Planet M.U.L.E.

Well MULE II is what is says....a biiiiiiiiiig heaping pile of #2.  It sucks.  Bring back Mule I.  

simply agree

Don't worry, PM1 is here to stay!
This is your chance to help us with PM2, providing critical feedback that we will listen to and evaluate.

I appreciate your attempts but you are making the game something it is not. its like trying to change chess by adding a few players and allowing them to go all at once.  Why bother.  maybe just make mule like it was originally.

As I am an avid chessplayer, did you do know that Chess evolved quite a bit over time?

Of course it had many origins, which varied in pieces and size of the board, etc. but even if you only focus on the "classic" chess we know today and neglect variants like Chinese Chess, etc., it didn't start out right away.

Examples:
Pawns could only move 1 field forward in the beginning.
The bishop could only move 2 fields.
The queen was the weakest piece, hence pawns couldnt be turned into something else when reaching the enemy line, which makes for a total different strategy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess#History

Most changes were then introduced to make the game faster and more exciting.

So M.U.L.E. DOES suffer from being slow paced from a modern perspective (i believe the pieces went so slow in auctions because of limitations of the machines back then handling 4 player simultanously), while still being a good balance from what was technically possible.

PM2 is an attempt to tinker with how certain parts could evolve, while preserving the original idea, just like chess evolved, by adding bonusses to species to make them stronger or more varied, etc.

Now that I have become used to the basic movement, store layout etc., I really like Mule 2 for the game.  It just needs to be more stable, which is the goal of beta testing.

Once table, then tweaks in game-play could be made, but I think the core of it is very good.

Things I like:

The West advantage has been taken away by the store layout, making whole map more equal.
The race advantages are fun - should be more races.
Competing for wampus and making wampus hard to get, instead of something guaranteed if you have enough time, is fun.
Going at same time, in two groups, is fun and puts pressure on you when racing to complete plots, since if you come out of store at same time, you get confused at first.
End of round bad things able to happen to rank 2 player too is fun.

If Mule 2 were stable, I would prefer it to Mule 1.  Mule 1 would still be fun but more predictable and boring in comparison in my opinion.

I think that most of the changes are welcome, although some points are perhaps unbalanced and need tweaking.

Consider the race that not only needs no food, but can hold onto it without any spoilage might need to be adjusted as they have not only a power to avoid food but can store mass amounts of it without disadvantage.  The rest of the races seem interesting without being overpowering in my opinion.

The AI needs an upgrade in that sometimes they don't sell resources unless the prices are maxed out.  Other times they miss selecting plots.

The land selection might need to be adjusted as it can get choppy with multiple people.

I also agree the "West Advantage" being gone is a nice thing.
I also noticed the other day that the switching between buy and sell stops before the 3, 2, 1 ding... Be able to change until the bell would be nice.