You will need a Macintosh with a link to the Internet. This means either a Macintosh with a direct Internet connection (like those found at many schools and businesses), or a Macintosh with a modem connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Some commercial network services do not offer direct Internet access. You will not be able to play Avara over these networks.
Please keep in mind that the quality of your Internet game will depend on MANY factors including but not limited to the speed, load and/or quality of:
• any modems in the network
• your local network
• the Internet connection at your ISP
• the Internet connection at the ISPs of all other players in the game
• your Macintosh, or the Macs of any of the other players in the game
As an example, suppose you want to play Avara with a friend in another city. Consider the path the network information must travel along. Starting with your computer, the information has to go through your modem and over the local phone lines to a modem at your ISP. Your ISP then sends it out through their gateway to the Internet at large, where anything can happen. After it finds its way over the Internet to your friend’s ISP, it is then passed through a modem there and over the phone lines in your friend’s city to the modem he has at home, and finally to his computer. A network problem could occur at any one of those points which would make Avara very difficult to play. The Internet might just be having a bad day.
Don’t lose heart though. Things are not that gloomy. The author of Avara, who lives in Finland, has played good-quality games with players in the United States over his 14.4 modem. Many other players have had wonderful success playing from home. The point is that there are many factors involved in creating a good Internet link, some of which you cannot control.
The Avara Tracker
Ambrosia Software runs an Internet Avara Tracker in its office to make finding and joining an Internet game of Avara easy. When anyone starts up an Internet Avara Server, they have the option of notifying the Tracker. If you notify the Tracker, information about your game (including the IP address) is sent to the Tracker at Ambrosia, where it is made available to anyone who is looking for a game of Avara.
To find an Avara game on the Internet, just send a query to the Tracker. The Tracker will send you information listing all of the games that are currently registered. You can query the Tracker from within Avara, or you can use the MicroTracker that is included in the Avara distribution. See the Chapter 13, Avara Extras for information on the MicroTracker.
At this time, there is only one Avara Tracker. In the future, it is possible that additional trackers will be running. In this is case, both the “Look for Server...” dialog and the “Start Server...” dialog allow you the option of registering your game at a different tracker by entering the IP name or number in the appropriate box. Additional tracker addresses can be kept in a Hotlist. To use the Hotlist, simply click on the arrow to the right of the tracker address. The domain name address of the Avara Tracker at Ambrosia is: tracker.Avara.com
Connecting to an Internet Server
To connect to an Avara server running somewhere on the Internet, select the TCP/IP option in the Network menu and click on the “Connect to Server...” button in the Player window. This will bring up the “Connect to Server...” dialog window.
 
If you know the IP address or IP number of the machine you wish to connect to, simply type it into the “Server” box. If the game you wish to connect to is protected by a password, enter it into the “Password” box. In some situations, it is possible that you will need to set a separate port for Avara to run on, but in most cases the default port will be the one you want. See Chapter 14, Optimization and Troubleshooting for more information on ports.
If you find that you connect frequently to a particular address, you can add that address to the Hotlist. To add an IP address to your Hotlist, click on the arrow to the right of the address and select “Add to Hotlist” from the pop-up menu. To remove an IP address from your Hotlist you should select the address, click again on the arrow to the right, and select “Remove from Hotlist.”
When you have entered the information that Avara needs, click on the “Connect” button. Avara will then attempt to connect to the IP address of the server you have specified.
If you don’t know of any machines that are running Avara, don’t worry. Avara also lets you check to see if there are any games available on the Internet. To find other Internet Servers, click on the “Look for Servers...” button in the “Connect to Server...” dialog window.
This brings up a window that allows you to query the Avara Tracker running at Ambrosia. Simply click on the “Search” button to query the Avara Tracker. It will return to you a list of games that are currently registered on the Tracker. To get more information on any of the games listed, select it from the list with a single click. Additional information will appear in the box on the right.
 
Each time you click on the “Search” button, updated information from the Tracker is displayed in your window.
To help sort through the games on the Tracker, you can use the “Look for” box to search for particular games. Just type words that describe who or what you are looking for in the “Look for” box and click on the “Search” button. The Tracker will check your criteria against the list of registered games and send you a list of all the games that match your criteria. For example, if you enter college.edu and click on the “Search,” the Tracker will send you the list off all the registered games that have “college” and “edu” in any of the fields. The Tracker looks at all information for each registered game, so you can search for a particular player by typing that player’s name in the “Look for” box. The Tracker is not case sensitive and will search for multiple criteria, just separate each word with a space. Searching for Berserkir Ambrosia will return a list of all the games started by anyone named “Berserkir” at any place named “Ambrosia.”
If you do a search on help (by typing “help” in the “Look for” box), the Tracker will display a short introduction to using the search capabilities of the Tracker.
If the Tracker doesn’t see any games that match your criteria, it returns “No Matches.” If this happens, try using a different criteria, or no criteria, in the “Look for” box. If there are no games registered on the Tracker, any search will return “No Games.” In this case, you should start your own server!
To join a game, select the one you are interested in and click on the “Select” or the “Select IP” button. This will return you to the “Connect to Server...” dialog and automatically enter the information from the game you selected. Click on the “Connect” button to join the server.
If there are no servers listed on the Tracker, you can start your own. It is very possible that somewhere in the world, someone else is also looking for a server! The following section shows you how to start your own Internet Avara Server.
Creating an Internet Server
If you wish to start your own Internet Avara Server, select the TCP/IP option from the Network menu and click on the “Start Server...” button in the Player window. This will bring up the “Start Server” dialog window.
 
If you wish to limit the number of players that can be in your game at any one time, enter the number in the “Max Players” box. In all cases, six players (including you) is the limit in any Avara game.
If you wish to set a password for your server, enter it in the “Password” box. If your game is protected with a password, other players will have to enter it when they attempt to join your server.
If you want to register your game with the Avara Tracker, select the check box to the left of the “Register Server at” box. This ensures that your Avara game will be listed on the Tracker, and can be found by anyone on the Internet who is looking for a game.
You can type a message in the box at the bottom of the window. This message will be displayed to anyone who queries your server on the Tracker.
When you have configured your server, click the “OK” button. This will start your Avara server. If you have selected the “Register Server at” box, your server information will now be sent to the Tracker.
Your server is now running. If you have notified the AvaraTracker, any other Macintosh that is connected to the Internet can now find and join your game by following the instructions in the section above.
Avara can be set to notify you if anyone joins the game you are in. The New Arrivals Alert item in the Sound menu allows you to set a sound to be played whenever anyone joins the game you are in. Simply select any of the system sounds listed in the pop-up menu, or select No Sound if you do not wish to be notified.
Reconfiguring your Internet Server
If you need to change the configuration of your Avara Server, select Reconfigure Server... from the Network menu. This will bring back the “Start Server” window, and allow you to change the options you selected previously.
Getting the Most from Your Network
Avara allows you to change the way it uses the available network resources. Tuning the network settings of Avara is an important part of playing a smooth network game.
Latency
Latency is a measure of the time between when your computer sends out network information and when another computer receives it. Every device in the chain that makes up your network adds some latency. In a network game, Avara is trying to keep everyone “on the same page,” and it has to do a balancing act between providing quick response to your controls and making sure that the other computers on the network keep up with whatever you are doing.
The way that Avara compensates for latency is to create an artificial delay (a “Latency Tolerance”) in the way it responds to your controls. It slightly delays your actions to make sure that the rest of the computers in the game can coordinate your actions with those of the other players. Driving the HECTOR with a very high latency tolerance is a bit like steering a large boat, you turn the wheel and then wait a bit for the boat to respond.
If all the network connections in your game are good, you should be able to play with a very low latency tolerance (or “LT”). If there is some delay, you can either set a higher LT or have Avara do it for you.
To have Avara decide what LT is best, select Automatic Latency from the Network menu. As your game runs, Avara will adjust the LT. If Avara makes a change in the LT, a message will be sent to to the Instrument window to let you know what the new value is.
You can also force Avara to run at a specific LT. To set a specific LT for Avara, select Latency Tolerance from the Network menu and choose the LT setting you want from the pop-up menu that appears.
If you force Avara to run at a lower LT than the network can keep up with, you may experience “jerky” game play. Avara will freeze the game for a moment to allow all the computers to catch up with everything that is going on in the game.
Bandwidth
Avara can be set to use additional bandwidth to send redundant information across the network. If the network connection between the players in the game is very good, it is not necessary to send redundant information. In this case, a minimal or low bandwidth setting will make for smooth play. However, if some of the network connections in the game are of poor quality, game play can be improved by increasing the bandwidth setting.
To set the bandwidth usage in Avara, select Bandwidth Use from the Network menu and choose the bandwidth setting you want from the pop-up menu that appears.
A good indicator of the quality of your connection to any player in the network can be found on that player’s tab in the Roster window. On the right side of a player’s tab is a summary of network information, including his IP address, his bandwidth use setting, and a set of estimates that Avara makes about the network between his machine and yours. To get a sense of the connection quality between you and the other player, look at the LT estimates. If there is a large difference between the optimistic LT and the pessimistic LT, your network may be losing information and will benefit from a moderate or high “Bandwidth Use” setting.
So why not leave “Bandwidth Use” set to high all the time? If bandwidth is used to send redundant information, it can’t be used to do other things, like support additional players in a game. More players require more bandwidth because your computer has to send information to all the other players in the game.
For example, if you play from a 14.4 modem, you don’t have very much bandwidth to begin with. Asking Avara to send out lots of redundant information may require more bandwidth than you have available, and will actually slow down your game.
In general, faster Internet connections, like ISDN or Ethernet, can benefit more from higher bandwidth usage.
You may have to experiment with different settings to find out what works best for you. Other players in the game may be able to offer helpful suggestions.
For more information on tweaking your network to get better performance, see Chapter 14, Optimization and Troubleshooting.
