Why this might finally be our year! Xband 3
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2014 3:32 am
Hola Saturnleaguers!
It's been far too long. These past few years have really been a long and winding road for my best friend LagunaCloud, and myself. Par tradition we've revisited the Xband 3 project every year since our fabled announcment that it was going to happen with not much to show for it. Call me superstitious, but it's always around the same time - September to January (Around the time when we actually made some major headway with the help of too many people to name here - but you know who you are). Alot of you probably have questions, and i'm going to do my best to answer them. I'm even going to take a guess at what some of them already are...
Why did Xband 3 never make it to any form of public prototype?
Because 2.0 was a terrible mess. We learned that we could never make this project as successful or serious without the following :
1. Cross Platform to at least Mac / Windows / Linux
2. Low latency Netplay
3. EASE OF USE (No messing around with routers, firewalls, or escalated privilege terminals)
It seems that number 3 would be the main reason this project grinded to a halt. Ever since we decided to scrap Xband 2.0 we would face a battle with something that we affectionately know as NAT Traversal. It was also the reason that not everyone could play on the Xband 2 software. It was a big enough wound to bleed the beta of the service to death. We've tried for years to fix / get around this problem, and to no avail
A user recently asked me why we're trying so hard to revive vaporware? Give up already!
I think it's humorous to call the ideas behind Xband vaporware.... Can an emulator with netplay do all of the following?
1. Can Mac / Windows / Linux users play games together?
2. Do they have to either port forward or use Hamachi to play?
3. Can you pick a game, and automatically be matchmade to an opponent?
4. Is either emulator smart enough to figure out who won a game of Mario Kart? Then rank you nationally?
It seems to me that these reasons alone could bring emulation to the next level.
Why are you back now? I've heard this too many times...
Because the biggest / hardest / and worst hurdle has finally been squashed!
We now have NAT Traversal / No port forwarding required / Cross platform / low latency netplay thanks to the Mednafen teams great work! All we have to do now is the same thing we did with Xband 2, except WAY BETTER.
What makes you think the cross platform development of the client will be that easy? Didn't you guys make the first Xband in .net?
Unity
It's good to be back
-Krazystyle
B3LI3V3
It's been far too long. These past few years have really been a long and winding road for my best friend LagunaCloud, and myself. Par tradition we've revisited the Xband 3 project every year since our fabled announcment that it was going to happen with not much to show for it. Call me superstitious, but it's always around the same time - September to January (Around the time when we actually made some major headway with the help of too many people to name here - but you know who you are). Alot of you probably have questions, and i'm going to do my best to answer them. I'm even going to take a guess at what some of them already are...
Why did Xband 3 never make it to any form of public prototype?
Because 2.0 was a terrible mess. We learned that we could never make this project as successful or serious without the following :
1. Cross Platform to at least Mac / Windows / Linux
2. Low latency Netplay
3. EASE OF USE (No messing around with routers, firewalls, or escalated privilege terminals)
It seems that number 3 would be the main reason this project grinded to a halt. Ever since we decided to scrap Xband 2.0 we would face a battle with something that we affectionately know as NAT Traversal. It was also the reason that not everyone could play on the Xband 2 software. It was a big enough wound to bleed the beta of the service to death. We've tried for years to fix / get around this problem, and to no avail
A user recently asked me why we're trying so hard to revive vaporware? Give up already!
I think it's humorous to call the ideas behind Xband vaporware.... Can an emulator with netplay do all of the following?
1. Can Mac / Windows / Linux users play games together?
2. Do they have to either port forward or use Hamachi to play?
3. Can you pick a game, and automatically be matchmade to an opponent?
4. Is either emulator smart enough to figure out who won a game of Mario Kart? Then rank you nationally?
It seems to me that these reasons alone could bring emulation to the next level.
Why are you back now? I've heard this too many times...
Because the biggest / hardest / and worst hurdle has finally been squashed!
We now have NAT Traversal / No port forwarding required / Cross platform / low latency netplay thanks to the Mednafen teams great work! All we have to do now is the same thing we did with Xband 2, except WAY BETTER.
What makes you think the cross platform development of the client will be that easy? Didn't you guys make the first Xband in .net?
Unity
It's good to be back
-Krazystyle
B3LI3V3