R Jason Valentine writes
"Before Ogg was an encoding standard it was a verb. Before the internet enabled the masses to play against each other in Quake and Ultima Online, there was a cross-platform multiple player interactive online game called Netrek. Netrek can trace its history back to 1972. It's an interesting, though incomplete, read, that includes travels through places like Berkeley's XCF. Netrek generally peaked in play in the early 90's, from about 1992 to 1995 or so, and was popular enough to even get an article in Wired. With this
explosion of players, several variations on the original style, called Bronco, emerged. These were Chaos (similar to bronco), Paradise, and Hockey. The Chaos and Paradise variants are all but dead, mostly due to lack of players and an expired Paradise-capable client for Windows. A Bronco pick-up game still occurs daily, and usually once or twice a week, there is a hockey game. League games still exist, and this is the 10th year of league play, with around 200 players registered for the
2002 draft league."
Valentine continues: "Though the graphics are subspectacular, gameplay is enveloping. Like chess, the rules are simple and comprehendable within the
first hour of play, yet the game is difficult to master. After a 5 year hiatus, I returned to the game and found play still
engaging with a healthy, though small, active community. The clients haven't had a major upgrade in years, and recent rebuild attempts remain unfinished. The development slowdown can be
attributed to a decrease in interest and the aging of the original programmers, who now hold steady jobs and don't have an itch
to update stable clients. If you've played before, but not in a long time, the game is worth revisiting. If you've never played, and don't have the latest greatest hardware to play the
latest installment of the tired FPS genre, check out Netrek. Minimum system requirements are a graphics card that can do 256 colors
at 1024x768 and an internet connection."
Slashdot Mirror
I remember countless hours spent playing NetTrek.... I was never much good but there were people in those matches that rocked.
Played it during the same era that I was heavily involved in MUDs.
Both prove a point, namely, good gameplay is more important than flashy graphics.
It would be worthwhile to update the client.....
any volunteers?
Bueller? Bueller? anyone?
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
Don't mind me, just burning off some karma. Nothing to see here.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Wow. I totally forgot about Netrek...
So now who's up for a game of Bolo?
Multiplayer angband?
Ah, the classics...
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I remember much time wasted after-hours in the workstation room (we just had dumb ASCII terminals on our desks in those days) at work back in early 1987, when Xtrek was I guess about a year old. A lot more fun when your opponents are in the same room. That was X10 in those days. And I think mostly on DEC GPX's (something like a MicroVAX) because we didn't get Suns until later.
I briefly tried porting it to X11 when the company upgraded, but there were to many real-work projects going on and no time.
-- Alastair
I remember coming in on HOLIDAYS so I could play. I missed entire days worth of classes to play. Netrek was so engrossing, even if you were only mediocre.
I always liked Paradise the best, though. You had high warp engines, better ships (does anyone else remember the Assault Base?) really well maintained statistics (I was the Kamikaze champ for about 6 months running, mostly due to my inability to pass up ogging opportunities) and far more interesting game play dynamics because of the system layout (ie. Suns and solar systems and whatnot.) Splashing a Jumpship or a Warbase was always the high point of a game, and I was one of those crazies that would ogg the base in just about anything. Scout, DD, BB...it didn't matter. Warp drives to full, and drop that torp load!
When Paradise died, I basically stopped playing. I occasionally miss it. If you've ever played a network FPS and liked it, check out Netrek, ESPECIALLY you Tribes fans out there.
Netrek has had quite a bit of history and influence on many. Not only has had a long history since Empire as listed in the above history link, it has had many of its programmers and players go on to bigger and brighter things.
For example, Kevin Smith, one of the 2 original writers of the modern netrek client now works at TiVo, and Dave Taylor (of id, Crack.com and now Transmeta) did a lot of borg writing.
Netrek has also been used as a model for other games. Most recent was when Quake was opened up and people were trying how to prevent cheaters. A few groups came to the Netrek community to ask about our "blessed client" models. And Netrek was even used as prior art to convice a stupid patent holder that they shouldn't pursue litigation. Dave Ahn and I (as current developers) consulted with the defendants on a case where somebody tried to patent client/server game communication with information hiding.
I've been playing Netrek since Summer of 1990. I discovered Xtank and Netrek at the same time, but Netrek had the staying power. Its a game with so many levels, from deep strategy, to mindless fun, all in the same session. Although I never got into Paradise or Chaos, I found ample time to waste on Bronco and Hockey.
There are 2 active leagues(INL, WNL), 1 draft league, and 2 leagues on hiatus (A hockey league and a Euro leage). Games usually have players from all around the world.
Its a fun game! You should all try! Just be patient enough to get over the initial learning curve. For more info go to www.netrek.org or rec.games.netrek.
--Carlos V.
<plug mode>
You can read more and download the software from my web page for Paradise 2000, the ultimate Linux netrek client.
It has a nice sound system and can use IBM's ViaVoice for linux to do speech synthesis of messages and macros. Getting the IBM ViaVoice TTS package for linux is hard now, maybe /. should do a story on that.
</plug mode>
One problem Netrek has right now is lack of servers. The one popular server is often full. It also has had bad lag for most people recently, since it is a redhat and openoffice mirror, both which have released major new versions.
Sorry to break it to you, but Ogg is not an encoding standard. Merriam Webster defines a standard as (3) something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example. Or (4) : something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality.
Note; I didn't say it was useless, unloved or without redeeming value, but it's hardly the measuring stick my which every other audio format is judged. And as for mass acceptance, you tell me the ratio of Ogg to MP3 on Bearshare, Kazaa and the others. I would submit that while our humble writer is obviously an Ogg fan, MP3 is the benchmark by which the other formats are judged, including Ogg.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I also think I've seen someone playing with Paradise 2.99 for Darwin, but I don't see the binary anywhere. As far as I know, no one has ported COW or BRMH to MacOS.
Steve's server seems to be a bit flakey at the moment (imminent /.?) so I've mirrored it on mine for now.
Installation is as simple as unzipping. Once you connect to a server, "h" brings up a list of commands. There are a LOT, but to get started you need the speed (warp) commands (numbers 1-0 are enough to start with), set-course (right mouse button) and fire (left & middle buttons).
Enjoy the addiction. :)
After 5 years of playing Netrek, it is now my sole computer recreation. Netrek liberated me from any desire to play other video games such as Civilization, Warcraft II, etc.
In my opinion, the primary reason why Netrek hasn't grown in the past 5 years is simple: nobody has written a comprehensive tutorial to the game (a useful one that actually answers the correct questions). It could be easy to learn, but the casual newcomer will inevitably hit a learning roadblock. Consequently, everyone who plays now was introduced by a mentor.
The main activity during play is "visual planning". You look at a strategic map that overviews the positions of all players and planets. Then you surround and trap enemy ships. Or you set a screen for a friendly ship to pass through (much like basketball). Or you escort a fellow ship through enemy space. The best strategy depends on the particular circumstances of the situation. Unlike most computer games, it is never redundant.
The combat system rewards the first person to the action, so anticipation is crucial. The combat itself is minimalist, but fun. For example, there are tractors and pressors that push and pull ships in an equal and opposite reaction. Push your enemy into your teammate's torpedos, or pull a friend out of harm's way. Or push a friendly ship from behind to speed his progress.
Player's personalities are remarkably transparent. e.g. there are selfish players, and there are cooperative ones. The friendly players are the ones who win games.
NetTrek was one of three games I fondly recall from my undergrad days.
:)
The other two were "dogfight" and "bztank". I'm told that "bztank" is still popular, but as far as I can tell the only incarnation of "dogfight" that exists is a binary-only package that runs on SGI machines.
Are either of these games still being maintained? Are either of these games distributed as source? If so, where?
[Google didn't help, before you ask.]
Netrek taught me all of the basics, and some not-so-basics, of network game programming:
:-) as well as a little bit back to the Vanilla server (if you look for CLOAKER_MAXWARP, that's my invention. It's why you don't ever see incorrectly cloaked or uncloaked ships on modern netrek clients/servers. The FEATURE_PACKETS system that let us do that without breaking older clients was also my idea, but to give proper credit, Tedd Hadley helped write it too.)
Sockets
TCP
UDP
Client-server network models
Dealing with packet loss
and more.
I can honestly say, and have said before, that I owe my career to Netrek more than anything else. I work professionally as a game programmer, primarily writing network code. Without Netrek, I don't know what I would have wound up doing, but probably not that.
I wrote a large chunk of code for the Amiga client eons ago. I wasn't the original author of that port (that would be Randall Jesup, who worked for Commodore) but I did spend far too much time in which I probably should have been studying (though in retrospect, it was probably the right thing to have been doing with my time after all!), poking and prodding at that thing until I knew basically all there was to know about it. I eventually wound up porting the Paradise version of the client to the Amiga, and contributing code back to the main Paradise branch (Please note however: Paradise was for twinks. I just ported it because I wanted to see it for myself.
Maybe twice a year I'll still get on a netrek kick for a couple of days. It's still just about the best internet team game out there, however graphically primitive it might look compared to modern games. It is not primitive at all under the surface, and was way ahead of its time in many ways.
-Ogre
I fondly remember Empire. I haven't played it in about fifteen years. Perhaps that's because it caused me to almost flunk two classes.
It was similar in look to the classic Unix empire game, but for multiple players, with economics, military, diplomacy, etc. Pretty complex. It has balanced so that being constantly logged in had no advantage.
Mr. Frog was the diety, and every morning I would go print out the reports, stats, messages, etc. Then I would pore over them during lunch. Moves were made during dinner. And at night I would log in and make my moves.
One of these days I'll play again. I have a lot of vacation time acrued...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I've tried to compile many different variations of the code but have failed during the make part of the build (under XDarwin).
There is a PowerPC/Darwin binary available now. I've been using it on my iBook for months.
I'll just throw in a quick plug for my Windows client... NetrekXP(sort of a play on words, which I'll probably get sued for) available at http://www.sodablue.org/netrek.
:)
I've been doing some work with it recently trying to address known bugs, and finish some of my todo items. This will probably be the last time I work on it, and if someone is interested in maintaining it... I'm trying to finish build instructions and wrap up the source to put up for download.
But yes, maintenance of the game code has been sidetracked by real jobs, Starcraft and recently Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
> Minimum system requirements are a graphics card
;)
;)
> that can do 256 colors at 1024x768 and an internet
> connection.
These are the EXACT same requirements to play you needed ten years ago.
Problem being I only had a 486 at the time (bit less than 10 years ago I guess) and it simply wasn't capable of pushing 1024x768. The sheer amount of jockeying I had to do with the interface to squeeze all the important stuff into 800x600 was near epic.
I couldn't understand why anyone made the game like that, because at the time, that kind of resolution was unimagineable to me.
Then a few months later I got my foot into the IT industry, sat at my first Sparc station, and learned why.
Works fine in Mac OS X under Classic, but a native port in much needed. Pretty popular game in some circles, at least a few dozen in my (rather small) city.
A lot has changed since '96.
First of all, I agree that the game was pretty elitist back then. We were having a lot of problems with the eject command on the server being abused driving away new players.
Several of us lobbied to change that, and now eject is non-existant from most public servers. This has improved the atmosphere tremendously.
Another change occured in '97 when I began to actively maintain and improve a client for Windows. There had been a client in the past originally created by Jonathan Shekter and later modified by Shawn Collenberg, but it had numerous bugs. (some which would kick you out of the game if abused by other players which was occuring in '97)
You no longer need Linux/Unix to play, in fact something like 80-90% of the player base use Windows today. I'd suggest checking it out again as I think things have changed. My client is on my website, and Trent Piepho mentioned his Linux client(Paradise 2000) in another message elsewhere.
Memories to back in the tiny, almost experimental UNIX lab with Sun IPCs and IPXs...
Of course we all sucked..
Part of the addictiveness of the game stems from the fact that it is easy to learn; yet it takes a while to become proficient it it. The second really cool feature was that it allowed you to play against other humans (or robots) in real time. These days that's nothing special, but back then most multi-player games were turn based (one other notable exception to this (from memory) is/was xtank).
A few years later, when Linux showed up, I was delighted to find that Nettrek compiled out the box (actually, some minor Makefile changes were needed, if I remember correctly) and worked very well on my then brand-new 486-33. Unfortunately I wasn't connected to a university network (or any other network for that fact), so the human competition/element was missing for me.
While looking very dated (no 3D graphics, no colors, simple graphics), I think nettrek underscores the point that if your gameplay is good, the graphics are secondary. If you've never tried nettrek, check it out sometime; it's quite cool, especially when seen in historic context.
I ran the 1994 International Netrek Leaguge (as a 7 round Swiss), which was a success and I think one of the best INL years. (I still think Swiss scheduling is better than a divisional system, as it produces more games between balanced sides.)
And I've played a few INL games this year with the Golden Bears, having fun passive scout-bombing over a 28k modem in the wrong hemisphere...
Danny (netrek handle "ICMP Redirect", used to be "the best base in the southern hemisphere).
I have written over 900 book reviews
defiant.theo-physik.uni-kiel.de
The European Paradise server! Those were the times. Greetings, Emperor Achim!
Kristian
There's an account by John Daleske of the origin of Netrek within my account of PLATO's Empire as the original multiplayer game that inspired the first 3D multiplayer first person shooter game.
Seastead this.
My most memorable session was the following. We were playing Xtrek in a newly equipped Sun lab (with Sun 3/60s and fancy grayscale displays) in fall of 1989. There were some guys from UC Berkeley also playing. Suddenly, we saw lines like "Did you feel that?" and "I think its an earthquake!" scroll by. Turned out it was the earthquake that hit the Bay area in Oct 1989! It almost felt like we were there, witnessing the earthquake firsthand.
Rogerborg got a response: "fucking twink, he was out of fuel fuck off and get a clue". While that is certainly a rude thing to say, there is also some truth to it. The opposing player probably was out of fuel, since he had just dropped a load of torps. Shooting your own torps over the planet doesn't help your carrier -- even if the bad guy lived through the volley, the torps exploding on his hull would hurt the carrier.
The opposing player was probably thinking, "Oh fuck, I just blew my wad and missed him, I'm out of fule/at the torp limit and totally helpless... Wait here comes R3 at warp 9, and thank god he's firing torps! det-det-det, eck++". There is nothing worse than sitting there with an empty fuel tank while the carrier takes the planet. Except when he uncloaks after taking and finishes you off.
You have to let people talk, because otherwise you never learn. If the guys talking want to be assholes, then that's their problem. But you have to let them talk.
-Mike
Empire, Moria, Labrinth and Dry Gulch. I would love to know what became of these games...are they still alive anywhere? That would be awesome to bring some of them back!!
Moria's still around, being maintained by David J. Grabiner... some people still play it on "modern" platforms (or you can telnet to chungkuo and play it there along with many other classic games.)
I'm not familiar with Empire but it seems to have turned into a PC game (now ancient and available at Underdogs and other fine establishments). THis page looks like a good bet, it has download links for PDP-10, PDP-11, VAX/VMS, PC, source etc.
I see the others mentioned historically here but "dry gulch" and "labyrinth" are too commonly used for me to find anything actually useful.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
Plus, after you've gone through the newbie stage and really begin to play, you realize that netrek really isn't all that exciting. You can't even fight Klingons vs. Federation, for pete's sake. One of the ship classes is totally pointless. There's only one server nowadays that has a pickup game, and all the netrek variants are dead (the regulars cheer this). Don't get me wrong, I really liked netrek at one point (I have the honor of being picked DEAD LAST in the draft the one year I entered) but netrek and its players are simply calcified.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I played HUNT a lot in my college days ('88-90 something) and constantly find myself describing playing a real-time multiplayer game on an 80x24 screen with a 300 baud connection, and loving it. Eventually had to compile the source myself to keep it on our GOULD.
Hunt Rocked. Couse it sucks now, but then, it was great.
And then my wife to be found Wolfstien...
Krispy Cream is people