Also @CC, as far as I know their is NO difference between the Tournament toons.

Well now you are just contradicting yourself,  3 posts ago you told me that because I was playing flapper (i.e. beginner toon) I got special treatment and now you say that there is no difference between the toons in tournament mode?  I dunno man It really doesn't seem that you know what you are talking about.

ha ha! come on man

beginner and expert races have advantages and disadvantages. all other races are equal. isn't this common sense?? why are you attacking these guys who are just trying to help you out? they know what they're talking about. be nice.

If I understood his post properly, he's saying he has his computer set to a low resolution to accomodate his eyesight. and at that resolution, M.U.L.E doesn't fit on the screen, so the right half of the screen is chopped off.

what about... wampodes 

I'm not sure what provoked this, but I hit "settings" and it looked like my game locked up. The settings window does not appear and the interface is unresponsive. After restarting MULE by quitting it forcibly with the task manager, I launch MULE again but the same thing happens.

On a hunch I hit "settings" and then Alt+F4 and this fixes the problem; then relaunching the Settings window results in ordinary behavior.

I am guessing there may be a problem where the settings window appears in an unusual space, because of my dual monitors. Maybe I launched the game in one monitor before; this time my window was on the right monitor, and I saw the strange behavior.

Well, you can at least eliminate the "host advantage" with dedicated servers. Obviously that's asking a lot for a free game.

wow really? was it that way on the commodore or is that new?

I'd like to propose, or support if already mentioned, a fix.  

If someone is raising land auction price to an absurd level to prevent other buyers, that player should be required to buy it at its lowest available inflated price if no others are interested.  In all other auctions, winner is the highest bidder and does not allow backing out.  This should be the way the highest bidder is decided in these situations where one is attempting blocking.

Stormdancer responded to that idea on page 2, there are some complications resulting from that approach. But, it's another option.

[Pock]

hmm it could be related, but it really seems like a bug to me, and i think it's independent of the lag issue.  i mean, after player A picks the plot, there's supposed to be like a 1-second delay, so unless you're seeing ping times in excess of 1000ms, lag alone shouldn't cause this to happen. but the bug is that the 1-second delay just isn't triggering sometimes when two players buzz in.

it's like, you're used to the rhythm of the cursor, you know, tick tick tick tick Pock!.... (pause) tick tick tick Pock!... (pause) tick Pock!... (pause) but then just one random turn, it does this instead: tick tick tick tick PockPock!.... (pause) tick tick... and two players get their land like, a split second apart, without any pause at all.

it's not just as simple as player A beating player B to the punch - which yeah is what you're talking about in that thread, and i think that's bad too - but the bigger issue is that after player A beats player B to the punch, player B is assigned a plot he didn't select. so he's penalized twice.

http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=15966 it just happened to me again in this game - it was during development #7, i got stuck with a crummy plot by accident because the land grant marker skipped ahead. There was very bad lag in this game, and I eventually got disconnected from the host.

http://www.planetmule.com/server/chats/chat_game_15858_user_9205.html it happened in this game yesterday, this time during development #3. maskdbandt got a plot he didn't want. This game didn't have any noticable lag.

http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=15884 it also happened in this game yesterday during development #2. i got a plot i didn't want. This game didn't have any noticable lag.

For more information about Asobrains ranking system, check the FAQs on their web site http://games.asobrain.com.  If you like Settlers of Catan, this is a great place to play it (they call it Xplorers).  If you've never played Settlers, I highly recommend you try it.  It's a really fantastic board game.

I'm quite familiar with Settlers, I think it's OK. I've played about two, three dozen games of it. I prefer my games without dice but i got nothin against settlers

[active]

2) Multiple Cursors exist (Top & Bottom -- One travels clockwise, the other counter clockwise) and you'd have to move your joystick up/down/left/right to select which one you want to be active.  When you hit your button to gain a plot you would select the plot under the active cursor only.

or a variation on that idea - the cursor moves by 3x3 blocks (it's a GIANT cursor) and, you press your button plus one of the nine directions on your joystick, to pick one of those nine plots. so if you want the upper-leftmost plot, you'd wait until the cursor appeared, and then press up + left + your button

logically, this would mean the board would logically grow to a 9x6 board, since that's a nice multiple of 3x3.

i think the "kazinga stampede" is my favorite although that could really destroy production, particularly if they somewhat target first place... 3 kazingas = -27 production? that's almost as bad as pirates!

the flood one seems very complicated. what's the difference between a "desert" and a "plains"?

I don't know what exact algorithm ELO uses, but I like what you're describing about it, Mole. I think 2nd place should receive a slight reward if four human players are playing, but receive a penalty if two human players are playing. i also think fourth place should get a greater penalty than third place. Does the ELO algorithm fit these criteria as well?

Additionally, I think dropout players should automatically record a loss, and replacement players (when they're supported) should not have their rank change - with an obvious exception where you're replacing yourself - then you can receive a fair ranking.

If you really wanted to shrink a game from 75 minutes to 60 minutes, you could just increase the speed of everything by 20%... Obviously, this wouldn't be in the spirit of recreating the original M.U.L.E experience - but I don't think it's completely absurd. Characters would run faster, goods would be traded faster, the results screen would pop up faster - a good ATARI/C64 emulator will let you try this yourself already, if you want to see if it's any fun.

Some parts (like the Land Grant) might be too fast at 150%, while some parts (like Land Auctions) might actually be able be sped up even further. Maybe they could tweak it, keeping the important parts slow and speeding up the other parts, so you can get a faster game in. And then, just have "Fast Play" as an option, without fundamentally changing M.U.L.E

I've started occasionally taking notes on assays for online play; does anybody regard this as cheating? I kind of assumed everyone was doing it.

I used to play Scrabble and similar games online; there was a negative stigma against players who used dictionaries or anagram programs. I could imagine M.U.L.E having a similar stigma for excessive note taking. Or worse - if someone made a program which monitored your M.U.L.E game, and told you what food/energy/smithore prices would be before the auction occurred. I mean, there's obviously a line to be crossed, when it comes to taking notes or using programs that improve your game - i think the best bet is to know who you're playing with, and know where they draw the line.