[Thorn]

We've seen a decline in TSC Race Night participation as of late, seemingly due to playing games that people don't know like the back of their hands. Case in point: the Genesis Sonic platformers' races saw the highest attendance, Sonic Spinball saw a sharp decline, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 had enough people for the race to be fun, and Super Mario Bros. 3 had a large turnout. SonicAD wanted to host a cooperative Chaotix run over netplay, but with the current trend, that's unlikely to get off the ground.

That said, I'm not giving up on netplay. I'm throwing together something that should appease people that won't play anything but old favorites, but that should also pacify people looking for something fresh. The game of choice this week will be Sonic 2 16-bit, and I'll be structuring the game to be cooperative, not competitive. It doesn't involve desperately trying to keep up with Sonic as a player-controlled Tails like normal co-op Sonic 2: I'll be providing a ROM that will host a new take on cooperative play. This is also beneficial for SDM, as the plan is to use his OpenKaillera peer-to-peer, which he claims is near-lagless.

If you want in, find a partner. Be fair - I'm not allowing two uber-pwn Sonic 2 players on one team if I can avoid it, and I'm asking interested parties to reply to this message so that registration can be watched. The race will be this Saturday, December 5, at 7:30pm EST. Please show by 7pm to receive the ROM and to make sure that netplay works for you.

Speculate and sign up as a reply to this post.

Nobody signed up.

There's less than six hours until race time, so it's a bit late to be hacking something together unless it's *really* simple, and in that case it's unlikely that anybody would want to play it. If you have any last minute ideas for a game to race, please pitch them.

[yse]

I'm in. Teaming up with Flying Fox. You're all going down, or something like that. >:O!!!

[Shadow Jacky]

I'm in if I can find a partner

[Spinballwizard]

Don't know if I'll be home in time to make it.

[Luxray]

I'll be in if i can get up.

[Werey]

I would do this.. But 00:30 is too late for me.

 Parents turn the internet off >_>

[Thorn]

^ Well, I'm only doing that because it's when every other TSC Race Night has been. >_> If it turns out that there's a more convenient time for people to race, I could move it.

[Strong Bad]

i'll team w/ SDM if he wants x)

[FuzZerd]

I'll team with who ever can host.

[flying fox]

I'm in. Teaming up with Flying Fox. You're all going down, or something like that. >:O!!!

Well we would if we could get netplay to work. We can't seem to connect to each other >_> It also seems that we're not the only ones who are having problems with netplay. I'd like to suggest that this should be sorted out way before this saturday comes or it looks like this race isn't going to happen. Which would be a shame because it looks like a lot of fun :(

[yse]

^ Well, I'm only doing that because it's when every other TSC Race Night has been. >_> If it turns out that there's a more convenient time for people to race, I could move it.

It probably could be moved forward an hour or two, the main reason it started as late as it did was to make sure we Aussies had a chance. Now that daylight savings has switched over the start time is about 11:30am for us, it's definitely not necessary to start that late.

[Werey]

forward 2 hours.. to 02:30 am?

[Thorn]

Right, so it's Wednesday and I have yet to find somebody to test both the ROM and OpenKaillera with. I'd prefer to have it tested soon so that if the ROM is unplayable or OpenKaillera is unmanageable, the race can be changed to something else before Saturday night. I'm in classes right now at college but will be home in about four hours, and if somebody who's not participating in this race could test the ROM over netplay with me, it would be much appreciated.

@ Werey: Forward means "sooner", not "later".

[Thorn]

Double posting to put this on people's Recent Posts page.

Strong Bad and I tested the game last night. We started with a peer-to-peer connection. The latency was 341ms, and too many key presses were ignored, causing desynchs. Then we jumped on SCD's server in New York City. I had 15ms ping, and SB had 47ms. Despite a recurring graphical glitch that I'm not quite sure could be fixed by the time of the race, we had fun and Strong Bad kept stating how neat the idea was for the race and such. We encountered a few bugs outside of that graphical glitch, though, related to a new ability not working well with vertically wrapping levels, and the Metropolis boss popping like an enemy, leaving us stranded with the camera locked. Death Egg was also nigh impossible even with the tiniest bit of lag, and although I've considered putting a shield in there to compensate (no rings, though: infinite HP is a no-no), I don't think that would be enough for most players.

So, the question is, do you still want to try a co-op race knowing that peer-to-peer sucks, that you'll likely be using a traditional server, and that there's a few glitches with the game? If the majority say yes, then we continue as planned, and I patch what glitches I can before Saturday night. If there's a change of heart, then I throw something else together to make up for it and we play solo without netplay. I could easily port features from Sonic 2 Retro Remix to vanilla Sonic 2, and perhaps pull over a level or two to boot.

Votes...
Yes: SonicAD-ShadowJacky
No: mike89-FlyingFox

[Thorn]

Triple post for pre-race update.

So, looking at the last post, only two teams actually formed for the race, and one can't play as a team due to not getting peer-to-peer to work. This... sucks.

There's less than six hours until the race, so it's a bit late to be hacking something together unless it's *really* simple, and in that case it's unlikely that anybody would want to play it. If you have any last minute ideas for a game to race, please pitch them.

[Strong Bad]

you guys suck