Multiplayer crashes

[ScurvyDan]

First off, hello to everyone and thank you for your hard work and dedication to this project. It has provided me with a ton of replay value in a game I assumed was dried up.

My question is in regards to multiplayer, and I realize that the more recent versions of Manalink are not officially multiplayer supported (it had been mentioned to use the regular Mok's release for MP) so I don't expect a miracle.
The problem is that it works 99% of the time in multiplayer, even using the most recent updates.

I have two weird occurrences, one directly related to MP (I think) and one that I have no clue about.

The first one is that at the end of the game, when it displays the "this is what you and your opponent would draw next" cards, it is always a wall of stone for my opponent, and a cockatrice for myself. Every game. Even when neither of those cards are in use by either myself or the AI (or MP opponent).
Probably not an issue, but it strikes me as a little off.

The real problem is that during MP play, if my opponent uses any card that searches their library, I receive an error after they choose the card (be it a land from a "sac. search" land or solemn simulacrum or any tutor) along the lines of "Expected X packet but got a Y packet!" then the game crashes. Is this something screwed up with my system or game, or is this a common occurrence and is one of the reasons why you don't recommend MP in the newer versions? I can try to get a screenshot or other documentation if it will help, but if this is a known problem I can accept that. I'm just curious to know if it can be fixed.

Also, when either of us uses a lightning bolt, it has no art. When it hits the graveyard though, the art appears on it again. If it obviously has the art and knows where to find it/what file to use, why does the image not show up until it hits the graveyard?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but these things have been bothering me for a while and I can't find any relevant topics concerning them. Thank you for your attention.

[ScurvyDan]

Sorry, forgot to mention that my MP opponent and I are both using Win XP, SP3.

[ScurvyDan]

After applying today's art update and patch, multiplayer does not function at all. Since I'm guessing I may be among the tiny minority here trying to play MP, I am going to assume that MP functionality is simply not going to be possible or supported from this point forward. Shame too, as this program was far more fun with someone else playing. Thanks though.

[stassy]

Multiplayer mode will be unstable/broken after any version past Mok.

[Sheepmage]

I'd be interested to know a bit more about getting multiplayer to work. One person reported that MP was working pretty well before a Valentine's Day update. Can anyone confirm this? Also, can anyone link to versions from around Jan 2010 or earlier to allow for testing? Thanks.

[Sheepmage]

So, I've been playing around with the March 2009 build a bit, testing out the multiplayer and comparing it to Jan 2010 version. I noticed that I wasn't able to break the March version, though cards that weren't broken in the March version are broken in the Jan 2010. In addition, a lot of the newer cards break in Jan 2010. My theory, based on the research I've done, is that around March of 2009, someone redid the C API for the targeting system, which determines how you pick a target for a spell (like when you pick from hand, from graveyard, in play, etc). The new system is really quite complicated and deals with all the sorts of cases that it needs to deal with, but I suspect that something in that code broke the multiplayer. Because of this, I believe I can import some of the newer cards into the older March version without breaking multiplayer provided that I downgrade any targeting choices to the older system.

Anyway, I'm gonna continue to research this further and add a few cards that I'm dying to use with my friends. If any of the programmers on the site find my research interesting and maybe want to help me isolate the problem, that'd be really helpful.

[stassy]

Try disabling autotarget in the config.txt file by setting it to 0

[Sheepmage]

Well, unfortunately at least one problem is due to:

Code: Select all

int show_deck(int, int*, int, const char *str, int, int);

This function appears to improperly notify the client of what is taking place and the clients get out of sync (I believe...). You can see it clearly in the sac lands such as Bloodstained Mire which worked in the older assembly based version, but now crash in the newer versions (which are written in C using the show_deck function). I noticed it because I tried importing the code for Thoughtseize which also makes use of the function. Previously, I observed another crash due to Aether Vial, which suggests that there may be other problems too (the Aether vial crash happened when attempting to add a counter using the new C based methods for managing counters...again, maybe it fails to update the other client that a counter has been added or something).

So my question is this: is there an alternative approach to using show_deck? This function is often used to show cards to people (particular from hand, graveyard, or deck), but clearly there are other ways as Bloodstained Mire worked prior to the changeover. Anyway, let me know and I'll continue to look in to the issues.

Patrick

[MTGplayer]

Hi, all . I've download "Microprose Magic the Gathering 2010 Custom Installer ISO" a month ago. MP works fine. But after i have got Mok's Manalink 2.0 (archive) and update(06.05.10), MP completely stop working. Any time i start a duel and skip turn, i get message "No more cards, opponent loses". My opponent get such message too. Does anybody have such problem? And is where a way to correct it?

P.S. I'm using Win XP on both PC's.
P.P.S Thanks guys, i didn't think i can play it again.

[stassy]

Multiplayer mode will be unstable/broken after march 2010 version past Mok.

[MTGplayer]

Thanks, stassy, for your reply. I'll try to get earlier version and test it.

And one more question:

it's time to patch the game with latest patch that work in Multiplayer. Get the patch here and overwrite files in your installation directory: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jn5nyimhqy2

I've found that link in Manalink Wiki (Multyplayer section), but it's broken. Can anybody give me the rigth one?

[devintownsend]

Any news or progress in the multiplayer testing Sheepmage? I'm also quite interested in seeing a stable multiplayer. Sadly, I have little to offer in the way of programming but it seems such a waste to ignore the multiplayer of this game when the AI is so poor most of the time.

[Sheepmage]

Life stuff has come up so I haven't been able to put much time into the project, but I can summarize what I discovered. Basically, the reason why the multiplayer broke after March is because of a few new functions that were used to implement the newer cards. I could list them out, but I'd have to refer back to my notes to figure out which ones were causing the problems. There are definitely more than one causing the crashes (one of them is the function that allowed you to look through your deck or show cards to allow you to pick one from a group. This is why cards like aether vial will always cause crashes on the newer versions.)

Anyway, the only way to deal with this problem is to recode all the cards added since March using methods that we know won't cause crashes. This is exactly what I started doing. Basically, I took the March version and added about 50 new cards testing each very carefully to ensure that there were no crashes. The version I made could reliably be played, but has significantly fewer cards than the latest version on this site.

I could continue on with the version I have and add more and more cards, but I honestly wouldn't know when to stop, and my time is fairly limited. If a couple other people wanted to work with me to get a functional multiplayer up to date, I could share my notes and we could push forward on it.

[foolosopher]

Hello and congrats to what you 've started. I for one am very interested in what you 're doing and would like to help out. So if you could post your findings, it would very helpful not just for me but for anyone interested in this. Occassionally, there comes up a magic player who is also a developer that is likely to help, but does not know where to start. Anyway, I would suggest to post your findings in the wiki also. I am currently looking into porting the magic.exe into c. I 've been looking into this for a few months now and will report my findings soon. I believe I will become available to help out during Christmas vacations, so I'll come back to you then.
Keep up the good work.