Dungeon Keeper - Online

Now it's very easy to play Dungeon Keeper Online with new operating systems such as Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Also 64 bit editions.

I'm going to talk a bit about "KeeperFX", a great way to play Dungeon Keeper Online.

It's an extensive mod for Dungeon Keeper that contains some of the original Dungeon Keeper data, but many files are also modified or remade.

When playing Dungeon Keeper online you are able to play with other Dungeon Keeper online players.
You will be able to play by a new "TCP/IP" option when playing Dungeon Keeper online against other players.

When playing Dungeon Keeper online you will be able to play 1 vs 1 or even team gameplay vs other Dungeon Keeper online players as well as against the AI computer players when playing Dungeon Keeper online as well as skirmish mode.

The game seems to have new single player campaigns, as well as the original ones for single player and for the Dungeon Keeper online players.

KeeperFX for playing Dungeon Keeper online also has some nifty new video modes as seen in the screenshot below.

You will be able to set to x8,x16,x32 bit color depths and resolution settings for single player and Dungeon Keeper online modes.

You can also set different languages when playing Dungeon Keeper online and for the single player modes.

The ability to take screenshots of your Dungeon Keeper online games or in single player.

Or you could use the FRAPS video recorder for recording your Dungeon Keeper online matches as well as single player matches.

There is also a guide on the main forums to get working the original Dungeon Keeper map editor on KeeperFX for playing your own Dungeon Keeper online maps or single player ones.

Also when I had tested the latest nightly and soon for all these changes to be in the next version of KeeperFX, all the new fixes that have been made to the SVN's, I have now seen when playing Dungeon Keeper online and on single player that it is stable!

However the multiplayer of this game can get broken again very easilly and might not work a tall as bugs are introduced again on later versions or possible still existing.

Sometimes when doing updates and fixes it can break something else.

Some versions have been much more stable than in the original Dungeon Keeper game, meaning the multiplayer and crashes no longer is a huge issue when playing Dungeon Keeper online or in single player modes!

If you are having crashing problems in multiplayer, you can try one of the latest nightly builds.

The one I tried, though it does still have crashes in it in a 2 player game if AI is turned on, can be found below,

• keeperfx_ccp_0_40_complete.7z: Game files, your original game CD is required to use the launcher application to install it.

• keeperfx_ccp-0_4_0_453-patch.7z: Then overwrite the game files with this nightly build to update it to a more stable version.

Unfortunately this version still crashes in multiplayer. It seems to be when heroes are on the map or just when the AI is turned on. So I am still unsure which version is the most stable today. However it's working great in Single Player.

And seems to be far more stable if you play with only 2 human players, and with the AI turned off!

I will update the download section again soon, if I find a more stable version.

You can download "KeeperFX" on the main website @ http://keeper.lubie.org.
It now requires the original game files from the CD to play the game single player and multiplayer online even on a LAN.

"KeeperFX" playing Dungeon Keeper multiplayer is also very easy to do.

They have a java launcher so that it's easier to get up and working for online/multiplayer fun.

They have a file called "KeeperFXTools.jar" that you can double click on to open it using JAVA.
It should look like this,

This makes it easier for you to launch Dungeon Keeper Multiplayer Online.
It shows the command lines above.

So in this example I just used an example IP address, pretending it was a Hamachi IP address for playing Dungeon Keeper Multiplayer online.

So one person will host the game and doesn't need to enter an IP address here to play Dungeon Keeper multiplayer online.

The other players will enter the hosts IP address in the "TCP/IP Sessions" box so they can connect to the host.

Then when they launch the game, if the 1st player has hosted they should see the other player in the list to join them for a Dungeon Keeper multiplayer online game.

Also note that there is a file called "tcp_readme.txt" that you can read.
It will give some more information about connecting a Dungeon Keeper multiplayer game online or by LAN.

This also has some new interesting options such as the "Packet File to Save" option.
What this does is records the game to a file so that you can play back the game movements using the "Packet File to Load" box.

When playing back a packet file you will be able to watch the game you played with someone like playing it back to preview it.

Your packet file might go out of sync when playing back a Dungeon Keeper multiplayer online game packet file recording.
It's very experimental and will get better in the future for recording your games.

If you need to download JAVA you can get it here : http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp.

Click on the "Multiplayer" button on the menu.
You then can click on "TCP/IP" in the list.

This allows you to connect by an IP address over the internet or on LAN.

Now I can see the player hosting the game Replica.
You also can turn the computer players On/Off if you want to play against the AI computer players.

Once ready just click on "Start Game" to select a map to play on.

Things are looking good now.
Look carefully at each flag.

Notice there are lines showing different colors?
Four lines mean that the map is for 4 players while three is for three players and two is for two players.

In the screenshot above you can see that the KingKong player choose the level "145: DD Multi 11".

Now the Replica player just selects the same flag for the game to begin, and as the AI is turned on and this is a four player map, Replica and KingKong player will be playing against 2 AI computer players.

Now that the game has began, if I want to form an ally with the blue player I just click on this face icon where my mouse cursor is.
This will ally with the other player.

Then he must also click on the flashing face to form an ally with Red player.

Now both of us are working together as an ally vs the AI computer opponents.

On the KeeperFX website there is also source code SVN's @ http://code.google.com/p/keeperfx/.

Where you can compile the latest SVN for testing and reporting bugs.

Some of them might have more recent bug fixes and features.
Just extract and overwrite the files in your main "KeeperFX" directory.

You should also be aware, now there are nightly builds you can now download @ http://keeper.lubie.org/html/dk_keeperfx_nightly.php.

Also note that your saved games most likely won't load back if they where saved using a different version than the one you are using now.

The main forums @ http://keeperklan.com