2) Talking down to other players for any reason

That's why I mostly play in fullscreen with the chat window off.

'kay, just saw it.

I have this idea for the land grant phase where players don't select their plot by a cursor moving across the land but by running/racing for it. For this all players start on the map at one spot (center of the store or the upper left corner) and have a certain time to run to a plot and claim it for them by hitting the button. The movement mechanics are the same as during the development phase. A land is exactly claimed like a MULE is deployed.

I think this would add the auction excitement, where players need to move their character and interact with others to accomplish a certain goal, to the land grant phase. Also it adds the time constraint of the development phase to the land grant phase.

Plus it adds a real-life element to the game since in the old west you had to race against others for a certain plot and claim it by sticking your flag into the land.

Thx!

After the 10th month my PMULE crashed with a keyboard initialization error (Messagebox and then the program was closed). I use windows port. Unfortunatly I have no screenshot of the keyboard error message.

The game:
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=16178

Pretty frustrating, since I was first in the game and now it's counted as abandoned. :-/

BTW: I just looked for a log file and found one in the data folder. But since I already restartet the game the log of crash seems to be deleted.

I think the High-Score table should be reset/grouped for each version of PMULE which changes the gameplay score related (like with the smithore/crystite spoilage of version 1.2). Otherwise it is not fair for new players which maybe cannot reach score values players got while playing older versions of PMULE.

If a reset is too harsh try to group the scores for each version(s) with a similar scoring so the table does reflect always the skill of players playing under the same condition.

First of all thanks for taking the time and clear things up.

In version 1.2.0 you can hold your button pressed during the grace period to ensure you're first on the next plot. We're thinking of changing this in future versions so you must press your button after the marker has moved to award fast players with itchy trigger fingers.

But don't forget when someone got a plot and the marker moves to the next one. AFAIK in the original game you could hold your fire to claim the next plot while the marker still was on the plot the other player got. So if you're changing the behaviour there maybe you need to make a difference between taken and not taken plots.

As suggested in some discussions it's possible to wait for commands from all players and advance the game more synchronously. You can make all players see the exact same scenario. It can be done in many different ways and I've read some colorful suggestions in the forum.

The drawbacks of such network models are the same though. The game can halt for all players and wait for more commands, the game can slow down, and there can be a delay between pressing a button and something happening on screen.

We think that most players would find it frustrating to press a button and not immediately move on screen. The price you pay for complete fairness is probably not worth it. So instead we've chosen to add some grace time to certain events, trying to make the game fair enough to users on slow connections.

Well, why not make it optional: Each player can decide if his movements should be client side predicted or should always reflect his "real" position on the server (and make the first one the default state). So players can decide by themselves if they put accuracy above "frustration".

Original M.U.L.E. manual, containing tipps by Dan Bunten, Alan Watson, Jim Rushing and Bill Bunten:
http://muttoo.on.ca/mulemanual/

Post here nice findings around M.U.L.E. in teh interwebs.

My first post: A review/gameplay tutorial about the original M.U.L.E., posted on YouTube, by The Gameshelf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uHUckK765I

Me agrees too: The game needs some logic for ping lag compensation or ping lag transparency. Other online multiplayer games have these issues too and implement such logic to compensate the usual ping lag for internet games.

In the case of MULE I suggest:

1. The time a player needed to claim a plot should be calculated client side. When the player hits the button not only the button hit should be transfered to the server but also the time he needed to react to the plot marking. The server collects these times and chooses the right winner. How long a player took should not be calculated server side. This also has the plus that the claim marker could move at the original speed of M.U.L.E. and not slowed down like right now.

2. For auctions each player should always see the situation the server sees, not a mixture of the client and server like it is right now. So every player will see the ping lag in its actions (if he moves up, the player figure will start to move up depending on the ping lag because the client only shows it when the server transfers the clients current position on the server back to the client). Currently a player has to calculate the ping lag into his action in his mind, because the game does not show him how the ping lag affects his position. It may look not very good to the player but it makes the lag transparent so every player can change his actions since he knows how big the delay is. I had several times the problem that I sold or bought one or two units more than intended because my position showed by the client did not actually reflect my position on the server (or did not get a plot in an auction although the client showed me in head position, but I wasn't on the server).

3. The server list should always show the ping, so players can decide before the connection, if the ping lag is bearable. Maybe even allow a serversetting that only allows clients with low ping (100 and under) to connect.

Also player dkovar and kevlar said they had seen this happen in another game they played.  I don't know which game it was, but a review of recently abandoned games may show game logs with similar behavior.

Yea, I was on it too:
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=14290

We need a Subtrade skin, since that Amiga MULE clone looked very nice:

But, what if everyone gets back sooner and wants to continue (even in the original 5 minutes?)

I already suggested a solution for this in my posting.

There are still games developed for 8 bit platforms like Atari or C64, but they are all mostly freeware.

Here is a list of downloadable freeware C64 games:
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B%5D=game&platform%5B%5D=Commodore+64

For example: Amiga Pinball Dreams conversion


And here of Atari:
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B%5D=game&platform%5B%5D=Atari+XL%2FXE

For example: Yoomp!

Hi!

I own an USB-Competition-Pro. Unfortunatly right now you can only play Planet M.U.L.E. by using the keyboard. BUT:

With the following software you can map each state of the USB joystick with a key. With that you can already play Planet M.U.L.E. with your joystick:

http://www.deinmeister.de/jct_e.htm

JoystickCursorTool is a small utility simulating keyboard keys using a joystick. It can be used for keyboardless navigation in browsers and file managers, playing games without native joystick support, using the joystick port for electronic interfaces without needing to write a joystick driver as well as other situations where only a small subset of the keyboard is typically used.