Wow, and the games grind to a halt.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Just a post to notice how influential the Llamaserver is to us. When it goes down, most of the games go down.

I've already warned about this long ago when the Llamaserver became the de-facto standard for organizing games, but nobody cared. A while back, it wasn't so homogeneous, there were a lot more private game servers. This trend died out, though, after a couple of people vanished from here. Now the only other private Dom3 servers that host games are found on other gaming forums.

I wouldn't want to trade, though. Admining games is a pretty thankless job.

[Gandalf Parker]

I also host games.
But I havent had any hosting requests for quite awhile and havent been in the mood to generate interest. People seem happy enough to do them as pbem games on Llama's server instead of direct-connect or direct-connect and pbem mixed.

Gandalf Parker
--
per peer-pressure preoccupation
My maps, mods, and mullings can be found at
http://www.Dom3Minions.com

[Lingchih]

pbem has it's advantages. You have a whole list of old turns that you can look at, if need be. That's the main thing, I think.

Network games are nice, but they seem to be more suited to blitz type quick games.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

pbem has it's advantages. You have a whole list of old turns that you can look at, if need be. That's the main thing, I think.

Network games are nice, but they seem to be more suited to blitz type quick games.

True.
On the large games (such as all_nations megagames) Ive had users request to have their turns sent in email. They tended to still play their turns by direct connect but liked having their old turns stored in their mail folders by date.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, Gandalf, that's a good point. If you could request a send of an old turn, in a network game, it would be most helpful.

I actually used to prefer network games. It seems to speed the game along quite well. But the bonus of pbem games, with all turns stored, swayed me to that type of hosting.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive also done backups of games. The larger hosted ones (not the little ones I continually open on the server now).

Ive done a sloppy "features" list to help people plan large games for the server to host.
http://www.dom3minions.com/HostingGames.htm
But as I said, Im not up to being the host and the person starting games. Someone needs to be the person "running" the game. Start a thread, round up players, settle discussions, and just let me know whats wanted.

Gandalf Parker
--
To some people, unlimited options seems to them to be zero options.
Without a menu of choices, they are lost.

[Gandalf Parker]

This is wandering off topic.
All Hail Llamaserver and sing praises for its service.
Long Live Llamaserver!
(if I didnt think so I wouldnt have helped so much to get it going)

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

pbem has it's advantages. You have a whole list of old turns that you can look at, if need be. That's the main thing, I think.

Network games are nice, but they seem to be more suited to blitz type quick games.

I used to dislike pbem because of the slowness of downloading the attachment, overwriting the old .trn file, reattaching it, etc. But at the end of the day, the ability to just work on the turns in pieces, and then submit it when you're done is too valuable to me.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

You can download a turn to your machine then quit dom3. Re-enter dom3 and choose "play game" instead of "network" and you can work on your turn all day without uploading it. Only by going "network" again will your turn upload.

There might be a way to switch to offline play without quitting and re-entering but thats the method Ive always used.

Gandalf Parker
--
People complain that free things arent done on the net anymore.
Thats because so many have forgotten how to pay for free things.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I also host games.
But I havent had any hosting requests for quite awhile and havent been in the mood to generate interest.

Yes, as do I. But as you already say, there are no requests for hosting here, I only host Dom3 games for another gaming-related forum now.

Originally Posted by Lingchih

pbem has it's advantages. You have a whole list of old turns that you can look at, if need be. That's the main thing, I think.

That's the main point that makes them popular among lazy people, I think. I'm doing backups of all my turns automatically, but few other people seem to do that.

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Network games are nice, but they seem to be more suited to blitz type quick games.

The only real difference is in the transport medium. If you communicate directly over the internet, you have instant gratification but can possibly run into firewall problems for radical setups; riding piggy-back on Email should overcome this by being a more indirect approach, but poses a couple of additional problems on its own, like spam filters for starters.

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

I used to dislike pbem because of the slowness of downloading the attachment, overwriting the old .trn file, reattaching it, etc. But at the end of the day, the ability to just work on the turns in pieces, and then submit it when you're done is too valuable to me.

You can do the same with network games, and it's usually the advised way: Grab your turns online, work on it offline, upload again when you're done. But people have to be taught to do this every time, yes.

I don't want to shift this thread into a discussion of the merits of PBEM vs. networked games, though. I merely wanted to provide some historical anecdotes to the OP's post, how it came to this. I'm happy with the way that things are now, as it seems to have addressed the trade-off quite well, how much time an admin has to put into a game, and a user has to.