1.3.1 auction feedback

[Rogue Cat]

Well, you ask for comments and suggestions, so here it goes mine. I haven't tried the new version yet. It's not a common suggestion nowadays, but I'll say it anyway.

I know it is not easy improving your software and making changes whenever it's needed but, please, I have to spend 2 hours to download every new version of MULE. I don't mind if it is a major update, but not for just a little change or two. It is really annoying having to download 37mb with my epic slow connection, (2 hours) specially when it is just to change a single thing.

Please, try to keep all updates for a single time or, if possible (no idea about how Java works exactly), try to make "patches" to avoid downloading the whole game again everytime a new version is released. Slow connections can be a problem sometimes.


* EDITED: Removing unneeded text to make the post shorter.

[piete]

I don't mind if it is a major update, but not for just a little change or two. It is really annoying having to download 37mb with my epic slow connection, (2 hours) specially when it is just to change a single thing.

I have an epically slow connection, too, but updating an earlier version seems to do it with "deltas". My last two updates have been really fast.

Since this thread is about the auction, I think it is a bit too fast, too. But at least the auction ends now when plot is not sold, which pleases us who still play tennis with wooden rackets.

[Rhodan]

Please make the timer speed consistent for all the auctions.

Reversing the timer speed for the land auctions throws you off when you are use to the slow when you move and fast when you stand still that it use to be.
This makes sense if you are in direct combat with your opponents(bidding war) slowing the timer down while bidding gives you that sense you are doing something, that you are playing' that you are trying to best your opponents. That is why I stated and several others agreed with me DONT MESS WITH THE TIMER!

Change the money steps to achieve smaller bid amounts before the timer runs out.
I really think 2 or 3 dollar increases instead of the 4 will be the sweet spot. It shouldn't under value land or allow others to constantly price it to high. 

Also, please restore the minimum bid line so we know when we have removed ourselves from the bid.

Please don't try and make the game shorter at the cost of game play or balance.

[data2008]

I played the C-64 version with focus on land auctions, and here is my in detail analysis:

- The land auction has a $4-step value.
- The auction timer slows down while players move, but since everybody naturally moves from start to finish, it equals a slow timer running at constant speed for exactly 28 seconds max.
- During that 28 seconds, one can raise the price exactly from $160-$940 (first auction), meaning a maximum increase for each auction of $780.

These are the basic values of the original C-64 auction.

So now we have two conflicting messages regarding current auction:

We would like to keep the timer constant, as if we make it variable to slow and speed up again, it is one more component that introduces more unreliability or out of sync issues with regards to lag, as the counter then varies also for each player and tends to get faster out of sync.

Thats the reason we would prefer to have the land auction as a constant timer.

I wouldn't argue to make all auctions consistent, as land auction is already somewhat a bit different, as there is no seller or interaction for players, but a strict competetion for top price.

The faster running timer in the original can be related to ONLY speed up gameplay if no one would like to buy or sell something, so players dont get bored with enduring a full timer when nothing happens, it otherwise does not have any other direct functionality.

So if we assume in land auction, we can safely give it the full timer, as each player is likely to bid and run within his possibilities anyway, then we could not copy but simulate the original, where when everybody moved the timer was running constantly slow about 28 seconds, so it would make it possible to maximize the price.

Now for Rhodans idea, to at the same time reduce the step value to $3 or even $2 would negate the effect of a longer timer, so that does not make much sense...

So the question really bogs down to the max. price of a land auction:
Is there a strategical value of limiting the auction price by any method?

As far as I can see, a limit only introduces randomness in who gets a plot if all players are within the range to afford it and plot price value stays much more constant as opposed to a much more volatile market.

This should be debated, as its mainly finetuning the auction to the right values of timer, step value and movement speed, and it all results in the maximum limit or price cap with all its (after-)effects.

[Blitzen]

@data2008 its good to see you auditing the original c64 version and obviously correcting many of your earlier statements.

One thing you might of missed correcting is that the commodore 64 version is random on land auctions, I am unsure of the Atari I have read differently, I suspect it was a bug fix though between versions. More on that some other day here in the thread i am trying to start to collect the differences in the two versions. Possibly the other later versions as well. Please see that here:

http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=1057.0

You might of missed that when all 4 run it is different than just 3 or 2 or 1.  The rate of change for time actually has 4 variations.  But if you consider the max possible change in value is the only VITAL element, ignoring rate of time changes, you can set the total time to anything and the step value to make a match.  The drawback is you need a way to make it go quicker in late game and dull auctions.

You also lose the interactivity in that players could purposefully not run to keep a price down (commodity prices especially) or run to help make it TOO much!  A VERY BIG PART OF THE FUN...

Please see my other thread here on what to do about it all:

http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=1054.0

PS Ping plus randomness is not going to cut the mustard... it is likely that some players will be faster to your centralized host than 99.9% of everyone else ALL the time.  The Internet is variable but not that much and some things stay pretty static over very long periods of time.

[data2008]

You also lose the interactivity in that players could purposefully not run to keep a price down (commodity prices especially) or run to help make it TOO much!  A VERY BIG PART OF THE FUN...

Let's not mix things up!
We are only talking land auction, not commodities! Commodities auctions IS different from land auction.

So in land auction with a constant timer, players can also choose not to run to keep a price down just the same as with a slowed down timer. If someone runs up, the timer slows down and as long as someone runs up, the price increases.

There is NOT a different rate for slowdown if 1, 2, 3 or 4 players run... as long as 1 player moves, the timer is slowing down.

So imho nothing of strategically value is lost with a constant slow timer... the faster running timer ONLY served to save some gametime if NO ONE would like to run and compete...

[Blitzen]

I could of sworn the price went up faster when 4 ran than when 3 ran, or 2 or 1 in the same vein... maybe it wasn't just a rate of time change...

My apologies if I am mistaken but amongst my 3 buddies and I, we have always held this belief and even make sure all 4 run as much as possible.  I will have to sit down, do the tests and find out beyond a doubt for myself either way now!

Finally what Rhodan said re. consistency with the other auctions is very important... it seems pretty important for playability, I agree very strongly in fact and forgot to mention it...

[data2008]

I checked it right away:

I stayed in place several times not running and letting the AI go up and slow the timer down... then when AI stopped at around $500, i was the only one beginning to move up and therefore keeping the timer slowed down... but in the end, it also summed up to the 28 seconds, so no less time was given even if only 3 or even 1 player run in the end.

As for Rhodans consistency:

I dont agree here at all.
I think it was one weak spot or even due to limited resources that they used the same pararmeters for land auction and commodities.

That they are not exactly the same can even be seen in the layout:
The land auction has the store in the middle right above the players buy line, so it even visually departs from the commodities.

I would assume, since I read Dan Bunten say, that upon looking at Mule, he only can see the "failures" or design faults of the game, but still is proud of his baby despite any weaknesses.


Edit: Here is the quote from an interview:


"When did you first realize that "M.U.L.E." was something special?

I'm not sure whether "M.U.L.E." is something special or not. As with all of my games, I thought "M.U.L.E." was alternately wonderful and terrible. During development I get more and more excited about the game as I design solutions to problems. Later, when it's finished, I'm glad to see the completed product and am proud of it. When the reviews come in I'm almost always disappointed--even a "critically acclaimed" game gets some criticism. And then when actual users write and tell me how much they enjoyed it I get excited again. However, if I go back and play the game after a year or so I'm inevitably depressed by the problems I see in the design. Finally, regardless of whether a product succeeds or fails there is always room to second guess yourself or to learn the wrong lessons, all of which lead to some ambivalence about the game. But good or bad it's my baby, and I'm glad I built it."

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/BERRY.HTM

[Blitzen]

Ya you need to take control of all 4 players to test properly dude!  You should be able to get the first plot to 980, which is exactly 5$ too much to catch the wampus and get a food mule*... of that FACT I am certain.

Re. everything else you said, read all my postS... I'll say it again, great ART is as much an ACCIDENT as it is hard work...

Whatever flaws he saw are more akin to a professional sound studio picking over the "levels"... you guys haven't got it close, to even start talking about the "flaws in the original" let alone expecting to "fix" them without understanding is a fruitless task. Also, very few artists actually appreciate their own art the way other people do...

For the record I have spoken with one of my buddies and updated and he agrees with everything I've said, I still haven't had the time to speak to the other two...

PS Testing with the AI's = LOL!  Everyone agrees the AI was shitty, ignore the original AI, I bet 99% of what Dan didn't like was in the AI...

PPS the Store being moved is a tiny visual change not a change in mechanics, or the outcome of the mechanics.

*There may be a case when Mules start out for 80 instead of 100, I can't remember off hand because we never learned it and always knew to save at least 25$.

[data2008]

Now i disagree with all you said in your last post.

I effectively ruled OUT your ASSUMPTION that the timer slowed down variable...
No matter if I used AIs or not, the fact remains the same.

Why you LOL at me when you yourself only recall something from a failureable memory, (oh yes you always playtest in your head LOL) is beyond me...

Then great artists do have the character and humility to acknowledge weak spots of their design and learn from it... something you do not even want to admit that it could be possible that not everything in old mule is golden...

Then you estimate or even attack us always right away of not having gotten the original... thank you very much, but i played the original also many many times on a real C-64, and while I agree that we haven't nailed it 100% as a 1:1 copy, I would argue we are not that far away from the spirit or fun of the original as you constantly want to make everyone else believe...

I also have read all your posts, but yet have no clue, if you either suggest to go back to 1:1 original (which most of the player already complaining about the current price cap would rather not prefer) or what else, please try to make that clearer in this post and not leave us here to puzzle back together your real opinion from several threads all over the place.

PM1 evolves with each version to find just the right implementation for competetive online play as did the original game did with the limited local play, so any thoughts and postings should relate to this evolution to reflect that.

[data2008]

PS Testing with the AI's = LOL!  Everyone agrees the AI was shitty, ignore the original AI, I bet 99% of what Dan didn't like was in the AI...

You really dont read the quote, even if bold:
Dan talked about the DESIGN of the game, not AI or your analogy of levels...

I think as an execptional artist as Dan was, he really could see through his design weaknesses and the compromises he found as (temporary) fixes after some time.

With the internet the game gets exposed to much different competetive play, which would reveal any limitations or design weaknesses much quicker than in a limited local play area.

Compare many board/card games, which quickly are spotted its weaknesses in design no matter how much testing went into them (for example Magic:TG power cards, which severly affected game balance) if exposed to a very competetive playing field.

[Blitzen]

If Dan had tried to "fix" Mule he would of wound up making another game entirely... and how is "design" specific to "not the ai"??  He simply used a blanked term for anything, could of been AI that much is bloody obvious.

But alright we can agree to disagree, especially about the Internet factor and all that other stuff too.

But please do test this out with control of 4 accounts and comment on exactly how the original worked again... hint: you might want to remap the keys to make testing and controlling them trivial/one handed. Ass-uming you are using an emulator and don't have a helper.

 

[C64 nostalgia]

However, if I go back and play the game after a year or so I'm inevitably depressed by the problems I see in the design.

Dan sounds like a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist and growing up around many, I've learned we are rarely happy with our creations. If we are, it doesn't last long. We almost always see what we could have done better, rather than seeing something great as it is.

Nonetheless, I would be very curious to read what problems he thought M.U.L.E. had.

[data2008]

Richard Garfield can be argued to be another great game designer.
Magic:TG, which I played extensively from the beginning on,
is a fantastic card game design - yet it still had severe balancing issues which slipped through all careful testings, for example the powercard Ancestral Recall, which was even designed as a common, but for anyone playing Magic becomes bloody obvious very quick that this card is way overpowered than its other colored matches (which would be giant grwoth for green or lighntning bolt for red, each costing one mana and giving three of something), yet it wasn't spotted as a problem when they designed the initial cards.

@Blitzen:
To check facts like timer slowdown and step value among other things, it seems sufficient to test this with 3 A.I. and 1 human player if one assumes gameplay isnt different if humans or androids do the same thing... why would basic gameplay be differently implemented for 3 A.I.+1 human running up in auction vs. 4 real player running up? Makes no sense, if one is to assume A.I. movement influences the timer just the same as human movement, and only me as human player running up for 1/3 of the auction time seemed to slow down the timer just the same as any other number of simultanously running AI players... I would therefore be surprised if someone would find 4 human players moving up/or down would slow the timer down more than 1 human player and 3 AI running at once... The A.I. test did show that the number of simultanously running players (either be it AI or me as human) had not given any indication that the timer slows down differently depending on the number of sprites moving simultansouly...

[Blitzen]

You don't get and it probably never will... soon I am going to give up and go away... but for record:

If you don't have all FOUR players running UP for the ENTIRE auction you do not KNOW what the MAX possible increase WAS/IS/SHOULD BE!

Re. everything else you said about another game/dev, may I please remind you we are speaking about Mule here. But for the record, a modern game developed in a huge RUSH has a BIG balance issue... Mule was a very well tested game made with love and care, and c64 Mule was made after wards and did address SOME concerns -- BUT note how little was changed.

As I said what Dan would of REALLY meant is the ENTIRE game design, from the ground up... but for the record and the last time what the hell does that have to do with a "as close as possible" to the original game??? How can you promise us this, when we have all demonstrated repeatably how you don't know what the original is/was/will always be?

I am losing faith faster than ever at being told my very best common sense is absolute nonsense!  I am sorry but coming from someone as ignorant about Mule as you continually demonstrate yourself to be its laughable you are even involved in this project.

If you want to tap into the existing player market, trust us and make a PROPER remake.