Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005 From: Honolulu, Hawaii Status: offline
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I have upgraded the Opening screen by adding a button for joining a new NetPlay game, as shown below. The person who starts a new game I am calling the Starter (duh, but sadly it took me some time to come up with that name). The Starter clicks on Start a new game and then chooses the scenario and optional rules. In the Start New Game form (not shown here) he fills in the names of the other players. That will have to have been determined in advance, off line, using email (or by phone, I guess). The other players will then fire up MWIF and click on the Join a New Game button. They will have to know the IP address of the Starter in order to establish the linkage to his computer. I thought about writing code to create a special form to handle all the names, email addresses, and IP addresses but that seems like pointless extra work. The file is really simple and can be created/edited using NotePad or any other simple text editor. Within the same directory as the MWIF program, there needs to be NetPLay.txt. The format for NetPlay.txt is: Game Name, Real Name, Matrix Forum Name, email address, IP address. This file will be used for both PBEM and Internet games. In PBEM games the IP address is not necessary. An mocked up example of the file is: wry, Steven Hokanson, Shannon V. OKeets, SHokanson@HawaiianTel.net, 4.3.2.1 cartographer, Patrice Forno, Froonp, xxx, 9.8.7.6 In the Start New Game form, the field for player names would contain wry and cartographer. The program would then use those names to find the IP address (e.g., 4.3.2.1) for the player's computer over the Internet. So, when you click Join a New Game, you would merely type in the Starter's name (e.g., wry). The program would then do the rest, finding the Starter's IP address from the NetPlay.txt file, connecting to the Starter's computer and bringing over the Game Record Log entries he created when he chose the scenario and optional rules. Your computer would run through the same start of game sequence that the Starter's computer goes through. That is, the amount of information send over the Internet will be kept to a minimum - mainly just the decisions the players make as they play the game. I have been using the name wry because I can type it with my left hand wwhile keeping my right hand on the mouse.
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Steve Perfection is an elusive goal.
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