[starting]

I have read elsewhere on the forums where some games ended up with people starting with ridiculous amounts of money (like 500,000) and getting ridiculous high scores because of it.  So, obviously, there's something that is being done, somewhere.  But randomly accusing someone of cheating is stupid.

I think reinstating the different modes after Tournament mode is finished/perfected may help the crystite/smithore debate, and the game length debate.  People who want smithore to be important can play a Standard game, people who prefer crystite can play a Tournament game.  And people who want a short game instead of playing for an hour or two can play a Beginner game.

Just a thought.

I tend to side with the people who are stating the speed of price changes is what is primarily to blame for the current notion that one can auc-block. If that were to change, we'd see that less often.

Scroll back up Zach and you'll see that I am the one that suggested that the speed is the problem. And I agree, if that were to change back to the original speed, we would see it less often because the price wouldn't be so inflated and the richest person would usually just buy the plot.  My ONLY argument here is that the game mechanic itself is not broken, just the speed at which it works in Planet MULE. 

Take a step back and think about this a little harder; in the original game, players with less money and who didn't even have any intentions of buying the plot would jack up the price for the rich player who wants it.  Do you consider that unfair?  Technically this is what is still happening, except its going beyond a reasonable price for the richest player and so he decides just to back out.  If the poor players want a chance at the plot, they shouldnt be jacking up the price so high.  So this screwing each other over is not just limited to the richest player here.  It takes 2 to tango.

I understand the complaints and arguments everyone has made.  I just simply disagree and think the original game works fine.

I have to say that the speed is most of the issue.  Just from the few training games I played while testing, it seems to move something like 3-4 times faster than the original in auctions.  If the auction march speed (but not the timer itself) were slowed down to 1/4 its current speed, I think at least a few of the problems we are seeing today would disappear.  And that goes for all auctions, not just land auctions.

As I understand, the creator did not like this mechanism, and thus ultimately stopped working on the game, because of the pressure to put guns/etc in.  Just something to think about.

The game is actually set up to allow skinning without replacing data.jar.  If you look in the install directory, there's a sub-directory called "skins."  Any skin can be placed in there in its own folder.  But it only includes images based on the "default" skin, sadly.

I do wish that we had a bit more information on skinning.  And that more images were in the actual "skin" directory.

There is very little information on skinning the game, but I've done a little work toward it and posted my brief efforts at this post:  http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=331.0

Yes, this, and the Buntenol post are both very interesting ideas.

One of the things you'd want to think of - what areas would be best for plants?  I'd say that the river and mountains are not conducive for plants, because of just how much area is needed.  The mountains and river would make the plant discontiguous, and thus make it much less efficient.  Plus the river would make the area smaller.  Desert or plains would provide the best production.

As for possibilities in combining this and Buntenol - maybe the factories use so much energy that they can only run off Buntenol.  The more they have, the more they can produce.

I'm just throwing out vague ideas, I haven't tried to strategize this at all.

I have no idea, what I see is an attachment at the bottom of my first post called "screenshot.png."  And it has been viewed 29 times as of this post.

Well, it's a start.  Makes me wish that more of the game could be easily skinned with the "theme pack" that I have seen.  Basically, I found the images inside the data.jar file, inside the "skins" directory.  Though it looks like it may be using an old images directory for part of it the game itself, which, at this time, doesn't appear to be skinnable.  I just modified those and dumped them into the regular "skins" directory in a new folder.

Unfortunately, that's part of the problem with doing this - the borders and the rest of the game really don't match up with with the theme.  It'd be a lot of fun if the entire game was more easily skinnable, so if someone wanted to, they could give a whole new look and feel.  But the dry, desert look currently remains.

I'd have to wait on answers from higher-up before I could release something.

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone else had tried skinning the game yet.  I decided to try it myself, modifying the original files for my own use.  And in doing so, I found some interesting issues.  I'm attaching a screenshot for feedback and also for noting one of the issues.

I know the game has a look and feel that corresponds with a planet with less water, but I wanted something a bit more lush.  This is what I came up with in a quick bit of editing.

I was just curious if anyone had already started creating skins for the game, with different graphics for mountains, plains, deserts, the town, etc.  It's not too hard to find the data associated with it to modify the originals, and I'm wondering what others could come up with.

*edit*
I didn't notice the graphics section earlier, so I'm going to move to that area instead.

This is how it worked originally - if the store was knocked off the buy screen, it would not be available for the rest of that particular auction.  This introduces many elements of strategy, including thinking about just how much you have vs. what you think you can get from the other players.  And if you think about it, what is better... 4 units for a grand total of 440 credits with some spoilage (and thus extra for you for next turn), or 11 units for only 165 credits without spoilage?

I grew up with the C-64 version.  I know I watched Dad play it a couple of times when I was VERY young, as I have a very dim remembrance of causing somebody (I think him) to lose a mule by pressing a button on a joystick at the wrong time and him being angry about it, heh.  Unless that was an odd dream or something.  But yes, probably late mid-to-late 80s here.