Apple eNews: Fun and Games with AirPort


	by Brad Cook You’re playing Quake III Arena in multiplayer mode, sneaking around with a rocket launcher, looking for someone to annihilate. You turn a corner and see your best friend, her back to you. You smile. This will be easy. You’re about to fire when she whips around, a railgun in her hands. Before you can get out of the way, a perfectly aimed blast from the gun hits you square in the chest. You hear howls of satisfaction from across the room. You’ve been fragged (that’s first-person shooter talk for “you’re dead, boy”), so it’s time to take a break and order some pizza. Putting your PowerBook to sleep, you carry it out of the room without needing to pause to detach any cables from the back. How’s that possible? Thanks to the AirPort Card in your computer and the AirPort Base Station your friend has downstairs, you and four (or more)¹ of your gamiest companions can get together and get down to action whenever the mood arises. No need to snake cables throughout the house, AirPort lets you play multiplayer games without a single wire to trip over. In fact, AirPort offers two ways to host a gaming party. You can use AirPort to create a local area network (LAN) and play games against other players in the immediate physical vicinity. Or you can use AirPort to access the Internet and play games against opponents anywhere in the world. (Of course, you’ll need an account with an Internet service provider to access the Internet.) Let’s look at the LAN approach first. How easy is it to fire up your AirPort-equipped computer and join a gaming party? ¹ AirPort is recommended for up to 50 users, but all games vary on the number of players they allow in network games.		It’s as simple as accessing your AirPort settings and clicking on the name of the LAN you’ve set up. (In Mac OS 9, look in the Control Strip or the Apple menu for the Airport software. In Mac OS X, click on the AirPort signal strength indicator at the top of the screen and select “Open Internet Connect” or open System Preferences and select the Network icon.) Once you’re connected, you need only select a game that allows multiple players to play at one time—such as Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, or Red Faction. After starting one of these games, you’ll need to access the multiplayer options (each game will do this somewhat differently) and select the “fragfest” your host has set up. Please note that some multiplayer games (Rogue Spear, Sin, and Diablo II, for example) require each combatant to enter a unique IP address. How do you do that? In Mac OS 9, open the TCP/IP control panel and enter the IP and subnet numbers. In Mac OS X, open System Preferences, click the Network icon, and select the TCP/IP tab, where you can enter those numbers. How do you know what numbers to use? In the subnet field, each player should enter 255.255.255.0. For the IP field, try 192.168.0.1 for the host computer and 192.168.0.x for the others, where “x” is a number between 2 and 254. (To avoid confusion, go in order, assigning a successive number to each player—the second player would enter 192.168.0.2 and the sixth, 192.168.0.6.) Can you play LAN-based games over a network that uses AirPort and Ethernet? Sure. Ethernet-based computers can easily be connected to an AirPort network by using the Ethernet port on the back of the base station. Just plug an Ethernet hub into the base station and have the Ethernet-based players connect their cables to the hub. They won’t have the ability to sit in the far-flung reaches of the house while playing or move about at will, but at least they’ll be able to join the fun.