Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Wow! Careful HanBarca, we're aging ourselves. I think my first FtF was ~77 and it was "Victory in the Pacific".

Curious about IP FtF ...

How long would a session be?
Could 7 people sit at their PCs for 1, 2, 3 hours?
What happens when the phasing player goes to dinner, drops a connection?

EiANW will require all players to be present if it is to move. It's not like a first person shooter where the game can move on if a player drops out. I can see a lot of frustration in this area. I saw a lot of frustration in this area from PBEM alone. There is a lot of messaging between players that are collaborating which would delay a turn. I guess what I am trying to say is that I've seen very little in EiA move fast. The more humans, the slower the game. This has little to do with the technology.

quote:


A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP

quote:


In such implementation nothing then stops you or anyone else to have a break to go make food or do some work.

quote:


With a 4-5 minutes average turn time (most turns except land and economy is usually quite quick, in peace time you often do nothing)

quote:


A game played on a server would also limit the possibility of certain types of cheats.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

quote:


A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP

Right, but being a programmer myself I understand that this would require a totally new game engine.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

quote:


In such implementation nothing then stops you or anyone else to have a break to go make food or do some work.

except the fact that there are 6 guys waiting online for you to come back from dinner

quote:


With a 4-5 minutes average turn time (most turns except land and economy is usually quite quick, in peace time you often do nothing)

Maybe playing France with no allies, but if you're Austria in a coalition of 3 players it's going to take a lot more.
Moves must be coordinated , strategic objectives must be decided, depot placement assessed, money and promises exchanged...All these while the others 4 players are waiting online for you to come back from discussion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

quote:


A game played on a server would also limit the possibility of certain types of cheats.

Right, but the price is high....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grognot

(2) the differing transport mechanisms. PBEM, in fact, does use TCP/IP. Considering that with the small player base of a niche, complicated wargame not well-suited to Ritalin addicts, you're probably going to have substantial delays *anyway*, it's not clear that PBEM itself causes any problems whatsoever unless you're using a poor e-mail system which regularly delays mail or loses attachments.

And, since you don't actually have to use e-mail to transfer the .pbm files, but can use the transport mechanism of your choice (CVS, for instance), that's not really a problem that requires an in-game solution, either.

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grognot

(2) the differing transport mechanisms. PBEM, in fact, does use TCP/IP. Considering that with the small player base of a niche, complicated wargame not well-suited to Ritalin addicts, you're probably going to have substantial delays *anyway*, it's not clear that PBEM itself causes any problems whatsoever unless you're using a poor e-mail system which regularly delays mail or loses attachments.

And, since you don't actually have to use e-mail to transfer the .pbm files, but can use the transport mechanism of your choice (CVS, for instance), that's not really a problem that requires an in-game solution, either.

Yep, and this is what the TCP/IP promoters seem to have missed. If you send me an email right now I'll likely get it within the next 30 seconds. Logically then, if all 7 players are gathered at their PC's right now we can play the game using the PBEM infrastructure but in 'real time' just as quickly as if there were a direct client to client network based system implemented.

I'd like to see someone actually tell me -how- the much hyped TCP/IP direct play model is faster or better? We might actually be arguing over interface in my humble opinion, the assumption possibly being that a TCP/IP implementation would hide from players all the work currently required with attachments and files.

Cheers, M.

quote:

Yep, and this is what the TCP/IP promoters seem to have missed. If you send me an email right now I'll likely get it within the next 30 seconds. Logically then, if all 7 players are gathered at their PC's right now we can play the game using the PBEM infrastructure but in 'real time' just as quickly as if there were a direct client to client network based system implemented.

I'd like to see someone actually tell me -how- the much hyped TCP/IP direct play model is faster or better? We might actually be arguing over interface in my humble opinion, the assumption possibly being that a TCP/IP implementation would hide from players all the work currently required with attachments and files.

Cheers, M.

quote:

ORIGINAL: zaquex



A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP.

quote:

ORIGINAL: timewalker03
The difference of having TCP/ip play is that it would be real time and not send a turn and wait days for next turn. TCP/IP would create an environment that is more like playing the FtF variety of the game which was and is more fun than the sterile PBEM way of playing. You could also add a voice server into the mix and talk to each other as the game is going. That is the way I would play. Live game one or twice a week and enhancing with Ventrilo voice communication along with the live game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: timewalker03

To make a quick summary of TCP/Ip play what I was told is that if enough people want it then it will be implemented sooner than later. I was told some other things about it, but it can be done but there are other fixes needed first which is understandable. Also most decisions come down to what the EiA forum community wants. If many people are against having TCP/IP then that will slow down the implementation of the feature. If people really want the feature then they need to express it sooner than later. As I told Marshall and his response change my feelings about the game completely that it would be more important to bring about IP play and less on AI Play In my opinion. I have voiced my concern to him and the answer was very reasonable.

quote:

ORIGINAL: zaquex

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

quote:

ORIGINAL: zaquex

Playing a TCP/IP based game with more than 6 participants is in itself nothing strange; millions of players do it every day.

I'm not a big gamer in general so this surprises me. For my benefit, can you name a single title where about 6 known players all arrive at their computers at the same time for the same length of time in order to game together as a game of this type requires?

Its fairly common in games like EVE, WoW, CS etc but its besides the point there is no requirement to have 7 players online for the game to progress no more than it is for a PBEM game and it will never progress slower than a PBEM game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

If you are waiting days for an email then your net connection would have to be so bad that you couldn't play by TCPIP anyway. If your net connection is good, and, as I say in my original post all 7 players are at their terminals at the same time then you could get 30 second turnaround on players emails/turns.

As I suspected, what we're really talking about here is all the stuffing around with files...saving them here not saving them there..making sure the extensions are correct...blah, blah, blah. The interface to PBEM could be made seamless if desired with EiA picking up all emails with a certain encoded (or other) string in the subject from the default email program.

Cheers, M.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

If you are waiting days for an email then your net connection would have to be so bad that you couldn't play by TCPIP anyway. If your net connection is good, and, as I say in my original post all 7 players are at their terminals at the same time then you could get 30 second turnaround on players emails/turns.

As I suspected, what we're really talking about here is all the stuffing around with files...saving them here not saving them there..making sure the extensions are correct...blah, blah, blah. The interface to PBEM could be made seamless if desired with EiA picking up all emails with a certain encoded (or other) string in the subject from the default email program.

Cheers, M.

1. Not true. Your bandwidth capability has very little to do with how fast or how slow you receive emails. There are queues from the server ends, etc.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
2. How much more complex would it be to implement a TCP/IP Client/Server environment within EiA than to create a "seamless interface" where EiA directly grabbed emails with some "encoding" directly from your email account.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
How would this work if you used hotmail or yahoo? Would EiA start, log onto my email account and then grab this file? What kind of security issues are there? If not, would it just grab the files whenever I opened my email account? If so, what would be the point?

quote:

ORIGINAL: zaquex

I know occations where ive been sent 3 mails and two arrives within minutes but the third arrives after 6 hours - its not common a mail takes this long but it happens. There is also issues with some email accounts having limited storage space.

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

quote:

ORIGINAL: moopere

If you are waiting days for an email then your net connection would have to be so bad that you couldn't play by TCPIP anyway. If your net connection is good, and, as I say in my original post all 7 players are at their terminals at the same time then you could get 30 second turnaround on players emails/turns.

As I suspected, what we're really talking about here is all the stuffing around with files...saving them here not saving them there..making sure the extensions are correct...blah, blah, blah. The interface to PBEM could be made seamless if desired with EiA picking up all emails with a certain encoded (or other) string in the subject from the default email program.

Cheers, M.

1. Not true. Your bandwidth capability has very little to do with how fast or how slow you receive emails. There are queues from the server ends, etc.

Email queues, yes sure, but you can't really use corner case problems to make a point like this. I could also say that occasionally packet loss or routing problems will cause issues with IP connections as well.

You could say that and it also applies to email, since it is ultimately going over the same phsyical connections.

Most decent email hosts will turn emails around in seconds and that includes time to check at the server end for virus' as well. I have a gmail account for instance which is hosted on an enormously busy server yet still turns emails around in less than a minute.

I haven't experienced this. I know of quite a bit of emails I have sent that didn't get received for a few hours and vice-versa.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
2. How much more complex would it be to implement a TCP/IP Client/Server environment within EiA than to create a "seamless interface" where EiA directly grabbed emails with some "encoding" directly from your email account.

Very much more. Many powers of magnitude more complex I'd suggest.

Any decent 'code hacker' could probably write something up in a couple of weekends in python which bolts onto the front of EiA in order to do as I suggest in my email above to 'clean up' the PBEM inteface. Matrix could do it even quicker because they'd not have to reverse engineer anything. But mind now we're talking about cleaning up a somewhat clunky interface to humans, not really reprogramming any part of the game proper.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
How would this work if you used hotmail or yahoo? Would EiA start, log onto my email account and then grab this file? What kind of security issues are there? If not, would it just grab the files whenever I opened my email account? If so, what would be the point?

Well, the point, apparently, is that folks involved in this thread hate waiting days and days for each game turn to complete and imagine that we need to bolt on a whole new communication method to get around the problem. I'm just suggesting that email is already pretty quick and perhaps what we're really complaining about here is the interface of the existing PBEM system.

You would use your 'default' emailer to pick up your email - so there are no security issues there that don't already exist with your favourite email application. EiA could then scan the subject field of your emails looking for something distinctive that tells it that the email is destined for one of its PBEM games. After this its just a matter of splitting out the attached files and plonking them into the required spots in the filesystem (after a bit of sanity checking obviously).

If you had your email app looking for new mail every 30 seconds and EiA looking every 30-35 seconds then you would get the effect of direct TCP/IP connections so long as all players are actually there and sending in their moves....Its really PBEM of course, but with a no mess interface.

Again, personally, I dont use an "email app", I use yahoo. A lot of people use systems like that. So basically you are saying that I would have to login to my email account and leave it open for EiA to check? Not sure how advantageous that would be since at that point I could just check it myself. No security issues? I'm a little skeptical on that, but given, probably no more than using a TCP/IP connection, so I will moot that.

We should all realise by now that PBEM works as fast as the group using it. If someone wants to think about his move for 24 hours TCP/IP connections are not going to help you.

TCP/IP is faster, period. You are trying to argue that an email conversation is faster than live chat and you are wrong, sorry.

Best regards,
Moopere.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tonedog

the way EIA is designed with the I GO U GO turn system tcp and email could in theory play at the same speed. as it stands, even if u were playin over tcp u would still have to wait for everyones turn which would take upwards of 1 hours in total i would guess. with pbem u could have everyone take their turns on the same night (would never happen right) and it would take roughly the same time.

the problem is the turn system. if it was wego then tcp would be perfect, but it aint so whats the point.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
TCP/IP is faster, period. You are trying to argue that an email conversation is faster than live chat and you are wrong, sorry.