83 replies to this topic

[yogiholzer]

Do you know vpPlus / vp+ and what do you know about vpPlus / vp+?

Are you interested in knowing more about a great addition to Visual Pinball?

Let me know your knowledge and your interests about please!

[kaiser_k_bis]

humm as far as i remember, it was a kind of plugin to play online or LAN with a friend , we had to set & forward a port (deffo 12345), enter the IP of the opponent , and hop , could work .
I never tested the online functionnality (but the table) due to the lack of friends to play with , but personnally, yes Yogi , i would love to know more about VP+

[walterobom]

I don't know.

But if it is what Kaiser_k_bis is talking about, I would love to know too.

[yogiholzer]

Ok. I intended to wait for more replies, but I just have some time. I'll try to describe.

vpPlus let's you play a VP table 'online'. You connect online with anyone else after arrangement via e-mail, pm, IM, ... .

You play a game on a VP table against each other. Mode: Rotatory, each ball. Feature: Both players can see the action and the score of the other while playing. Special feature: Implemented chat mode. Nice!

Condition: The table is ready for vpPlus online games.

I had very very much fun to test and to play the few available tables online with some people. Too bad that there wasn't much interest at all, so the idea wasn't developed further. I'm nearly sure, that was the main reason for the downtime, even if things in real life became more important. But I didn't gave up hope for a continuation.

Attached are some screenshots of the vpPlus tables. They still should be playable in online mode, but I didn't test myself for over a year. Last time I played was against Steely, one of the developers, on sylvester 2007->2008. That was great, because I think we both didn't have anything better to do than to play pinball and even more to talk to each other.

I think the needed vpPlus code can be implemented into any table, but it would need people, who can do that. I'm absolutely clueless, but I'm sure there are people/members here that can do that with ease. So let's hope vpPlus will continue in any way.

vpPlus and the tables are still available at Pinball Originals - VpPlus Forum, the 'new' home of vpPlus.

If there are interests enough, I'm willing to do a step by step tutorial including screenshots how to setup and connect.

vpPlus demo table
Chrono Crusade
Last Exile
The Pit
Head to head proto

Attached Files

•  vpPlus_demo_table.jpg   177.15KB   56 downloads
•  Chrono_Crusade.jpg   209.23KB   54 downloads
•  Last_Exile.jpg   179.92KB   43 downloads
•  The_Pit.jpg   197.64KB   42 downloads
•  Head_to_head_proto.jpg   57.49KB   37 downloads

Edited by yogiholzer, 13 March 2009 - 08:32 PM.

[yogiholzer]

None else interested?

Developement was discontinued some time ago, most probably because of lack of interests, because there were only a few tables to play available and the tables didn't address people, but that didn't mean, there was no future. I think final aim was to make any VP/VPM table available for online duels. That requires some time of developement until the aim can be reached. Without enough requests and support, there's probably no hope to see any further developement.

Sorry for the try to bring you some possible great fun with this great improvement to enjoy pinball. I don't understand why none seemed to be interested, but I have to realise that it's a not wanted feature.

Thank you very very much to Steely, Rascal and also the other guy (rgade?) for your great developement and also thanks to Anthias for making/offering some tables. I'm very sad about this, but I finally understand why it was/seems to be sensless to continue.

Thank you anyway. Great job with vpPlus!!!

Edited by yogiholzer, 18 March 2009 - 01:25 AM.

[Bob5453]

VPplus was the greatest VP invention of all time.... I really enjoyed playing Nic, Tom and Al a 2 player VP table in real time where I played a ball and then they played a ball. Why it never took off is a mystery to me, but it was/is an awesome idea. I guess it needed a meeting place for folks to gather and challenge each other to a game. It even had a chat built right in and when I played Tom, I had a headphone microphone on to communicate with him.

[FDSystems]

None else interested?

Developement was discontinued some time ago, most probably because of lack of interests, because there were only a few tables to play available and the tables didn't address people, but that didn't mean, there was no future. I think final aim was to make any VP/VPM table available for online duels. That requires some time of developement until the aim can be reached. Without enough requests and support, there's probably no hope to see any further developement.

Sorry for the try to bring you some possible great fun with this great improvement to enjoy pinball. I don't understand why none seemed to be interested, but I have to realise that it's a not wanted feature.

Thank you very very much to Steely, Rascal and also the other guy (rgade?) for your great developement and also thanks to Anthias for making/offering some tables. I'm very sad about this, but I finally understand why it was/seems to be sensless to continue.

Thank you anyway. Great job with vpPlus!!!

I think a lot of people are definitely interested, very few have the skills to work on it, & even less have the time....

Edited by 1234fd, 18 March 2009 - 12:54 PM.

[Shooby Doo]

I'd love to get my butt whipped by some fellow VP'ers.

[xzotic]

This would be a really nice feature embedded in the core vp program rather than an addon requiring specific table code...although I'm unsure if such an approach could be possible?

It would have limited appeal if it was table restricted....however with an option setup in the core it could perhaps intercept when the table goes to player 2 and then execute the appropriate code for internet connectivity which could also have all the settings created in the core (Other player IP, ports to use etc). I'm over simplifying of course and I'm sure such an approach would either be a big project to implement or not feasible given the current structure of the code... I think the dev team are more preoccupied with getting 9.x working properly anyway at the moment....

Still, it would be nice if something like this was added in the future....

[yogiholzer]

As none of the developers (Steely, Rascal, rgade) replied here, I have to assume, that developement has been canceled completely.

I'm sorry to notice, because vpPlus was the greatest addition to VP.

I had very much fun to play online against Steely, Rascal, Nic, Roland, ... .

I thought I could generate more interests here and maybe to activate resting developement, but I failed. Sorry!

[JudgeX]

I am VERY interested in multiplayer pinball...

But I wonder if this could be enacted with kaillera, like most other emulators use?

If you aren't familiar, Kaillera allows people to play arcade games via MAME, or console games via Gens or tons of others... with other people online in real time... it handles chat, etc... It also partially takes care of the problem of not having a place to set up games, because a Kaillera server also functions as a chat room and game launching area...

It may be possible that VP has been implemented in such a way that kaillera plugins can't be made... but, it's definitely worth looking into, if it hasn't been... essentially all Kaillera does is start the game at exactly the same time, and does its best to prevent de-synchronization by altering the rate of play based on the ping of each individual to the server. With a good connection, it can perfectly replicate an arcade fighting game experience as if the person was standing next to you...

I would idle in a VP kaillera server all day long. Pinball is just too fun to even just watch someone else play... I think this would catch on... if it were possible .

[Roland Scholz]

Yogi, my memory is bad, but I remember that it was a lot of fun playing against you online

Too bad that the development of VPPlus has stopped.
I think what was missing was a really great table with VPPlus support to attract more people to it.

Anyway, VPPlus was really cool, so much fun...

[yogiholzer]

@JudgeX: I'm absolutely not informed about Kaillera. As far as I understand when I read about, Kaillera would somehow need to be implemented into the emulator. Here the emulator is (Visual)PinMAME. But if it's implemented there, you still can't play tables. There also needs to be a connection to Visual Pinball. I think the concept is another in comparison with 'usual/normal' emulators. And: Visual Pinball isn't open source. Even if it possibly could work anyhow technically, I think there's very less or no chance factually.

@Roland: I think the fun comes from the direct online duels, where you play each of the 3 or 5 balls by turns. One player plays, while the other one can view the game and the opposing score and can use the chat feature. Great. The table itself isn't that much important, but I'm sure, that Addams Family (a VP only version) probably would have attracted more people just only to try at all.

[JudgeX]

@JudgeX: I'm absolutely not informed about Kaillera. As far as I understand when I read about, Kaillera would somehow need to be implemented into the emulator. Here the emulator is (Visual)PinMAME. But if it's implemented there, you still can't play tables. There also needs to be a connection to Visual Pinball. I think the concept is another in comparison with 'usual/normal' emulators. And: Visual Pinball isn't open source. Even if it possibly could work anyhow technically, I think there's very less or no chance factually.

Oh, I wasn't saying it might be a reality... I know it's not open source. If it was open source, kaillera probably would have been rolled into some version out there by now... What I was saying is that if the devs who in fact HAVE the source code right now wanted to, they could quickly implement kaillera, with no drawbacks, and in a relatively short time-frame. What I was describing was actually injecting Kaillera function calls into the existing source code. It sounds difficult, but it's really not that impossible... what it does, is it simply coordinates control inputs between two simultaneously running games, and, makes the smooth operation of those games rely directly upon the ping between all players and the server...

This way, if one person lags for say a quarter of a second, the kaillera server refuses to draw the next frame of the game for that .25 of a second, until everyone's games are synced back up. Beyond that, all it does is send control codes between players. I've run a kaillera server for many years and played many games... the newest "kaillera" servers are "EmuLinker" servers, and those servers are compatible with all versions of kaillera.

Again, if it were open source, I'd be taking a crack at injecting kaillera into it right now. The only way I could foresee kaillera being difficult in visual pinball, would be if the physics engine used in VP somehow got in the way... but even that could probably be overcome with a little bit of crafty coding. I mean, in VP, you wouldn't even have to differentiate the control input like most emulators do, there's no "player 1 is this controller and player 2 is interpreted from kaillera net input"... everyone uses the same flippers and plunger... at most you'd have to "disable" P2's input on P1's turn, and that's even optional...

Anyway, let me dream of contending in and observing massive online pinball tournaments. *turns on tommy soundtrack*... even if the devs have no interest...

(btw, if anyone knows anyone in control of the source code, I'd be willing to take a crack at bringing in kaillera support... I am a gainfully employed B.S. of Computer Science with experience programming in the torque gaming engine - see C:AV project if you're familiar -, with DirectX, and a myriad of other languages, so... just thought I'd take a shot in the dark there)

[yogiholzer]

Oh, sorry, I didn't want to destroy your dreams.

Did you read the interview with Randy? Maybe, but only maybe, there is a 0,0000...1% chance?

[yogiholzer]

Nearly one year after the initial post and one day after chat with rascal I just had the time and thought I should try vpPlus once again. Why? Because it's great.

I installed vpPlus (I chosed a new folder -> G:\vpPlus next to G:\Visual Pinball) and played the default table that comes with the setup (vpPlus the table (gold edition) version 1.2.vpt). How to play? Start VP 8 (actually vpPlus and the available tables are not made for VP 9, but eventually they may work anyway, but I didn't try) and load the table into the VP Editor and press the play button. To chose the table you have to navigate to the installation path (here it's G:\vpPlus\vpPlus Demo Table). When the table is loaded you can left mouse click onto the controls panel on the left and it offers you the possibilities to insert coins, to start a game, to enable/disable music, to netplay and to chat while netplay (see attached screenshot). I played 1 game in single mode (means I didn't try netplay). Worked.

Then I tried the other 3 tables in single mode (means I didn't try network mode). Worked also.

If you are interested in vpPlus I recommend to try the same first (don't want all and everything at the first step). You need VP 8 already installed succesfully and to download and install vpPlus. It's no drama. It comes in a zip file. Unzip the content of the zip to a place of your choice and run the setup exe file or the setup msi file (depends on the version). Chose a folder of your choice where to install vpPlus or use the default one. Memorise where you install to easily navigate to the folder where the table is placed later.

Next step would be to get the other 3 tables as well and play them in single mode.

The following step would be to setup everything (router/firewall/IP address) to make netplay possible.

I still didn't try that this time and I'm a little unsure, if I can configure Kaspersky and router easiely to run netplay successfully. I will post some more info and try to guide you through the configuration if and when I've found out more and if your are still interested. I know that it works generally, because I already played against some people years (?) ago.

Now I'm intersted in trying out and playing in network mode. I guess it's already too late here today, but who knows?

Post your questions, thoughts, what else here.

Attached Files

•  vpPlus_table_controls.jpg   792.24KB   26 downloads

[destruk]

I'm going to try to add a scriptable connect ip condition, and perhaps move most of the commands outside to a secondary file system like vpm uses. Then we should be able to play more games with this feature, and perhaps some simplistic vpm games would work too, for starters. Just a heads up - it will take me a while to get the free time, with everything else going on this month. What I'm thinking for possible candidates

Alvin G's USA Football - http://www.vpforums....-1237054089.jpg
Alvin G's Socer Ball - http://www.vpforums....-1234519063.jpg
Viza War - http://www.vpforums....-1234506334.jpg

Most of the gottlieb system 1 games could be converted for vpplus too, as well as gameplan.

Most all of the EM Games wouldn't have much issue with being network play - they don't involve random awards, or if they do they can be scripted to send the data over to the client. Wallace and Grommit with highrise's DMD system would be an incredible game to play with vpPlus, as well as Ultimate Spiderman, Monkey Island, Wacky Races, Card Sharks Deluxe, Four Horsemen, etc. Job #1 would be to go through and make it easier to implement. At first glance, and looking over the manual, there are a lot of required specifications and syntax to sort out, which is probably why this hasn't been done yet.

[Rawd]

I appreciate anything you can do on this front Destruk. Hit me up if you need someone to help you test the system. I believe that live competition is a big part of the fun in pinball.

[destruk]

Rawd - If you have two cabinets, vpPlus can work between them real easy. I think Rob Craig can test that out too. Basically, with a gigabit ethernet card in each machine you set a static IP in each machine, with the other IP for the dns server and off it goes. I had one set here as 169.1.1.1 and the other set as 169.1.1.2 and connected an ethernet cord. You don't need anything else, just when vpplus prompts you for the IP, stick the IP in of the other machine and it works fine. There's no lag either.

[Rawd]

Darn, I would love to test that.... The problem is I have 2 cabinets at home, but only 1 pc to run them. I stole the pc from my mini when I built my full size cabs (the 2nd full size cab went to a friends house 700km from here). I am eventually going to get a new pc for the mini when I can afford it. Anything else I can help with, just let me know.