Multiplayer Games For Christmas Lull at the Office? 148
smallstepforman asks: "Christmas is almost here, and most companies will be running a skeleton staff during the holiday period. Since there will only be 8 people in the entire building where I work, you can guess what we'll all be doing - multiplayer LAN gaming. The team leader (who will be the acting manager for the holiday period) is asking about good games to play during this period. Most of the machines on the LAN are P3@733 with integrated i810 video cards, while some older machines (P2@45) have a Voodoo 3. Which multiplayer games can Slashdot readers recommend? The games need to be easy to pick up, and not require a lot of hard disk space. Free/shareware games or demos should be considered due to legal issues."
duh (Score:2, Informative)
Re:duh (Score:1)
heh (Score:5, Informative)
-Small [we all run it off of mini cds]
-Can run on anything from a p75 up
-There are things to make it nicer [GLQuake}
-Simple
-Tons of mods avalible [TF]
Re:heh (Score:3, Informative)
Pick a simple game, like Tetrinet2/Tetrinet - first you'll get everyone in the office hooked (it's tetris... at least you can try to win some office chick time!). This runs on practically any machine that runs Win32 code, horribly addictive, and easily alt-tabbable...
Re:heh (Score:2)
Re:heh (Score:1)
Re:heh (Score:2)
Quakeforge (Score:2)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/quake/ or
http://quake.sf.net/
Re:heh (Score:1)
WinQuake works real good under 2K/XP
Halflife is better (Score:2)
Plus if you run counterstrike it's team oriented for better action in my opinion than just shoot the nearest person.
Re:Halflife is better (Score:2)
Also, for mod, I'd suggest something more along the lines of Team Fortress or Natural Selection then CS, I'm sure the guys boss wouln't be ammused to be called stuff like "ch347>0r 114m4 b17ch" when he gets back.
Also Also, what valve licenced was the Quake Engine, which was then used to make HL, not Q2.
Legal issues? (Score:1, Insightful)
Er, what legal issues?
Re:Legal issues? (Score:1)
No-one's going to buy 10-20 copies of a game for the office unless they can be sure it'll be a hit. More than likely they'll buy one, find a crack on the net and install that everywhere.
How thoughtful you are (Score:1, Flamebait)
Your boss'd be grateful to hear that you have in your mind the best of the corporate's interest while....playing games at the company's expenses.
Re:How thoughtful you are (Score:3, Funny)
Tetrinet (Score:1)
next
TetriFast (Score:2)
TetriFast [tetrifast.net] is a slightly updated version of Tetrinet but without the piece delay which makes it a bit more fun. They both, however, are tiny installs and, as requested, they leave no footprint on the machine. Just eliminate the directory they install into and you're fine.
However, it's worth noting that the game is insanely easy to cheat at with a custom client, so it's wise to stick to using a local server that only you and your work mates play on. Luckily, the client comes with a (slightly flaky) builtin server which you can use for that purpose.
fps (Score:3, Interesting)
Just my 6 cents.
Re:fps (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:fps (Score:1, Interesting)
Counterstrike (Score:2, Informative)
Your boss bet the differ (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sure you are expected to work instead.
Re:Your boss bet the differ (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if his boss is the one in the corner yelling "John, if you camp out and frag me with that railgun one more time you're not getting a Christmas bonus!"
Re:Your boss bet the differ (Score:2)
Americas Army (Score:1)
Re:Americas Army (Score:1)
Needs fairly modern PCs, though, and decent 3d accelerators to boot. Unless your IS dept runs wild with its budget, your office PC won't cut it.
Re:Americas Army (Score:1)
Our one i810 here has 4mb video ram only. Most 2001+ games won't run or struggle with 8mb or less - I'd be very surprised if an i810 or a Voodoo 3 could run America's army playably.
Re:Americas Army (Score:1)
I'd be very surprised if an i810 or a Voodoo 3 could run America's army playably.
I've had no success with an i810. It crashed America's Army on startup.
Re:Americas Army (Score:2)
Re:Americas Army (Score:2)
This is a pretty easy one... (Score:2)
Liquid War (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/ [ufoot.org]
It's pretty unique.
Here's some screenshots [ufoot.org].
Re:Liquid War (Score:1)
That was cool. I have 3 computers. Me + wife + server. I think I'm going to put it on the server so we can play each other while sitting at our own computers! :)
thanks
XPilot (Score:2)
Get XPilot here (Score:1)
You can get source and windows binaries from ftp://ftp.xpilot.org/pub/ [xpilot.org].
Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party (Score:2)
It rocks.
Re:Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party (Score:1)
MS Hearts of course (Score:1)
Soldat (Score:4, Informative)
What about Abuse (Score:1)
Another good one to try is Abuse [abuse2.com].
Pretty sweet game by the now defunct Crack Dot Com
Cube (Score:5, Informative)
It is free (ZLIB software licence - similar to BSD), runs on win32, linux, linuxppc, and can be played in both server and single player mode. FPS style of play, using OpenGL and SDL, it is smooth, fun, and looks great! We need more opensource games like this.
Most importantly of all, cleanup is simple, just delete the directory you unzipped the archive to, and it is all gone.
Enjoy!
Re:Cube (Score:2, Informative)
We're talking about 5-10 fps, at 800x600
Re:Cube (Score:2)
I get 60fps on a P133 with a Voodoo 1. I suspect you have some sort of graphics problem.
Re:Cube (Score:2)
I've no idea why it would be so. No other game show this problem.
Re:Cube (Score:2)
Re:Cube (Score:2)
Don't know SDL.
Re:Cube (Score:2)
Incidentally, there has been talk in recent months [insidemacgames.com] about a Mac OS X port, but I can't find anything very recent about the progress. Anyone know anything?
Belloc
Re:Cube (Score:2)
I've successfully run the Cube server on a 486/66 with 16 meg of ram, and four people playing on it. That was just really an experiment though.
So many to choose from... (Score:2)
Starcraft 100% classic, great multiplayer, everybody enjoys it.
Quake N for positive integer values of N less than 3. Literally 1000s of mods.
Subspace This is the greatest game to hit multiplayer since multiplayer was invented.
Counterstrike The perfect complement to Quake. Must-have for any LAN party.
Definitely (Score:2)
Subspace is a kickass game.... I can't even begin to count how many hours I spent on that game. Until I ended up with a vid card that it didn't like :( Would run horribly on it. The new client is called "Continuum". It's an updated, free version of Subspace. Try here [subspace.net] to get it.
Warcraft II! (Score:2)
'nuff said.
-Bill
Stop tickling me! (Score:2)
Although the need for only one CD per 3 people was nice, it's only useful if you can organize all people joining in at the same time. [It's been a while, so I can't remember what happens when someone leaves, however].
Warcraft II also had a problem that it'd take people fairly long to get used to all of the subtlety of the game (don't turn sappers invis or they blow up, etc)
The real problem is when one person gets taken out, and they have to wait for everyone else to finish to start a new game...you end up with lots of people getting frustrated, starting up lots of 2 player games, etc, which defeats the whole purpose.
The only real game of that genre that we found worked for larger numbers was C&C...played with the highest tech level, and the speed cranked all the way up. [Someone would be launching nukes within minutes....games never lasted more than 15..and that was in the days of a P200 being top of the line]
Another options is having everyone gang up against a team of computer players (AoE supported group victory and 8 players, but you'd need space for computers), so every human player normally gets done at about the same time. [Once in a while, someone woud get rubbed out by the computer early on, but it's still better than waiting for those last two humans to finally finish].
The FPS genre might be your best bet, so long as you don't have anyone who gets motion sickness, just because someone can just sit dead as they answer phone calls, or have to run to the john, without screwing up everyone else.
FreeCiv (Score:3, Informative)
What about FreeCiv [freeciv.org]? Perhaps it scores low on the easy-to-pickup scale, but I imagine anyone has played some Civilisation version before.
Bonus is that as a turn based game it can be easily paused when necessary, and it is heaps of fun.
MartTry Armagetron multiplayer (Score:2, Informative)
Seconded (Score:1)
Try a multiplayer tank game! (Score:4, Interesting)
Tank games require a combination of skill and luck that tends to reward skilled play, while still remaining accesible to newbies if that's a concern. Someone can learn to play decently in 5 minutes, rather than the 40-50 frustrating hours it takes to become decent at Quake/UT/Counterstrike/FPS-of-the-month.
Note that there's an ad banner, but that's just HTML, so it can be removed without any real hassle.
Or a driving game (Score:2)
Muti-player is a blast -- the game play is great, so you won't notice if your graphics cards aren't the most modern.
As far as legal issues, I think you can play it directly from the CD. You can even make copies of the CD, as long as there is 1 original CD on the LAN.
Re:Try a multiplayer tank game! (Score:3, Insightful)
To find a networked version brings tears to my eye.
o_O! (Score:1)
You guys have P2s that run at 45 MHz? And there's a Voodoo 3 chipset for it? Surely, *cough* that processor must be a smidgen faster...
Re:o_O! (Score:2)
hehe
BZFlag (Score:1)
Great little game. Also free as in beer.
Just watch out for people with cheat clients. Nothing ruins an evening like being on the receiving end of some +40's bullet, watching him BLATANTLY run through obstacles at about 40x the speed of a normal tank.
Scott
Moonbase Commander (Score:2, Informative)
Simple and fun to play, low system requirements. Only four players at once, though.
810 chip (Score:1)
Re:810 chip (Score:1)
Re:810 chip (Score:1)
Not to be a party pooper... (Score:2)
What usually happens is... (Score:1)
When we'd do this, half the guys would like the game, half wouldn't, and then there's 1 or 2 guys who just killed everyone else.
Pass the games out a day or two before so that everyone can get some seat time. That way, your boss isn't in the corner crying "WHAT KEY SWITCHES WEAPONS" while you've got the quad damage and you're sniping with the rail gun from the other corner of the map.
Age of Empires 1
Doom/Doom 2
Quake I, Quake III
Duke Nukem 3D
NHL/NBA/NFL 200x (any EA Sports games)
XPilot
Why don't you try working? (Score:2)
Re:Why don't you try working? (Score:2, Insightful)
These are probably not people that should be slinging code during this time.
--trb
Microsoft Hearts. (Score:3, Funny)
Doooom! (Score:1)
star wars galactic battlegrounds... (Score:2)
legal issues... (Score:2)
How about your job? (Score:2)
In past Christmas slowdowns, I've taken the opportunity to do work-related things that are actually fun and are much easier to do without a lot of other people around:
Re:How about your job? (Score:1)
Not every job can be done without other people... (Score:1)
Re:How about your job? (Score:1)
Re:How about your job? (Score:2)
Abuse! (Score:2)
Try Abuse [abuse2.com]. It's an old DOS game, but with minor tweaks to let it run under Windows. (You may need to go to the Free Abuse [uidaho.edu] site for the tweaked version.)
It's a 2D platform game. Run, jump, grab weapons, shoot. Mindless, but lots of good, visceral fun. The controls are trivial (move with arrow keys, aim and shoot with mouse) so even non-gamers can be up and fragging in no time. When my friends and I have LAN parties (which we've been doing since the DOS version was new) this is the "network test game" we run while people are setting up their machines. When you can jump into Abuse, you're on the net.
Bzflag!! (Score:2)
It is basically a first person shooter, where each player is driving a tank and tries to shoot other players. But these are no ordinary tanks, they can take on special "powers" like the ability to jump, bounce shots off walls, aquire laser weapons, quided missles, etc.
There are many variations that can be introduced to make play easier or harder or just to change strategies. There is also a Capture the Flag variation.
Its good fun and downright addictive. And its free, so you've got nothing to lose - give it a try!
duh.... (Score:1)
Q3? (Score:2)
I think our slowest computer is a PIII-600, I used to be the slowest with a PII-400, but then I got a second processor. I run NT4.0, but we've installed Q3 on linux and a mac once here and played fine across network games. I also used to play with an Evans & Sutherland 15mb(no, not 16) AGP video card (rocks for all openGL except games), but I have been recently upgraded to a Voodoo3 16mb AGP(sux for all openGL except for games), also my ram has been upgraded from 128mb to 256mb. The most helpful upgrade was my $8(after rebate at bestbuy) IBM optical mouse which I bought myself. Q3 played fine before all my upgrades so you guys should be fine running it.
The downside is that its like $30(totally worth it) and requires about 500mb on your hard drive. If you can't spring the dough or spare the space, then Quake 2 or even the original Quake, are decently addicting enough to keep you occupied.
My Favorite Game (although not networked) (Score:1, Funny)
if it runs or not. If it gives an error message, then
you have to change the file. Although not a networked game
you can play with others. For example, try to send files
that gcc likes along with your friends. Whoever can get the
most complex file that results in something happening
when done can be declared the winner. Get a trophy for that
guy. You should try it, its fun.
Cube (Score:2)
Game homepage [fov120.com]
It's an FPS, it currently runs on Win32 and Linux (including ppc). It's at the early beta stage (current version is something like 0.3) but already very playable, and it's been reasonably stable for me on SuSE 8.0 with the stock kernel. YMMV, obviously. It's also Open Source.
The graphics still need some work, but I'm getting up to 300fps on a 700MHz Athlon with 384M RAM and a GeForce 2 GTS, so it should run fine on all of your machines. I haven't tried multiplayer yet, so I'm not sure if that works as well as the single player.
This One's Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've actually always loved working the week between xmas and NYE. There's virtually nobody in the office, so interruptions are kept to a minimum and the hours are slightly more flexible.
Moonbase Commander! (Score:2)
XEvil (Score:1)
Any non-FPS games? (Score:2)
Re:Any non-FPS games? (Score:2)
Hey, game developers! Here's an un-tapped market just waiting to be exploited!
Re:Any non-FPS games? (Score:2)
Maybe some open sourcer will exploit it for fun, but I don't think your defanition of the market will get that many game developers.
Re:Any non-FPS games? (Score:2)
My point is that there is an un-tapped market for multiplayer non-First Person Shooters. OK, so maybe it's not as large as the FPS market, but has anyone even tried to tap it? Multiplayer non-FPS games seem to sell well enough for Xbox and PS2, so why not for the PC?
Xblast (Score:3, Interesting)
People running around mazes laying/kicking bombs. There's a bit of a learning curve due to the variety of different rules given different maps, but most people get the hang of it after a short while.
Has some bugs but pretty good fun.
Soldat (Score:1)
http://www.soldat.prv.pl/ [soldat.prv.pl]
Spectre? (Score:2)
Happy Holiday Fragging!
My suggestions: (Score:2)
Other than that my favorite multiplayer games are Age of Empires 2, and Battlefield 1942. Yes, I know the latter is WAY beyond the specs of the poster, but hell - not everyone here is so constrained, are we ? This is the first game I've ever played which actually made me go out and buy hardware ( a joystick) to play it. The only problem is the shell-shock-induced nightmares I've been having....
FreeCiv (Score:3, Informative)
Multiplayer...
Lightwieght....
Did I meantion its free...
Better yet its civilization, can kill hours(days) easily...
Just my plug for my favorite time waster
Worms 2. Definitely Worms 2. (Score:4, Interesting)
Runs fine on a Pentium-100 (Yes, I know, I've tried), and is an absolute _BLAST_!
We played this thing over the network, and it was probably the most fun network game I've ever played.
You'll be hooked, I promise. Just be careful the first time you order a napalm strike; JUDGE THE WIND.
"The first of many!"
--NBVB
okay fess up :) (Score:2)
Counter-Strike (Score:2, Insightful)