Poll: Plot take away/free plot event

[Rhodan]

Lets change this in the real world too while we are at it.
Dynadan will let nothing bad happen to you until age 5. 
You will never fall off your first bicycle, candy will never be denied you, You will win every cute contest Pappa Dyna enters you in, No toy will ever be taken from you until Dyandan says so at age 5.


From the day you are born there is risk, From the moment mule starts there should be risk.
This makes the game dynamic, exciting, unpredictable, etc and provides balance because at some point in the game 1st and 2nd will have a bad event to help balance the game and give the other players a chance.

This change will not make the game better it will make it boring and more predictable.
If anything add a second plot loss to the game. Other events  can happen more then once.
I am sure Dynadan fell off his first bicycle more then once


Its a perfect world until dyndan says bad things can happen to you!

Real grown up of you Rhodan.  I think your post says a lot more about what type of person you are than it says anything about me.   So I am just going to ignore your childish banter and instead use logic to once again try to explain why your reasoning is flawed.

Early on in the game, (round 1-3)  the true leaders of the game are the ones who have been able to buy land.  This also has the effect of dropping them to the lowest places.  The other side of the coin is that the people who are behind will be in the top 2 places.  Taking a plot from either of the top 2 spots in rounds 1-3 tends to cripple the people who are already behind and help the people who are already ahead.  Add in the fact that with land auctions in round 1 there is no actual game play involved to determine who is in the top 2 spots, it merely reflects what place people happened to start the game in, and thus if they were able to buy land for $972 in round 1.  As the game progresses this is no longer the case, and the lose plot event CAN help even out the game by punishing the top 2 slots.  Except for the fact that the lose plot event had already happened in round 2-3 (to punish the people that were behind) and so can no longer be used to even up the game.   Your suggestion to add multiple plot loss events to the game is actually a good one. ( or as least just make the percentage it can happen static and not take it off the list if it happens once)  Contrary to whatever stupid comments Rhodan makes, I am not against bad events.  I am just against events that cripple the people who are already losing the game within 5-15 minutes of the start of the game.

You are in bad need of humor in your life. Your above quote compared to my humorous real life comparison of the plot loss change shows who is not grownup.  I had no derogatory comments about you or your ideas while above I am called stupid and lack of being mature.
Mr. Dynadan, You owe me a apology.

Your strategy above about land in 1-3 is wrong. Lets not use the word wrong, its one of several strategies that can be played and countered.

You can buy one land early on and be strapped for cash or you can hold and get two in one auction or successive auctions later on for example. You can even win with 9 or 10 plots without ever buying land at auction.

Your logic is flawed because your argument is based on how you play the game and the strategy you use.

My earlier post showed two games that were won after a player experienced a plot loss. One in round 1-4 and the other in 9-10.

Your argument and facts boil down to you don't like the event and you think you cant win after it happens to you or anyone else.

We don't need to dumb down the game or make it easier, we need to raise everyone's level of play.

Accolades to C64nostalgia and is fostering of new players. Something I don't have the patience for but should.

[Rhodan]

Speaking of straying from



To finish on-topic: after reading this thread again, I still believe starting all events first round is the best choice -- full of luck, randomness, and original M.U.L.E.ness.

Halluejah!! Amen to that!
I second that motion!

[piete]

Ok, this debate may have gone too personal already...

I have one question that is somewhat related to this issue, maybe someone here knows the answer or how to try to get the answer from the original developers (a spiritist means is accepted, too ):

Why doesn't the planetquake move mountains in the C64 version? Was it a technically too difficult to implement given the short deadline, or was it a decision made on experimenting the "punishment" being too harsh? If the latter, both sides of the argument gain support here:

1) After further playtesting/experience, a decision to improve the game was made. But, on the other hand:

2) This playtesting didn't deem losing a plot event severe enough to be modified.

As I stated already earlier, I don't have a problem playing a slightly modified Mule, I have been doing it for almost a year already. But my dream would be to play the original version (either Atari or C64) or a version as close to the original as possible (including the events, since they have a magically perfect balance) over the internet, but with an easier setup that Kaillera offers us.

Planetmule is very close to fulfill my dream, and nevertheless has already provided hours of fun (and frustration) for me.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Should have an option in the poll that says "Verify it matches the Atari/C64 version"

[nekobasu]

My family is fairly new to M.U.L.E., so maybe we just aren't experienced enough to handle a lost plot as people are suggesting here. But we were finding the "lost plot" event way too discouraging, especially in early rounds. So, I did some hex editing and eliminated it.

The result was surprising - not having these events actually made it more likely that someone would lose interest in a game. Without the hope that something really evil might happen to the leader, there is less reason for the other players to want to keep playing. Also, without this very significant bit of randomness, it became far too predictable how the game would play out - it was almost guaranteed that the strongest player (my wife) would always win.

So, my experimental results, in opposition to my original hypothesis, would seem to confirm that (surprise, surprise) the programmers of the original M.U.L.E. really did know what they were doing.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Yup, after 27 years, it's still one of the hottest games for the kids that grew up playin it.

[zaphod77]

One thing I noticed is the odds of "get a plot" and "lose a plot" happening on the same development phase seem to be pretty good in the original.

and when the lose a plot happens first, it will ALWAYS add the one that was lost to the lucky player, unless someone else claims it first somehow. At least this is how I remembered it.

[smithers]

yep!