Before I get to discussing the new chat room, let me explain how netplay session creating will work from now on.



Netplay Available to Everyone!
What this means is that anyone will be able to create Netplay sessions from now on. Before, you had to own the 'Netplay' item or the 'Laptop' item (which could be obtained from the item shop for Viz) in order to create a netplay session (although over the past month, sessions have been free to create because of Christmas).

Anyways, the way it's going to work now is that you pay Viz to create a netplay session and the cost will depend on which features you want. Here's how much Viz it'll cost to create netplay sessions:
Creating Netplay Session - 50 Viz = All sessions will cost at least 50 Viz
Friends Only - 50 Viz = Setting the Privacy to Friends only will cost an additional 50 Viz
Video/Audio Chat - 150 Viz = This new feature allows you to see and talk w/your friends (more info below)

Don't sell the Netplay item! Because it's still useful. The Netplay Item (and Laptop item) allows you to create netplay sessions for 0 Viz so if you are the type who creates lots of netplay sessions, it might be a good idea to save up 10,000 Viz for the Netplay item (which can be purchased from the Item shop).

Hopefully this new update encourages more users to create and participate in netplay.



What is Netplay?
The Netplay feature in the Retro Game Room allows you to play games on the site with others online in multiplayer. This means that you can play with anyone on the site! Supported systems include: Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Turbo Grafx, Nintendo 64 (buggy) and a few others. Currently the handheld systems do not support it but they may eventually.

You can create a netplay session by scrolling half way down the page of the game you want to create the session for. Click the 'Click here to Start a New Netplay Session' link.

You can find all active netplay sessions and the netplay lobby here:
https://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/netplaysessions.php



New Netplay Chat Room
The old chat room within netplay sessions has been replaced with an all new chat room. Depending on how well this new chat room works out, and if it is indeed less strenuous than the previous chat room, I may replace the chat room on the (non netplay) RGR games with this new one as well.

Here's a list of all the benefits and features of this new chat room:

More Stable
The new chat room should be more stable. The old one would stop updating after a while and it would sometimes stop working all together. This new chat room is located on a different server so it'll most likely stay up even if the site goes down which means that if you're in a netplay session playing with users and the site goes down, there's a good chance that the chat room and the game itself will continue to work just fine as long as you don't leave it.

Faster and Less Strenuous
The chat room should be faster. In other words, exchanging messages back and forth should be quicker. It also should be less strain on the server but I haven't confirmed that yet.

User Kicking
If you're the session creator, you have the ability to kick users from the chat room. You also have the ability to ban them. To do this, you simply click on their name at the very right and you'll be given a list of options. Currently you cannot kick them from the game itself, just the chat room (but that'll be a future feature).

Sessions Close Automatically
The staff will really appreciate this. Before, when a session creator created a session and left it without closing it, the session would sometimes stay open forever until a staff member went in and manually closed it. With the way things are now, if everyone leaves a session, it'll automatically close within 60 seconds.

Idle Sessions
When a session hasn't had anyone chatting in it in more than 15 minutes, on the netplay sessions page it'll show how long the session has been idle. This is great for those who want to avoid entering sessions where no one is chatting. An Idle session doesn't mean the users within it aren't playing the game but that could be the case.

Other Features Include:
-Conversation Scrolling = You can scroll through previous said things
-Conversation History = You can read through the entire conversation
-Font Color = You can change the color if your conversation text, helps distinguish users
-Drawings = You can draw a message, great if you need to draw out instructions
-File Transfer = Lets you send a file to everyone (not sure if this will be handy, might remove)
-Smilies = You can choose from a list of smilies to embed into the conversation
-User Pictures = A user's picture appears next to their name in the friends list (although very small)

Video / Audio Chat
I saved the best for last. You can now see and talk to the users you're playing with. To enable it, you have to check the option on the netplay session creation page (and it costs 150 Viz). Sessions that support Video/Audio chat will have a webcam icon next to their session name on the netplay sessions page. Sessions that support video and audio chatting will still have the chat room but the chat room will be half the size in order to make room for the videos of all the users in the chat room. If you don't have a webcam or a mic, you can still join these types of sessions.

I should point out that there are some issues when enabling the Video/Audio chat in netplay sessions. You may have a problem where the mouse pointer doesn't let you click anything. When this happens, you should still be able to play the game but you wont be able to click on anything within your internet browser. This eventually goes away. I'm not sure if this happens for everyone or if it's an issue with a certain internet browser but I had the problem and I'm not sure how to fix or prevent it at the moment. So consider the Video/Audio chatting as a beta thing for now.

Wow now the Netplay is only 10,000 viz?? I actually saved up for it.. I thought about selling it when I read the first paragraph but I guess not. I am not one of those people who create a lot of these. It's quite nice letting everyone create Netplay Sessions.

Black Bot : The item use to be 25,000 Viz but I dropped the price a few months ago to encourage more users to buy the item so that more sessions would be created. This new rule should ultimately encourage more users to do netplay now that users don't even need the netplay item to create sessions.

My goal is to get netplay so popular that there's always someone willing to do netplay. It's a feature that I've invested a lot of time and money into and it deserves to be used more, especially due to how awesome it is to be able to play some of these classics with other users.

I like the idea of the of netplay sessions costing Viz, as well as the new chatroom. Nice job.

Davideo7 : How do mods fit into all of these new features? Are mods charged Viz and do they remain mods in new session chat rooms? Are they still able to close sessions? Assuming we are not mods in the new sessions are they able to kick and ban us even if we are just trying to do our jobs? It just seems like there is a lot of ground you didn't cover here with a lot of room for potentially iffy situations. I would like some more thought and detail put into this if you wouldn't mind sharing, just seems like you left a lot of information out of the first post and used it almost as more of an advertisement than an FAQ. That being said I am not saying the info you have given isn't helpful in the slightest, just that more could be said on the matter, especially concerning mods like myself.

Frodlex : For now it wont be possible to moderators to have mod powers over the chat room within netplay but that might be a future feature. Global moderators and up are still able to access any session they want and close them.

It is possible for someone to kick a staff member out of their chat room, this is out of my control. Obviously if someone does this, they should be banned so I'm not too concerned about it but I'll try to fix this eventually.

All of these flaws were flaws with the old chat room as well which is one of the reasons I didn't bother even bringing them up.

I always wondered, is there much lag during a Netplay session? Or is it dependent on each user's internet connection?

ARedLetterDay : It depends on a user's computer, connection and location. I myself have had very little lag when doing netplay. Here's a tip: Restart your internet browser before joining or creating a netplay session, I have found that with Firefox, having a good restart before doing netplay can reduce lag.

Is there a browser that you believe Netplay works best with?

Is the audio/video chat free if you have the Netplay item?

thephantombrain : Probably firefox but I've never really thoroughly tested netplay in any other browser.

Yes the additional features are free with the netplay item, good question.

Wow...as if you didn't have enough of my admiration and respect already!

I mean, You've made it so anyone who logs into this site by default can make at least 1 local session a day, and you made it so anyone who buys the netplay item can do all of that for free?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are so awesome! Thank you so much!

Davideo7 : But but i payed so much for the netplay item it was all for nothing it's a good idea but how do i get ALL THE Viz back because when i sell it i dont get it back i payed for it just a week ago nobody had time so i could not use it. Please please can i get my Viz back. sorry if im bugging you

imamonster :
When I sold something, I did get Viz back but not all of it...
Maybe about 7/8 or 3/4 Total Viz from the costing?
I honestly think if you don't get Viz back it is a Bug...
Check out your Viz to make sure you have about 8750 or 7500 Viz back.. (Or if you payed 25.000 Viz for it it should be 21.875 or 18.750. )
Hoe I helped you out!
(One more hour and I'm a Member!! )

TheJmsGamer : I don't think that's entirely right but that is just my opinion. To be fairly honest, I am not sure about most of the pricing. I did do a calculation on it a long time ago but I seem to have forgotten it.

TheJmsGamer : Yeah i want all of it i was getting money for my ps1 but gave up so i bought the netplay item

Davideo7 :   This update sounds pretty amazing

It is a coincidence. I mean, I created a suggestion thread about two weeks ago suggesting video/voice chat with friends in the Retro Game Room. I am glad it has arrived, but I am not sure if you got this idea from myself or the chat room. Also, tRIUNE said it would be a pain to moderate the Retro Game Room. In addition,myou should at a mute button, to mute players that are causing trouble. That would definitely be useful. One mkre thing, I had lost 6,000 Viz the other day for no apparent reason. Also, I lose two items from the Item Shop. Does anybody have an idea why this might have occurred and has anybody ever experiecned this issue? Please allow me to know! Nice update on the Retro Game Room!

Superrpgman : Thanks

imamonster : It's still worth keeping the Netplay item as I already mentioned, it allows you to make as many sessions as you want with as many features as you want without ever having to pay Viz for it. You can sell it in the item shop and get 75% of your Viz back if you really don't want to keep it anymore.

TheJmsGamer : If he sold it he'd get 7500 Viz.

DenzGamer135 : I actually purchased the software for the video/audio chat months ago, I just finally got around to adding it. The reason I added it recently was because I wanted it added in time for the latest netplay tournament.

If you buy an item from the item shop and place the newly purchased item on to a slot that already has an item, your old item disappears.

Davideo7 : I already knew it would be replaced, but had not even purchased nor sold anything. I don't know what had occurred, but I had managed to purchase one of my items once more.

Davideo7 : I think i will keep it then