Planet M.U.L.E.

Dont like new auction.  Timer is to fast,  it pretty much puts cap on land.  1st round auction can be won by someone that is not the richest   >:( 

We’ve made a small update of the game for the weekend. The Land Auction has been adjusted in a few ways:

    * The timer no longer slows down when players are moving to get better sync.
    * All players will now see the final bids of all the other players. Previously a player could see herself as the winner of the land auction even though the host had selected a different winner.
    * If a plot didn’t sell, no other plot is offered this round.
    * Fixed a bug which would show “Buy” instead of the price ($).

The timer is now 19 seconds and not slowing down when players move, as this wasnt the case in original land auction either, so there is a maximum gain that can be reached during that timeframe.

Please play a few games and tell us your thoughts, any comments on the changes are welcome, as there will be another update 1.3.2 next week fixing the host advantages in land grant.

The Dev-Team.

this is the most silly thing you have ever done with the land auctions.
i was loving the new auction system but now the player with the  least lag wins every time, if all players start at same time. there is no strategy left and late auctions are a farce. plots going for low prices under $3000 and as i say player wyth least lag will win every time. please revert to , preferably the last system or go back to original.
please please please.

i love to play mule( played more games than anyone else) but don't like this newest update and havent found anyone who does
 

 Good job on ending auction if plot  doesnt sell, but wow the timers waaaaay too fast(pull it back a bit pls).

  Also i noticed right away that ore pricing has dropped, we had an empty store twice and the highest we could sell for was under 140. Annnd food/nrg prices were higher and took a while to drop down again, and there were hardly ANY shortages....we had to find new ways to make big money as ore wasnt working so we turned to food and nrg to make ends meet. Idk if this is somthing you guys just slipped in or if its a side effect of the new land auction system. Either way i found it hard to play as it didnt feel like planetmule or the old c64 mule, i have to unlearn what ive learned here at planetmule to play this 1.3.1 version. Imo i say slow time down a bit /keep no auction after plot doesnt sell and put pricing back for ore,food, and nrg.


DM

Thanks for the feedback!

As for the timer/maximum cap:

We could make the timer run slower (longer), but that would make the game longer... its now 19 seconds.

Or we would increase the step value to $10 to have a similar effect.
Or we do a mixture of both.

Remember that in original version movement speed was much, much slower, so the maximimum cap was even more limited (about $400 max possible increase).

Of course the other auctions were much slower too, so the whole game had a much more controlled or "artifically limited" price range for everything...


As for the ore, nrg, food prices:
We didnt change anything related to that, so this is either some weird coincident or a related bug.
Can anyone confirm this, as its highly unlikely that this is a side-effect of the changes from land auction, as we haven't touched the code for price calculation.

Please keep suggestions coming.

  I based this off 1 game since 1.3.1 release, but it was sooo noticable the other 3 players were taking advantage of food and nrg prices while the store had almost 20 in stock....and round after round they did this while i sat on ore like a chump. I should of easly blew these 3 out of the water as i had most tite, i lost by 45...ouch. Ill try exploiting the food an nrg as they did and get back to you.

ps, i couldnt believe my eyes, i hadnt even smoked a fatty yet and i was tripping out!

Can you give us a link to the game?

I agree with Rodz, the version before this has been the best of the 3 land auction variations in my opinion.  However i am still testing the new one out.  Only played 4 games with it.  I have not noticed any difference with the ore prices.  I can not verify what Rod mentioned about lowest ping winning every time yet.  But i have seen us all at different (but close) prices when i assume we all pressed up at same time.  So I am assuming he is correct.  If this is the case it's much better to go to last version where everyone has more time so ping doesn't matter as much.

Also, I don't know why the end land auctions when a plot goes unsold got thrown in along with the other changes.  I think people only suggested that as a change to fix people from having to run up multiple lands 2 versions ago.  So my vote is to let land auctions happen with same frequency as before.

I agree this has probably been the version closest to the original.  However i believe it is the least fun, least skillful, and least fair of any of the last 3 version of land auctions.

On a positive note, well done on creating an update so fast.  I can't believe we are so spoiled to have our very own programmers to take our crazy ideas and put them right into our favorite game.  This last change was exactly what i thought everyone was asking you guys to do.  I guess a new poll is in order.  (please don't put c64 style as a choice)

No prices should be changed since the previous version. Actually I'm positively surprised to hear that you can win by going in to food and energy. Those commodities are usually secondary in most games I've played, while smithore and crystite are the money makers.

We were worried that the time would be too short in the land auction, not letting players get up to the true value of land. We'll have to look this over for the next release. There might be other solutions than simply increasing the auction time.

Currently if all players press their up key from the start of the auction and throughout the whole auction it will be random, in connection with the ping, who gets the furthest. This can of course be adjusted so that all players will get equally far and then give the plot of land to the last player. Or like someone stated for the original Atari game, give it to a random player if all players have equal bids. Still it infuses the artificial cap on the price.

We had a plan to do one of those options above but released the current version 1.3.1 slightly prematurely to get some general feedback on the new auction system. We're planning a new update release soon, based on the feedback, and also addressing the land grant a bit.

The new land auction does not seem to slow down when players move.  The timer is very quick.  This limits an increase in price to about $1200 and really negates the advantage of having the most money for an auction.  All players will just push up the entire auction and player lowest in the player order will win.  Very frustrating.

I'm not one of the better players around here but I do really enjoy this game. I was in the game with Death_Mule17 with the new update and although I have to admit I was a bit out of it, I wasn't so much to notice how wacky things were. The prices were absolutely crazy, although I'm not quite sure why. As to the new update with the land auctions, I hate to say it but I thought it was awful. There seems to be no strategy involved at all. I was so surprised last night when just because I ran up a moment before everyone else I won. Please, please, please change this back....  :-\

Asphodel

My memory of the original was that when you moved, the timer slowed down.

In any event, the time max plus the delta amount *NEEDS* to be enough that you can reach a ridiculous amount before it runs out. At a minimum, $5000 should be a target.

Played a few games with update and I think the developers are moving in the right direction, however, as others have said, the timer or value should be increased so that plots are bought for what they are worth.

Also, the ping issue should be addressed as well so that the bidding field is level and not slanted towards the lower pings (HOST has lowest)

Thanks

  You see, im not totally crazy>Now i know asphodel had a few ,but there were 2 others who saw this "wacky" pricing. Anyways heres the link>>>http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=31233

ps. I played again, this time with bad brad(#3) and he didnt notice the low ore pricing ...tried to point it out, but he said it was normal(prob thinks im a nut). We did get it up to 230(once), but i still say somthings a li'le off. ???

   And heres the chat log>>http://www.planetmule.com/server/chats/chat_game_31233_user_5265.html
 If you count the "wtf"'s and the "omg"'s you will see its much higher than your average everyday game.

Well, you ask for comments and suggestions, so here it goes mine. I haven't tried the new version yet. It's not a common suggestion nowadays, but I'll say it anyway.

I know it is not easy improving your software and making changes whenever it's needed but, please, I have to spend 2 hours to download every new version of MULE. I don't mind if it is a major update, but not for just a little change or two. It is really annoying having to download 37mb with my epic slow connection, (2 hours) specially when it is just to change a single thing.

Please, try to keep all updates for a single time or, if possible (no idea about how Java works exactly), try to make "patches" to avoid downloading the whole game again everytime a new version is released. Slow connections can be a problem sometimes.


* EDITED: Removing unneeded text to make the post shorter.

I have an epically slow connection, too, but updating an earlier version seems to do it with "deltas". My last two updates have been really fast.

Since this thread is about the auction, I think it is a bit too fast, too. But at least the auction ends now when plot is not sold, which pleases us who still play tennis with wooden rackets. ;)

Please make the timer speed consistent for all the auctions.

Reversing the timer speed for the land auctions throws you off when you are use to the slow when you move and fast when you stand still that it use to be.
This makes sense if you are in direct combat with your opponents(bidding war) slowing the timer down while bidding gives you that sense you are doing something, that you are playing' that you are trying to best your opponents. That is why I stated and several others agreed with me DONT MESS WITH THE TIMER!

Change the money steps to achieve smaller bid amounts before the timer runs out.
I really think 2 or 3 dollar increases instead of the 4 will be the sweet spot. It shouldn't under value land or allow others to constantly price it to high. 

Also, please restore the minimum bid line so we know when we have removed ourselves from the bid.

Please don't try and make the game shorter at the cost of game play or balance.

I played the C-64 version with focus on land auctions, and here is my in detail analysis:

- The land auction has a $4-step value.
- The auction timer slows down while players move, but since everybody naturally moves from start to finish, it equals a slow timer running at constant speed for exactly 28 seconds max.
- During that 28 seconds, one can raise the price exactly from $160-$940 (first auction), meaning a maximum increase for each auction of $780.

These are the basic values of the original C-64 auction.

So now we have two conflicting messages regarding current auction:

We would like to keep the timer constant, as if we make it variable to slow and speed up again, it is one more component that introduces more unreliability or out of sync issues with regards to lag, as the counter then varies also for each player and tends to get faster out of sync.

Thats the reason we would prefer to have the land auction as a constant timer.

I wouldn't argue to make all auctions consistent, as land auction is already somewhat a bit different, as there is no seller or interaction for players, but a strict competetion for top price.

The faster running timer in the original can be related to ONLY speed up gameplay if no one would like to buy or sell something, so players dont get bored with enduring a full timer when nothing happens, it otherwise does not have any other direct functionality.

So if we assume in land auction, we can safely give it the full timer, as each player is likely to bid and run within his possibilities anyway, then we could not copy but simulate the original, where when everybody moved the timer was running constantly slow about 28 seconds, so it would make it possible to maximize the price.

Now for Rhodans idea, to at the same time reduce the step value to $3 or even $2 would negate the effect of a longer timer, so that does not make much sense...

So the question really bogs down to the max. price of a land auction:
Is there a strategical value of limiting the auction price by any method?

As far as I can see, a limit only introduces randomness in who gets a plot if all players are within the range to afford it and plot price value stays much more constant as opposed to a much more volatile market.

This should be debated, as its mainly finetuning the auction to the right values of timer, step value and movement speed, and it all results in the maximum limit or price cap with all its (after-)effects.

@data2008 its good to see you auditing the original c64 version and obviously correcting many of your earlier statements.

One thing you might of missed correcting is that the commodore 64 version is random on land auctions, I am unsure of the Atari I have read differently, I suspect it was a bug fix though between versions. More on that some other day here in the thread i am trying to start to collect the differences in the two versions. Possibly the other later versions as well. Please see that here:

http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=1057.0

You might of missed that when all 4 run it is different than just 3 or 2 or 1.  The rate of change for time actually has 4 variations.  But if you consider the max possible change in value is the only VITAL element, ignoring rate of time changes, you can set the total time to anything and the step value to make a match.  The drawback is you need a way to make it go quicker in late game and dull auctions.

You also lose the interactivity in that players could purposefully not run to keep a price down (commodity prices especially) or run to help make it TOO much!  A VERY BIG PART OF THE FUN...

Please see my other thread here on what to do about it all:

http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=1054.0

PS Ping plus randomness is not going to cut the mustard... it is likely that some players will be faster to your centralized host than 99.9% of everyone else ALL the time.  The Internet is variable but not that much and some things stay pretty static over very long periods of time.

Let's not mix things up!
We are only talking land auction, not commodities! Commodities auctions IS different from land auction.

So in land auction with a constant timer, players can also choose not to run to keep a price down just the same as with a slowed down timer. If someone runs up, the timer slows down and as long as someone runs up, the price increases.

There is NOT a different rate for slowdown if 1, 2, 3 or 4 players run... as long as 1 player moves, the timer is slowing down.

So imho nothing of strategically value is lost with a constant slow timer... the faster running timer ONLY served to save some gametime if NO ONE would like to run and compete...

I could of sworn the price went up faster when 4 ran than when 3 ran, or 2 or 1 in the same vein... maybe it wasn't just a rate of time change...

My apologies if I am mistaken but amongst my 3 buddies and I, we have always held this belief and even make sure all 4 run as much as possible.  I will have to sit down, do the tests and find out beyond a doubt for myself either way now!

Finally what Rhodan said re. consistency with the other auctions is very important... it seems pretty important for playability, I agree very strongly in fact and forgot to mention it...

I checked it right away:

I stayed in place several times not running and letting the AI go up and slow the timer down... then when AI stopped at around $500, i was the only one beginning to move up and therefore keeping the timer slowed down... but in the end, it also summed up to the 28 seconds, so no less time was given even if only 3 or even 1 player run in the end.

As for Rhodans consistency:

I dont agree here at all.
I think it was one weak spot or even due to limited resources that they used the same pararmeters for land auction and commodities.

That they are not exactly the same can even be seen in the layout:
The land auction has the store in the middle right above the players buy line, so it even visually departs from the commodities.

I would assume, since I read Dan Bunten say, that upon looking at Mule, he only can see the "failures" or design faults of the game, but still is proud of his baby despite any weaknesses.


Edit: Here is the quote from an interview:


"When did you first realize that "M.U.L.E." was something special?

I'm not sure whether "M.U.L.E." is something special or not. As with all of my games, I thought "M.U.L.E." was alternately wonderful and terrible. During development I get more and more excited about the game as I design solutions to problems. Later, when it's finished, I'm glad to see the completed product and am proud of it. When the reviews come in I'm almost always disappointed--even a "critically acclaimed" game gets some criticism. And then when actual users write and tell me how much they enjoyed it I get excited again. However, if I go back and play the game after a year or so I'm inevitably depressed by the problems I see in the design. Finally, regardless of whether a product succeeds or fails there is always room to second guess yourself or to learn the wrong lessons, all of which lead to some ambivalence about the game. But good or bad it's my baby, and I'm glad I built it."

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/BERRY.HTM

Ya you need to take control of all 4 players to test properly dude!  You should be able to get the first plot to 980, which is exactly 5$ too much to catch the wampus and get a food mule*... of that FACT I am certain.

Re. everything else you said, read all my postS... I'll say it again, great ART is as much an ACCIDENT as it is hard work...

Whatever flaws he saw are more akin to a professional sound studio picking over the "levels"... you guys haven't got it close, to even start talking about the "flaws in the original" let alone expecting to "fix" them without understanding is a fruitless task. Also, very few artists actually appreciate their own art the way other people do...

For the record I have spoken with one of my buddies and updated and he agrees with everything I've said, I still haven't had the time to speak to the other two...

PS Testing with the AI's = LOL!  Everyone agrees the AI was shitty, ignore the original AI, I bet 99% of what Dan didn't like was in the AI...

PPS the Store being moved is a tiny visual change not a change in mechanics, or the outcome of the mechanics.

*There may be a case when Mules start out for 80 instead of 100, I can't remember off hand because we never learned it and always knew to save at least 25$.

Now i disagree with all you said in your last post.

I effectively ruled OUT your ASSUMPTION that the timer slowed down variable...
No matter if I used AIs or not, the fact remains the same.

Why you LOL at me when you yourself only recall something from a failureable memory, (oh yes you always playtest in your head LOL) is beyond me...

Then great artists do have the character and humility to acknowledge weak spots of their design and learn from it... something you do not even want to admit that it could be possible that not everything in old mule is golden...

Then you estimate or even attack us always right away of not having gotten the original... thank you very much, but i played the original also many many times on a real C-64, and while I agree that we haven't nailed it 100% as a 1:1 copy, I would argue we are not that far away from the spirit or fun of the original as you constantly want to make everyone else believe...

I also have read all your posts, but yet have no clue, if you either suggest to go back to 1:1 original (which most of the player already complaining about the current price cap would rather not prefer) or what else, please try to make that clearer in this post and not leave us here to puzzle back together your real opinion from several threads all over the place.

PM1 evolves with each version to find just the right implementation for competetive online play as did the original game did with the limited local play, so any thoughts and postings should relate to this evolution to reflect that.

You really dont read the quote, even if bold:
Dan talked about the DESIGN of the game, not AI or your analogy of levels...

I think as an execptional artist as Dan was, he really could see through his design weaknesses and the compromises he found as (temporary) fixes after some time.

With the internet the game gets exposed to much different competetive play, which would reveal any limitations or design weaknesses much quicker than in a limited local play area.

Compare many board/card games, which quickly are spotted its weaknesses in design no matter how much testing went into them (for example Magic:TG power cards, which severly affected game balance) if exposed to a very competetive playing field.

If Dan had tried to "fix" Mule he would of wound up making another game entirely... and how is "design" specific to "not the ai"??  He simply used a blanked term for anything, could of been AI that much is bloody obvious.

But alright we can agree to disagree, especially about the Internet factor and all that other stuff too.

But please do test this out with control of 4 accounts and comment on exactly how the original worked again... hint: you might want to remap the keys to make testing and controlling them trivial/one handed. Ass-uming you are using an emulator and don't have a helper.

 ::)

Dan sounds like a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist and growing up around many, I've learned we are rarely happy with our creations. If we are, it doesn't last long. We almost always see what we could have done better, rather than seeing something great as it is.

Nonetheless, I would be very curious to read what problems he thought M.U.L.E. had.

Richard Garfield can be argued to be another great game designer.
Magic:TG, which I played extensively from the beginning on,
is a fantastic card game design - yet it still had severe balancing issues which slipped through all careful testings, for example the powercard Ancestral Recall, which was even designed as a common, but for anyone playing Magic becomes bloody obvious very quick that this card is way overpowered than its other colored matches (which would be giant grwoth for green or lighntning bolt for red, each costing one mana and giving three of something), yet it wasn't spotted as a problem when they designed the initial cards.

@Blitzen:
To check facts like timer slowdown and step value among other things, it seems sufficient to test this with 3 A.I. and 1 human player if one assumes gameplay isnt different if humans or androids do the same thing... why would basic gameplay be differently implemented for 3 A.I.+1 human running up in auction vs. 4 real player running up? Makes no sense, if one is to assume A.I. movement influences the timer just the same as human movement, and only me as human player running up for 1/3 of the auction time seemed to slow down the timer just the same as any other number of simultanously running AI players... I would therefore be surprised if someone would find 4 human players moving up/or down would slow the timer down more than 1 human player and 3 AI running at once... The A.I. test did show that the number of simultanously running players (either be it AI or me as human) had not given any indication that the timer slows down differently depending on the number of sprites moving simultansouly...

You don't get and it probably never will... soon I am going to give up and go away... but for record:

If you don't have all FOUR players running UP for the ENTIRE auction you do not KNOW what the MAX possible increase WAS/IS/SHOULD BE!

Re. everything else you said about another game/dev, may I please remind you we are speaking about Mule here. But for the record, a modern game developed in a huge RUSH has a BIG balance issue... Mule was a very well tested game made with love and care, and c64 Mule was made after wards and did address SOME concerns -- BUT note how little was changed.

As I said what Dan would of REALLY meant is the ENTIRE game design, from the ground up... but for the record and the last time what the hell does that have to do with a "as close as possible" to the original game??? How can you promise us this, when we have all demonstrated repeatably how you don't know what the original is/was/will always be?

I am losing faith faster than ever at being told my very best common sense is absolute nonsense!  I am sorry but coming from someone as ignorant about Mule as you continually demonstrate yourself to be its laughable you are even involved in this project.

If you want to tap into the existing player market, trust us and make a PROPER remake.

@Blitzen: I'll just leave it like that with your opinion about me and what you think we do.   :'(

I have waited 25 years to play MULE again and I don't get all the hate for the people who put it together.
Of course the land auction isn't perfect.... so what?

It is still better than it was and I have never lost a game I felt was due because someone was able to cheat me during an auction.  I do like players not being able to just run up the bid of an auction and then back out and not buy it. 

I would like to see the true original version out there also.  Not because I would actually play it, but so that people could play and compare the 2 versions side by side.  Planet Mule is already much better than the original in my opinion. 

We have all played this game endlessly in our youth, and all of our memories change with time.  The feel of Planet Mule is always going to be slightly different because we are not all sitting next to our friends competing.  Instead of trying to recreate the feelings we got from playing mule as children ( an impossible task) instead i feel like we should try to make M.U.L.E. the best game it can be.  I am not suggesting revamping the whole game (that should wait for Mule 2) but we should at least try to build on Mule's strengths and make it the best game possible.

The core question to me is what made M.U.L.E. such a great game?  This is a fairly complex question but i think i have narrowed it down to a few key components.

1. It was the precursor to the Real Time Strategy genre.  To me this is one of the main reasons MULE found such a following.  Many like minded people who up until MULE was released had spent their time playing board games finally had a reason to compete in the realm of video games.  This genre spread from MULE to games like Civilization. Command and Conquer, and eventually StarCraft.

2.  While MULE didn't invent the economic genre of video games, it was the first game to get it right.  To me the true magic of MULE is watching the free market work in the form of the different auctions.  When you think that the genre up until MULE existed of Lemonade Stand, it is no surprise that MULE became so popular.  This is the strength i saw in the 1.3.0 land auction method. (it gave the market enough time to accurately price the land)

3.  The invention of computer assistance.  People have described this in a lot of different posts (mostly calling it game "balance").  Essentially punishing the people in the lead and helping the people who are behind.  The majority of games use forms of this today.  But for 1983 this idea was revolutionary.  Many people think that the balance happened because of extensive game testing, but i think these are the mistakes that Dan was referring to that he wanted to fix.  The idea is to make the computer assistance balance a game out, so that if someone gets too far ahead or behind the game can even things back up.  However the game unfairly wields these powers and disrupts the luck/skill balance at times.  (losing plot on 2nd turn comes to mind)

Having created 3 unique video game concepts it is no wonder that M.U.L.E. became so popular and that we are still discussing and playing it today.  I love skill/luck mix games that allow for unlimited replayability because of incomplete information (stite formation) to me this is what makes a good game.

@Blitzen I believe you are totally wrong on the timer moving slower when more people are moving up.  And instead of issuing homework from the programmers to test out your memory.  why not test it yourself?

@GambitTime  I agree 100% with your post.  All the random hate thrown at the developers is what made me call out Blitzen to begin with.  We all agreed that there was a problem with the run up system (except Rhodan) which is why the 1.3.0 land auction was created.  To me the lag during auctions has never been a major issue. As I have maintained all along you can always defend against it by not hanging out near an opponents bid.  I still don't think there is anyway to get rid of the lag all the way, there is always going to be some delay when playing over the internet.

@C64 Nostalgia and any other "purists"
   I have enjoyed your posts C64 Nos, and I respect that you have a different viewpoint from mine.  Maybe one of the links Blitzen supplied will lead you to something closer to the original.  But I am glad that I don't have to play on the original graphics, the retarded ai's, and crappy sound effects.  Plus even if it was identical it would not play the same due to the latency issues inherent to the internet.  For MULE to live on we need to have a player base ready and willing to play all the time.  Planet Mule has been relatively successful, but i did have to wait 4 and a half hours to start a game last night.  It seems like a no-brainer that we should be trying to make the game better than the original.  If the original was really that good why aren't people still making money off it.  I know this probably hasn't changed your mind, but there are already emulators that give you the original, so invite some friends over and start MULEing. :)

@data2008
    Great job again on all the work you've put into this game.  I still believe that once you fix the land selection process (Awarding plots based lowest position to highest position as long as the button was pressed in the pre-selection phase)  it will fix 98% of all issues regarding lag and host advantage.  The small issue of graphical lag in the land auction had very little affect on game play, and as i have mentioned any advantage actually gained could easily be countered.  I know you are trying to please as many as possible, but almost everyone hates the 1.3.1 change and it is pretty close to the original (original would have a timer equivalent of about 12 seconds instead of the 19. And everyone says 19 is way too short.)  Likewise, running up the value of land and then backing off was never a strategy in the original game. (original only let you run it up by about $600 and still back off without buying)  So while i respect Rhodan as a player, I don't understand his crusade to keep this in the game.  Also please continue to have auctions if a plot goes unsold (this was only suggested as a fix if you were going to keep running up plot price in the game)  This would have been the easiest and simplest change to fix the run up problem, but with the 1.3.0 change it is unnecessary, and it removes some of the most fun gambits from the game :(

Your facts about the originals are wrong.
I played both the the atari and C64 originals when they first came out and I have played them in the last 2 weeks via emulator to compare them to the pm and its changes. 
Everything I have posted is fact and could happen in the originals and should happen in PM with the needed adjustments due to the internet.
I don't understand your crusade to take this version away from the original when all the changes you so desire is being work on for PM2.

My idea is centered around compromise, keeping the playability and mechanics of the original with the speed of movement and price increases of PM1. You want to keep the longer timer because it gives that sense of play ,feel, direct competition with your opponents,  the playability of the game.  With a shorter timer you loose this. As another player so aptly put it, the excitement of the original land auction is gone in PM1.  Maintaining the timer length and excitement of higher bids but curbing the number of times this excitement abruptly ends with price blocking is the key.

So my idea doesn't negate the timer, you are still playing for 28 seconds against your opponent, which gives you time to think about the price you are willing to pay, the risk of making your opponent pay to much, getting stuck with a plot you paid to much for, etc. You are simply changing the range of the price. Which should be a range that can increase as players wealth increase. But doesn't sell land to cheap or to high except on those rare occasions when players have no money or to much of it.
I hope this better explains my idea.

I agree having the timer speed up when no one is moving (IE playing or competing) just shortens the game with no affect on play. But reducing the timer or speed while some one is moving does affect game play. If we have to compromise because of internet lag by all means make the timer constant for a full 28 seconds regardless if someone is moving or not.
We have to endure waiting thru the timer several times in a game anyway when players have no commodities or decide not to sell. So adding a few seconds to the games length at no sacrifice of game play would be something I think every one could live with in the game.

The above quote in bold best describes the effects of the land auction changes.
Do we want to reward the player who skillfully position himself to have more money for a land auction (which then forces players to counter this strategy) or remove this strategic depth from the game altogether by pricing land so low in auctions that everyone can bid regardless of how well they played the game? Then award the plot randomly or to the player in last?

Data2008 has hit the nail on the head. I have regained some confidence in your ability and knowledge of the original and how it affected game play to get this right despite the  few loud voices cheering for changes that takes us away from the original and its depth. 

I still don't understand what you are suggesting Rhodan.  I would be fine with the 1.3.0 system and putting in a $3 step instead of a $4 step.  But i think this would only make all the auctions take longer.  I think we all like the original timer and would like to see it come back.  So that it goes slower if people are running.  So if we have the original timer and just change the steps people are just going to have to run longer to get to the price they want to pay.  This is true until you reach "the limit" where the time/step ratio is such that a common situation consists of people having enough money and the maximum distance they can run up gets them within a range where they still want to buy land.  These are the "tie" situations which are hard to resolve in a fair way.

Data2008 said it right when he said "a limit only introduces randomness in who gets a plot if all players are within range to afford it".  I agree with that statement and my opinion is randomness is inferior to letting people bid what they want to bid.
 
So ideally we want a system that doesn't create "tie" situations.  This is the problem with having planet mule land auctions work like the original (which created a lot of these "tie" situations).

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are proposing? 

There will be 1.3.2 update today, which will match the timer with the max. running time of the c-64 original (assuming players continually move up when they had enough money until timer would run out to buy the plot).

We hope this gets us closer again to finding the right balance between bidding within a limited time while not making it mostly random mid-to-late game when everybody likely has more than enough money to bid for land.

We generally focus on revising things with the 1.3 series and take the time to listen to all sides, so we are ready to adjust any mechanic and fix bugs asap.

The feedback proves to be very helpful in the process, so thanks to anyone who does voice in their opinion!

NO you don't understand and I will attempt again in another post. But I do agree with your last two statements regarding randomness and ties

I still maintain that all auctions should have consistent behavior. Furthermore, adding complexity to an otherwise very simple and intuitive auction depiction breaks the the essence of M.U.L.E.

"The design of the auction, with its ticking time limit, the moving bars marking sell price and buy price, the up-and-down teasing behavior that either buyers or sellers could use--all made for intense interaction that tickled the deepest levels of human intuition," says renowned game designer Chris Crawford. "That was the greatest design stroke of M.U.L.E., and few modern designers appreciate its significance."

The land auction worked as follows in original.
Add 732 to start price to calculate selling price if noone stops.
Person in last always gets the plot if on the line when auction ends.

This did 2 things!   Helped last place or lower placed player to catch up.
And it kept the plot price from going stratospheric too quickly.

This critical point is missing from PM.  Currently, we play to get the most cash to get the next plot.
And most of us are willing to spend more than we should just to get out of first place.

Oh yeah, 1 more thing!
If player in last starts running at the bell and gets to the line and gets it, they can run it up to all their cash and HOLD it!  noone else could buy it unless last place chose to let it go.