My 2 wishes for Dominions 3!!

[Gandalf Parker]

DominionsFAN said: Hell you are logging in, and if a game is up you join. No games up? Others in the lobby? You can talk with the others in the same place about hosting a game etc. You wont have to wait for an email to do your turn. You won't have enough time to finish a game? There should be a save function for the host.
Seriously imho this would be an awesome addition for the MP. Hopefully IW will consider to add something like this.

That sounds like the #Dominions IRC channel.

[DominionsFan]

Okay maybe it does Gandalf, but that is just an additional little part of the MP system. The key features here are the host a game, join to a game features, the saving in MP.
Also I am pretty sure, that almost all players will be able to host their own games. This game wont require a powerpc in MP, also it wont require a very fast connection at all.
Later on maybe even an Online ladder could be added as well, or some statistical features like in Kohan 2 for example.

[Cainehill]

The "lobby" won't do anything to help with hosting a game, as the only issue there is having a 24/7 Online connection and, preferably, a stable IP.

You keep going on and on about not having to wait for an email - what's the difference? You're not waiting for an email, you're waiting for all players to complete their turns and/or for the turn to be hosted. If the turns are hosted at a particular time - as a number are - then again, the lobby doesn't do a thing.

Saving in MP? It's already saved on the host, and once the player gets their turn, it's essentially saved on her or his computer as well - they can look at and tweak that turn all they want.

And the _next_ turn isn't going to host until the time limit, or until all players have finished their turns. So, what benefit would several months of programmer effort for a half baked lobby provide?

PBEM games are still going to ignore the lobby, and are still going to be popular, since it allows a game to be hosted and run by someone with a dialup network connection. (In case you didn't know, many Dominions players are outside of the USA, in places where their Online time is billed by the minute, sometimes at expensive rates.)

And people wanting to host a non-PBEM game, already can. I've done so, and a lobby wouldn't have done anything to eliminate the real problems of doing so, which include things like reconfiguring firewalls to allow the players to connect to the server without eliminating security.