Save the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E. and make Planet MULE better

[C64 nostalgia]

Make the current version of Planet MULE preserve the original gameplay of the Atari/C64 version. Save the changes for MULE 2. Here's why:

…We all (Including me) have romanticized the original game….

I very much agree with dynadan. I haven't played a 4 player M.U.L.E. game (the only real M.U.L.E.) on a C64 since the mid to late 80's. So, my memory of my 4 person games from the 80's is probably filled with sentimental notions...

However, relatively recent reviews and top game list compilations routinely still laud M.U.L.E. as a classic. Two things are generally stated as to why M.U.L.E. is so great (notice the present tense): great multiplayer support; and simple, refined, and balanced gameplay. A producer of the original M.U.L.E. in a recent interview explained the game's beauty as typifying an early credo of EA's: "simple, hot and deep." "... M.U.L.E. really exemplified all of those elements. Of being simple to play; it was very hot in that it was exciting; and then deep because the more you played it the more you began to realize how much depth there actually was in the simulation."

If the original commands such respect for its core gameplay, why change it? Furthermore, as the new rights holders of M.U.L.E., part of your obligation ought be one of preservation and conservation. Soon enough, you will be devoting almost all of your resources towards MULE 2. MULE 2 is the place where all your ideas for improvement should flourish. But, please honor the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E. before Planet MULE 1 hits maintenance mode. Think of it as making sure a masterpiece is available for all -- like a painting in a museum, except we can actually bring it home and play with it.

...We actually know the game is not perfect due to some part related to the network effects and yes, some part due to not having matched everything from the original 100%. But does that make the game as a whole mcuh more inferior or just (to a minor degree if you consider gameplay) different?

For those who think the current Planet MULE is better, I offer this: A significant number of seemingly small changes have been made to M.U.L.E. on its way to Planet MULE... Planet MULE is a different game. These changes have corrupted the simple magical balance of the classic Atari/C64 M.U.L.E.

For example: If the auction system allows inflated prices far above the ones in the original game, the maximum store prices should also rise for goods. The scorecard value of a plot of land should be higher than $500. The cash values of player events should change. The cost of outfitting a MULE should change... Keeping relative values balanced requires sweeping changes to modify something small.

Almost all of the recent land auction controversy centers around simplicity and balance. Changing something as simple as making a player move faster (and thus allowing bigger price changes) in an auction affects gameplay in a profound and extensive way. However, most of the land auction analysis makes the land auction its own separate box unrelated to most anything else. This one-sided tinkering is creating problems instead of making the game as a whole better.


The fact remains most of us have not experienced 4 player M.U.L.E. in a long time. To make actual improvements without that baseline is not trivial. To make a small change without looking for its effects on overall balance is careless. Recreating the original gameplay of the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E. should be vital -- To you as developers, a paradigm of a finely crafted classic to study. To players, a chance to really play something special.

[Blitzen]

Hey leah if you paying attention I am actually going to agree with dynadan again too!

Everything c64 nostalgia has said is absolutely true and very well put.

For those of you interested I just found this while searching "planetmule sucks", for which I actually found nothing but hype and forum drops, amongst the comments was the link:

http://www.codenautics.com/openmule/

It is a beta, playable over LAN... I personally am about to try it out and will probably try it out using Hamachi from LogMeIn to simulate a LAN over the Internet with my buddies (free).

It looks amazing, exactly how I would expect an "update" to the gfx to look and not some gawdy revamp...

I emailed the dev to offer my help, he has been at it since 1997!  So I think its only a matter of time before its complete.  Besides I'll have his source code soon too I hope!

 

[Intergalactic Mole]

I agree the game has definitely lost the original "feeling" somewhere in translation.  There are some minor differences here and there that definitely impact how the game plays in comparison to the original.  However, I am happy with this translation and very much appreciative that such an effort was made to bring this classic back to life.  And it has been successful in doing what noone else has in 27 years.  Look at us.  So many hundreds of MULE players coming here to socialize and reminisce.  No other MULE web site or clone has been this successful at drawing such attention back to MULE.  Planet MULE makes it easy for us to commune and play, and introduce newcomers to the greatness that is MULE.

That being said, for your hardcore MULErs like C64 nostalgia, if you still have that itch to play the original, unaltered, bit-for-bit version of MULE, over the internet, you may do so using an emulator.  You can get the files you need from www.atarimule.com.  As long as everyone has decent latency and uses the same emulator preferences, it plays fairly well over the internet.  No, it isn't perfect, but neither is Planet MULe.  It is much more difficult to arrange games using the emulator.  There is also very slight controller delay depending on the players ping which you would need to get accustomed to (it is approximately 1 second per 100ms of ping) and there are times when the game might de-sync if someones connection is not stable or if people start messing with the emulator settings in-game (because Kaillera uses UDP protocol) but it is still worth playing it because most of the time it plays extremely well, and gives you that authentic "feeling" you get when you played MULE as a child--- something there is no substitute for in the whole world.

[data2008]

@Mole:

I pretty much agree with what you said, that something of that "special feeling" is different now.
That flair also comes from that special 8-bit look, which was/is still perfect and arguably part of what makes us think so romantic and emotional about Mule.

Maybe it is like if you would have another set of actors replay the exact same episode from the A-Team, it still wouldn't match the feeling you had when all characters were played by their original actors, as those characteristics you remember from each actor is what you have valued in your heart and would associate with that special A-Team flair.

How would old and new players feel about a C-64 like version with same sound and gfx to truly emulate an exact copy (also restore land auction random winner, players movement speed, wampus hunting etc. to exact the same)?

[Intergalactic Mole]

I think we would all want that Data, but most of us realize that there is only so much that can be done to clone a game to work on the internet when it was not originally designed to accomodate for any kind of latency.

However, for me it isn't the graphics at all.  I am quite happy with the graphics in Planet MULE.  For me, it's things like those few seconds before an auction starts, when people have their hand on the joystick pushing forward or backward, waiting for that last "BEEP" and they know that their player character is going to start moving IMMEDIATELY when that auction starts ... in perfect synchronization with the rest of the players .. and that someone might slip off their joystick and give you an advantage .. and you know you're not going to .. because you want that first sale so bad .. and in that moment there is a certain level of excitement which is lost in Planet MULE .. knowing that we're all going to hit the line together with everyone else .. knowing exactly who is going to get that first sale .. the anxiousness of having to wait your turn in the auction line .. That just doesn't exist in Planet MULE.  The new system might be better, even an improvement, but it's not the same as it was .. and so the feeling is lost.

That's only one of many examples. 

[data2008]

Yeah, waiting for that exact right moment is like the start phase of a racing game, where the lights go from red-to-green... just that you cannot emulate that truly and fairly at the same time with internet lag, if the excitement comes from those microseconds deciding on who wins a plot or not...

The idea to automatically make everyone go up until someone starts pressing down to eliminate lag advantage wouldn't help that either, then it boils down to randomly determening a winner again, still not bringing back that itchy finger excitement...

For a land auction to stay exciting besides internet lag, one idea is to make it possible for each player to allow bidding an exact amount before timer runs up, so the fun then comes from tweaking and teasing just how much a player is willing to pay for a land just to get it and thereby making him pay probably too much....

Your example clearly pointed out where you felt the original excitement was coming from (the race-start excitement was not mentioned explicitly before), so maybe you think of more examples where you describe exactly why you feel C-64 was more exciting and what this effect may have been related to, so we can check if something can be done to restore that element.

[C64 nostalgia]

First, I really didn't want this thread to be about lag. Many (with a capital M) other threads discuss lag. I want this thread to be about bringing back original game mechanics. I realize changes had to be made to accommodate lag stemming from the internet's inherent nature. I even made a separate post about lag: http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=1054.msg5507#msg5507. To reiterate: This post concerns game mechanics outside of the scope of anything lag related.

Second, this is not a Turborilla/Blue Systems hate thread. I very much appreciate MULE coming back into my life. The community that has sprung up because of Planet MULE is great. Having this forum to talk amongst ourselves makes for interesting reading. That the developers respond to our thoughts and criticisms is wonderful. My criticism is not about my dislike for the developers. My criticism is about making Planet MULE as good as it can be. This is an interest (I hope) all of us share. So as I have stated elsewhere, thank you Turborilla/Blue Systems for making Planet MULE.

Third, my call is not for an "original, unaltered, bit-for-bit version of MULE". My call is for bringing back the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E.'s game mechanics. This does not include graphics or sound. Showing additional information in game screens was a tremendous improvement in graphics -- for example, the name, money, and goods bar at the bottom. I want this thread to be about game mechanics...

[Intergalactic Mole]

It's all relative C64. Many of the differences (not all, many) between the original and Planet MULE are because of having to deal with lag.  In my previous post I indicated that the auctions do not work exactly like the original.. and the reason for that is because of lag.  Unfortunately, that is the reality of it, and because of that, the game mechanics are not the same, and therefore that feeling is lost in translation.  In order to get that original MULE feeling (at least for me), all of the game mechanics have to be almost identical to the original.  In order for the game mechanics to be the same, there has to be no lag.  It's a catch 22 situation there.  So, it will be difficult for this thread not to take a turn toward lag when that is the reason for many of the changes. 

Sure, there are non lag related mechanics that have changed too.  Like I said, the auction thing was just one of many examples.  Another example would be the catching of the wampus.  I find the new method to be rather drol in comparison to the original.  It used to be a challenge.  Now it's passé.  You used to really have to pay attention and be in the right spot when that blip showed up on the map. 

Another example would be the whole smithore thing.  It's not a gambit anymore, it's just a given.  It's too predictable now and the game is almost completely centered around it.  So on and so forth the list goes on and it's all been mentioned in the forums at some point or other.

So, I am not disagreeing with you here, but this forum has seen this very (exact) discussion time and time again.  And there always seems to be someone coming in to defend the changes, claiming the original game was "broken" or something or other.  The devs have had their work cut out for them sifting through all of the messages in this forum to decide what is fair for everyone while trying to keep as true to the original as possible, and they have done a wonderful job of it. 

Unfortunately, I've already come to grasp the reality of the situation -- which is that no "clone" will ever be able to re-create the original experience.  But Planet MULE is definitely the best attempt so far. 

When I said "bit for bit" in my above post, I was basically just saying if you are that hardcore that you want to play the game online with the original untouched mechanics.. emulator is the only way you can right now.  27 years is a long time to be waiting for someone to re-create what already exists.  Just to clarify, the updated graphics in Planet MULE don't bother me a bit.. but again, I am with you 100%.  I would like Planet MULE to pay homage to the original. Any purposeful deviation from the original game mechanics is a turn-off for me.

Now, don't get me started on the inflation of goods prices in 12th round in the Atari version that doesn't exist in the C64 version <wink>.  IMO that was a bug in the C64 version heh.

[dynadan]

Wow great response Intergalactic Mole.  Figured I would throw my 2 cents into this thread as well, but you have already said everything I wanted to add.

[Intergalactic Mole]

Thanks. 

[MuleyMan]

Lag forces some changes to Mule and I feel most of the differences in PM still have most of the "flavor" of the original.  Latest auction  changes is definitely better.
After reading so many posts about old and new play, I compared the Atari to Pm in my head.
The flow and pricing is fairly similar to original.  Total colony scores average a little higher in PM.
The excitement, competitiveness and randomness is there.

Minor changes to PM enhanced the game somewhat:
having 4 tite plots instead of 3,
dropping max ore price from 250 to 230,
necessary changes due to lag on land auction are pretty good now and have that "original" feel,


What still needs fixed?
price on food in rd 12 is NEVER higher than 43, should reflect supply and demand as other items do.
adjust mule prices down on rd 12 when someone clears out the corral and buys up all stock, then drops development on 3 plots to come back to win.  Price should rise quite a bit but not to max price since its last round and future mule needs are not as important as in middle of game prices.  The original had mule prices jumping but never from 50 to max in 1 round. no matter how much the demand is.
pest attack ONLY attacks person in 1st.
The original game had some rounds where nothing happens to affect the colony during prod such as fire.
Seldom do I see this in PM version.  I believe Data discussed this saying that there is a random event each round.  Add a null event to that random event list would help a bit.

Many kudos to development team for all the efforts and patience shown so far.

[Rhodan]

To reiterate: This post concerns game mechanics outside of the scope of anything lag related.

Second, this is not a Turborilla/Blue Systems hate thread. I very much appreciate MULE coming back into my life. The community that has sprung up because of Planet MULE is great. Having this forum to talk amongst ourselves makes for interesting reading. That the developers respond to our thoughts and criticisms is wonderful. My criticism is not about my dislike for the developers. My criticism is about making Planet MULE as good as it can be. This is an interest (I hope) all of us share. So as I have stated elsewhere, thank you Turborilla/Blue Systems for making Planet MULE.

Third, my call is not for an "original, unaltered, bit-for-bit version of MULE". My call is for bringing back the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E.'s game mechanics. This does not include graphics or sound. Showing additional information in game screens was a tremendous improvement in graphics -- for example, the name, money, and goods bar at the bottom. I want this thread to be about game mechanics...

I second this post it mirrors my thoughts exactly especially the last statement in bold.

[Rhodan]

Make the current version of Planet MULE preserve the original gameplay of the Atari/C64 version. Save the changes for MULE 2. Here's why:




However, relatively recent reviews and top game list compilations routinely still laud M.U.L.E. as a classic. Two things are generally stated as to why M.U.L.E. is so great (notice the present tense): great multiplayer support; and simple, refined, and balanced gameplay. A producer of the original M.U.L.E. in a recent interview explained the game's beauty as typifying an early credo of EA's: "simple, hot and deep." "... M.U.L.E. really exemplified all of those elements. Of being simple to play; it was very hot in that it was exciting; and then deep because the more you played it the more you began to realize how much depth there actually was in the simulation."

If the original commands such respect for its core gameplay, why change it? Furthermore, as the new rights holders of M.U.L.E., part of your obligation ought be one of preservation and conservation. Soon enough, you will be devoting almost all of your resources towards MULE 2. MULE 2 is the place where all your ideas for improvement should flourish. But, please honor the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E. before Planet MULE 1 hits maintenance mode. Think of it as making sure a masterpiece is available for all -- like a painting in a museum, except we can actually bring it home and play with it.



For those who think the current Planet MULE is better, I offer this: A significant number of seemingly small changes have been made to M.U.L.E. on its way to Planet MULE... Planet MULE is a different game. These changes have corrupted the simple magical balance of the classic Atari/C64 M.U.L.E.

For example: If the auction system allows inflated prices far above the ones in the original game, the maximum store prices should also rise for goods. The scorecard value of a plot of land should be higher than $500. The cash values of player events should change. The cost of outfitting a MULE should change... Keeping relative values balanced requires sweeping changes to modify something small.

Almost all of the recent land auction controversy centers around simplicity and balance. Changing something as simple as making a player move faster (and thus allowing bigger price changes) in an auction affects gameplay in a profound and extensive way. However, most of the land auction analysis makes the land auction its own separate box unrelated to most anything else. This one-sided tinkering is creating problems instead of making the game as a whole better.


The fact remains most of us have not experienced 4 player M.U.L.E. in a long time. To make actual improvements without that baseline is not trivial. To make a small change without looking for its effects on overall balance is careless. Recreating the original gameplay of the Atari/C64 version of M.U.L.E. should be vital -- To you as developers, a paradigm of a finely crafted classic to study. To players, a chance to really play something special.

Well said. I agree with this 110%. I have tried to express similar thoughts in my posts but they pale to C64's words. Please there must be more players that feel as C64 and myself do.
A simple I concur post will help sway the programmers to stay on track with PM1!

[piete]

Please there must be more players that feel as C64 and myself do.

You know there are.

I'm not being that loud because

1) Whenever I get to play PM, I enjoy it even in its current form (and all the previous versions, for that matter; the bugs have only slightly decreased the great enjoyment). Even when the conditions are different, they still are same for everyone (with the small exception of the host). I guess we purists and veterans would like to have 100% match of the original to see how we match with other players we didn't have a chance to play during pre-internet era.

2) At the moment the originals (both Atari and C64 emulated) can better give me a better fix due to pause function, slightly better AI and faster game (with acceleration), since I don't have an uninterrupted period of time to finish a multiplayer game

3) I can't play this game that often anymore, therefore the bugs and lack of 100% original equivalence don't annoy me that often

I'm still rooting for Mule 1.5, which would preserve the original but "improve" (subjective opinion) where the technical limitations were present, like simultaneous development making a faster game, and maybe showing the map all the time.

I'm also enthusiastic about Mule 2.0, but my lack of time prevents me from participating the playtesting.

I also have a long-term expectation for this game to become open source. It would open huge possibilities to develop the AI, and maybe organize competitions where bots by different individuals/teams would compete against each other. And maybe the single-player experience would improve in the making, too...

[data2008]

I also have a long-term expectation for this game to become open source. It would open huge possibilities to develop the AI, and maybe organize competitions where bots by different individuals/teams would compete against each other. And maybe the single-player experience would improve in the making, too...

We planned to make this OpenSource right from the start, but since we also wanted to stay clear of legal matters and generally get an agreement and the blessings from the copyright holders (the Bunten family), we are bound to a contract that currently doesn't allow for that option.

As OpenSource would mean, the program could freely be converted to run on any platform, please understand that this would be a big step for the Buntens to set the game free in that way, and I personally encourage them to take this bold move.

Maybe with a Mule successor, the Buntens see an opportunity to allow releasing the classic code into the open for everyone to study and improve.