The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Soon Melb PC Will Have a New, Online Games Server! |
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Remember last month Committee called for Volunteers? James Cox and Adric Landman explain how they plan to set up Counter-Strike and Freeciv at Melb PC |
That's right, Melb PC will soon be running servers for these games. Soon, you
will be able to dial up to the Melb PC intranet and play against your fellow
members. It will not count towards your Internet access time so you can stay on
as long as you want. Every player will also experience a low lag, which is
critical for fast-moving games.
For those unfamiliar with these games:
Half-Life
Counter-Strike is a multiplayer, first-person shooter that is still one of the
most popular games played over the Internet since its release in 1999. It is
team-based, casting players in the role of terrorist or counterterrorist. Each
team has to complete a mission having particular goals such as rescuing a
hostage or destroying enemy infrastructure. More information is available from
http://counterstrike.sierra.com/.
Free Civilisation
This is a turn-based strategy game comparable with the famous Civilisation II.
You build up your own civilisation to
battle it out against other players' civilisations. Your goal is to become the
greatest civilisation. Best of all this game is free. More information can be
obtained from http://www.freeciv.org/.
New Server
A new server is being procured and will be set up and maintained by the Internet
service admin team. The games server will be administered by volunteers who are
game players themselves. To facilitate discussions on any aspect of using the
games server, a newsgroup melbpc.games has been created and an IRC (Internet
Relay Chat - a type of instant messaging) server will be set up with a channel
dedicated to those using the games server.
What do you need to be able to play? To play Counterstrike you need to own a
copy of the game, which is available from generic software outlets or specialist
game software stores, and all the updates to the game. Freeciv can be downloaded
for free from the site mentioned above. Of course, you will need to have a Full
or Associate Internet subscription. We will endeavour to have the Counterstrike
updates and Freeciv included on a future monthly CD-ROM.
So stay tuned. Developments will all be announced on the MOTD page
http://hww.melbpc.org.au/motd/
as they are implemented. If you have any questions, please post them at
news:melbpc.games or e-mail
games@melbpc.org.au.
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