Mechanized Assault & eXploration Reloaded

Subject: US players needed...

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It's impossible due to time differences to play Euro-based players. Any takers, please drop me a line at shaktazuki at gmail dot com.

So, here are the questions I've got:

Can MAX be played via IPX emulation in DosBox reliably? What are the bugs Interplay left in the multiplayer code? What is MAX Reloaded, and what are the project goals? What are the chances of getting the project ported to VC++ 9.0? What are the chances of getting the wiki translated to English?

Thanks!

Subject: Re: US players needed...

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Hi there, welcome to the bbs
Indeed we need more US players. Feel free to spread the word

> It's impossible due to time differences to play Euro-based players. Any takers, please drop me a line at shaktazuki at gmail
> dot com.

Is not.. many people here seem to life in the night. Beside that I play Vendetta Online that is played usually only by US-players.

> So, here are the questions I've got:

Shoot.

> Can MAX be played via IPX emulation in DosBox reliably?

I do not think so because Micro$oft b0rk3d freakin IPX backward compatiblity. You may try dosemu running linux. I'd try for myself but I had no testpartner yet

> What are the bugs Interplay left in the multiplayer code?

Out of sync bugs and some savegame bugs. There is no way to play it stable for a longer time. The russians decided to play by mail instead exchanging savegames.

> What is MAX Reloaded, and what are the project goals?

Dude.. seriously. Look to the left. There is a whole box named "M.A.X. Reloaded" and it's completly avaible on english. Don't make me copy the links to the bbs for you and open your eyes for yourself

> What are the chances of getting the project ported to VC++ 9.0?

'cuse me.. What do you need by ported? MAXR is os-independent and can be compiled on any operating system that has libSDL support avaible (however we got no mac version done yet). The IDE of your choice has nothing.. absolutly nothing to do with that. There is however a guide on english avaible in the wiki using MingGW (free IDE compiler using GCC) for windows. You may try that or stick with the binarys.

>What are the chances of getting the wiki translated to English?

About zero. maxthegame.DE started as a german community for MAX. Over the time the focus of the website changed and the wiki is a relict from old times and is about to die. Texts are going to be integrated in the website itself over the time. The MAX wiki has absolutly nothing to do with MAXR beside hosting two or three articles about MAXR. Everything you need to know about MAXR is already avaible on english or can be asked on the bbs

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Subject: Re: US players needed...

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To hit the high-point first: I read all the english links on the left, and they did not answer my question. That's why I asked. What are you guys trying to do with this project, exactly?

And I asked about VC++ 9.0 'cause that's what I have.

Subject: Re: US players needed...

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Ok, there it brought is to the point: MAXR is all about TCP/IP support and to stay as close as possible to the original

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Subject: Re: US players needed...

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I admit my utter ignorance of coding, but is it possible to write an external TCP/IP communications suite, and simply replace (via a JMP and a GOTO) Max's own ipx code within the executable, without breaking anything else?

I mean, if you're going to reconstruct an engine, you should also replace the software renderer with a hardware-based one... and certainly re-write the AI (which sucked and cheated).

Also, is it possible to contact anyone who was on the original MAX team, and perhaps get the original source code? I tried, a few years ago, to get Interplay to give me the source, but they wouldn't...

Subject: Re: US players needed...

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> I admit my utter ignorance of coding, but is it possible to write an external TCP/IP communications suite,
> and simply replace (via a JMP and a GOTO) Max's own ipx code within the executable, without breaking
> anything else?

No.

"Duke" made an attempt to get rid of the out of sync bug by writing an IPX server that keeps an eye on the network messages and resends messages that don't get answered (what MAX itself doesn't).

There is a way using Khan(?) or something like that to play IPX over the Internet but that works only up to windows98.

> I mean, if you're going to reconstruct an engine, you should also replace the
> software renderer with a hardware-based one...

We don't reconstruct the engine. We have our own engine. The rendering itself is done using libSDL that is in fact pretty fast. However our code still sucks so you need a lot of cpu power and ram right now. We'll go for this later. Much later. When talking about alot I'd say you should run a 1,6GB cpu and about 512mb ram.. nothing today

> and certainly re-write the AI (which sucked and cheated).

AI is not in the plot for now. If you want to play AI use the original. This is all about network gaming. However it would be nice to see an AI in MAXR one day too.

> Also, is it possible to contact anyone who was on the original MAX team, and
> perhaps get the original source code? I tried, a few years ago, to get Interplay to
> give me the source, but they wouldn't...

We tried the same years ago too. In fact "Sal" managed to get in contact with a formal member of the team but he couldn't help us since he doesn't work for Interplay any more and has no data any more too. Interplay itself is stubborn about that topic and if you ask me they don't have any data for themself any more since the company changed, closed and reopened a lot.

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