GameSpy Multiplayer Shutting Down

[dlevere]

Posted by soulskill

An anonymous reader writes

"For over a decade, GameSpy has provided and hosted multiplayer services for a variety of video games. GameSpy was purchased in 2012, and there were some worrying shutdowns of older servers, which disabled multiplayer capabilities for a number of games.

Now, the whole service is going offline on May 31. Some publishers are scrambling to move to other platforms, while others are simply giving up on those games.

Nintendo's recent abandonment of Wi-Fi games was a result of their reliance on GameSpy's servers. Bohemia Interactive, developers of the Arma series, said the GameSpy closure will affect matchmaking and CD-key authentication."

[dlevere]

Life After GameSpy - Civ 3, Civ 4 And Borderlands Go Steam

By Alice O'Connor

You might well cheer the demise of GameSpy Technologies, but an awful lot of games will lose official online multiplayer support when the service shuts down on May 31. Publishers scour the battlefield running triage measuring pulses peeling eyelids shining lights flexing smashed bones jabbing fingers in wounds licking blood. “We’ve got a live one here!” they cry occasionally and haul the game up on their shoulder, but all too often stand up, brush themselves down, then step over the grasping bloodied hand as they quietly walk away.

2K Games shall save Borderlands, Civilization III, Civ IV, and Civ IV: Colonization, the publisher has confirmed, along with their expansions. A dozen of its less popular games will be less lucky.

2K plans to switch these four to Steamworks from May 31, warning that “During the transition, players will experience interruption of several features, including online play, matchmaking and voiceover Internet protocol (VOIP) where applicable.”

These games won’t be updated:

• Close Combat: First to Fight
• Jetfighter
• Jetfighter V: Homeland Protector
• Leadfoot
• Rune
• Stronghold 2
• Stronghold Legends
• Top Spin
• Top Spin 2
• Vietcong
• Vietcong Demo
• Vietcong: Fist Alpha
• Vietcong 2
• Vietcong 2 Demo

Some of these are a good decade old, so it’s not surprising that they’re being allowed to drift away.

They won’t strictly gone, though. Many will still be playable if communities switch to hosting their own master server lists or use tools like GameRanger, though one big reason why devs and publishers used GameSpy was so people wouldn’t need to discover, download, and learn how to use other software. Still, one might speculate that if you’re devotedly playing a decade-old game rather than chasing shiny newness, you’re likely to be the sort of person who knows about such things.

Stronghold developer Firefly Studios had said before this announcement that they were looking into a solution, and today are still pointing people to that. Those two Stronghold games will also lose LAN play when GameSpy goes down, Firefly say, so they’d be entirely de-multiplayered. There may still be hope.

[dlevere]

Halo solutions offered for GameSpy shutdown

By Steve Watts

The GameSpy server shutdown at the end of this month continues to loom over (mostly older) PC games, but we can add another game to the safe list. The original Halo: Combat Evolved will be playable via the rival GameRanger service instead, giving players an option to keep the more than decade old game alive.

PC Gamer reports that the Australian service began supporting Halo, the Halo demo, and Halo: Custom Edition yesterday. It has previously stepped in for GRID and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

The free client isn't an official server switch, and fans are working on their own solution, but at least this means an option will be available in the meantime.

[dlevere]

Halo PC GameSpy Fix Coming

By PÕQ~Technut

Internet Lobby will get fixed!

As I explained before, GameSpy is shutting down on May 31, 2014. That would mean the end of the Internet Lobby in the game, which would have a huge impact on Halo multiplayer.

I have fantastic news! It will get fixed!! You'll need to update your Halo install, but then the Lobby will work just as it always has! (Details on how to update will follow in another post when the update is ready.)

A small group has been quietly preparing for the shutdown of the GameSpy Master Server (which provides the list of Halo servers) and they are finally ready to discuss their work.

The group consists of Roger Wolfson aka Sawnose (of Bungie), Btcc22 (of HAC2), Kornman00 (of OpenSauce) and myself, Technut (of PÕQ Clan).

As a result of their work, especially Btcc22 and Roger, Bungie will be releasing version 1.0.10 of Halo PC and Halo CE soon, which will include the fix for the Lobby!

When I first heard that GameSpy was shutting down I contacted Roger at Bungie. We had corresponded before and he has always been very responsive to any issues that threatened Halo online play (his previous patches have resolved many problems).

Kornman00 had also contacted Roger and the three of us started discussing what, if anything, could be done. Roger could make any changes required to the Halo client and server but we'd need a new Master Server to replace the GameSpy one.

Fortunately I knew of a couple of community members who had started work in that direction. Btcc22 and sehé°° (of SAPP) were planning to create a Master Server and unofficial patches, and Btcc22 had already made some progress on the Master Server.

I contacted Btcc22 and he agreed to share his work on the Master Server with us. It was a good fit. Btcc22 would provide the Master Server code and Bungie would host the Master Server on behalf of the community.

Btcc22 has since put many hours into completing the Master Server component and Roger has likewise put a lot of hours into preparing for the Master Server and updating the Halo client and server components (even incorporating some other fixes and suggestions from the rest of us).

Now, approximately 1 month later, the Halo community is on the verge of receiving an official patch from Bungie which will extend the life of Halo multiplayer beyond the end of GameSpy and hopefully well into the future!