Often when a recreation studio makes an official announcement about servers, it is unhealthy information. Whole generations of multiplayer video games have already gone the way in which of the dodo: being routinely decommissioned as they get on in years and might’t justify the hassle to maintain on-line anymore. Should you’re fortunate, a band of devoted followers will preserve a terrific recreation alive with non-public servers.
Such was the case of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, a beloved class-based FPS made by Splash Harm as a standalone enlargement to Return to Citadel Wolfenstein. In a uncommon occasion of fine server information, Bethesda has spun up new devoted servers for Enemy Territory that includes its six unique maps and a very vanilla ruleset. As of April, the sport can also be on Steam (opens in new tab) without cost.
“Although the neighborhood has hosted—and continues to host—servers with a wide range of mods and customized maps that we extremely advocate, we additionally perceive that many gamers are on the lookout for a extra nostalgic expertise,” id wrote in an announcement put up (opens in new tab). “We have arrange servers throughout a number of territories to higher guarantee gamers from all over the world can play with comparatively low ping.”
There are literally 4 devoted servers, to be actual, one for every area id is formally supporting:
- US: Texas
- EU: Netherlands
- AU: Canberra
- UK: London
These areas ought to cowl a lot of the locations serious about taking part in a 20-year-old FPS. “Comparatively” low ping is correct, although. From California I would in all probability get round 90 to 100 ping on the Texas server, a suitable latency, however a lot greater than my common ping of 20 to 30 in newer shooters with Los Angeles-based servers.
Here is the official rulesets for the devoted vanilla servers:
- Sport Kind: Marketing campaign
- Most Gamers: 16 (8v8)
- Pleasant Hearth: Sure
- Punkbuster: No
- Anti-Lag: Sure
- Max Lives: Off
- Weapon Restriction: Off
Enemy Territory was maybe one of many first “free-to-play” multiplayer shooters in existence, being initially launched as shareware by id Software program in 2003 (microtransaction-free, thoughts you). Splash Harm would finally launch Enemy Territory’s supply code into the world, too, opening the door for followers to run servers and modify it to their liking with tasks like ET: Legacy (opens in new tab).
The brand new servers are undeniably excellent news, however it does have me questioning: Why? Possibly there’s an ulterior motive to reviving one of many most-beloved Wolfenstein video games within the sequence’ historical past, like a forthcoming announcement of a brand new id shooter?
Or possibly it is a lot easier than that. I hope somebody at id requested Bethesda/Microsoft very properly to spend the Microsoft equal of a few pennies to breathe new life right into a useless recreation, and the powers that be stated positive, why not.
