: P133, 32Mb RAM, 45Mb Disk, 4x CD, 28.8 Modem

-Minimum: P90, 16Mb RAM, 48Mb Disk, 2x CD, DirectX 5.0
-Recommended: P133, 32Mb RAM, 137Mb Disk, 4x CD, 28.8 Modem

Again, here is what I use: (TacO's Moldy Crow) P233MMX, 96Mb RAM, 300Mb Disk, 24x CD, Gravis Pad, 56.6 Modem

Eye Candy is Available: What truly makes all of these games breathtaking, and adds immensely to the gameplay, are the 3D rendered graphics. While all of the games take advantage of DirectX 5.0, they also allow the polygons and textures to be fully 3D rendered, adding a new dimension of reality to the Star Wars galaxy. There are a couple of ways to approach this. The first is to simply purchase a 3D-accelerator card that is a second graphics card to complement your existing 2D graphics card. This may be a less inexpensive method to achieve 3D gaming, but is only advisable if you have the room for the expansion card. The other method is to simply replace your 2D card with a true 3D graphics card. I would recommend for either to have, as a minimum, 4MB of memory on the card to allow for rendering/processing needs of the game. You can get away with 2MB if need be, but your gameplay (e.g. increases in lag time, warping) will suffer as a result, especially if the missions get hot and heavy with lots of activity. For either method, I would recommend choosing the Voodoo 3dfx chipset as they have been setting the standard for 3dfx and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Creating Missions: Due to a legal interpretation of copyright laws, neither LucasArts nor TotallyGames will release a mission editor for any of the Star Wars games. But take heart, there are a multitude of Hex coders out on the Internet who have created useful editors for both XvT/BoP and JK/MotS. While this particular column won't go into details on these editors at this time, I can recommend to you Web sites that have them available for your use. We will discuss these editors in detail at a later date. The premier XvT/BoP editor is one created by Troy Dangerfield and is hosted on the DataMaster's website. This editor is Win95 and has a complete GUI setup that makes mission/briefing creations a breeze. Troy has also created a Win95 editor for X-Wing CD and this editor also sits on the DataMaster's site. A good site to look for new levels, skins, and editing utilites for JK/MotS is the Jedi Knight Outpost.

Now that your X-Wing (or lightsaber) is ready to do battle, where do you go to hunt down the evil Empire (or those Rebels if you so desire)? There are several ways to approach this: 1) Go to a Internet games server that hosts your particular Star Wars game, 2) Connect directly to another player via TCP/IP, 3) Connect directly to another player via modem, 4) Run away and hide until someone else takes down Darth (or Mon Mothma et. al.). I seriously doubt #4 is an option so let's discuss the other three methods of on-line playing.

The first is to hook up on the Internet with a game server. These came into existence with the popular Quake and Heretic games to allow multiplayer free-for-all zones. LucasArt created the Internet Game Zone (IGZ) and you can visit the Rebel HQ website and follow their directions to receive a username and ID# that will allow you access to the IGZ. The only necessity is that you are using the Internet Explorer as the site is hosted by Microsoft Network. Netscape is not supported at this time (tho' they keep saying they're creating a patch to allow Netscape users access).

The second option is my preferred method. Here one player, whose machine has the horsepower, will host the game while everyone else connects via TCP/IP protocol. This requires the player who is hosting know his numerical IP address and then gives it to the other combatants. They insert that IP address into their games configuration menu and simply access into the host's computer via the Internet. For JK/MotS this is usually doable for up to four players. For XvT/BoP this works best for 1-1 and maybe 2-2 on melees, depending on the quality of the connection. For this I recommend that everyone have at least a 28.8 modem, preferably a 33.3 modem. The issue is lag, and latency on all players must be good or the overall quality of play suffers.

Either one of these two methods also allows co-operative missions (co-ops for short) and when a combat mission is played on hard, having a couple of wingmen (who know their stuff) is very valuable. A good 3-player or 4-player co-op can be quite fun and challenging, and allows a player to truly immerse himself or herself in the 'X-Wing Squadron' environment. Also, a good 2-2 melee can be very thrilling as you and your teammate try to outfly and outthink your opponents in real-time. Something neither XWCD nor TFCD was truly able to offer.

The final method (direct modem) really only works if you're in the same area code. Otherwise it can become very costly for you to play several games this way with your opponent. However, if you have a friend in the local area, this may be the best way to play as your lag time and packet loss ratios will decrease dramatically. Here, you input the phone # (area code included) into the configuration menu and have the game access your modem and dial into your friend's computer (make sure his is in standby mode). Once you hook up - battle away. You are limited to two players with this method, but it can make for some incredible gaming when you hook up - almost as good as being on a LAN.

(Scott "A'Kula" Schimmels is a mild, meek-mannered engineer in real life. As Kalidor Squadron's http://kalidor.echostation.com Tactical Officer, he is particularly fond of creating and flying impossible X-Wing missions or slaying the next Darth wannabe with his trusty lightsaber.)