So I'm here with a poll on something that I feel needs to be asked.  

Net play is arguably one of Vizzed's most unique, if not Vizzed's most unique feature that sets it apart from any offline emulators or even other Retro gaming websites.



Before I begin the topic: Why do I think net play is under ultitized?   Let me take you back to 2013, If my memory serves me correctly it was October that Davideo7 allowed for a month of free netplay.    When that special event occurred; nearly everyone made sessions with their favorite Rgr games and the site traffic was blooming quite a bit too.


Now netplay only costs 10k viz, and the amount of sessions that people create has been dropped quite dramatically.  

Why should I let others get the net play feature that I spent a lot of my Viz on?  Well let me refer back to my original statement,  in my mind I feel like more net play would let more site traffic go through.     Playing against the CPU all the time is no fun,  and the only reason net play is still going on is because of the Competitions that Davideo7 has been hosting throughout the years.

Otherwise Staff members are the only ones who make Sessions on this site, and even then it's only a minority of them. 


I get that you might've spent 10K Viz on a netplay item, but what's the point if you rarely use or make sessions with said Net play item?


Net play needs to be used more,  Ideally we should see sessions blooming.  Having only 1 or two sessions of netplay is really saddening, even more so when you think about how much people used to Desire this bad-boy back in the day.


So Obviously, I'm gonna say yes I think Net play needs to be ulittized more but I wanna read your comments below.

I think netplay should be used more too. The competitions that are hosted help a little, but when those matches are over its always dead. If you remember when I had the rgr competition forum, we were able to get a lot of games in, but we weren't able to get many people to play outside of them.
I think maybe the problem is that most people have problems with netplay or they just don't want to play it.

I'm planning on getting a new pc soon to play emulated games. I'm planning on playing wii u, 3ds, and older games. I'm gonna have to find people who are interested in player newer games too since this site doesn't have many people who'd be interested.

Also, netplay isn't a Vizzed only feature. The ability to use netplay comes from the emulators. Vizzed just has servers that everyone can use.

Well, if by offline emulators you mean downloading emulators by myself, you're wrong. Dolphin allows netplay but cannot be added to Vizzed for not being retro, the budget, the legal issues, etc. Not all emulators are capable of netplay by themselves, though, I'd say only a minority and even less in the generations Vizzed focuses.

As per your question, netplay requires a powerful computer and a good connection. Most of us already struggle playing by ourselves, so imagine if we must connect to a server. Plus, distance plays a major role, and while it may be no problem with people living in the same country it can be a problem when we even need to cross oceans.

It would cost too much to have enough servers so as to enable low distance to the server for everyone, and there comes the biggest weakness of netplay. I myself would use it more frequently if I could put up my own server or if there existed a server on this side of the Atlantic, and I'm sure many people would use it if they had powerful enough computers.

I might make an effort to go on often and play if there was actually people to play with. Even back when I was an active user in the RGR, 90% of the time I checked out Netplay, it was usually Jordan either alone or with one other user.

I agree that it needs to be utilized more but I've done all I can to promote it. I've had many users stream netplay, I've streamed netplay myself and I've literally invested 100s of hours into hosting competitions that utilize netplay. I don't get why it's still not used more than what it is.

By the way, anyone can create a netplay session, they don't need the netplay item so your theory is wrong.

Netplay definitely needs to be used more.

If only someone else liked Neo-Geo/MAME as much as I did, I would have a netplay session up all the time for people to join.

Lol to the guy who disliked my post.  Someone hates netplay.

EX Palen :


That's true, but dolphin isn't exactly Optimized Emulation.  Not to mention, Dolphin is the only emulator that got Gamecube and WII emulation done properly.

All the other Gamecube emulators out there don't get updated, or got scrapped entirely.

Yeah your correct on that and it also depends on your Ping(connection to the server) and even standard Emulators like ZSNES has quite some lag to it.





Davideo7 :  
Really? I didn't not know that,  I thought Netplay was still something you had to purchase to make sessions like back in 2013.



I'm okay with my Theory being wrong, I'm no Matpat by any means ; this just goes to show how much stuff I've missed out on since my inactivity.

That's sad though,   reading that anyone can create netplay now and still seeing only 2 sessions is sad.



Vanelan : I actually truly enjoy Mame, but I don't know how exactly netplay works on that thing now.



earthwarrior :  

Yeah that's true Netplay comes from the emulator, but at the same time I haven't seen many people make use of the pure online netplay  feature like vizzed does.


I wish there was something that'd draw more users outside of Competition purposes,  In theory netplay should've been used a lot but it's not.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using it more often, but I think the problem of why it's not used more comes down to 2 things.

First, there's too many games to choose from with how small the "dedicated" user base is. I don't mean there's not enough users to make good use of it, because there's plenty, but I doubt the majority of the registered members who don't hardly use the Board even know NetPlay exists or what it does exactly when they hear the name.

Second, even if people wanted to play together, they would have to work out server location issues to avoid lag like Palen mentioned, as well as work out a time that both users are available to play. On top of all this, there's 10,000's of games to pick from (although not all have NetPlay), so it can be hard to find two users who both want to play online, the same game, have the same schedule, live close enough together, etc. Plus, most "online gamers" end up playing games like Call of Duty / Overwatch, or MMO's like WoW / Final Fantasy XIV. Our library has the same issue that Steam does when it comes to games with multiplayer. There's just not enough users who play any single game enough at one time to really give them incentive to use NetPlay. Also taking into account a lot of frequently online users are anti-social (like myself), or just want to relax online playing casually, many of them probably have zero desire to play with others even if the opportunity was there.

NetPlay is an amazing feature, and it's not like David or Vizzed in general is doing any thing wrong. There's just so much out there for people to pick from and things to consider when gaming online, it's hard to make it practical unless you're playing with someone you've already set up plans with in advance, or the game has a good sized fan base who play consistently.

That's just how I see it anyway

SuperCrash64 : That use to be the case but I changed that years ago.

SuperCrash64 : You can purchase an item to make it free, otherwise it costs like 20 or so Viz every time you make a session.
And MAME works just like Mednafen. You just gotta click the button to get a session page and put in a session name.

I don't recall if you would need to open ports if you are behind a firewall.
We could always cross that bridge when we get some games going. :3