I've been away from the game lately, but I believe a plot of land still counts as 500 towards your total score.  Whatever it is currently I feel that it is far too low, the value of a plot of land should be at least 1000.  I don't believe in valuing each plot individually (though it would make sense) but the base score effect should be a bigger impact than just 500.  The number of plots you own has a HUGE effect to how well you can do.  Keep in mind the value should have nothing to do with how much you paid for it. 

One possible solution is to make the events TOTALLY Random...good and bad events can happen to anyone regardless of position. Just because you are NOT in first does not meen you should ALWAS get bad news...and conversely just because you are at the bottom of the pack does not mean you should get good news.

I disagree, I think the events should be left as is, it allows for a more competitive game.  Why kick the last place player down even further?  I realize sandbagging at the start to get good news is a common strategy, but that itself is a risk cause you might never catch up.
 

Everybody wants this changed and that changed. Everybody has this idea and that idea. Your NEVER going to please EVERYBODY! The only change that it looks like EVERYBODY wants is to the auction system. Tweek that and leave the rest alone since there is no clear cut complaint from the masses other than the auctions.

This is where you can  have certain options/variants to turn on/off, then people can decide how they want to play it, or if they want to play with certain ideas/variants.  I would like to see a varying degree of difficulty for AI, though I'm not sure how easy that is to accomplish.

The original MULE wasnt perfect!

Whatchu talking bout Willis?

I think they should allow for hot seat, and a simple up and down movement for the auctions/plot selection.  Of course any game played via hot seat would be considered training, you shouldn't even need the lobby.

I remember squeezing around a C64 to play this game.  I agree with your social argument too.  I play lots of boardgames both online and in person, and you lose out on a lot of interaction when it's online.

Latency, a synonym for delay , is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another.  Basically even if they did blink you can only see your perspective when the reality is affected by the latency, which is why the host has a huge advantage in this game.

**Lots of good stuff**

This isn't the praise/kudos area, so I can't really say anything else.

Except maybe... you need more testers?

For multimode, its time to kill pause.  Holding your wee is part of game strategy.  Not even at the end of the round, show must go on!!!!  Games are pushing 75 minutes easy, c'mon, we need to get that under 60.

As great of a game as MULE is there are still things in this world that are more important.  With my experience playing there have been a few occasions where someone needs to go AFK (away from keyboard) for a bit, and most if not all are understanding.  I do know that it's open to abuse, and thankfully I haven't seen it abused in the games I've been in.

As far as skimming the time down I do have a few suggestions.  Being able to skip over your own news, or AI news, or skip the AI turn completely (and by skip I mean not having to watch it, it still happens)  Less time in land auctions, also skipping the crystite round completely if nobody has any.  Beyond those suggestions I can't see speeding the game up anymore, if you don't have 90mins to play then don't play, or play a training game with less rounds.  MULE can't be rushed, it shouldn't be rushed, it should be savoured... Mmmmm

It's like he doesn't even enjoy playing it either he's just ranking up.  I can just imagine why it was so laggy...  Does he actually kick people or just bore them out of the games?  I'd like to see something done about this type of behaviour, this type of player ruins this game

It really depends on WHY they quit.  If something happened IRL (in real life), then I can understand that you do what needs to be done and the game comes 2nd.  Another forgivable reason was just last night for me when a person  who didn't know how to play joined and ended  up quitting on the 2nd or 3rd round.  I think the fairest way is to post on the forum, and then they have opportunity to defend themselves.  Also not a bad idea to just avoid playing games with such a person.

I play a lot on BSW http://www.brettspielwelt.de/?nation=en which is simply means "Boardgame World" in german.  It's a cardinal sin there to quit the game before it comes to completion so I've gotten used to playing games till the end. 

This is suppose to be as close as possible to classic mule. A radical change to land auction in the new version would be good but the current game should be changed to match the old. Have land auctions end when a plot doesnt sell. Also adjust the rate of speed of bidding to be more in line with the old game

If the land auction was like classic MULE this thread wouldn't exist.  Less time, and perhaps increasing by 1s as opposed to 4s would help slow it down a bit, and less time. I do kinda like the fact that even if a plot doesn't sell it doesn't mean the end, it adds a bit of risk to a player if they have a big money advantage, it could pay off, or it can backfire, it discourages others from strapping themselves for cash. 

They should be #1 and #2. Just by volume of games played! Everytime i log on to play those 2 are on there! Dont they have jobs or lives? There needs to be a better rankings system in place! Not just being the king by pure volume of WINS

I'm not sure, but I'm jealous... lol.  I've played a lot of games with Rhodan, and I have a pretty good win % against him.  I've only played 2 games with Brad, and am 50% I think.  They're very worthy opponents, but I agree in the sense that I will never reach that rank I just don't play that often.  Would help if I could host.  I keep hoping to be one of the weekly winners, but I can't match the volume of some of these players... ;-)

I enjoy the games I do get to play and finish even if I don't win.

Unfortunately, they don't make joysticks with great precision like they did in the old days. I was rather
The trouble was, sometimes the wampus didn't show up, or moved constantly from mountain to mountain... And you had to catch him while he was on the mountain. (i.e., you had to be standing next to the mountain waiting for him to reappear - assuming you are lucky that he doesn't move to another mountain)

Yeah you had to stay a certain distance away or else he'd just move on you.

The abandon is very misleading....I host a lot of games and if there are issues early (ie: network time out) I offer the players a choice if they wish to restart...if they do, I close the host game and get an abandon yet fortunately they do not...therefore hosts who are nice enough to restart get a small black mark.

Ultimately, the host has to decide how they want to play it...fair or not.

Hopefully, the unethical ones learn a lesson when no one will play them.

A host should NOT quit unless agreed by all and if there are network connection issues that cause the other players to drop, they should terminate game immediately.

With luck, the new server based game will eliminate the problem of unethical hosts and we the players can deal with the quitters by not playing games with them

Agreed.  You must be playing a slow game too cause it would seem you posted this while playing... lol

KIE-5834 (66.73)   Tournament   Playing   4 of 12   Rhodan, leahcim99, C64, thorin11

Does this mean its a good thing to have a high abandoned rate??

We are talking about "Ethics" in this thread. Ethics and being the supreme champion contradict. Same applies in real world: Backstab your rival or fairplay? Exploiting the hunger's wallet or selling cheap? Win an easy game VS the bots or keep the burden of an abandoned game? It's everyone's decision, but the "ethical way" would be aborting and starting again. (In my opinion.)

The problem is an abandoned game is an abandoned game.  There isn't a difference between a consensual abandoned game, or a "I'm losing, so I'm just gonna bail" game.  I know if someone joins a game with a high amount of abandoned games I'll be wary of them leaving my game before the end.  I myself join a game of MULE to play it through, and unless it's really early on I'd rather play it out.

I would like to be able to (re)join/watch a game in progress, or have a way to end a game by consensus without it going to the abandoned column.  I believe I have 3 abandoned games, 2 I was kicked by a bad host, and 1 was leave on consensus to restart.  I wish you would be allowed to rejoin a game where you lost your connection cause let's face it sometimes it happens.

Ethics and MULE can't really go hand in hand, cause MULE is a very cutthroat game that's why people love it.  As is with most really good games... ;-)