Whatever Happened to Netrek? 29
FWMiller asks: "Yea, about 5 years I was skilled at a wonderful network game called Netrek. This game was really a sport, requiring not only arcade skills but strategic thinking and extremely well developed team play. Today I was thinking of trying to play again and to my dismay, the entire sport, which used to encompass hundreds of simultaneous players and games has all but disappeared! Does anyone out there have any idea if we witnessed the extinction of one of my favorite graduate school pastimes?" It seems that the home site of Netrek is alive and well, but the metaserver, which showed current active games, is not. Is anyone still playing? Will the Metaserver be replaced or is there some current or future alternative?
First ogg! (Score:2, Funny)
Xtank (Score:1)
Re:Xtank (Score:3, Insightful)
Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
1)
2)
3)
4)
Unfortunately, I know absolutely nada about Netrek, but, hey, I just wanted to express a positive opinion about an Ask Slashdot. For once.
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
But we almost had it!
May I... (Score:5, Informative)
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rec.games.netre
Re:May I... (Score:1)
Hm. That a very recent, active-by-that-group's standards thread is titled "Netrek is dead" isn't very encouraging, is it? :)
Ditto for Netstorm (Score:2)
Ogg the BASE! (Score:1)
In "modern" terms, to "ogg" is similiar to "zerg". Before there was zerg, there was ogg. And nothing grants satisifaction like "dooshing" a starbase.
Netrek was team versus team "capture the flag" over the internet before first person shooters became all the rage. It was great back in 1992, I still remember playing on Paradise servers back in 1993.
It was a relatively simple concept that mostly college kids played. Simple, a
Re:Ogg the BASE! (Score:2, Interesting)
And mass ogging was pretty much the only way to take out a starbase. Those things were TOUGH.
I read the annecdotal origin of the term online somewhere, many moons ago.
That game rocked.
Re:Ogg the BASE! (Score:1)
Am I right or wrong?
Origin of the term "ogg" (Score:1)
In the game you tried to conquer enemy planets by landing your troops there. But you had to score a kill on an enemy ship before you
Mwa-Ha-Ha-Ha (Score:1)
I am the Metaserver! Bow down to me.
Netrek Hockey (Score:1)
Great stuff. HUGE goals.
metaserver.us.netrek.org (Score:2, Informative)
I'm the Metaserver Admin (Score:5, Informative)
metaserver.netrek.org is the round-robin for both metaserver.us.netrek.org and metaserver2.us.netrek.org, FYI.
Netrek is still around, to be sure. There are quite often full servers on the main bronco and hockey variant servers. It is definitely on life support, though.
Why is netrek so tiny now? I can probably offer a few personal opinions, in order of importance.
The decline in University UNIX labs and the rise in Windows systems without a stable (or even available) Windows client during the Windows boom. There are now 2 good clients available for Windows, but during the critical time, there was nothing, so people couldn't easily play. On top of that, being in a UNIX lab gave exposure to the game. "Hey, what's that guy playing? I wanna play too!" was/is Netrek's only source of advertising. We can't buy ad space in gaming magazines.
The rise of twitch games. "Lets blow this guy away with a rocket" sounds more fun than "Lets escort this guy to such-and-such a planet and hope he can take it." Netrek, being mainly a strategy game, requires more thought and concentration and less reflex and adrenalin. Twitch games are essentially "mouse, move, and fire." Netrek requires that the player learn tons of nuances, rules-of-thumb, and situational awareness skills, which Netrek calls "clue," for a team to be successful. But before he can even learn that, the keyboard control scheme and operation of the client requires much practice. The steep Netrek learning curve is a big hurdle for newbies.
The simple graphics. Netrek is a strategy game with simple pieces that were hashed out 13 years ago haven't changed in a while. On top of that, those pieces were developed from Netrek's predecessor, a 2-D text based game. There's no need for anything more than just sprites to represent those pieces. That makes the client look lackluster compared to high polygon count, bump-mapped, real-time generated backgrounds with tons of gore games on the market now.
People got real lives. The original player base isn't in college anymore. We now have jobs, families, and a house or apartment to take care of. I stopped playing for a bit because I was working full time, getting a graduate degree, and am currently recovering from spine surgery, for example.
And finally, of those remaining, a small subset of players are rather abusive of newbies. We should be encouraging newbies and teaching them how to play. However a few expect new players to be uber-clue the moment they first start the client. To be fair, a great majority of the old-clue aren't like that, but the abusers are rather loud.
Netrek isn't dead. There are still organized league play groups active, and I would imagine that the regular league playerbase is bigger than the pickup playerbase. www.netrek.org should show you where to start.
Mod parent UP (Score:1)
It had a nice website once.... (Score:2)
I wonder if anybody even remembers the first Netrek Home Page anymore....
http://www.cycor.ca/TCave/netrek.html
DG
OS X source/client (Score:2)
Origins of netrek (Score:2)
Re:Origins of netrek (Score:1)
Re:Origins of netrek (Score:1)
Re:Origins of netrek (Score:1)
I spent many hours playing xtrek in 86-87 when when I was supposed to be working on my research...
International Netrek League (Score:1)
They definately still play. I get traffic on my team's mailing list about games and times. (Shoutz Outz to SMACK Pack [inl.org]! Kick the plasma old school boyz!) I'm so rusty and old that I don't even practice anymore though.
Blackraven,
SMACK Pack SC Bomber Emeritus