Dreamcast online thread

[pierrot]

I know of Dreamcast Online at Online Consoles for DLC, but for the longest time now, their downloads section just says that the page is being recoded. Are there other sites with DLC?

If I ever actually got the Sonic Chao I think I could die happy.

Also, the Sega Swirl thing is starting to sound more and more cool, in a low-tech meets high-tech sort of way.

[noiseredux]

I know of Dreamcast Online at Online Consoles for DLC, but for the longest time now, their downloads section just says that the page is being recoded. Are there other sites with DLC?

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/

Also, the Sega Swirl thing is starting to sound more and more cool, in a low-tech meets high-tech sort of way.

yeah I'm with you on this. Do you have Sega Swirl already? It's on the Web Browser 2.0 disc as well as part of the Sega Smash Pack, among other various demo discs that I'm not sure of...

I use Yahoo Mail myself, and apparently Yahoo, GMail, Hotmail, etc (so all the popular ones) have POP3. If you do a google seach for your-email-provider + pop3 you should easily find out how to get the POP3 settings and configure your email on your Dreamcast for Sega Swirl.

[pierrot]

Whoa! I guess I'll have to invest some time into digging through that site. Place is loaded with files.

I have sega swirl on the 2.0 browser, and the Official Dreamcast Magazine demos, if I could figure out where I put them. I guess I'll get my configurations set up later today or tomorrow, if anyone wants to play Sega Swirl.
Have to know email addresses for verses play, right? That would kind of discourage posting contacts in a thread. I guess I could make a dummy account, though.

[Original_Name]

I'll admit that I'm a bit ignorant about the current state of Dreamcast online, but how exactly are people setting up these servers for specific games? I'm just asking because it's pretty surprising to me that people would go to such trouble to keep pool and off-roading titles online, yet formerly online-compatible games like ChuChu Rocket!, Daytona USA, Sega Rally 2, Virtual ON: Oratorio Tangram, Sega Tetris, Virtua Tennis, F355 Challenge, and the Capcom Matching Service series are no longer available.

I'm sure there must be a technical reason, particularly since ONLY NTSC-U titles have survived, but still, I'm curious as to what's keeping so many worthy titles from being restored.

[noiseredux]

I'll admit that I'm a bit ignorant about the current state of Dreamcast online, but how exactly are people setting up these servers for specific games? I'm just asking because it's pretty surprising to me that people would go to such trouble to keep pool and off-roading titles online, yet formerly online-compatible games like ChuChu Rocket!, Daytona USA, Sega Rally 2, Virtual ON: Oratorio Tangram, Sega Tetris, Virtua Tennis, F355 Challenge, and the Capcom Matching Service series are no longer available.

I'm sure there must be a technical reason, particularly since ONLY NTSC-U titles have survived, but still, I'm curious as to what's keeping so many worthy titles from being restored.

in the cases of Maximum Pool and Quake 3 it's because the DC server was the same as the PC server. And the PC servers are still up.

With Sega Swirl -- it's an email game, so basically it'll be online as long as email is. Haha.

In the case of PSO it's because a legit server was up (also a shared PC server) for a long enough time that smarter folks than me were able to figure out what the server was looking for from the DC, so they knew how to then make a private server. I guess the reason why there aren't other private servers for other popular games is that simply the legit servers came down too early for crackers to figure them out. Someone a bit smarter than me should be able to explain this better, but that's the basics of it as far as I understand from what I've read.

...I'd guess that answers why 4x4 and Starlancer are still online too. Basically they were around long enough in legit form to be cracked.

[noiseredux]

Free POP3 email client if anyone wants an email to use for Sega Swirl: http://lavabit.com/

[Blu]

Call me ignorant of this whole thing, but I'd need a land line phone service before I could sign up for a free isp, no? Would a wonderjack magicJack let me be able to jimmy rig something like this to fool my Dreamcast?

EDIT: BECAUSE IF SO THAT WOULD BE FRICKEN AWESOME.

All caps to convey excitement.

[jay_red]

...I'd guess that answers why 4x4 and Starlancer are still online too. Basically they were around long enough in legit form to be cracked.

These 2 are not running on hacked servers, but actually hosted on Game Spy servers I believe, and have a PC counter part that is still online.

Call me ignorant of this whole thing, but I'd need a land line phone service before I could sign up for a free isp, no? Would a wonderjack magicJack let me be able to jimmy rig something like this to fool my Dreamcast?

EDIT: BECAUSE IF SO THAT WOULD BE FRICKEN AWESOME.

All caps to convey excitement.

Unfortunately I looked into the magic jack idea as well, and there is something about the ping makes it unusable for playing online games.

[Blu]

Well, damn. I thought I had it all figgered out!

[pierrot]

It occurred to me that I probably won't be able to play Sega Swirl since I'd be on a Broadband connection, and I've just got the web browser 2.0 version right now. Will the email matches work with broadband on the sega smash pack or demo disc versions?