The V.1.3.0 Land Auction Change made me think more critically

[veridia]

I would love to see a near exact copy of the original myself. The old land auction system was good IMO. It didn't need changing.

There's an old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[MuleyMan]

The original game on Atari had to be changed because of lag. A land auction starts at , lets say, 1000.
Add 732 and you know how high plot will sell for if noone stops and player in last would get it for 1732.
If online version was the same way, there would be real problems with player in last getting a plot if his ping was not as good as the others. So, it had to be changed.  PM version has higher average total scores on games so the way land auctions currently work allows for more variety yet still stays fairly close to original.
The recent change to land auctions solves the jacking price beyond all hope problem but still has the wild flavor we desire.
Other bugs can and should be fixed to make it like the original. Adding 1 extra crystite to the game is a nice addition.  Having food become almost worthless on rd 12 is a bug.  Trying to put a smithore in the river does NOT let mule run away and gives you a warning beep.  This helps new players mostly.

The original Atari version was written and tested by true lovers of the game Mule.
Now we have a close replica of the original done by true Mule lovers once again.
The time and effort put into the game without pay must be appreciated and acknowledged by us all here.
So many of us have wanted this game for years to be redone.
The Turborilla team listens to us, makes fixes when necessary, are working on a NEW version.
They need testers and lots of feedback on how to make the new game even better than the original.

I cannot thank you enough for making this game for us and continuing support.

[Rhodan]

In the original game, being in last helped you win every auction... EXCEPT the land auctions.  It was always random who would be considered at the line first for land.  Species had no effect either.

I am pretty darn sure if the timer ran out with equal bids the lower ranked player won the auction.
Guess I will whip out the emulator and test it.

I finally broke out the atari emulator and tested the original mule.
The first player to the auction line would flash. As long as you were flashing you would win the the bid even if tied. Also the bottom starting bid would rise as the price went up allowing a player to back out of a bid. I am still testing to see how the programming picked who would flash if all 4 players reach the bid line first.  Regardless, this method wouldn't work in planetmule's  version due to internet lag. So I still suggest last player wins ties when that situation arises.

After further testing I am confident the atari version randomly picked who would flash if all players reach the bid line at the same time.
Flashing would be great to have in planetmule's version but because of the inherent lag and host advantages the only way we could have this is if the lowest rank player flashes until he his out bidded then the next rank player and so on until the top bid wins. Maybe if we had it this way it would over come the current problem with lag not graphically representing who is top bid. Right now because of lag there is a delay in receiving your opponents changes so you still appear ahead of him even though he is outbidding you.
A player who is flashing wouldn't stop flashing regardless of his graphical position in front or behind other players until all players received each others bids and the game determined the highest bid and updated the players.
Can this be done? Or is the this like the question which came first the chicken or the egg?

[leahcim99]

The egg

[Blitzen]

My reply from our other thread on this,

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Simpler solution?  How about you assume everyone is going to start running up to buy on a land auction it wouldn't be the end of the world would it?  Until they press down they are going up, in "sync" making the first one there random.

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