Planet M.U.L.E.

So I wanted to start a thread where we can focus on the current game and how it can be made to play faster.

Phases

Land Grant

Having the cursor scroll across every land until everyone gets a plot or someone forgets, takes time.  While this system does speed up as the game goes on, increasing the map/grid size to accommodate a 5th player will slow it back down.  

I'd personal love to see a new system for Land Grant.  

Ideas others have suggested:

-Players have x time and start off near the store.  All players simultaneously run out to pick which land they want. 
While this is not necessarily 100% faster, it does save the cursor from having to visit every location and lets players beeline to the locations they want.

Development

Make this phase real time, with all players going simultaneously.  Might need to have some UI support maybe an player event box that shows what each players action is, so you can keep up/track what others are doing.

-Would you need to display each players personal time (food timer)?  I suspect you'd want to show your own time predominantly while in a smaller display show the other players.
-Timer music/sound of running out of time would need to be adjusted to just play for your own time, unless your time was already out?
-If you go into the Store, you would no longer be able to see other players unless they are also in the store.
-I'd suggest players having no collision so they can just walk right through each other.
-Hot Seat play would no longer be an option but I think the savings in time is worth this loss (not to mention in this modern age more and more people each own a computer/lap top etc).
-The phase would end when all players have entered the Pub or all players time has run out.

Production

Simply speeding up the time that this phase takes so that it's quicker, I think would be a good thing.

Auction

Simply speeding up when an auction is over and/or when there are no sellers the message should be displayed for a shorter amount of time.

Summary

-Maybe the summary should not come up every round?  Maybe it should only be displayed every 2 or 3 rounds?  
-Remove the walking on to the screen and just show everyone at the final destination?  
-Always show the summary on the last round of course.

Land Grant and Development is described _exactly_ how we tested them!  :)
We even made the other players sprites half transparent as to make it not too confusing if they occupied the same spaces in the city due to no collusion.

I'm just saying, these two things alone were somehow perceived inferior to the original modes, although they save time. The game loses somewhat a great deal of strategic value in both phases due to the changes.

We only began to see this when we tested those variants out, as on paper the mentioned alterations seem equal and also shorter gametime. But then you begin to think about why the Ozark team might not have chosen that land _rush_ style as it would have fitted so natural in there...

The decision to keep it more structured (slot machine, development in sequence) help the strategic value by keeping it more turn-based as in boardgames...

So I'd like to think if the proposed ideas can be taken further to include the auctions also and come up with a whole, working RTS experience again....

I due recognize the proposed idea might not be superior to the current method. The current method adds tension as you wait for the plot you want to be selected all the while hoping that the plot you have your eye one is not the same one as an opponent.

But for a time efficiency stand point the current system is slow, and will get slower with a larger space.  I think it's an area that could potentially be improved to be faster.  

I'll see if I can think of other ways for it to be handled.  


I can see this phase being confusing with everyone going at the same time.  It would be hard to see what others are doing which is a pretty large part of the game currently.  But this is the phase that takes the largest amount of time, hence would benefit at speeding the game up the most if an implementation could be found that was as fun or better than the original.

Would it be any faster if everyone did there turn simultaneously but you'd only see yourself.  Once everyone had done their turn a recording of each players actions plays out, one after each other but at a faster speed.  This would make each development phase faster but essentially play out in the same way.


Personally I have a really hard time wrapping my brain around how this would work (as in the other thread by Intergalactic Mole)

I've been thinking about this topic... aside from fixing broken time mechanics (like no point at all even going to auction where there are no sellers, and no goods to be bought), skipping production 12, making it so you can skip animations with button click (like when they all walk in at the end of each round, or when there is a "good/bad" message that after you've seen them a dozen times, you don't really care that you are +50 or -300 money, you click to pass them.  Especially on AI events where you don't care what happens to them.

So, fix the broken things, but why change the overall play?  It's part of what makes this game so good, and so interesting.  No one tried to make chess faster (ok, maybe with time clock, an blitz chess, but honestly, who complains that it takes an hour to play a good game of chess???)  MULE is the same.  You sit down to play when you KNOW you have an hour to play it.  I think part of the greed of wanting a faster game now only comes from those trying to reach the #1 slot, and when you are 20 games behind, that represents minimum 20 hours of play to catch them... oh well.  Revamp the top score system then.  But aside from fixing the obvious, don't muck with the mechanics.  (I feel).
-S

Well said Mega Byte. I agree.  Of course, we are talking about a prototype, or a sequel to the original game.  We can't do this without adding more elements to the game.  And by doing that, in and of itself, it's going to make the game take even longer.  I think right now the minimum amount of time it takes to play a 4 player game of the original MULE is 90 minutes.  Can you imagine if the game took 2+ hours?   Not sure I'd ever have the time to play.

Most board games I play fall into two catagories:

A) Last from 10-30min.  These are typically much more casual games.  They are easier to learn but overall have less depth.

B) Last 1 hour to 3 hours.  These are typically either hybrid (casual/hardcore) or just plan more hardcore.

Overall I think less people have time to play longer games.  Less people have the patience to sit down and play a game that could last hours.

So overall a way to broaden the market of MULE and make it more accessible to more people would most likely reduce game time.

Granted, I personally think it's going to be difficult to reduce it too much without drastically changing the game and doing so will risk the game losing much of it's flavor, no longer being MULE.

-Jara

PS: But it's a challenge.  Can it be done?  Can you capture the essence of in a faster/smaller package?

PS: Personally I think we'll be lucky to reduce the play time down to 1h 30m after adding new features (5th player, larger map, new commodity). 

I would love to start out with being able to button push to skip/speed up and basically do many of the things Mega Byte mentioned.

This would not only help us speed up a newer version but also help speed up the *classic* version.

The challenge:

5 player/ 5 commodities / larger map = 60 minutes !  :)

Ideas how to achieve it without changing the core of mule:

Development:

Group players in 3 leaders and 2 trailers and make those groups play simulanously development:
One group still sees what the other is doing.
This would cut current game development time in half, despite adding a fifth player and while still be able to preserve the crucial part to see whats going on.

Auction:

The ssence of auction is bidding by moving up and down.

So the idea is to see if auction can even further be speed up and not slowed down (as many suggest):
Achieve this by making the movement of players some sort of discrete steps like Space Invaders.

We have $35 difference from shop sell to shop buy price, we could make 7 concrete $5 steps that the players can occupy... it may take some time to get used to pressing the button 7 times gets you to the top, but you can plan exactly for the price before the auction starts, lets say you want to bid $50, then you press up 4 times up (first to reach $35 from store, then 40,45,50).

Auction time can be reduced by making it frenzy... i know it will be some action hardcore for newbies, but it can be mastered pretty acurate, just like old arcade games like pacman, that seem very hard at first, but when you understand and get a feel, you can become an expert, because its very predictable...

These two options would leave all other elements mostly intact, but squeeze the essence from mule into a compressed package... and im not saying it will work before we have tested it and eventually it will be complete desaster  ;D

I'd be hesitant to go this route.  MULE to me is all about the competition and individual achievements.  All of a sudden I'm being forced to be on a team?  Feels out of character to me.

This is not "a team", it's the leading players get to compete in their group and the trailing players in another...

The three leaders have to go first and compete on not having all informations what the others may do, as the two trailing players can watch the outcome and adjust their gameplay accordingly.

So of course its the same competition as usual within a group... it's comparable the same concept that already is in the original by making the two trailing players receiving good events and the two leading players bad events... now taken a step further to relate to development...

Or other put: You wouldn't argue by your own suggestion that putting all 4 players into a "group" to make them play development all at once would make them a team?

To be honest, I don't think this is really a very good idea.  Really changes the dynamic of MULE.  I don't see how this is really much different and helpful to the bottom 2, when already, the order is first to last, so last player sees what top players are doing.  Except in the case of MULE shortage, when lowest goes first, which is quite frankly, really useful (especially when you're in last, and you have enough money to let the remaining MULES go).  I'm not very keen on this idea.
-S

@MegaByte:
So then you are also (even more?) against the idea of all players play development at once (as one group) to reduce game time?

Don't forget, on top of the time it takes to play a game, there is also a huge difference between playing a board game in person with some of your friends and playing an online game with some random people on the internet.  My friends sitting at the table will be much more accepting to stopping what they are doing so we can all take a break, if we know it's going to be a long game.  Random internet opponents are usually much less forgiving.

Ah, I think I miss understood your grouping for "They'll work as a team".  I now see what you're saying, basically instead of having one development phase for each player you break it down to two (one for the leading 3, one for the trailing 2).

Hum, I guess this does let the trailing two see what the leaders are doing so they can act accordingly.  I'm assuming if mules were low in supply it would be reversed?  (not sure with all the RTS factors).

Interesting...

Yep, sorry for not being clearer.

The 3 player could also adjust to what was built in the second development of the trailers.
Wampus hunting would become competetive.

It cuts development time in half while it preserves some of the strategy and adds some competition or new playmechanics to the development... maybe the first to go in the pub earns even more than the second or last?

@data2008
    Well, all players going at the same time only works if the store in the center (or wherever) is static on the screen.  (i.e. it doesn't "zoom in" when you enter it).  If its big enough (and there is heaps of screen space for this under current model) then everyone could go at the same time, as long as:
   1) No collision.  (or players could interrupt others trying to accomplish things, and I think that is a annoying, and not fun).
   2) How to deal with MULE shortage, with last place players.
   3) Will Wampus catching continue?  How will that work when you can only catch it one player per turn?  Kind of problematic.  I love the idea of a totally new game, but there are certain things I'd like to see remain.
-S

You could have it still zoom in on the store, it would mean that while *you* are there you personally would not be able to see what's happening outside.  I.E. your screen is what you personally see, while other players would see different things (no hot seat support).

1) I agree, collision would be bad.
2) Good question, a tough problem of the RTS mode.
3) I'd imagine he'd be set on a timer so that once caught he won't show up again until X time has passed.  It would be much harder for each player to catch them.  Or you could make it so that the last player that caught you can't catch you again (by always running away from that player).