Re: How do you play over email?
 

Not to be ignorant...

But why do people play PBEM when a network game is one thread-request away?

I'm always hosting new Dominions 2 Network games and so are a bunch of other people. I feel PBEM is a waste of time.

[ February 06, 2004, 17:22: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: How do you play over email?
 

DOUBLE-POST BUG

[ February 06, 2004, 17:19: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: How do you play over email?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Many people don't have the free time required to commit to a network game. Email allows you to sit down with the game for 20 minutes every couple of days. If you have a demanding career, being able to sit down and play Online for four hours straight is out of the question.

Re: How do you play over email?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's no reason you couldn't do that with a Network game. Right now I'm hosting a huge 17-player (now 12 players) game which turns run every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That gives even you plenty of time to take a single turn. The server I am running is on 24/7, you can take your turn, end it... maybe an hour later you say, "WAIT LEMME CHANGE SOMETHING" and all you do is log back in and change a few orders.

There's just no disadvantage to a network game other than the obvious problems which can occur (server losing connection, player can't connect, etc. but even this rarely happenes, at least in my experience)

[ February 06, 2004, 17:46: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: How do you play over email?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's great, but almost every network game I've played in has had server connection issues, downtime, and whatnot. Certain firewalls seem to really give Dom2 problems, where you have to reset the server every few days. If you find a stable game, great, but even so, unless you play with no fixed times and just Quick Host, it's easier to drop someone an email saying - "I had to fly out of town on short notice, I'll get to my turn when I get back" rather than have to try and contact the server host and have him stop the auto-host coming up tomorrow.

PBEM offers certain advantages for casual players. And with the Perl hosting script I wrote, sending emails out to even 17 players is just a double-click away.

Re: How do you play over email?
 

PBEM games free up the host from running the program all the time.
It allows players to hide behind firewalls and ways of hiding their IPs.
PBEM games can be hosted on machines which arent even capable of running the game in direct GUI mode.
A crappy machine can run 100 PBEM games at a time.
PBEM games dont care if a person is on a crappy connection to the net.
PBEM can reach a host where the ISP might be blocking ports.

Of course anything CAN be done. Its a computer. There are workarounds for most if not all of these. But then it would boil down to "the pbem mode works so why bother banging my head on it"

Re: How do you play over email?
 

So basically the problems of a network come from three things.

1. Protective people of their IP
2. Having a crappy computer/connection
3. Needing to run more than 2 or 3 games simultaneously and/or at all times.

My max I will run is 3 servers 24/7. I just wish windows supported text mode.


That means PBEM is an alternative and the Network is the real deal.

My point is, why bother with PBEM when you can get into a network game? I understand if you have a problem with revealing IPs or having a bad connection or something, but if you have the ability to use or run a network, WHY NOT?

Edit: Only the host needs a good connection. Dial-up will do fine if you are a client.

[ February 06, 2004, 18:09: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: How do you play over email?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh I get it, so someone who has a fixed time might not get the e-mail ontime..... but I'm confused still. Why would you defend your arguement of PBEM with a server feature? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

I'm going to stop talking about Network games, but lemme just straighten out some confusions.

[ February 06, 2004, 18:25: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: How do you play over email?
 

Thanks for all your help, but I still can't get this to work. Is it possible that PC games and Macs are incompatible? My friend emailed me his pretender god, I put it in my newlord subdirectory, and now every time I try to create a game the program "unexpectedly quits". However, when I took his guy out, it worked fine. Any clue what could possibly be going on?

Also, should I have a resources folder for maps? On the web it says if I want to download new maps to place them in my resource/map folder. Can't seem to find it in the dominions2 directory.

Thanks again for all your help with this newbie.

Re: How do you play over email?
 

The maps folder is in the Dominions 2 main folder.

If you are unable to generate a turn with a certain player:

1. missing a mod
2. missing a patch
3. the game is unable to generate a turn because a battle involving this player involves too many units (this is a bug and will be fixed hopefully soon)

[ February 06, 2004, 19:22: Message edited by: Argitoth ]