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Post by Jagged Steel on May 9, 2014 19:31:27 GMT 1
I made this thread to explain what Openspy is and keep the ongoing attempt to breathe life into Blitzkrieg Multiplayer on Openspy organized along with trying to get the terms "Openspy, the replacement for Gamespy Blitzkrieg Multiplayer" and as many other search terms relating to this as I can in one thread to try and reach those who will be searching for a replacement for Gamespy Blitzkrieg Multiplayer when Gamespy is shutdown May 31st and they are left adrift with no way to contact the BKrs they have been battling with for years. Openspy.net was formed last year after the announcement that Gamespy would be shut down by its new owners. Openspy works the same way as Gamespy. It directs your platform (PC or PS2, etc) to the Openspy server instead of the Gamespy server. This means that in games which had a Gamespy option built into them that you will still use the Gamespy option in your game menu. This is the case for Blitzkrieg. Openspy is run by volunteers and donations are appreciated to pay for the ~$250 U.S. that the server costs to run. Even more than donations they are in need of technical assistance, so if any of you have web related or networking skills any help to keep Openspy up and running smoothly would be appreciated by all. The Openspy.net team can be reached at that link or through the Openspy Facebook Page which you can visit by clicking here. Openspy team member Frostyhawk can be reached there to report any issues or to volunteer to help out. With Blitzkrieg, you can reach the Openspy server in two ways: First, you can replace your PC's system DNS IP #s to those of the Openspy DNS server. I did this the first time I attempted to sign into Openspy and it does work. It is a fair amount of work though, and there are issues regarding changing the DNS such as some people who have designated DNS#s on their system and may not want to change them . If you would like to try this method I made a tutorial on how to do this , Click here to see it. Second, you can use a patch made by member mortbertjh which changes the IPs called by the game within Blitzkrieg when you select Gamespy . This is very simple to use, and has an option to revert back to the Gamespy server IPs so you can go back and forth between Openspy and Gamespy until Gamespy goes down on the 31st. I made a copy of my BK install and have one for Openspy and one for Gamespy, but this is not really necessary unless you plan on hopping back and forth between the two a lot, which I do. I have gone back and forth several times using the revert option in the install with the patch and it has worked fine, but having two installs is a bit quicker so I have kept them for now. Mortbertjh has a thread relating to the patch itself, what it does, and how to use it here. You do not need to be a member here to download the patch, but I highly encourage everyone to make an account here to try and maintain the Multiplayer community, and then there is all of the cool Mods and such that most Multiplayer guys are not aware of, so please take a look at joining the Blitzsrbija BK Mod community, you will not be disappointed. Mortbertjh's instructions in the Read Me are easy to follow, however, I am going to make a guide showing how to find the location of the BK install on your PC and where precisely to put this patch for those who are not savvy to this sort of thing. Openspy Patch download here
When you have installed this little patch which re-directs your BKs Gamespy call location to Openspy you go through the exact same procedure as you have to start Blitzkrieg and log onto Gamespy: From the BK Main Menu select Multiplayer. Then select the Gamespy button. You will see the exact same Blitzkrieg Gamespy game hosting room that you have always seen. Hosting a game works exactly the same way. Right now it will likely be empty. Check in the Chat, there may be some players in there. What you will see is the exact same screens for these pages you have always seen at Gamespy, it will even say Gamespy still. My first visits I was unsure if I was actually in the right place. I have therefore been trying to maintain a presence there so that newcomers will know that they have arrived at the right place. With that being said, I am going to kick off the Openspy era for Blitzkrieg Multiplayers right now! I am currently in the Openspy chat , so stop in and say hi to confirm you have the patch installed correctly at the very least. I can fit a game or two in today, so if I am actually there when you drop by we can have a quick test battle. My name on the Openspy server will be UrOnOpenspy for the time being to let people know they are in the right place. If the room is empty, I am probably over at Gamespy to try and get the word out about this. Please try this out and than spread the word, we need to have a critical mass of players to keep the community together. Also, if you get to Openspy and you can not play a game , if you possibly can, please stay on the server to help hold down the fort and let new arrivals know that they have arrived at Openspy . Welcome aboard the new BK Multiplayer on Openspy. BK Forever!
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 9, 2014 22:09:40 GMT 1
Update: The confirmed member count for the Blitzkrieg Openspy server is now at 4: I think it will take 50 or so BKrs on board to ensure that there will be a game during the usual times as it has been on Gamespy, which seems to get 200-300 individual BK Multiplayers per day. Please don't put this off until the last minute before Gamespy goes down, we need people in the lobby as much as possible, if for no other reason than to let newcomers know the patch has worked and they are now on Openspy.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 10, 2014 17:32:58 GMT 1
Here is a detailed way to find the location of your Blitzkrieg installation and the "run" folder where the patch must be placed and then run, and how to correctly install this simple patch to re-direct your Blitzkrieg game to the Openspy server instead of the Gamespy server. This example is on Windows7, but the basic procedure will be similar on all Windows versions. If you still need to download the ( tiny,300k) patch, click here to download new Blitzkrieg Openspy PatcherBe advised that this patch is for Blitzkrieg (The original Blitzkrieg game and Anthology version of Blitzkrieg) only and will cause serious problems if you mistakenly install this patch in another Blitzkrieg game, such as Rolling Thunder or Burning Horizon!!Before you do anything, make sure Blitzkrieg is not running. Next, to start the game you either have a shortcut on the desktop, in the Start menu, or both. If you start Blitzkrieg by clicking directly on the "game" .exe then that is the run folder where you place the patch, so proceed to step "This is where the patch goes". Most people use a shortcut, and the following describes how to locate your Blitzkrieg/run folder from the shortcut. First, hover over the icon you use to start Blitzkrieg. The file path will show in a small window like this: You can see in this picture that my Blitzkrieg installation is located on my "E" drive in the folder "Blitzkrieg Anthology". If you understand how to navigate manually to a folder, you can do that using the address you see when hovering on the Blitzkrieg shortcut. Do not use the folder location on my install, yours will be different!! No matter where your copy of Blitzkrieg is installed, the last two folder names will always be Blitzkrieg\Run . If you are using a Start Menu shortcut, the procedure is the same as that for a shortcut on the desktop. Next , right click on the shortcut, and this information window will pop up: Select "Open file location". This is your Blitzkrieg\Run folder. This is where the patch goes. This picture shows a standard Blitzkrieg installation. Now paste or move the patch here and make certain that you have not mistakenly placed it inside of a folder within the Run folder. The picture above shows the patch already pasted into the Blitzkrieg\Run folder of my BK installation. *This shows the first patch version. The final Openspy patch is "OpenspyBK-patcherV2". Any version of the patcher will enter the correct IP for the Openspy server, the final one has text and graphics overlays added by Major Pain. At this point you can double left+click the patch to run it, or you can create a shortcut on your desktop so that you can select between Openspy and Gamespy until GS goes down. When you run the patch you will see this window, at which point you type "1" + Enter to use the Openspy server for Blitzkrieg, or type "2" + Enter to use the Gamespy server. It has now changed the IP # that Blitzkrieg calls to go to the Gamespy server to that of the Openspy server. That is it, you are done. You are now ready to play Blitzkrieg Multiplayer on Openspy!! Now, when you select the "Gamespy" option from the "Multiplayer" menu in Blitzkrieg, it will log onto the Openspy server. Everything will appear EXACTLY the same as the Gamepsy server always has. Efforts are underway to introduce new graphics for the Openspy server in Blitzkrieg, but for now it is identical in every way to the Gamespy hosting and chat rooms. The game hosting room may be empty, try looking in the Chat room. Even if you do not intend to play a game, I ask that for the time being those that have made it to the Openspy room to please stay there as long as is practical for you, to let newcomers know that they have successfully reached the new Blitzkrieg Openspy server. I will be there on and off all weekend to welcome newcomers, but the more the better. To revert your Blitzkrieg installation so that you can go back to the Gamepsy server, just make sure that Blitzkrieg is not running and then simply double left-click OpenspyBK-Patcher (or a shortcut to it) and then type "2"+enter. It will change the IP#s called by Blitzkrieg back to those for the Gamespy server so you can still go there until it is shut down on May 31. To then return to the Openspy server, you then run the OpenspyBK-patcher again and type "1" + Enter. It is that simple to switch back and forth between Openspy and Gamespy. I would like to thank member mortbertjh once again for writing this patch, without which would require manually changing the system DNS IP#s, which is a lot more complicated. If you have any questions or issues relating to installing this patch, please post them here or on mortbertjh's thread about the patch and someone in the Blitzsrbija BK community will try to help you. See you all on Openspy!!Following is a how-to for those that would like to create a shortcut on their desktop to access the Openspy patcher without having to navigate to the Blitzkrieg\Run folder. This is not necessary, and 7 days from now Gamespy will be gone, so there will be nothing to return to. But for now it is convenient if you want to go back and forth between Openspy and Gamespy. Right click on the BKOpenspy_patcher and this window will appear. Select "create shortcut", and a shortcut will appear in that folder. You then either drag the shortcut to your desktop, or right click on it and select "send to"/ desktop. In the following picture you can see that I renamed my patcher shortcut to "BK server selector".
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 13, 2014 20:59:17 GMT 1
This is a landmark ! This is the very first time I entered Openspy lobby and a game was in progress! It is Mogwaii and his friend playing a huge map on Offikrieg Mod. I have not talked to them yet, but it appears the hosting issue from the other day was due to server downtime and not some other glitch. I have played one full game today with a new member, and everything went well. This is coming together finally, please get on board Openspy to help us makes sure things are working smoothly before the Gamespy shutdown. For those that have not read the first post in this thread, there is now a new patcher that installs the Openspy graphics (changes text from Gamespy to Openspy). The new patch also allows placing a shortcut on your desktop so that you can switch from Gamespy to Openspy (so you can still return to Gamespy until it goes down) with one click of the mouse!! P.S: I just noticed that this screen is showing Gamespy text on the upper left of the page. The patcher works fine, but there are going to be a few tweaks required to track down little issues like this.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 2:05:07 GMT 1
News Update:
Good News: I have gotten several more players on Openspy in the past couple of days. Tests are loooking good. I have now seen games in progress on Openspy several times.
Bad News: As of the time of this post, the Gamesy BK chat is down, and has been for about a half hour. I still see two games in progress. These may be the last games to be hosted on Blitzkrieg Gamespy.
Update: One game on Gamespy now, and it would not let me host. This may be the end folks.
Update again: This time it let me host. Been hosting for 5 minutes, no one has entered yet. I do n not know if people can or not. Gamespy chat is still down.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 2:47:38 GMT 1
I had someone come into my room on Gamepsy finally. Played him although he had ~800 ping. He dropped about 2 minutes into the game. Gamespy chat still down. No other games on Gamespy BK server . Gamespy has always gone down about once a day in one way or another, but the timing of this makes me wonder if this is not the final turnoff in progress.
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Post by Major Pain on May 16, 2014 2:56:39 GMT 1
Jagged Steel
I'm not finding the reported issue on the Games List Page.
You might check if you have OverLay_BETA2 installed.
If you used the Latest Patch, it already includes Overlay_BETA2.
There were changes changes to BETA1 and I think this was one of them.
My Games List Screen says OpenSpy. But so far I have missed any games in progress to see if there is another screen that I may have missed. I scanned all references of GameSpy in my Source Files, but the report came back all had been changed to OpenSpy as of 5/10/14.
There are only 7 text files and one graphic found attached to GameSpy. These are also several 'Tool Tip' Files that were modified. There is a specific file named 'caption_gamespy.txt' in the Multiplayer/GameList folder which is used for the Games List Page Title. This file had been modified to reflect OpenSpy on 5/9/14.
Has anyone else noticed this in their OpenSpy BETA2 Overlays?
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 3:03:27 GMT 1
Sounds like it might be on my end. Maybe I had one of the earlier test .paks in when I tested the new patch? I wll try the patch on a fresh BK install to see if it gives me the one missing text string for me this time.
Right now the Gamespy chat is down and has been for over an hour. Games are still able to be hosted right now. Gamespy has always gone down about once a day, but something about the timing of this makes me wonder if this is not the shutdown in progress.
Edit to add: I tried installing the latest patch in a fresh install again, and it is still showing Gamespy on the left side of the Game Hosting room. The Openspy logo is in the right. I see OpenSpy_Overlay_BETA2 in my data folder.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 3:51:33 GMT 1
Gamespy chat still down. No games being hosted. I can still host but have not had anyone enter in an hour. This might be the Big One!
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Post by Major Pain on May 16, 2014 6:31:01 GMT 1
I tried installing the latest patch in a fresh install again, and it is still showing Gamespy on the left side of the Game Hosting room. The Openspy logo is in the right. I see OpenSpy_Overlay_BETA2 in my data folder. As you can see, my Games Page shows OpenSpy. I'm beginning to wonder what your BETA2 includes. I may have left a file out but it is included in what I released. I'm still checking for additional files that may have been missed, but not found anything after the last sweep. I'm beginning to wonder where it might exist for it is not appearing in the likely areas. I looked at the code that places the text there but it refers to a file that has been changed. I'll continue looking into it.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 13:50:35 GMT 1
Well, Gamepsy is back up this morning. Gamespy has always gone down ~once a day, but not usually for hours like that. People coming over to Openspy seem to not be remembering that Gamespy itself has always had it's issues with downtime and glitches. Hopefully last nights GS outage will get a fire under the butts of some people to get around to trying Openspy.
@mp: When I first used the Beta2 on its own, all of the text was correct. The one missing text appeared after I used the new patch that includes the text/graphics fix in it. When I run it, it places the Beta2 in my data folder, but for some reason I am seeing that one thing missing. I will take a look today to see if the Beta2 placed in my data folder by the patch is exactly the same as the one you gave to me before it was included in the new patch.
Edit to add: I looked, and it appears that the Beta2 installed by the patch is identical to the first one you gave me. My guess is that it is something on my end, but I will ask others if they have this issue to make sure.
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Post by mortbertjh on May 16, 2014 17:51:54 GMT 1
I have the same problem like Jagged
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 18:18:52 GMT 1
I *think* the text in question is OpenSpy_Overlay_BETA2\Textes\UI\Intermission\Multiplayer\GameList .
That file says : Games: OpenSpy It looks right to me, but then I don't know how this is supposed to be formatted. Is there a space/character wrong so it does not get called by script? Is there a place (.xml?) where this text is called, and perhaps something is off with that?
The night MP made this he fixed a missing text and gave me and player soviet union the Beta2 and I thought it was fixed. But, it was soviet union who spotted the missing text, and I did not ever actually check. I could have sworn that this text was correct on Beta2 though. I tried putting the very same Beta2 sent that night in and tried it, and I see the same thing as the version in the patch.The only thing that makes sense is that somehow the text is not getting called for some reason, because the actual text message says Openspy.
P.S: Looking at the other text files I only see the exact text of the intended message. Is it possible that the "Games:" portion of that text does not belong there?
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Post by Major Pain on May 16, 2014 22:56:50 GMT 1
Naw... the text is correct. The interpreter is reading it correctly. It only displays what is in the text file. But this is what could be going on: I trust each version of Anthology uses the exact same Menu File; MainMenu.xml (70.3kb). This file is what handles how the menus are displayed and calls text files for what to display on different parts of the interface; buttons, captions/titles, tool-tips, etc... For the Games List menu, another file is called from the MainMenu.xml named MuptiplayerGamesList.xml. It calls the Multiplayer Menu Interface. In the MuptiplayerGamesList.xml, there is code that calls the Upper left Screen Caption or Title. It is calling it by location in the .pak file. So this might explain why yours say GameSpy and mine says OpenSpy. I removed all .pak files from my data folder, because in some situations, the date does not decide what file is run. This seems to be one of those. I'm trying to determine which .pak file contains the string files used for Titles right now. In every other text caption call, the menu code calls for the text file by name and folder path. But in this one instance it doesn't. It has the path already in the code, but the textkey does not call it from the path, but rather another file. Having the folder in another .pak or extracted will not trump the original file it seems. I tested this a couple of times until I think I have solved this. But I could still be missing something. The fix is perhaps two methods: Extract all files and remove the .pak files from the data folder. Make sure the patch contains Overlay BETA2. Rewrite the .pak file that contains the text file and add it to the patch. I'm going to test some other options but this seems to be the likely issue. I need others to help me confirm what I am seeing. If you have extracted your files, try removing the .pak files from the data folder to a temp folder and see if results change. If you have not extracted your files, then extract the Overlay_BETA2 and see if it will work then.
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Post by Jagged Steel on May 16, 2014 23:25:55 GMT 1
Thanks for your work in getting the text and graphics fix for BK Openspy, MP. If it is a lot of work or would complicate the install any it is not a huge issue to leave one text string say Gamepsy. Kind of nostalgic.
Played several games on Openspy today and the one glitch I am experiencing is the "after a game the hosts player status remains In Game" bug, which has always been around on BK Gamespy, but probably 1/10 times. It seems to happen about 1/3 times on Openspy. If after you play a game (I think this only happens to host), and you see your player status as "In Game" after a match, go back to BK Main Menu and re-enter Openspy. It will fix your player status so you can chat and host again.
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