nl.alink.gamepoint.net

mkalthoff · December 4, 2002, 16:49

Hi,

we can not find nl.alink.gamepoint.net. Can anybody of you play multiplayer over internet in the moment??

Toni · December 4, 2002, 19:55

no i tried yeasterday, still can't today

HuangShang · December 4, 2002, 20:54

they dropped the support by 100% i guess

Maquiladora · December 4, 2002, 21:27

Aye, its gone

Thats totally buggered any future MP games, or MP tournament, (not that either was very active but still).

child of Thor · December 5, 2002, 08:35

Maybe they got fed up with the slateing they got most of the time and pulled the plug?

Ah well, you can still play LAN MP at least(so a couple of us are still happy).

SMIFFGIG · December 5, 2002, 11:17

wtf, this the CtP2 server and not the ctp1 ?? If so thats crazy.

And as there still selling CtP2 someone should sue Activision for advertising mplay on the box and in the manual. (maybe there gunna stop selling it, which could be good cause they might unleash there grab on the source code)

Ok i got abit carried away there but this sucks big time, no mplay AT ALL!

Gilgamensch · December 5, 2002, 12:14

Seems to be that the server is down:

13 6 ms * 6 ms so-0-2-0.TR1.PAR2.Alter.Net [146.188.8.117]
14 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms so-5-0-0.TR2.AMS2.Alter.Net [146.188.9.45]
15 15 ms 16 ms 16 ms so-6-0-0.XR2.AMS6.Alter.Net [146.188.8.89]
16 15 ms 16 ms 14 ms pos10-0-0.gw2.ams6.alter.net [212.136.176.22]
17 15 ms 17 ms 16 ms gamepoint-gw.customer.nl.uu.net [213.53.27.82]
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.

It's getting stucked in the Netherlands, I think toooooooooo much Coffe-shops

We can always blaime the Dutch

child of Thor · December 5, 2002, 13:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
gw.customer.nl.uu.net [213.53.27.82]
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.

It's getting stucked in the Netherlands, I think toooooooooo much Coffe-shops

We can always blaime the Dutch

Maybe Locutus has had to assimilate the server to give him the extra power he needs to complete his exams? In which case it should be back up in a week or two

SMIFFGIG · December 5, 2002, 14:00

yea thats what i was thinking, those servers carry a hefty punch of power for when Borgs are running low

Gilgamensch · December 5, 2002, 14:07

That would also explain why Locutus wasn't online for a couple of days, he had to prepare the assimilation

Maquiladora · December 5, 2002, 19:51

The we can blame someone at least

In the meantime i got an answer from Activision support, this is my email-

Quote:

I have patched the game to the latest version, i am using a dial-up 56k
connection, i have installed the newest servers.dat file and yet i cant connect
to the ONE remaining multiplayer server.

I COULD connect to the nl.alink.gamepoint.net server, but since that server isnt
available anymore (for some reason) i have no choice but to TRY and use the
games.igateway.net server, but i have NEVER successfully connected to this
server and neither has anyone else i know that i try to play games with.

There are no remaining servers that work for Call To Power II. Please Help!

Pretty clear cut id say... the response was-

Quote:

Response (Anthony Griffin) - 12/05/2002 09:33 AM
Hello,

Thanks for contacting Activision Customer Support. The game does not function
correctly over networks using dynamic IP addressing. Most dial-up connections
and some DSL connections use this method. With dynamic IP addressing each time
you dial in to the Internet, you are assigned a different private IP address
(dynamic IP addressing , using a "10-dot" scheme). Unsolicited information
cannot pass through the firewall to you. To find out if you are using dynamic
IP addressing, please contact your Internet Service Provider.

centrifuge · December 5, 2002, 20:30

unbelievable...

Maquiladora · December 5, 2002, 20:38

Okay heres my second email replying to that last reply-

Quote:

Thanks for your response.

Okay, I have tried on connections which use dynamic IP addressing and
WITHOUT dynamic IP addressing, and so have numerous other people i know. The
problem is with the one remaining server, games.igateway.net and its
functionality with Call To Power II.

I can connect to games.igateway.net server playing Civilization: Call To
Power (the prequel to Call To Power) and yet i cannot connect (with ANY
connection type) playing Call To Power II on that same server.

My question is, where did the nl.alink.gamepoint.net server go? That was the
only remaining server that worked for ANYONE, regardless of IP addressing.
No one can play Multiplayer Internet games without a functioning server, and
games.igateway.net is not working with Call To Power II.

Thanks in advance.

and their reply-

Quote:

Response (Anthony Griffin) - 12/05/2002 04:36 PM
Hello,

Thanks for filling me in on the situation. Unfortunately, those servers are not
hosted by Activision. We have not hosted servers for that game in years. The
servers you mention are fan-created. Thus the best thing to do at this point is
to contact the server administrator to see what is going on. We can help you
with the software/hardware end of the problem (that is what my last e-mail was
focusing on) but there is not much that I can do regarding servers created by
others. I hope you understand.

So there it is, i guess ill email the admin for the games.igateway.net and the nl.alink.gamepoint.net, see what happens.

HuangShang · December 5, 2002, 20:48

Damn it

the activision gave a long time ago

Maquiladora · December 5, 2002, 21:13

Yeah, it actually doesnt provide Internet Multiplayer anymore as SMIFFGIG said, so they arent actually providing whats described on the box. They should stop selling it with that claim if thats the situation or stop selling the game altogether, but apparently they didnt even know MP wasnt working anymore so.

Anyway i emailed gamepoint.net and igateway.net and igateway said-

Quote:

Thank you for contacting Internet Gateway Technical Support:

The supportigateway.net.
If you are not an Internet Gateway customers please contact
salesigateway.net.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

Thank you for using Internet Gateway.

Internet Gateway Support Group

What the hell that means is anyone's guess.

Im still waiting on a reply from gamepoint.net. Im not sure if ill even get a reply, considering 99% of their site was double Dutch to me, in every sense.

Gilgamensch · December 6, 2002, 02:40

Maybe, we should really join and open a trail against them. OK I haven't used the MP over internet yet, but I was thinking of, once I've ADSL.........

For the reply:

The 'provider' is a privat site as

Apolyton

This means, you normally have to subscribe to them to get support. And they might have stopped it, because nobody subscribed or they didn't get enough money from it via ad's.

And Maq, you should have recognised that a good part of our community of CTP 1/2 is DUTCH. They must have invaded Apolyton while the others weren't watching

Actually a question here from my site: Is Apolyton not able to provide itself as a server for MP?

Devil of Truth · December 6, 2002, 03:58

Quote:

Actually a question here from my site: Is Apolyton not able to provide itself as a server for MP?

Maybe somebody should ask Markos. Anybody feel like drawing up a request/petition/demand?

Gilgamensch · December 6, 2002, 04:31

That's what I was thinking of as well, but are we willing to pay for? I guess they might charge us for it

For me it would depend on the amount, this I have to admit immidiatly............

I would call it more a petition, anything else they might already object

SMIFFGIG · December 6, 2002, 05:22

Ok i hand this task over to maq, because he seems to be good at writting e-mails (only excuse i could think of)

Maybe to liven Activision up abit, tell them that there faulsely advertising, which is of course illegal. Either they preferably setup a server for CtP2 (try and push that the most) stop selling CtP2 (and give us the source code *joke*) or change the manual and box and in game options of the actual game itself so that multuplayer is not an option (least wanted action by all fans i would imagine)

This might actually get them caring and may just setup a server. Far fetched you may think, but Activision are actually breaking the law here and knowingly so, and i doubt they want to lose big money to such a minimal situation which could be solved by setting up one puny server (i think this option is more benificial for activision too, cause they dont wanna stop selling the game just cause of a little thing like this, they dont wanna go through the hassle of changing all newly realeased boxes and manuals and internal structure of the game, just to make mplay not an option) so we could be in with a good chance....... or alot of money

-James

child of Thor · December 6, 2002, 06:10

I'd just add procede with caution down this line. It could be a very long and expensive process to anybody involved in trying to bring a serious legal challange. Polite emails to try to sort it out might be the best thing to try(ok we've already done a bit of that).

CTP2 MP

Gilgamensch · December 6, 2002, 06:49

The biggest problem for this would be, that we would have to provide our receipt when/where bought the game. I must admit, I don't have it anymore, BUT we could just buy it again and charge them

OK, seriously:

I am not sure that they would have to provide a server at all..... As far as I remember it doesn't say that it has to run via their server. It is not like one of the online-games, where this company has to provide the server.

Maybe we should all complain every day to them. Like sending an e-mail every 2 hours??????????

Locutus · December 6, 2002, 09:02

Maq,
Ah, lame customer support excuse #27, how unoriginal!

Tough luck for them, I work for a customer support service myself, I know all those excuses by heart

Did you reply to that Activision mail yet? It would be interesting to keep bugging their customer support for a while, see where that gets us. They'll run out of lame excuses eventually... Feel free to tell them you're quite certain you're using a static IP: I have one and it's not working for me either (my IP is 213.51.142.102, if they need to know (which I highly doubt, but still)).

What the igateway.net answer means is obvious: they don't plan on giving any kind of support unless you give them money

I planned on contacting gamepoint.nl myself, but I guess I'll wait to see what comes from your mail first.

SMIFFGIG et al,
If you ever want to get anything out of Activisions, threatening to sue is NOT the way to go. We wanna be nice and friendly, and maybe, just maybe, if we're very lucky, they might just at any point in the future do us some favour. But if we try to play hardball that's just gonna backfire and kill any chance of getting anything done from them in the future.

Gilgamensch,
If we ever need to prove we own a legal copy, just let them look for my name in the credits

All,
Does anyone have any idea how much of a drain a gameserver would be? How much resources would it take to set up and maintain? Could you run a gameserver and a website (as big and active as Apolyton or (preferably) bigger) concurrently on 1 server?

SMIFFGIG · December 6, 2002, 09:23

Sorry i didnt explain myself great..... i meant what I said as a last ditch effort

Gilgamensch · December 6, 2002, 09:49

Locutus,

OK your name is in the credits, but not ours........ And can you play Mp as a single person

Not sure about the gameserver. As it would be only for a 'small' group, I am not so shure it would such a problem. I am actually looking after part of my companies network, so I know a bit about. But there is also difference for protecting against hackers and so on.

And having only 1 server, woudl just mean, if it is down, there isn't backup........ not so likely, my sun-servers have never crashed on me (in 4 years)............

Oerdin · December 6, 2002, 12:25

I'm getting two servers on my MP list right now.

mkalthoff · December 6, 2002, 15:10

I do not. Which ones do you see?

Maquiladora · December 6, 2002, 18:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm getting two servers on my MP list right now.

?

I replied to that last one anyway heres my reply-

Quote:

Customer - 12/06/2002 06:41 AM
Thankyou for answering, i still have a few questions regarding Internet
Multiplayer that i hope you can help me with.

I have been trying for the past 3 days from a static IP address and ALSO from a
seperate 56k dial-up line, so theres no problems with hardware and i havent
changed anything since Internet Multiplayer was working about 2 weeks ago, so
its not a software problem either, just to clear these issues up.

I have just very recently contacted the admin for the games.igateway.net server
and got a solid response of basically "youre not a paying customer so we cant
give any customer support". This is fair enough, i suppose, as the server they
provided was free and basically "as is" so they have no responsibility to fix
this as im not a paying customer.

My and alot of players annoyance still remains though. I can understand that you
cannot provide support for fan created servers, but as the situation stands
Internet Multiplayer is not working at all for Call To Power II, something that
is advertised on the box cover. I hope you can help further.

Not too cocky?

His reply-

Quote:

Response (Anthony Griffin) - 12/06/2002 09:23 AM
Hello again,

Yes the box does advertise on-line play but you must understand that the game is
more than three years old. We have not disabled the feature and it seems like
many players out there are still able to enjoy on-line play. Activision can't
control the Internet nor individual Internet Service Providers, but we can do
our best to improve your situation. The options at this point are thin, but
I'll do my best to help you out. I should have got this information earlier,
but what EXACT message do you receive when you attempt to connect to that
particular server?

child of Thor · December 7, 2002, 05:37

Well to some extent i'm impressed, it sounds like at least they are going to look into it a bit more. Not sure what they can do other than setup another server for the game..........well they could give us the source code(It is over three years old

) - i'm sure that would dispell any bad feelings over the online MP problem

By 'Many players out there are still able to play MP' , is that in reference to the paying customers of the fan supported server - I wonder how many people this is?

Maquiladora · December 7, 2002, 08:30

I have got a response under 12 hours after on nearly every occaision except this time, i wonder what theyre thinking about.

mapfi · December 9, 2002, 18:07

From my experience with craptivision support I'd say this is typical - they show concern to some extent, and now when you get down to the serious questions they'll drop you...

If anyone's planning to set up a MP server on his own - there's the info on how to do it in my Multiplayer Network Questions Thread, got it by asking them to death... and searching the net

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...52#post1321952