Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated |
I am sure many have whined about this but I feel a need to add another request for it to the list.
The game is great. I don't care about a few bugs especially since the developer devotes his life to fixing them. The AI sucks, but again there are ways around that to make the game fun anyway.
The killer for me is multiplayer.
I don't want to email files, or use PBW, and I especially dont want to have to explain to my less technical friends why we have to do this.
I want an integrated multiplayer option where I can press a 'create game' button, and my friends can just enter my ip address and all ANY of us has to do is play end turn. I dont want to upload their files, I dont want to run a seperate host programme, I dont want to have to login to an admin console and I don't want to have to even press process turn seperately. Sure having the option to do these things is cool, but I also want the option to play it like multiplayer Civ IV and just press 'end turn' and have all the file exchanges take place without my active participation. This would even allow the game to be played on meeting rooms like gamespy!
Is this ever going to happen? As it stands even the supplied tcpip option doesnt work. If I try and run a host on a 2nd pc, soon as I press listen, it kills my router! How I have no idea. I have to restart the router to get it to work again.
If my friend tries to run a tcpip host, soon as he presses listen, that pc freezes.
We are forced to exchange files on MSN if we want to play real time, instead of by email. This is an unwanted distraction.
Given other games DO almost all offer this function, I dont think its an unreasonable request.
Aurore
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
PBW does process the save right away. I know that's not what you asked... but it works ok. I've played versus someone and got off quite a few turns that way.
Just send the .PLR turn file to the server and it mails you back your save. If you don't want to wait for the mail to come in you can manually download it.
It even worked pretty well for a technicly enclined friend of mine.
I think that is your best option.
Setting up the game is still a bit of a puzzle.
~Myrath
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate the work and the value of the PBW people and site. I think PBW is ideal when you want to play with a dozen people you dont know scattered all over the world.
However if you want to sit down with 3-4 friends for an evenings solid play, you dont want to mess about with any kind of transfer, you want the game to do everything for you transparently, otherwise any repetitive transfer task, especally at the initial stages of a game when turns can take seconds, soon adds up to a headache and spending as much time transfering as playing. If Civ 4 can manage it I'm sure Aaron can. I'm just posting this to prod him gently 
Aurore
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Basically all you have to do is make sure SE 5 adds itself to the windows firewall exception list (I know many use other firewalls), then every time someone presses end turn, their turn file is transparently copied to the host. When the host presses end turn, if all turn files are present, process turn, if not then give the host a popup saying 'waiting for xxxx' with the option to process anyway.
Aurore
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
If you actually try PBW, you'll find that the transfer tasks are the least time consuming. Here's how it works:
Taking your turn (5-30 minutes)
Waiting for the slowest person to finish (5-15 minutes)
Hitting F12, closing Space Empires, and hitting "upload turn" in PBW: (15 seconds)
Turn processing on their computer (2-15 minutes -- same as it would take on your computer)
Downloading the new turn (30 seconds-5 minutes)
Extracting the turn to Savegame and loading turn (1 minute)
In other words, you spend about one minute per hour on "repetitive transfer tasks" and 2-5 minutes downloading. The other 90% of the time spent would still be spent even if transfer was instantaneous.
I play PBW against my friend and those first twenty turns go lickety-split. Or they would if I didn't spend all that time designing my colony ships.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
I beleive she want the speed that Direct connect offers.
Help! I have been assimilated
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
What I'm saying is that direct connect adds a lot more speed to a game like Civ 4 where you have a minute and a half on the turn timer than a game like SEV where turns are fifteen minutes long.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Having to exit the game and re-enter it is arguably the dumbest technique in modern times. It's so 1995.
At the very least, if the game is in multiple-computer mode it should be able to simply watch the specified (networked) directory for an updated file. Shouldn't much matter if that directory is a Windows share, a FTP site or even just a local folder that you save your e-mail attachment to. File gets updated, game sees that and rips into it like a kid at Christmas time. Would make even more sense if it sent incremental updates most of the time, and full saves only occasionally.
Some friends and I tried SE4 multiplayer while all in the same room, each on our PCs...I think we tried it about 3 times before giving up. Same group played Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic over and over and over again for years. That game *still* has a memory leak in tactical combats and gets really unstable with more than two players, but it does work. If the developers for AoW released patches the way MM does, that game would probably still be our game of choice for network play.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
That is basicly what I mean. I dont want the faff. Im used to playing this kind of game and its still a pain to actually have to close the game down and do god knows what when every other game out there will let me sit and watch my game screen and when everyone is done it just processes the turn and i can start my next turn. I dont want to upload, download, close the game, minimise it or anything like that. I want an integrated multiplayer system that leaves me with the only tasks of doign my turn and pressing end turn. Nothing more.
Like I said, Im used to the messing about and it is still annoying, but friends who are more used to 'off the shelf' games. though they like this game, I cant get them to try it multiplayer more than once, because the first thing that springs to mind when you are thinking about what to play is the ummersion breaking between turns faff.
I like the game and want to play it. I just want this point stressed so that fixing multiplayer is not forgotter. I see lots of other things fixed. I just want mainly multiplayer fixed. The AI could use a look but its not as urgent as the multiplayer.
Aurore
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
It isn't entirely clear to me how TCP/IP mode could possibly crash a router or a PC. There has got to be something else going on.
If you take the routers out of the picture and connect your computer directly to the modem, TCP/IP mode should work just fine. The mode does work, but it has trouble crossing that extra last step router, sadly. Alternatively, you could use Hamachi to create a virtual LAN.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
TCP/IP works fine on my router but it still sucks... The multiplayer implementation is horrid in this game, playing multiplayer isn't even worth the trouble.
I actually have good and bad news:
The good news is I am actually working on a mod that will create a much more streamlined multiplayer via auto "manual file movement"
The bad news is that this method will only work for people playing in a LAN situation, and I'm not sure when it will be done.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
The bad news is that this method will only work for people playing in a LAN situation, and I'm not sure when it will be done.
So? I have a LAN. Many of us have a LAN. We'd gladly use such a mod.
____________________
I'll make one later.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Don't forget about Hamachi. Anyone could use the mod with Hamachi for a better game over the internet.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
hamachi works fine, played a few times with no problems
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Yes that is essentially what I mean, the idea behind it is that you would start a game using "Manual File Movement" and then you would launch the app on both PCs, when you finished your turn the app would grab the newly created save and move it across the network to your opponents PC/save folder. Once the file had been moved a simple macro would automatically load it and play would continue. Basically saving you from constantly alt-tabbing out by automating the file movement process. This whole process would take less than 5 seconds to complete and would run entirely in the background (you won't ever see it doing it's work) making play fairly streamlined. Unfortunately this is the best I can do at this time, I was playing around with some other ideas but they all kind of fell through... Luckily this is coming along nicely and I expect will be ready in a week or so. (Provided everything goes as planned... But you know how PCs are lol)
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
se5a made a "PBFTP" app in python a while back to do that sort of thing... the only catch is the host needs to be running a FTP server. 
http://se5a.spaceempires.net/PBFTP.py
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
Interesting, I never knew about that... Nonetheless my goal is to make a non-FTP based method. Anyone interested in my project may also consider using a program called "watchDirectory", it is capable of doing almost the same thing that I am working on (minus the auto-loading) however it is not free, though a 30-day free trail is available.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
There are a billion applications out there that will synchronize the contents of folders on different machines, without any need to pay money. Take Foldershare for example.
Re: Please make multiplayer over ip transparent and integrated
I know your pain.
That is one reason for my using Civilization.
Help! I have been assimilated