I'd rather have MM work on AI as opposed to TCP/IP

[klausD]

I agree fully with seawolf.
As the game is now there is no really reason for me (old fart) to play it Online or even per pbem.

This would change if MM introduce a scenario generator with its MP-addon. With such a generator we could create short to medium scenarios which could be played in a reasonable time.

If MM does not make such a scenario generator, I fear for a lot of people the Multiplayer addon is not very useful. In this case the time should be rather used for AI-improvement.

bye
Klaus

[Lefty]

TCP/IP doesn't necessarily mean internet games. I work in an office with about another 5 guys willing to play a couple of hours after work or during lunch.
Lan play in simultaneous works well. Alpha Centauri was brilliant. Warlords was cool.
AI is important but you will never get an AI good enough to challenge a good player.
Fo a challenging game human is the only possibility.

[phalen]

sending email on a lan with no internet or email server wouldent work to well and lots of collages get kids renting/reserving a large conferance with no internet access...(or wont allow the students to access it from there) plus its a pain to explain how to use the mouse to some people... let alone explain to them how and WHERE to place the file sent via email.. (if im remembering correctly never played email.) plus as i understand alot of moder's are working on helping the ai as well.. (not shure if its hard coded..expecting it mostly is)

i would like to see a form of live play be put on back burner... weather it be using say icq Messages or some form of network play.

[Nitram Draw]

Overall the AI will be used by a lot more players, if only to flesh out hotseat/pbem games. Making the AI as challanging as possible would provide the most bang for the buck.

[Testosteronos]

TCP/IP is a must!!!
Every three or four month we do a little LAN-Session. It's just more fun to beat human opponents than some more or less dumb AI.
I got a flatrate now, so me and a few friends would surely use the tcp/ip feature to play a few hours each evening.

[Spyder]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
Yes, time limits on moves would be a must for TCI/IP play....

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I like the way it was done in Global Conquest...you could select the time limit everyone agreed upon. You had selections from unlimited to 'Firecracker', with 5 minute turns being the default. I personally liked the 'Firecracker' option....where, the first person done ended the turn for everyone else. There was also an option that ended the turn 1 minute after the first person finished (ie, player 1 just hit the 'Done' button and now everyone else has exactly 1 minute to finish).

But in all cases, you should have the option to choose your time limit.

As for whether or not Malfador Machinations should work on TCP/IP interface, or on game AI...depends on what will sell more games I'd like to see an IP option. With exactly the same amount of conviction, I'd like to see a smarter computer player too....

Paul E. Mason
Senior VMS Systems Administrator

[Triumvir Emphy]

you don't need email to play PBEM, hehe contradiction in terms??
All you need to do is transfer the files to the host computer. You could do that by mapping a drive on each client computer to the seIV directory on the host computer.
So the only issue right now is the fact that SEIV exits when you finish a turn. There is no need for tcp/ip for a lan game (i mean a tcp/ip interface for the game, tcp/ip-netbue or ipx/spx are still needed for network) You can already play a langame, all we need is an option to keep the game running after your turn. True, the host still has to send the files to each client, but you can write a batch file to do a copy directory to do that.

with a little skill anybody can set this up, if only the game didn't stop.