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 Post subject: More than 2 player games?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:04 pm 
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Quick question - was wondering if it was in the cards for a future upgrade to support more than two players at once. The thought of 4 or maybe even 8 players at once, either on teams or in a free-for-all, really sounds incredibly fun.

Obviously games with 4 players or more would take a lot longer to play, but my friends and I were talking about how great it'd be to have maybe a 2 month epic battle for a large string of islands or whathaveyou going on.

Doesn't seem like it'd be *TOO* much work to impliment, and I think for certain people it could add a whole new dimension of enjoyment to the game.


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:31 pm 
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this was discussed a bunch of time before....
the main problem is
suppose there are 4 players
one in US one in Europe one in Australia and one in Japan
first one sends turn
second still asleep and send turn next morning
other 2 do what? wait?
this way it can take a real-time week to finish pair of in-game turns

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:42 pm 
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But would it be that difficult to impliment? I mean, I think there'd be enough people who would enjoy that feature and make good use of it to offset anyone who decided they didn't want to go that route. Yes, there's the obvious understanding that it'd be a longer game, certainly, and perhaps 8 players is a little over the top, but I really think that the pros for having the option to have a 4 player game would greatly outweigh the cons.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:19 pm 
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Take a look at this topic (ignore the first few posts):

http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=253

In here we discussed some of the difficulties of implementing more than 2 players. Being used to RTSs myself this is one of the first questions I had :)

Besides what was discussed in that topic, and what Mrakobes said about the length of time, there are other questions to consider. What do you do with guerrillas? Who do they belong to? Etc etc.

With MA's PBEM structure, and the fact that all turns are done in order rather than simultaneously, more than 2 players would be unweildy to say the least. And the delicate balance would be thrown out the window.

Not to say I'd wouldn't like to see it work, just can't see it happening with the current architecture. Perhaps with the new expansion...

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 3:44 am 
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Mrakobes wrote:
this was discussed a bunch of time before....
the main problem is
suppose there are 4 players
one in US one in Europe one in Australia and one in Japan
first one sends turn
second still asleep and send turn next morning
other 2 do what? wait?
this way it can take a real-time week to finish pair of in-game turns


That's surely a choice the players make though?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:48 am 
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Concerning the problem with guerillas, if they set it up so each country was assigned to a player, then that person would get guerillas no matter who invades it.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 8:52 am 
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Just assign them randomly or in sequence, or put them under AI control. All of these solutions detract a little from the game, mind (especially the last one).

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:14 am 
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this is not a players choice
developers already have a HELL lot of stuff in their "to-do list" for addon
plus they have to make new maps for MAN
so they are too much overloaded with quite nesessary work and they can not afford to do things which are not seem to be mass-requested

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:09 pm 
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I was just saying that could be a possible way, but never mind. Mrakobes is right, they have a bunch of stuff they need to do, so forget that stupid 'more than 2 players' crap.

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 Post subject: havent you guys heard of axis and allies?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 1:17 am 
you know,


it seems strange that no one has mentioned risk or axis and alllies yet.

are they not also games with more then 2 players?

and if they are then surely with the right motivation, the ma network programmmers could fashion a version that everyone is happy with.

see you in game.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 2:31 am 
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Neither of those games feature neutral territory in games of 3+ players, which is probably the reason they haven't been mentioned. Anyway, Axis & Allies is a two sides game, regardless of the number of players.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:51 am 
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and risk is usually played (online anyway) simultanously, how would simultaneous ma work?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 5:05 am 
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Simultaneous MA: IT was discussed :) And the result of discussion was "Let me know if you know an easy_to_understand_way of doing it". There is one, but it takes 4.5 pages of hard to read rules to describe the resolution of movement and fire sequence conflicts.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:56 am 
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Enforcer wrote:
and risk is usually played (online anyway) simultanously, how would simultaneous ma work?


Eh? Risk is turn based, what the heck are you playing?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:45 pm 
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It might work if it was implemented as teams, e.g. 2vs2 or 3vs3, etc.

For guerillas, the next player in the turn sequence assigns them.

Perhaps make it so you can control all units on your team (or make that optional).

That said, I do like the simplicity of the game rules as they are now.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:50 pm 
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Starbounder wrote:
It might work if it was implemented as teams, e.g. 2vs2 or 3vs3, etc.

For guerillas, the next player in the turn sequence assigns them.

Perhaps make it so you can control all units on your team (or make that optional).

That said, I do like the simplicity of the game rules as they are now.


Teams definately are more reasonable with the current setup. Still leaves the problem of how to make the game go reasonably quick when you still have to do turns in order (unless you can think of a way to overcome the problems SkyKeeper brought up)

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:11 pm 
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In team mode turns could be done by one team simultaneously. (We know a fairly simple way).

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:56 pm 
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Sky Keeper wrote:
In team mode turns could be done by one team simultaneously. (We know a fairly simple way).


May I ask how you'd be able to keep units from colliding or going through each other with a simultaneous mode? It at least eliminates the need to worry about unit firing collisions. I suppose you could do some kind of lock where only one player on a team could be playing at a time. That way each player can play their part of the turn at any time, as long as another player isn't playing it exactly the same time.

Assuming there are answers to the above, the last problem to address that I can think of is players that go inactive on your team. This can be resolved by a similar timeout feature to the current timeout in which you can end a game. You would have a team timeout, where if one of your members goes over time, you can take over for them and drop them from a game, using a "takeover" button that only appears after a certain amount of time.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:34 pm 
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They can be 100% simultaneous. The problem is that there is no purpose in sharing control over battlefield - this feature forces players to cooperate and reduces thier effectiveness because they have to resolve collisions and coordinate help. It may sound attractive, but I think that if we have 3 equal players a team of two players is more likely to loose to the third because of the additional cooordination required. And you can always consult another player by sending replay or telling him your password(means of consulting may be improved).
Now to the problem: if it's a 2vs2 game and in one team a player takes all control - he'll just have advantage(he still can consult his teammate).

Cooperative playing can be usefull in quick games(less than 20 minutes per turn) only where extra hand(mouse) helps to cope with MM and an extra brain can find better tactical solution.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:01 am 
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1 idea i ahd a while ago is taht countries can only produce spercific units, eitehr based on country size, eg small can do units from $1-$2, mediums upto $3 etc. Or just random across the map (maybe random with each start) This could be linked to team play where each person can only build a certain selection of units, this isn;t tath fesable atm with the small number of units, if u are unable to build tanks fopr example u r gonnaa hve a very hard time invading unless ur team m8 is enarby. But when phantom rennasiance is about maybe each eprson could only build a ranbdom selection of the new units (with all of them being avaialble across the whole team) Altho not knowing about the units this could be completely wrong.

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