Does anyone know of any sites where I can play Descent against other people online? I used to play in college and would like to find a place I could play when I am sitting home bored like a night like tonight.
Thanks,
Sebastian

To get started, you need Descent 3 to be updated to 1.4. If you have 1.5, you need to uninstall and reinstall and uplate to 1.4.

Go to http://www.planetdescent.com/site/files/d3/patches/

1. Grab the second one on the list.

2. If you have Mercs as well, grab the first one after you grabbed the second one.


Then you need Vortex here. http://www.slyclan.de/

Download it, run it.

There are several things you need to do before starting a game. You can go ahead and click on D3 serverlist and see all of the games, but you can't play yet.

1. Go to settings, D3 Settings, and where it says Retail v1.4, find the MAIN.EXE in your Descent 3 directory.

2. If you have Pyromania, do the same thing for Retail V1.5 and MOD Pyromania.

3. If you you are signed into a chat room (later on) and you don't want it to exit you out while you are playing, in the same screen, look at the bottom with the 3 check boxes. Uncheck Disconnect all IRC-Connections.

4. If you want 1 on 1 help. First, go to connect, and then you are presented with 4 chat room options. Well, 3, because PXO is KIA

Gamesurge is annoying to start. But go ahead and assign a nickname to yourself, then an alternative, don't wory about the real name, put your nick name again if you want, BUT MAKE SURE TO HAVE NO CAPITOL LETTERS. Then User Name can be the same as your nick again, BUT MAKE SURE TO HAVE NO CAPITOL LETTERS. If you sign in and it doesn't allow you, read what went wrong, and try again in a minute. If you try again too fastm it will say that you tried again to fast. >:(

Descentforum is the place where I usually hang out in as NUMBERZero. It is a more friendlyer atmosphere there. Descentforum.net is a German site so there are a lot of Germans there, but there are a lot of Americans (me) there too. We all speak English, so nothing to worry about. The German clan there, VEX, host Entropy and CTF games every week on a certain date and time.

Shadowfire... nothing ever happens there.

5. Vortex has an auto-download feature for levels. Right click or double left click on a level that has a red mod or level name, then click on download mod or level. Then delete the zip when it is finished.


And that's basically it. You may get killed a lot in the beginning, but if you keep at it, you will improve tremendously. There is a server that has a bunch of BOZ players in it. Those are bots. They cheat, I swear they do. But you can mess with those guys if you want. Just don't mess with the ones with Vauss or MD.

I sometimes host servers. I usually host a no-mod Subway Dancer. Regular Subway Dancer is an overplayed level. The weapons there take NO SKILL to use and the pilots who fly there on a regular basis sometimes have problems in normal matches. I don't have any auto download links for the levels that I host, but you can find a big mission database at http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/.
Planetdescent.com used to be a great source, but it is starting to crash. Someone is working on it to get it back up.



Here's the game tracker now if you'd like to see.
http://d3.descent.cx/tracker.d3

You don't need Vortex to get into the chat rooms. You can use something else like Ice Chat.

You don't need Vortex to start a game. Just use the tracker to find the IP address of the game, write it down, start D3, multiplayer, Direct TCP/IP, then find games at this address. Write the address into the box provided. It is the IP:Port that you write in. Looks like this: 87.106.184.173:2089
That's the IP to the BOZ match if you want to get started NAO!

There is also some tool called the Descetn 3 Direct IP Launcher. You can type in the IP into that. You can find that here: http://www.dateiliste.com/en/descent-3/6-descent-3-files-section/130-descent-3-direct-ip-launcher.html

You cannot host any servers as of now. You can get instructions here as well. They may be a little confusing, but you can ask questions from anyone.
http://www.dateiliste.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17%3Ahosting-descent-3-game-servers&catid=3%3Aplaying-descent-3-online&Itemid=4&7a0755f27cd237741a7868a944518045=c82086b21707f477105ec760980cff98


You are now up to speed.
NUMBERZero If you are going to fight a war, do it efficiently, unremittingly, or don't do it at all--I'm not into ethics, I'm into efficiency.--Benjamin St. John "Descent" by Peter Telep

If you prefer Descent 1 or 2 to Descent 3, you can also try D2X-XL, which supports multiplayer games via UDP/IP and offers a tracker for easy matchmaking. Find the forum on http://www.descent2.de/forum.
Descent 1 & 2 for Windows, OS X & Linux
Only a dead troll is a good troll.

Always remember the best place to go for info is http://www.descentbb.net. Longest running Descent Forum. Beta tester for:Descent 3 1.5 Patch, C&C Generals, Independance War 2,Starfleet Command 2,Settlers IV,Tzar,Allegiance,Starfleet Command (Alpha & Beta),MAX 2,Defiance

There are five descent forums worth mentioning:

#1 http://www.descent2.de/forum - deals particularly with D2X-XL, which offers a ton of enhancements to Descent 1 and 2. Very active community with lots of new developments. English with a German area. Guaranteed troll free.

#2 http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/phpbb/index.php - centered around DXX-Rebirth, alternative ports of Descent 1 and 2 to OpenGL rather striving for keeping the original look of the game. Not too active. English. People usually behave nicely enough there, particularly since D2X-XL isn't such a bone of contention there any more. Quite a few D2X-XL forum members are members there, too.

#3 http://www.descentforum.de/ - German forum, mostly with and hence for Descent 3 fans. Fans of Descent 1 or 2 are usually directed to DXX-Rebirth and D2X-XL there.

#4 http://www.descentbb.net - Mostly occupied with socializing of people from the Descent community who know each other for ages and usually indulge in memories of the good old times, so little involvement in actual new developments in the Descent world, but rather debating about all sorts of casual OT issues and occupied with ethical debates. Since these people know each other so well and long, they are rather self-sufficient and you can have a hard time there getting into this tightly knit club of die-hards.

#5 http://www.descentbb.com - A sink for those people whos social standards are so sub-par they weren't tolerated on descentbb.net. Definitely not what you would call a family friendly (or probably even just a friendly) place. Probably actually not even worth mentioning, but you're informed now, should you ever stumble over it.
Descent 1 & 2 for Windows, OS X & Linux
Only a dead troll is a good troll.

http://www.planetdescent.net/index.php is your family site. It's very, very small, but it's steady going. Planetdescent.com, the original site, has gone belly up apparantly. I typed in its address RIGHT NOW and I got redirected to IGN! If you are going to fight a war, do it efficiently, unremittingly, or don't do it at all--I'm not into ethics, I'm into efficiency.--Benjamin St. John "Descent" by Peter Telep

Ooooh yeah, I completely forgot about that one. I guess that's because I haven't visited it for ages. I have to say that I find it to be rather inactive and only updated in large intervals.

Edit:

Oops, I overlooked the ".net" in the end of the PD URI and thought you were referring to PD.com. PD.com has indeed been dieing a slow death over the past two or three years. I hope PD.net will fare better.

/me heads off to take a look at the site
Descent 1 & 2 for Windows, OS X & Linux
Only a dead troll is a good troll.