Ever Play In Lan, How Does It Sound Like ?

[BlackSharkfr]

Have you ever played a cooperative game with somebody in the same room ?

Warframe or any other game. How did it sound like when all the people in the room turn their loudspeakers on ?

 

I haven't played Warframe in LAN yet, but I have played other games and it roughly falls in two categories :

 

- A long time ago, I played some Quake 3, and Counterstrike. It sounded awesome !

The server was hosted locally, all the machines connected via ethernet with less than 1ms ping. 

There was no music, so all there is to hear are the sound effects, when a player starts shooting you can hear the shots and explosions everywhere in the room.

You couldn't play stealth against the other players, but nobody cared, because as soon as someone used the arctic warfare sniper rifle with it's very characteristic sound you can hear no matter where your player is around the map, every computer in the room produced the same sound at the exact same millisecond, and you feel completely surrounded by the sound. (followed by an other player yelling "you cheater you shot me through the wall !"). You get a sense of playing the game together, similar to what you get when you play a console game together (think, Mario Kart or Smash Bros.)

It was really fun.

 

-more recently, I played Diablo III,  it didn't sound very good.

Even though all the players were in the same room, since the game is connected to a central server over the internet, there was a very audible lag between the different players. But no big deal, all the players hack and slash like maniacs, a dozen monsters yell, all of it happening at the same, so you can't distinguish between all the effects anyway, they're just too many.

The game has music too but that's where it starts to fall apart because it's not synchronized. Not only is it slightly offset by a few seconds (as players don't enter the same room at the same time), the music is often randomized, so you could hear different tracks playing through each set of speakers.

Okay so we decide to turn the music off, except for the one player with the biggest loudspeaker system so that we can still enjoy the in-game music together.

But then it becomes worse : the game has a story, you find books which are narrated when you pick them up, there is also some dialogue between characters. You know what happens when two people start talking at the same time in a room. now imagine what happens when you get 3 or 4 people saying their text a capella within about .5 second. You can't understand a damn thing.

 

So what happens with Warframe ?

As I wrote above, I haven't played the game in LAN yet, but I know I will someday (probably this summer).

Have you guys at Digital Extremes implemented a system to detect and synchronize LAN clients ?

 

There is a potential for a catastrophic audio experience if you haven't :

-the drums which are so prevalent in the music creating a mess if not synchronized

-the dynamic music system launching different parts of the song across the room, and switching between stealth and combat modes at different times. Should the music be common to all players, should it only follow only one player ? How do you synchronize a dynamic music exactly ?

-Character speech not triggering at the same time making them unintelligible (Lotus, Vor, etc...), not that what they say is particularly interesting, but I prefer hearing them say something with a meaning than just gibberish.

-Ordis saying something completely different when returning to the ship at the end of missions. should he say the same thing to everybody, or should you he speak to each player in turn ?

 

Who among you have played Waframe in LAN with the loudspeakers on ? How did you find the experience ?

[noveltyhero]

It shouldn't be too different, since we use P2P, I am curious though. LAN gameplay is always fun :D

[AnkyPanky]

Have you ever played a cooperative game with somebody in the same room ?

Warframe or any other game. How did it sound like when all the people in the room turn their loudspeakers on ?

 

So what happens with Warframe ?

As I wrote above, I haven't played the game in LAN yet, but I know I will someday (probably this summer).

Have you guys at Digital Extremes implemented a system to detect and synchronize LAN clients ?

 

There is a potential for a catastrophic audio experience if you haven't :

-the drums which are so prevalent in the music creating a mess if not synchronized

-the dynamic music system launching different parts of the song across the room, and switching between stealth and combat modes at different times. Should the music be common to all players, should it only follow only one player ? How do you synchronize a dynamic music exactly ?

-Character speech not triggering at the same time making them unintelligible (Lotus, Vor, etc...), not that what they say is particularly interesting, but I prefer hearing them say something with a meaning than just gibberish.

-Ordis saying something completely different when returning to the ship at the end of missions. should he say the same thing to everybody, or should you he speak to each player in turn ?

 

Who among you have played Waframe in LAN with the loudspeakers on ? How did you find the experience ?

 I LAN play with my Boyfriend. And no De has not done anything to detect LAN play (Or if they have it's not going well..)

 

1. (Lotus, Vor, etc...):

Are not synced. I hear one version, he hears another. I hear one taunt, he hears another. And randomly we do hear the same thing. It is not synced to the millisecond either. My Lotus or His could trigger before the other. And it gets very annoying. Or in events, mine says one thing and his says another line and we just look at each other confused like.

 

2 the drums which are so prevalent in the music creating a mess if not synchronized / the dynamic music system launching different parts of the song across the room, and switching between stealth and combat modes at different times. Should the music be common to all players, should it only follow only one player ? How do you synchronize a dynamic music exactly ?

Other then gun shots my music and his music is off because it's not synced (only comes on when I play alone)

 

3. Ordis saying something completely different when returning to the ship at the end of missions. should he say the same thing to everybody, or should you he speak to each player in turn ?:

Ordis does say different things, as well. Which is okay, cause I get to listen to his and mine and compare on the line and which we liked better (if there are multiple) Otherwise if it's just one line, no it's not synced and mine or his can trigger at different times.(Depending on when we load back into the ship)

 

4.Who among you have played Waframe in LAN with the loudspeakers on ? How did you find the experience ?:

 

The gun sounds can even be laggy when we play, I could shoot and a second later I hear it on his side, but I can almost watch the enemy fall at the same time. (Still a slight delay) Nothing is synced, for LAN players, even the router protocols need  to be changed otherwise if each computer isnt' on a differnet port, we see saw back and forth when we try to join friends. (I can get in.. but once he gets in, I get booted back. And once I try to rejoin.. he gets booted back)

 

Via Lan play, I would love to be able to share my ship with my boyfriend, that way I can watch as he goes and does weird things around the ship and know when to start a mission, besides looking over to my left to see if he's finished fiddling with his loki, or adding new mods to his weapons. I feel warframe needs more of that.. buddy feel.. and with lan people, and ones who play fromt eh same router the issues need to get addressed. There's a lot of things that could happen with LAN play. There's times we just do missions ourselves.. so instead of joining a server we could host it locally on our machines.. no 'load' times and then would allow us a 'synced' feel.

Edited January 19, 2015 by DarkAnkoku

[(PSN)Pharen]

I don't think this game has anything that could be classed as LAN. Which is a shame. You really would only need one player connected to the internet to for the server side stuff.