Multiplayer dueling

[jatill]

Thanks for the update Yaki. Too bad it is still so unstable over the net. For LAN games, should we use Hamachi or our actual ips?

[Salbei]

use hamachi (and hamachi IPs)

[sture]

Today i played some duels with Yaki. We had absolutely no problems while playing Mok's version of Manalink via Hamachi.

It looks like the newer cards and/or the new engine cause the problems.

For those who want to play Manalink 2.0 against human players, you have to use Mok's release until we fixed the cards/engine.

I have to say that it's pure fun to play against humans. Thank you Yaki for testing the Game in Multiplayer!

/edit: I just updated the Wiki.

/edit2: I found out that it's sufficient to add this line to the Windows registry:

Code: Select all

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicroProse\Magic: The Gathering]
"manalink"="on"

[aww1979]

Were you guys using Windows XP, Vista, or something else?

[sture]

Were you guys using Windows XP, Vista, or something else?

WinXP. But i think WinXP mode in Win7 should also work.

[Yaki]

Yes yes, we played Moks Manalink 2.0 and it works without problems (some 6-7 duels, not a single crash). You can even use a nice ingame chat So - play that for Muliplayer from now on. It's still fun 'cause almost the whole 8th edition is in it (in the deck builder you can left-click "other cards" button and select only that).

To see what's restricted and how to build certain deck type, check this page:
http://home.comcast.net/~adonald1/magic ... banned.txt
(sture, sorry for those 4 Demonic Tutors ) Will put it on the wiki so we can have more organized MP duels (maybe even some mini tournaments?).

Speed of link is certainly not an issue (as I previously thought). Made a test on DSL(4Mbit) <-- VPN --> Modem (56k).. So, don't worry if you have slower connection. As sture added in wiki, simply run different versions in different folders, new for SP and Moks for MP.. for now.


Will continue to test new versions from oldest to newest to see where things went wrong. Tinker for example.. works in 20090922 but crashes in 20091014 (no matter the card didn't change).

Certain cards are not the only problem with new patches.. Crashes can happen on random (in stage processing). Just hoping rules engine is not causing it. Chosing LAN over Internet makes no difference in stability.. Good starting point is that Manalink always returns similar errors (wrong packet recieved - DUELRESULTS / PICKACARD)..

Every suggestion is welcome.

[jatill]

I've never been organized enough on this project to keep a detailed changelog, but keep in mind that the code for Tinker may actually have changed between those 2 dates, even if you can't tell by looking.

Does it look like only specific cards cause crashes, or any old random thing? If we could identify a list of bad cards, I could probably fix them. Even if not, having the list would let us play around it.

[sture]

some error screens. we played with version 20090922.

[Yaki]

Good news!!

Did some testing with the older patches. Last "new" I could find was 20090908. It disconnects with the same error as the rest.

Then I started digging.. every older version after that is unavailable because savefile.com is upgrading for some time now. Until I got to version 20090318 (actually 20090318-2 ) It's on mediafire and still available. It works.. maybe even tens of duels with cards from all editions (mostly newly added) - not a single crash.. no matter the connection speed (again, tested on ADSL <---> VPN <---> Analog Modem).

So.. I'm guessing that some versions released after this one would work also. But can't get to them - links are broken or point to savefile.com.


jatill , do you by any chance have next six versions saved somewhere:

1) Manalink Update April 17 2009 - Bug Fixes ( your last version before Rules Engine implementation) - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1080

2) Manalink Update April 24 2009 - EXPERIMENTAL - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1114

3) Manalink Update May 6 2009 - VANGUARD - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1147

4) Manalink Update - July 8th: SPAT - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1353

5) Manalink Update 7/14: M10 + Facelift - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1377

6) Manalink Update 7/31: Challenge Mode + Launcher - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1459

If you do, could you relink them? I'd like to test them all and try to isolate the problem.

[Salbei]

here you got a list of older patches archived on wy webspace:
(joined this forum at 04.06.2009 so i can´t provide any older patches , didn´t upload patches for "07" cause i was on holidays at that time)

2009-06
20090604
20090605
20090608
20090609
20090610
20090611
20090612
20090615
20090616
20090618

2009-08
20090812
20090819
20090820

2009-09
20090903
20090908
20090909
20090910
20090911
20090916
20090922

[jatill]

That's a better archive than I have, so good luck! One thing to try would be to blank out giant sections of cards (say everything from 1500+) and see if it crashes. If not, add cards back until it does. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a specific card(s) issue and not one of the changes I made to the exe. Because card issues are much easier to repair.

[Yaki]

Ok, here it goes..

Tested most of the posted patches (Salbei tnx. for the archive )..

Was able to reproduce errors with all of them except 20090604. Some cards work with older versions but break the game with newer.

It seems the cards are causing the problem but at the same time version 20091014 can crash for no reason (patches from the 6. month break ONLY on certain cards - no random crashes).

Here are some cards that break the game:

Land Grant (all versions where it exists)
Exhume (all versions where it exists)
Weird Harvest (all versions where it exists)
Untamed Wilds (only new versions - post 6.month)
Tinker (20091014+) (checked source code of the card in src folder - don't see any changes)

They all exit with an error "Was expecting SHOWLIST packet but got a LIBRARY packet" and some have in common library and graveyard manipulation for both players at the same time..

It seems "Rules engine" is not (direct) cause of the problem. I used SkyEditor to change its ID so it doesn't load when the game starts. But the crashes don't go away..

Also.. Serra Avatar goes to graveyard and shuffles into owners library when played with Show and Tell - doesn't happen with Single player mode.

When I was talking about random crashes in 20091014.. it's not a crash actually.. both clients are waiting for a packet / information from the other.. but never receive it. So you have to unregister / disconnect via Manalink gem.

I can't make progress with play testing.. Maybe if we could get Magic.exe to its original state (without challange, drafting, SPAT and all that is added) and import only new cards and only necessary things for multiplayer.. than try again (shouldn't be hard to do?). Btw. how can I see which cards are related with Rules engine?

[Yaki]

That's a better archive than I have, so good luck! One thing to try would be to blank out giant sections of cards (say everything from 1500+) and see if it crashes. If not, add cards back until it does. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a specific card(s) issue and not one of the changes I made to the exe. Because card issues are much easier to repair.

OK..

Tried to blank some cards out via SkyMagic editor (v.20091014). Deleted them from Manalink.csv and Magic.exe (filled with Dummy value). Cards are still in the game (deckbuilder). Tried to delete asm code (insert nop at the pointer address of the card).. got an error.. "Can't patch ManalinkEh.dll".

ManalinkEh.dll is the same as the one that comes with the patch and is in the working directory of SkyMagic binary (read-only attribute is off).

Would really try to make multi-player work again.. any help is appreciated.

[jatill]

Would really try to make multi-player work again.. any help is appreciated.

No need to mess with code. Scary stuff. The safest bet is to remove from the csv and blank out on the exe tab like you said. Then the crucial step is to run csv2dat.exe.

[Yaki]

No need to mess with code. Scary stuff. The safest bet is to remove from the csv and blank out on the exe tab like you said. Then the crucial step is to run csv2dat.exe.

Did that.. But csv2dat.exe returns "ERROR at offset 0xXXXXX" where XXXXX is random address depending on which card I erased.