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 Post subject: No Lan Play
PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:49 pm 
This is already in the Tech forum, but I just wanted to say how very disapointed I and my friends are that there is no Lan play. As I said before, I hope others enjoy the game, but the "no Lan" issues is what made us all decide not to purchase the game. IF, there might be a patch or update in the future, we will purchase the game, but, sadly, I can't see that kind of patch happening. :cry:

Do any others feel the same?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 10:01 pm 
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Sea Wolf

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well you can play lan. all you have to do is send a turn. then have your friend refresh and make his move.

it's turn based it's not an fps or rts it works differently.


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 Post subject: No Lan?
PostPosted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 6:11 am 
Please elaborate. Send it where? If you mean send it to the internet, then that's not Lan play, that's internet play; why would we bother getting 7 computers together on a Lan to play on the internet anyway. And what is "refresh"; keep in mind, we don't have the game......?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 7:07 am 
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Location: Wargaming.Net
Multiplayer over internet plays as following:

1) You install and start MA
2) Connect to internet and register a profile there (you need a unique activation key to do that)
3) Select a player and send him a challenge
4) you may disconnect here and wait for that player to accept your challenge.
5) When he accepts you'll receive email is you haven't switched that option off and your email address is correct.
6) Now you can connect to internet start MA and get the info for that new game (not more than 30 sec of connection)
7) you may disconnect now, wait a while, load the game again and make your turn (internet connection not required)
8) when you've completed your turn it's stored locally and is sent to server when you connect to internet again
9) wait for an e-mail that will tell you when new turn is available in one of your running games

I) you can play as many games as you wish simultaneously
II) all game info is stored on the server and you can play your games from any PC (don't forget your alias and password)
III) the process of sending/receiving turns resembles sending/receiving emails - you can read/write your email offline and then send them simultaneously.

So you don't need computers together - just a minute or two of internet connection to send/receive your turns.


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 Post subject: No Lan
PostPosted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:43 pm 
I appreciate the detailed explination; it makes more sence than ever now. But not in a good way. NOW, I see what the Adrenaline Vault review was talking about; multiplayer could take weeks per game at that ponderous "e-mail" a turn rate.

You see, for MANY years now, games have been made to play on a Lan, like CivIII, Age of Wonders, Warcraft, and hundreds more. My friends and I get together; link all our computers up, and play them together; face to face; cheering when we succeed; moaning when we fail; laughing when someone messes up; clinking glasses and munching snacks. That's not possible with this game, not without constant connection and disconnection to the "Internet" by all of us, and all the pain in the butt stuff that goes along with it. Which means it's an INTERNET game, not a Lan playable game. Like other reviews have written, it's a complete puzzlement why they would omit such a standard and important part of modern gaming out of this title, especially when TCP/IP is already part of the game?????

Again, I apreciate the explination, but now, more than ever, we see this game is not for our group. . .. :cry:


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 7:29 am 
Gamemakers need revenue so they can pay their bills and feed their familes and carry on making more and better games for Joe Public - so they write code to try to sink Long John Silver on the high seas - all buy the game - stop moaning - have fun or dont buy the game and miss out on the fun


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 Post subject: Re: No Lan
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 2:47 pm 
GamesMan, one problem is that you appear to misunderstand some basic natures of the game that makes multiplayer design decisions more reasonable. First, MA is a two player game, no more no less. Either a computer or a human player can fill the second spot, but there are always exactly two sides to the conflict. Second, the length of the game in turns is less by an order of magnitude than a game like Civilization. Each country only has enough money to provide about 10 turns of resources so by turn 10 or so your starting countries are out of resources. So a typical small-medium sized game takes about 20-30 turns.

When you take these two factors into account the design of the multiplayer function is really quite well thought out. There is no real advantage to playing on two computers vs hotseat on one since there is no hidden movement (a good thing in my opinion, for several reasons). Honestly, this isn't a game you would get a lan party together for, it's more a game you would invite a friend over to play, much the way you would invite him over to play a good two player board game.

There could be a direct internet connection play option, where you could watch your opponents moves as he makes them, but I think the developers realized that this is not the games primary strength. MA excells in either having the interaction of a board game environment or being an excellently paced email play style game.

The game really is excellent, I think the demo just came out so you should check it out for yourself.


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 Post subject: Re: No Lan
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:32 pm 
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Lord Ith wrote:
Honestly, this isn't a game you would get a lan party together for.


Well, my Lord, it's not quit true.

Massive Assault CAN be a good LAN-party-style game, in fact.
Put aside the LAN's internet connection issue (it's impossible only when the party is taking place somwhere outside in the woods, etc.), I can tell you this:

In our office during the testing period the developers were having exactly those LAN-party spirit, organizing a sort of round-robin tourneys. Imagine: each of 5 participants challenges everybody else, thus everybody is having 4 games. And the players start making their first turns to somebody - thus, in spite of the turn-based manner, EACH OF THE PLAYERS is INSTANTLY engaged in playing, because out of 4 opponents there is ALWAYS somebody who has returned you the turn while you were making your previous turn - i.e. as soon as you finish your turn, you can immediately start making the next turn to another player.

Thus, the whole bunch of people are sitting together (beer, chips, etc., you know), yelling at each other, teasing, joking, bluffing, etc.

This Secret Allies concept gives a lot of topics for discussion, and the players will have something to discuss until the very end of that round robin, like:
"Damn! Where is your last Secret Ally?"
"Oh, here is your last one... I suspected it was there"
"Try to guess where my last one is?"
"Hey, stop driving me crazy and disclose your Medium country!"

And Tactical aspects also give enough reasons for intense talking:
"Oh, NO! Oh... Oh... that was my Transport full of Tanks..."
"Don't you think that 4 Carriers is too much?"
"I bet you would never capture this plateau"
"John, catch the turn... there's a surprise for you..."

So the developers claim that Massive Assault LAN parties can be fun!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:36 am 
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Sea Wolf
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Now That sounds fun!

Anyone up for a LAN in the San Fransisco Bay area?

That also gives me an idea about how I could effectively play with a friend over the internet. Instead of challenging him to just one game, I could challenge him to two. That way we could each take our turns while the other is doing theirs. Brilliant!

And it can be a connectionless LAN, you just make all the games hotseat and keep moving between the computers to take your turns.

All right, I'm a believer!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:43 am 
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Sea Wolf
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In fact, you don't even need the LAN set up for that style- (Hotseat MA party). Just a computer for each person. No fussing with routers, cables, or computers that just won't talk.

Once again, this game is proven to have incredible depth by breaking away from the norm.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:14 am 
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P.L. Marshal
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i dont understand those whineys who keep asking for LAN. you dont need the LAN to play MA - if you both are in one place you can as well play hotseat.Just leave the room at moment when enemy deploys and vice-versa,


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:52 pm 
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Maelstrom wrote:
That also gives me an idea about how I could effectively play with a friend over the internet. Instead of challenging him to just one game, I could challenge him to two. That way we could each take our turns while the other is doing theirs. Brilliant!



YES, Maelstorm!

That's exactly the way Massive Assault is supposed to be played over the Internet!

If you like the game, you can challenge as many people as you wish (like a dozen or a couple of dozens). What happens next is this:

a) Some of them will reject the challenge for some reasons - OK we wont' be blaming them...
b) out of those, let's say 10 accepted challenges you will have just one or two (unless you've made special arragements) of people, who are playing instantly - so that you can exchange turns quicly, playing almost "real-time"
c) And the rest of the plaers will be making their turns twice or once per day or even more seldom - like once in a couple of days. Some of those people will be fro mother parts of the world, like Russia or Australia

But considering the fact that there are a lot of such people playing with you currently, you usually will always have new turns to make.

And then you can adjust the number of those "massive" challenges you are sending, making this number smaller or bigger, depending on whether you enough or insufficient number of new turns ever day..

And I bet, if you adopt such playstyle, from time to time you will spot yourself thinking while going to bed ("here is his damned last Secret Ally?" or "I don't believe that island was his"...). You know...

In case of tournament games (in the works now), you'll even sometimes have bad dreams... waiting for the tomorrow's turn from a japanese player...


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:06 pm 
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Sea Wolf
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You should put these ideas on the box :)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:55 pm 
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Maelstrom wrote:
You should put these ideas on the box :)


Damned good idea.

No. Really...
Maybe not on the box itself, but in the manual...

Thanks a lot!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 6:31 pm 
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Problem with an Hotseat game is that of Secret Allies, and that they won't be kept secret. They can't just look alway at your disclose phase because all of your secret allies have big flags on them throughout your turn. Even if they haven't been disclosed, they are still there, just not waving about. So its kinda pointless to play a hotseat, cause leaving the room really sucks.

Couldn't you add a LAN option to the game as people have already suggested. It would definately add to it, cause then reviewers couldn't say " Con: No LAN option"

I've also seen at least one review that said the only con was that there wasn't a map editor of sorts, although I've been reading that thats currently in developement. How about an update, cause last word was that it was in final stages of testing, and that was on the 23rd or something like that.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 8:27 pm 
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Sea Wolf
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Vano just mentioned they were supposed to be finished with it in another week or two on another thread. I believe it will just be a scenario editor however, not so easy to edit the maps themselves.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:07 am 
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Scenario editor should be this week.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:44 pm 
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P.L. Marshal
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well actully..i play hotseat alot but while playing hotseat we leave only for first deployment phase not every turn - because we are lazy :D and because we not care so much about other secret ally secrecy...Well there isn't such amout of mystery like in online play but we prefer to win via superiority in tactical control not via some mean and nasty SA surprise.


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 Post subject: 5 years down the road??
PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:56 pm 
what happens when i want to play a multiplayer game 5 yrs from now? 10 yrs?

i still play chess and thats been around for, oh, at least 10 yrs i'd say...

will your server still be running then? will you still be around then...


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2004 10:14 pm 
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very good point Brashen :D suppose you will have to play MA 5 then :o


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