An "Opt out of hosting" option?

[Micster]

For a guy like me who experiences latency issues now and then, it irks me whenever I am selected to be the host in a game, often leading to undesired laggy ingame experiences.

So, would an option to opt out of hosting make sense in IWNet? I can understand the concern if everyone were to select this option, however it may be a blessing to those who simply cannot host well.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: An "Opt out of hosting" option?

Yeah, I could see it being a good idea. At least point out who the host is going to be next game so that the person could disconnect if they are selected and do not wish to be.

That reminds me; the other day some guy was complaining A LOT about how laggy this game was and finally started yelling at the host for downloading pr0n and having a "crap" computer. He was the host

Good times.

Crunch

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: An "Opt out of hosting" option?

Yeah, I could see it being a good idea. At least point out who the host is going to be next game so that the person could disconnect if they are selected and do not wish to be.

That reminds me; the other day some guy was complaining A LOT about how laggy this game was and finally started yelling at the host for downloading pr0n and having a "crap" computer. He was the host

Good times.

Crunch

Being the host isn't always a good thing. If people with really high pings get dropped in, it can cause me to lag as if I was the one with 200ms+ pings instead of 0-20ms.
So I'd rather be put in a game where everyone had 40-80ms instead of being the host for a bunch of people ranging from 80-200ms.

[RYKUU]

Re: An "Opt out of hosting" option?

I have seen countless people be on the receiving end of abusing players because they are host.
This really annoys me as it isn't their fault IW.net chose them as a host. However I could see A LOT of people using this option if it was implemented.
This may not fix the situation due to a lack or possible hosts or number of "bad" hosts which haven't used the option.

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: An "Opt out of hosting" option?

I have seen countless people be on the receiving end of abusing players because they are host.
This really annoys me as it isn't their fault IW.net chose them as a host. However I could see A LOT of people using this option if it was implemented.
This may not fix the situation due to a lack or possible hosts or number of "bad" hosts which haven't used the option.

You also have to wonder how many people are suitable hosts in the first place... Only a certain percentage of players have connections AND PCs capable of hosting properly.
If you know your 1GB RAM isn't going to make you a decent host, opt out. If you know your 1.5Mb line that you share with your wife watching Grey's Anatomy online isn't gonig to cut it, opt out. It doesn't have to be a permanent thing, just a setting in the options.

Here is the problem, and one of the fundamental issues with IWnet in the first place: it limits the pool of hosts. The game already relies on people playing very close to you, and at the same time you are online, in order to get a good experience. Any time people stop playing or stop being hosts the pool will shrink and it will be even harder on the people left playing. By its nature it's going to get worse and worse as the player base dwindles.

With a central server in Chicago or Texas (just an example), people from all over the US and Canada (even some in Western Europe) can play together with acceptable pings. Someone from New York can join a Texas server and play with people from Washington and everyone will be fine. That's not the case with a listen-server system.

If I play with someone from the West Coast area on IWnet, it's going to suck for someone. So the player base is limited to your local region for decent gameplay. There almost can't be any longevity for the game. Any decline in the amount of players will impact the experience of the remaining players, and cause a further decline.

It's still possible to find a decent round of ETQW because there are dedicated servers running in central locations. Not many people are playing it, but the ones who are can be from a much further distance from each other. Basically twice as far while maintaining <100ms pings. So the pool of players covers a much larger region when compared to any game with listen servers.

This turned into something that doesn't quite fit here, but it has to do with what would happen if people opt out of hosting. It will just go from having bad hosts to having no hosts available. You already see that when host migration fails. It fails because there is either no one else it deems suitable for hosting or the existing host crashed or otherwise dropped out and is unavailable to pass the handshake to the new host. Basically, Strict NAT = Opt Out.

[imported_Field]

Re: An &quot;Opt out of hosting&quot; option?

i like being host quite a bit, my game is butter smooth and its ridiculously easy to kill people and it makes you look better

a few times though probably due to outside internet issues i would start a game as host, the game would run for 10 seconds or so and then everyone would lag out and my connection would shut off.