Gamespy updates

Just some info here on some of the other games effected and what solutions are out their -:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2az5kf/the_final_list_of_community_solutions_for_gamespy/

The Final List of Community Solutions for Gamespy Shutdown. (self.Games)

submitted 21 hours ago * by jezek2

The info I have is about updated solutions to many more games that will provide alternate Master Servers and restored core online functionality that are the same if not a little better than what Gamespy was originally providing.

While it's taken awhile, July 16th was finally the day when the rest and most popular of the online games that used Gamespy, EA games, started to finally shutdown, like Battlefield 2, despite EA giving the end date of June 30th.

As of now, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Crysis, and Crysis Wars have all shut down. The rest will follow soon.This has resulted in a lot of people panicking and are afraid their games and communities are gone.

So I decided to post this final updated list of Community Solutions for many PC and Console games that used Gamespy to help people migrate to them. I like to think this is the most comprehensive list there is, but if I'm missing any games please tell me.

And regarding Gameranger, while it's great tool that's getting more versatile as it even now supports Dedicated Servers for Battlefront 2 and other notable games, it still is largely a Peer to Peer program that just doesn't cut it for most of these games that have built their communities around Dedicated Servers in my opinion.

I will however list it as possible solutions for Battlefront 2 now and also RTS games because virtually all of them already use a peer to peer infrastructure.

You can grab GameRanger here

When getting back to the list, the 1st Part will be PC games while the 2nd Part will mainly be Console Games.

PC Games with Solutions

EA Games

  • Battlefield 1942 here

  • Battlefield 2 here

  • Battlefield 2142 here - I can confirm that the Revivebf2 team will officially work on 2142 when they're finished with Battlefield 2 if there is enough support for it :)

Until that time comes, it is supported on Gameranger for now with dedicated support.

While we have great solutions that are either completed or in the works for EA games our communities would still benefit a lot from expanded tools or source code for these older titles that EA is apparently completely abandoning. Tweets, emails etc to them requesting more community tools or source code would be helpful.

Non EA Games

  • Alien Vs Predator 2 here

  • The Arma Series here

  • Battlezone 2 here

  • Battle for Middle Earth 2 Community Master Server Solution -- Gameranger Solution

  • Borderlands here

  • Civilization 3 & 4 + Expansion Packs here

  • Daikatana here

  • Dawn of War Series here

  • Empire Earth + Expansion Gameranger Solution

  • Empire Earth 2 here

  • Fear Combat here

  • Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 & 2: Gameranger with Dedicated Support

  • Halo here

  • Hidden and Dangerous 2 here

  • Men of War + Vietnam Expansion here Kudos to 1c for helping integrate Men of War with Gameranger.

  • Neverwinter Nights here

  • Neverwinter Nights 2 here

  • Painkiller here - Be sure to scroll all way down to the end of the post to see the qtracker information to dial in to restore its in-game server browser.

  • Rune here

  • Stalker Series here

  • Stronghold 1 & 2 + Expansions here kudos to Firefly studios in helping with integrating their series with Gameranger

  • SWAT 4 here

  • Unreal Tournament 3 here - Epic has been transitioning the whole Unreal Tournament series to a new server infrastructure for awhile now. So the original Unreal Tournament along with 2004 are also working fine.

  • Vietcong here

While many of these solutions are actually the opposite of a community solution, it's just good to knowledge Firefly studios, Bohemia Studios, 1C, Petroglyph, Take 2, Human Head Studios, GSC Game World, Epic, Relic and Sega along with Bungie seem to be the only companies who are actually saving their games themselves. Kudos to them.

While EA has helped integrate their games with Gameranger, they so far haven't saved any of their games like other Companies have on the same level. They didn't even save Battlefield 2 which still has numbers comparable to a more recent Battlefield like Bad Company 2 according to www.Gametracker.net. And in general Battlefield 2 is still a very active multiplayer game on the market relatively.

EA, while Gameranger support is appreciated, Source Code for these older titles would be nice and help save face.

PC Games without any type of in-game community support:(

  • Battlefield: Vietnam

For now, Vietnam is supported on Gameranger with dedicated support.

  • Crysis 2

Here are mainly Console Games

-- http://openspy.org/ --

This is a group that's preserving a lot of PS2 games in addition to a few PC games that used Gamespy:

  • Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers (PS2)
  • Call of Duty: Finest Hour (PS2)
  • Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (PS2)
  • Empire Earth II (PC)
  • Empire Earth II: The Art of Supremacy (PC)
  • Empire Earth III (PC)
  • FlatOut (PS2)
  • FlatOut 2 (PS2)
  • Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (PS2)
  • SWAT 4 (PC)
  • SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate (PC)
  • Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (PC, PS2)
  • Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (PC)
  • World Series of Poker (PS2)
  • Worms 4: Mayhem (PS2)
  • X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (PS2)

http://wiimmfi.de/

This is a group that is restoring the online functionality for a lot of Wii games:

  • Animal Crossing Wii*
  • GTI Club Supermini Festa Wii
  • Mario Kart Wii
  • Pokemon Battle Revolution
  • Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (PAL) + the rest of the series
  • Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

Again, If you guys have any other Community solutions please share them, as I plan for this to most likely be my final reddit post about Community Solutions for Gamespy.

A big thank you to Moddb and Wired for posting my first set of Gamespy solutions and helping a lot of folks in this sad end chapter for a foundational part of online gaming. Here are their respective articles:

  • Moddb & Wired and also of course to our dedicated and resourceful communities who are doing what was defined as "impossible" by various groups we all know.

Rest in peace Gamespy

While this may be the end of a great chapter in online gaming, this is a beginning of a new era in our online culture as we have gained something greater with our commitment and resourcefulness: independence.

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