Also, a method for organizing a large group of people into playing a long term game is lacking. That is part of the goal here. With an automated server management system, people could find a game that is starting up and join it. They don't have to try to get a forum concensus to get a game going.
Another cool feature of this would be a way to make games private (ie creator could invite individuals to join the game and they would be allowed to see the ip address/port to join on or only know the name of the game in the case of PBEM since that is probably how it will be handled). Publicly available games would show that information to anyone interested in joining the game.
It could also be used to host structured tournaments (long term obviously).
Its all about creating a community so that multiplayer isn't limited to 3 people getting together for 5 hours and playing a ton of turns. Not that that is bad.
Instead, you have 17 people playing their turns over a 24 hr period, leading to some massive strategic decisions later in the game.
Additional question for anyone who has the answer. Is there someway to get the stats out of the game (ie, Hall of Fame, graphs, etc)? It would be very cool to be able to browse game information from the web for people not involved in the game.
Re: Dedicated Servers?
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