Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Two games on llamaserver and they both point to the turn 8.
And I haven't received the turn 0.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

They "both" point to turn 8 because they have the same name, so you actually see the same page when you click on them. The llamaserver website probably displays the first game that has the name in the url.
I think the new Preponderance actually goes fine (turn 1), but we're gonne be polluted by the old one until it can be deleted.

That you haven't recieved the first turn is strange, though, and you can't request a resend if you get pointed to the old game's page.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Fear not, it's just a few little mess-ups. I shall fix it and do a restart forthwith. We shall overcome the curse on this game!

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Nah, it's neither old or new game now. It's a mixture. It shows it had only 1 turn total, but it was turn 7->8. But it takes staling data from old game, hosting time too. So it hosted after 6 hours and shows that everyone staled. Add not working admin pass and mess with mods on top of that.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Right! I think it's fixed now. You should just have got your first turns, hopefully. Did it work okay?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I received the first turn, and everything seems fine. Thanks llama!

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

All looks fine, admin pasword is working too so I can do all my stuff :) We love you llamabeast. I will name some provs after you in my next map :P

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Time for the devs to code in the mountain relative of the bog beast if you ask me.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Was there a code update for llamasever? b/c I've been sloppily using improper game names (the same folder for all PBEM games) and llamserver had never noticed - until now, when it kept saying my turn was from an unknown game until I created a folder with the same name as this game and put the savedgame there.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I would have to say no - I am in the game A1ComfortZone, and my save folder is just named ComfortZone. Also I had a typo on Kingmaker, and it's Kimgmaker. Both games submit turns with no problem whatsoever.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Yep, no change for the LlamaServer, and it can't tell what directory name you use.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Hrrrm so did this restart use the updated pretender I had sent in to Preponderancenew ???

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Errr. well it kind of looks like it did use the updated pretender. At least my scales are starting out roughly where they should.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I think so, not sure though. I didn't expect anyone to change a pretender.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I just tried a few more tests against the AI and saw weaknesses in my design and tried to work out some of the problems. Nothing big, I'm ok either way.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

We're down to a few hours left till hosting, with 3 nations still unsubmitted......

Guys, give your team mates a prod.... looks like ferrosol, Jim Morrison, and vfb...

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Well, they will stale if the don't submit their turns. I already moved hosting by few h. They all got reminder e-mails. And my email about restart. Jomon's teammate was not interested in getting anything done. Vanheim and Ulm is coobe + Ferrosol. Ferrosol is missing and I changed his e-mail to coobes yesterday, so he can do both turns until he finds a sub. He was online yesterday and today and I'm not going to give him more time, it wouldn't be fair.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

How's that?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I mean I didn't get any PM from their team.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Ok, WingedDog explained me the situation with Yomi/Mictlan played from same cdkey.

Coobe is looking for a sub for Ferrosol.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

CC:

Wow ... so the game is finally started without any warning huh? I staled my first turn because I never recieved a message saying which Jomon turns were valid (I have been getting several emails at a time with various Jomon turns) ... I thought the server was still having problems. I had no idea the game was actually running until I woke up this morning and saw your message about the game hosting in a couple of hours, by which time it was too late. Some warning (more than an hours worth) that the real game is up and valid would have been nice. As it is I think I will just go AI since I don't feel like starting my turn 1 on everyone else's turn 2 when my partner (JimMorisson/Lanka) hasn't even recieved any turns from perponderance at all. This is really kind of lame if we get penalized for the server not working correctly.

FYI, the last PM I have recieved from Perponderance was on Dec 2, until this morning when I got one (too late) saying I was about to stale.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Look, I don't know what's going on here. I do not even have a turn 2 in my mail right now. Apparently, Madfrancis didn't get his turn 1. He was fairly busy yesterday, and boom, a first turn stale.

Ordinarily I would entertain the thought that he managed to delete it prematurely, but since I don't have a turn 2, I wonder if anyone else is not receiving turns automatically?

< sigh > Not what I wanted to sleep late, and wake up to.....

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

There were over 50 hours for new turn 1. Everyone got an e-mail with all info. You also got emails with reminders about host.

I know the game had unlucky start, but I simply couldn't postpone it for unknown time just for 1 player. Staling one turn is not the end of the world. Not cool, but not game breaking.

All turns come to e-mails you submitted your pretender from. I don't have an option to check where it goes. If you don't have the turn you should request a resend, it sometimes gets stuck, just use that link: http://www.llamaserver.net/doAdminAc...&action=resend

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I also was never informed that Perponderance was fixed and not to be looking for a PreponderanceNew turn ... I am sorry, I am busy and do not have time to browse through bulky threads looking for this vital info. I check my PM's on the forums everyday, but really do not have the time to be sifting through the threads. I guess that means those of us who work full time and are in school full time don't get to play because PM's aren't sent out by admins letting us know what is going on, but rather we are expected to spend an hour a day sorting through the crap on the forums to find the relevant information. I guess that means I am excluded from PBEM games.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Nah. All was send to the email you submitted your pretender from.

New forums are really bad and sending PMs is pain in the ***. It has a limit of 5 recipients, 60 seconds wait between sending PMs... I just figured sending e-mail to everyone will be enough.

As I said - staling turn1 is not catastrophe, other people here got worse things, look at income of EA Mictlan [95, Marignon has about 950!] or EA Lanka. They got some nasty events and live.

Also - if it comes to be llamaserver problem, I will roll back and rehost with your turn. But I want to be as fair as possible towards all 24 players.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Sorry, the last I heard I was looking for PreponderanceNew turn 1, I never recieved that, I stopped checking ALL the many useless Jomon Preponderance emails I was getting because they were all invalid turns. Recieving a PM about what was actually going on with this game would have been great. But instead I get ****ed because of something I was NOT told about. All of my other messages regarding the status of perponderance have been through the forum PM's that is where I was looking for a green flag about the status of the game. It doesn't really matter now I guess, I've set Jomon to AI. I'm not playing a game where I am penalized simply because the game I was looking for (PreponderanceNew) was scrapped. I never recieved a PM about any of this. Like I said, the last PM I recieved for preponderance was on Dec 2, asking for pretender submissions for PreponderanceNew. I guess that is the game I am still waiting for.


As an aside, I am not trying to blame Zeldor, I sympathise with his plight and the ****tines of these forums, however I don't feel like wasting my time on a game where I am penalized for it being too difficult to get the proper information out to everyone in some form of standardized format. Also, I had filtered out any email with Preponderance simply because I was waiting for PreponderanceNew and got tired of having my inbox filled with junk from a broken game.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Honestly, I think it's a bit much to expect a personal PM from Zeldor about every change with the game. What about having consideration for HIS time? Note: the forum here limits you to 5 recepients at a time for pms, so it's not a trivial task to make sure 24 people are up to date. That's why the forum thread is here, so everyone can follow what's happening.

Besides missing a single turn is not a big deal. People with bad events on turn one are certainly far worse off than you would ever be.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Seriously.

Going AI at this point is about the worst thing anyone could do. People make mistakes, and it includes missing their emails. But going AI at this point of a _team_ game is nothing but spoiling the game for the rest of 23 players.

I don't know you and this is the first time I've responded to your posts, but please could you not go AI.

This game has been truly jinxed, it would be a pity that now that technical stuff works it goes down the drain because someone gets angry about email he himself said he ignored.

Group hug?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

MadFrancis
Man, I hope you cool down and reconsider your behavior. Admining a game, especially large one - is a hard work, and Zeldor has put great efforts in this game. He gathered 24 people, he was designing map for weeks - so we could enjoy it. Doesn't he deserve the respect for all that?
Besides, there are 23 other people. Are you so selfish you willingly ruin the game they were waiting for for a long time?
Nobody going to rush you in this game becouse of garrisons, you'll recover all your losses caused by staling in 3-4 turns.

<WingedDog gives atul a hug> :D

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Hahah, I can't believe there is so much angst over a turn 1 stale. You do realize that turn 1 is probably like the LEAST critical turn of all time, right? As an uninvolved observer I can tell you that this situation is ballooning way out of proportion to the actual problem :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

True, I'm annoyed. But I am not exactly angry either. I have a lot of sympathy for Zeldor and think he has done an admirable job. I just am not wasting any more time on this. These forums suck. That's not my fault. It's also not my fault that I was told the game name had changed and then sent in a pretender to the new game. I wasn't ignoring PreponderanceNew emails ... just the old bugged game Preponderance. If the email heading would have said anything other than Preponderance or in some other way stood out from the many other Preponderance emails I was being flooded with it would have been read and this problem wouldn't have arisen.

I am not doing this to be spiteful or vindictive. Like I said, too much of my time has been wasted on this game already due to seriously flawed forums and messaging system. Whoever designed these forums needs to pull their heads out of their asses. In fact, I am fairly new here, but I have not been involved in a game where the forums didn't **** someone over. I am pretty much giving up on Dom3 MP because of these forums and the lack of any real MP support.

<Hugs all>

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Also, those who say a first turn stale is no big deal have obviously not had much experience playing Jomon.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I must admit - I could do more. I was so fed up with PM system that I decided to skip that and send just an e-mail to everyone. I also underestimated possible problems with llamabeast's suggestion to use old name.

I totally agree about new forums. Whole community had huge hopes about the new forum. Especially with many days of down time and huge announcements. And we got one of the worst forums ever, with so many annoying things. Like they wanted to get rid of us and force us to make a new forum for that wonderful MP community. And we were quite close to that. I also agree that game should have built-in lobby system with at least info about games, even if it was just a simple interface to get game status, send/receive turns.

P.S. I think it's fair to ask you to play till your teammate finds a sub, even if you made up your mind and won't change it.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

If I was turning myself to AI after every stale, I wouldn't get much experience playing any nation.
You should really meet Baalz, he has taken a sub in one game for Jomon staling 5 first turns. Now one of the top nations.
In another game 1 person had lost an enire army on turn 19 becouse of staling. He has won the game aftermath.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

:re:

Chris, if you're going to complain, please make some sort of effort to get the names right. I'm MA Marignon, and I don't need to be prodded.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

So you are going to ... postpone the game until a Sub has been found? or are you just going to expect someone to want to play Jomon that has staled its first three or four (or more) turns. Also, my teammate doesn't want to play with someone who is starting off so disadvantaged and possibly has no strategy for Jomon.

Okay then, a simple solution. I send in turn 1 (I have it in my filtered email box) rollback the game plug it in, host turn one ... everone else's orders will be exactly the same and it will put the game back on schedule easily with the least amount of hiccups.

If not, well you will probably have to find two subs (I am only guessing, but I think the idea of playing with a seriously hampered partner strikes him as unfair and a waste of time as well).

Zeldor, again I am sorry. I have admined two games now and will never do it again if I have to use these forums, I really do think you have done as great a job as one can expect with the tools you have been given. Please know that I do hold you in high esteem and none of the problems this game is having do I lay at your feet.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Oh, I've played through stales before. I have no issue when the stale is my fault sucking it up and pushing through. I just have limited time and would like to have a fair start in the few games I have the time to play. This would be the first and only time I will have given up a game because of stales. Please don't misrepresent me so harshly. I do not go AI "every time I stale".

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I keep seeing people say that I should inconvinience myself so that no one else is inconvinienced. Why? No one is offering to go out of their way for my sake, why should I consider doing the same for them? That being said:

Another solution, simple and fair for everyone. Everyone stales turn two and I catch up. Apparently it's no big deal and you'll be able to catch up in 3-4 turns so this shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Geez if it will stop his crying I vote just roll back to turn one left him get it in and hopefully Llamaserver will still have everyone else's turn one and can host immediately, I'm not exactly sure how that works.

But either way having AI at this point kind of gives an unfair advantage to whoever is close by to it as well since the AI isnt exactly all that impressive of an opponent. Not to mention the fact that if his teammate still wants to play then he's kinda ****ed if Jomon goes AI.

But there is always the option to just forward Jomons turns to his teamamte and let him play both turns until he can find a sub.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I don't see how checking the forums and your email once a day is an undue burden on your time, especially compared to the hour or more of time a turn takes to do late game. Oh, and the time you've spent posting here about the stale. Twenty three people managed to figure out what was going on with the game without any problems, which leads me to think that the fault does, in fact, lie with you, and not the game admin.

If you don't like your position play a few turns so it's less obviously damaged by the stale and then find a sub for it, it'll probably take less time than I spend on a single late-game turn to do so.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I am very unhappy with the current situation. It is dissatisfactory on so many levels, I can't hardly begin to describe my own feelings on the whole thing.

We have been crafting a specific strategy for this team, and not I do not expect a sub to grasp it quickly (anyone ever hear that Jomon is not considered easy to play well as it is?), nor do I have any hope for this current chain of events to have a positive end, as a gaming experience.

Say what you want about Madfrancis, not knowing his personal character, or how he reacts to and treats those around him - but many of you have seen me stick through a rough patch just to play it out for the sake of the game. So even though I have done dozens of turns for a hopeless nation, to keep a game intact for others on multiple occasions already - I am not alright with this, and I will drop out if Madfrancis drops out. I signed up for a team game, and I made a competitive team, with a competitive gameplan. We worked on it for weeks. If people want to demand that all of our time preparing for this gets wasted to justify the few minutes it took you to submit your turn 2, then that's fine, but I won't accept that. Zeldor cut a corner in notifying due to frustration, and Madfrancis cut a corner due to frustration. Those events crossed paths, and we all got bitten for it.

The irony is that if there hadn't been such resistance, the turn could have been rehosted a couple of hours ago, with minimal disruption or heartache..... There was a miscommunication, it crippled a team, we found the problem and it had an easy solution. Now everyone wants to paint Madfrancis as a bad person, and by proxy, due to my support, probably paint me as such as well. That's fine, but it certainly isn't going to inspire or encourage a better solution to this problem. And it is a problem, people need to just accept that fact.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Wow ... you obviously didn't read a thing I stated (at least not read it correctly). I do check the forums and emails everyday and I said as much earlier. But when I was told that Perponderance was no longer viable and that the new game was PreponderanceNew I stopped checking Preponderance emails. I also said that I check the forums everyday, but do not have time to sift through the threads (usually I am too busy with school and work, but today is the first day of winter vacation for me, hence my time spent of the forums now). I check my PMs which, until the game-start email, was how every other message for this game has been delivered.

As far as my position in concerned, it is fine. I would just like to have been notified in a reasonable manner consistant with all other notifications I have recieved regarding this game about the fact that the game had A) returned to its original name and B) started. If that is unreasonable ... well fine, I'm unreasonable.

And I'd like to clarify, I am not holding this against Zeldor. He is a great guy and one of the few people around these forums I have had enough reasonable interaction with to develop a sense of respect for. I think the largest problem is that these forums suck large hairy balls. I guess it wouldn't be a problem if I had the opportunity to sit around all day on a computer with email access, but I don't. Since that is a requirement for MP Dom3 games (apparently) I guess I lose. That's too bad to, because after looking into this game and playing singleplayer for awhile I really thought this game had some great MP potential. But not so, apparently, if you are concerned with fair-ish starts.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Um, Dude - I *did* spend a little effort - more than anyone else in fact, to try to make sure that everyone AND THEIR PARTNERS got their turns in ok.

From the Second post in this thread....


6. Ossa - vfb

MA MAri + EA Sauromatia


It makes it look as if *you* are playing EA-Sauromatia, which with three hours to go, hadn't submitted a turn. I have no way of knowing that you and Ossa switched.

But cmon man - I was just doing everyone a favor....


On other topics - Zeldor, I have to say that you did an absolutely AMAZING job with the map, AND with setting up the game.

And before anyone criticizes, if you haven't tried admin'ing a game you have NO idea how hard it is. And generally how thankless.

Now, I know that zeldor did delay hosting for a few hours. But I really do think that everything leadiing up to the game - Zeldor gets an A+ - but I do think a little bit more time and care should have gone to the starting of the game. I have tried to suggest this to others - that ANY time there is a glitch in the forums, or in the game server that extra time be allocated to make sure that everyone is on board. This is another time I think that advice prudent. By my earlier email, I was trying to suggest that with 24 players, it would be a better plan to wait a few hours to get everyone on board than to host on time and risk a game meltdown.

(Game Plug: missed turns are why I created the game Mulligan. Go look at that thread).

I do know that with the structure of the game - many lesser nations were bid on - I know that I have spent weeks learning viable strategies for my weak nation - so I fully believe that Jim, being a better player, would do the same.

Now, there was some mention that Jim and Mad Francis are playing on the same CD key, being room mates. I do not know the legality of it - it seems legal to me - one computer has it. They being roomates can play separate nations on it. Huge advantage for coordination of course.

But Jim claims that he has not received a turn. I do know that lama was looking at preventing multiple turns from going to the same ip / email address. This may be the cause for Jim not getting a turn.

Had Jim gotten turn notification, he may well have prodded his partner.

So, here are my suggestions:

First, I got a *great* start - and I can't imagine any start being better for me.
However, I play this game to enjoy it - and I play it to play against humans - to cut my teeth against other breathing and presumably, thinking opponents. I dont think there should be *any* stales in any game.

Every player should be informed of a turn deadline - but just that - a turn deadline. Set the game to just quickhost when all turns are submitted.
If a player is routinely missing turn deadlines, its incumbent on him to find a substitute.

When making the decision about the game, as game admin, I try to decide what is best for the game itself. Our option is to proceed with some nations staling, restarting, or finding a substitute.

Personally, I find proceeding with staling nations unpalatable as it gives a huge advantage to the staling neighbors. Likewise, I think finding a new team to choose nations and play - would require a longer delay than to just restart the game.

And yes, I don't' want to hear anyone who didn't get a national hero on turn one complaining!


Chris

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

whatever you do do not go ai....
this is a team game, AI doesn't know what a team is.

staling 30turns in a row is better than going ai at least your teammate could easily kill you and control the entire starting pocket... if you refuse to play at very least stale instead of going ai

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Calm down everyone, please. Give me a while to sit and think. We don't want bad emotions like that here. Do it on the battlefield. It's Christmas coming, relax everybody and think twice before posting - while most people here have reasonable things to say, the ways of saying them are far from civilized.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Not refusing to play. I want to play very much. I have been working on my strategy with my teammate for weeks now. I just think that I would rather play a game where the people I was playing with were actually considerate of others and interested in everyone having a good time and as fair a start as possible, not just themselves. Why should I waste my time on people who can't even take two minutes out of their day to make simple fix to the flawed start of a game?

Out of respect for Zeldor and HIS efforts on the behalf of others I will not go AI. However, from the little I've seen about the rest of you and your willingness to take other players into consideration... well, you should all just thank Zeldor for being a decent guy.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Usually I am totally opposed to rollbacks, but this is turn 2 and there were no battles at all this month. If there had not been such a mess getting this game started (multiple games on llamasever for the same game), I'd be against a rehost. But there was pretty much a big mess, and the game was renamed, and unrenamed, and there were 2 games with the same name, etc.

Also I think it's impossible that anyone has spent more than 5 minutes giving their turn 2 orders.

So I vote for MadFrancis to email his turn to llamabeast, and we ask llamabeast nicely to untar the saved turn 1 orders, add MadFrancis's .2h, and rehost.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

Wow, what the hell happened here?

This game does seem to be cursed!

I don't see what the problem is on either side, stale is bad, but so is plague on turn 1, which 3 players apparently had.
Rollback will take a day but it'll save a week looking for two subs, and seriously I don't know why everyone is making a fuss about this, a single stale turn?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

vfb:

I can do that myself as a game admin. But from my experience all rollbacks made the problems even bigger.

But rollback will be probably the best solution to calm it down. So expect it within few minutes, with new turn coming in and email with explanations.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [starting!]
 

I second that. I don't care who's fault it was and I hear anyone really objecting to a Turn one rollback. Nothing big happened and far more good than bad can come from a rollback at this point. A roll back just seems to be the lesser of two evils here.

Even if we did have to resubmit turn one how hard could that be. Its not like you have any major decisions to go over again that will take more than 2 minutes.