Melee Online: Progress Report

[Deleted member]

I'd like to ask a question, what'd happen if someone used a AR code to play as Giga Bowser during online play?

 

[Massive]

I'd like to ask a question, what'd happen if someone used a AR code to play as Giga Bowser during online play?

There will be no AR interface for melee online.

We've tossed around the idea of having gigabowser available as a skin for regular bowser though.

 

[Deleted member]

That's good to hear, but now i'd just like to ask one more question before i go.

You know the Master Hand glitch? How will that work out for this?

I'm sorry if i sound a bit inquistive

 

[LLDL]

I'd assume they're using their own interface, so you wouldn't even be able to activate those glitches.

 

[Deleted member]

The master hand glitch is activated from character select screen, you know.

EDIT: Unless you meant a different interface for the selection...

 

[Morin0]

Yeah, apparently they're making it so the character selection screen is different. Hence not being able to activate the MH glitch because you're not using the old character select screen.

 

[Sangoku]

There will be no AR interface for melee online.

How will you handle the unlocked characters then? With savestates I'm guessing.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Yeah, apparently they're making it so the character selection screen is different. Hence not being able to activate the MH glitch because you're not using the old character select screen.

Unless they add MH to the character select screen.

 

[Deleted member]

It actually sounds like a good idea adding in non playables such as Giga Bowser, Master Hand, Crazy Hand, and the wireframes if they have a new interface, but it's their choice.

And the characters do crash the game, but one time i was playing on a emulator and i lost a match against Giga Bowser. I forgot what version i was on sadly...

Heres a picture of the result screen. Note how Sheik's name is red, and Giga Bowser's stock icon is a target.


http://i55.tinypic.com/1z39hye.png

 

[LLDL]

I actually don't think it's such a good idea. Those characters could lead to problems. I would suggest sticking to their main goal. Skins are cool though. They don't change anything except visual so you could have the falcon wire frame, zelda wire frame for female and they would just be skins for falcon and zelda. As for handling characters They could just put a bit of code to the final product that unlocks every character. If people are going to be playing online with each other, I don't feel people should be wasting time unlocking characters.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Hey, just to clear this up, guys:

We are designing our own character/stage select interface and will NOT be using Melee's.

This means there is no unlocking stuff and no Master Hand glitch. More importantly, the interface will be sleek, and it will support features not previously seen in Melee. We basically already know how to start a game with any characters, rules, and stage by simply taking a single save state and modifying its memory with the settings of our choice. When you start a match, you'll go straight from our SSBMO interface to in-game Melee (starting at "READY?"). This gives us unparalleled flexibility.

Oh, and as Massive said, we take advantage of AR for necessary code injections for SSBMO, but there will be no interface for adding your own AR codes. If you find a way of doing it, then your game will be different from your opponent's game, and this will result in desyncs or at least some really wacky behavior.

 

[LLDL]

Can't wait to see this skeek *** interface while listening to the comfy room!!!!!

 

[Deleted member]

Hey, just to clear this up, guys:

We are designing our own character/stage select interface and will NOT be using Melee's.

This means there is no unlocking stuff and no Master Hand glitch. More importantly, the interface will be sleek, and it will support features not previously seen in Melee. We basically already know how to start a game with any characters, rules, and stage by simply taking a single save state and modifying its memory with the settings of our choice. When you start a match, you'll go straight from our SSBMO interface to in-game Melee (starting at "READY?"). This gives us unparalleled flexibility.

Oh, and as Massive said, we take advantage of AR for necessary code injections for SSBMO, but there will be no interface for adding your own AR codes. If you find a way of doing it, then your game will be different from your opponent's game, and this will result in desyncs or at least some really wacky behavior.

This just sounds awesome. Gonna practice my butt off playing Melee on my Emulator.

EDIT: Will we be able to see a sneak-peek of the new select screens?

 

[iffy525]

What about stage hacks?

 

[Deleted member]

What about stage hacks?

I think it will look like what it is to you but not to your opponent.

Example, if you were to hack Corneria so that Starfox's ship has grafitti all over it your opponent still sees it as a regular ship.

 

[Massive]

What about stage hacks?

Texture hacks are already supported by dolphin. In addition to high resolution textures for stock/percent/time displays, support for custom character textures as well as stage textures will be available in release.

Also for the release version, there are plans to add a manager to permit people to switch between character textures and custom stage textures anytime they like. We are also considering adding the ability to share custom stages/textures with people you are playing/have played.

EDIT: Will we be able to see a sneak-peek of the new select screens?

Eventually. I probably need to code them first, lol.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

You guys should make Steelia's HQ textures the default textures for SSBMO.

EDIT: Also, what are the changes of there being a gamecube version of this?

 

[Dan Salvato]

We won't be using any texture pack by default, except for our hi-res HUD replacements. And, the chances of seeing this on Gamecube are zero.

 

[Ecks]

Wow, this is looking fantastic!

I rarely play melee now but I'm down for Melee online!

 

[Massive]

You guys should make Steelia's HQ textures the default textures for SSBMO.

I'd rather leave it up to the players to pick their preferred textures than to force some texture pack or another. That and since dolphin supports high resolution textures, we couldn't really call them "high quality" anymore since they're still standard resolution. Why stick to the boundaries of the gamecube when you don't have to?

That being said, we might include some custom textures we've created or are fond of, but they will definitely be in addition to the defaults, not replacing them.

 

[Morin0]

Is there going to be any optimization as far as making Dolphin run Melee more efficiently?

 

[RaphaelRobo]

They look a lot nicer that high resolution Melee textures, though.

That's a lot lower chance than I'd been hoping for, but at least it's a number. Kind of.

 

[Massive]

Is there going to be any optimization as far as making Dolphin run Melee more efficiently?

Quite a bit.

This was discussed a bit earlier, but we already have a "low end" mode lined up that allows lower end machines to play the game at full speed at 30fps. They will be able to play with 60fps people with no issues, it's purely a local rendering difference.

We have also discovered a way to manipulate the shader cache that will prevent the little hangs that occur occasionally when an onscreen attack happens.

There are various other optimizations to be had, but between the things I've already listed and the directX 9 dolphin plugin melee plays at full speed on a wide variety of system specs already.

They look a lot nicer that high resolution Melee textures, though.

That's just like, your opinion, man.

That's a lot lower chance than I'd been hoping for, but at least it's a number. Kind of.

I have no idea how this type of thing could actually be implemented on actual gamecube hardware. I can only imagine some *******ized version of the PSO hack, but even then, it would be expensive to get working and non-intuitive. Everyone on smash boards already has access to some sort of computer, and even if a only fraction of them could play melee decently on theirs, that's far more people than a complicated gamecube hack would ever reach.

 

[ajp_anton]

Would be nice if you merged character and stage select screens somehow (skipping the majority of stages that nobody plays to fit onto one screen) to avoid the extra time between matches.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Would be nice if you merged character and stage select screens somehow (skipping the majority of stages that nobody plays to fit onto one screen) to avoid the extra time between matches.

We'll definitely include features to speed up stage and character select. Something I want to do is allow you to map your mains to Z, L, and R, and we'll definitely separate the neutrals on the stage select screen. Also, I'd like to include a "Play again" option, or even an option to play again with the same characters but a new, random stage. Such options would launch you right back into a new match with the press of one button.

 

[Deleted member]

Is this going to work differently than how brawl works out online play?

Like in Brawl, you enter the Waiting Room, and you wait untill atleast 3 players show up to challenge you and the stage is the stage that's picked at random from the challengers.

EDIT: Don't forget team battles, too.

 

[Massive]

My intent has always been to make it similar to Street Fighter 4's online, where you basically wait in a lobby for whatever match to start and can spectate or do teams if it's set up that way.

The biggest difference is that we have no official plans for any sort of matchmaking beyond entering an IP address at the moment.

I've imagined using some sort of IM handler that would allow someone to send "challenge" hyperlinks to other people, but I think that's probably a better project for somebody else considering how much I have left on my plate.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Yes, it will be VERY different. We're thinking a public lobby where you can chat and request to challenge players.



Edit: Massive ninja'd

 

[RaphaelRobo]

I think you should add something to the program that allows you to see your own IP address. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't know how to find theirs.

 

[Deleted member]

I think you should add something to the program that allows you to see your own IP address. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't know how to find theirs.

http://www.whatismyip.com/

 

[RaphaelRobo]

I never said I didn't know how to.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I think you should add something to the program that allows you to see your own IP address. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't know how to find theirs.

That's really simple, we plan to add that.

 

[Deleted member]

Ah i didn't know it was simple, so i showed raphaelrobo a site that shows your IP.

 

[ajp_anton]

Also make it possible to enter domain names. It's easier to type in ajpanton.se than to remember my actual IP =).

 

[rokimomi]

With whatever code base they're using, it more than likely has a "myIP" sort of function, so not knowing your own IP shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Sangoku]

In Europe for 64, to set games up we have an msn group. Anybody can ask for p2p, and when someone agrees we just send our ip and the other player can join. I find this way really efficient, so I just threw the idea here.

In America however, since they have one big centralized server, people just directly meet up there.

 

[smakis]

their plan though is to integrate the functionaliy of that msngroup into the actual game lobby, and I doubt ip would be of any issue as even the p2pclient for project 64 has one (though I'm not sure if it's still working).

On a sidenote I discovered this thread way too early since now I'm way too impatient to wait for this, any eta at all? you *******s.... playing with my feelings

 

[Massive]

On a sidenote I discovered this thread way too early since now I'm way too impatient to wait for this,

That's too bad.

any eta at all? you *******s.... playing with my feelings

I have nothing concrete for you.
A lot of my progress is really dependent on how motivated I am to keep working after writing/debugging/fixing code for 8 hours at work every day.

 

[KrIsP!]

This game will come with all characters unlocked right? This is about playing online, not getting through adventure mode. Only asking cause you said you'd only go form your screen to the gameplay so I'm guessing there's no 1-player?

 

[Massive]

This game will come with all characters unlocked right? This is about playing online, not getting through adventure mode. Only asking cause you said you'd only go form your screen to the gameplay so I'm guessing there's no 1-player?

Everything will be unlocked, we're starting the game from a state with no restrictions on character or stage selection. Melee's built in detection of these things is to be completely bypassed, so it's kind of a moot question.

Also, there's not much reason to bother with single player access (this is about playing online, remember) when you can already do that with dolphin anyway. We may add a more advanced "training mode" with access to hitboxes and c-stick support, but that will likely be post release if ever.