What is the Future of M.U.L.E.?

[Eik]

The Future of M.U.L.E.
That is exact where this subforum is about. But what exactly do the makers do with all these new ideas for future gameplay?

There seems to be some general difference/misunderstanding between (1) people which played MULE in the old times, and (2) people who are new to MULE thanks to the internet version which supports some more recent OS's.

Is see a lot of interesting things being proposed by (2). They see a new game, and see room for what they think might improve the game. In a lot of cases I see topics dying away because (1) say that they prefer to see an exact copy of the original game first, and maybe later in a version MULE2 we can add those new ideas.

To stimulate inventiveness of new players and some resting of mind by original-MULE players I would like to see some words from the makers about this issue.
Are you going to make an exact copy of the game (MULE1)? Are you working on new features? Are going to separate MULE1 and MULE2 or are you first trying to make MULE1?

And then maybe have a FAQ topic in this subforum to let people know these ideas and thus less unnecessary killing of new thinking.

[data2008]

If there will be an "upgraded version" with new features, it will be seperate and not conflicting with the current version, which aims to do incremental updates to make M.U.L.E. classic as good as possible.

Compare upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu, or updating a current one to fix issues.

So let no one be worried about radical new ideas in this thread...

[vaylen]

I think the goal should be to get STANDARD and TOURNAMENT as close to the 1983 MULE as possible.  But it would be great to have a new mode like UPDATED to utilize the good ideas brought up here and by the designers of Planet MULE.

[goblin]

I agree, there must be a exact 1983 version.  

I have a feeling that not too many people here have ever played the original as it was meant to be played.  When MULE was created the only computer that had 4 joystick ports were the Atari 800 and 400.   Those computers could have a max. of 48k (yes that's kilobytes) ram.   The 400 only shipped with 16k but could be upgraded to 48k.

Later Atari computers were stripped of 2 joystick ports in order to address 64k of ram.  This was done more to compete with the commodore 64 than to enhance gaming.   People that owned 800xls, 800XE Atari computers never really had a chance to play 4 human player MULE.    2 and 3 player MULE is not anywhere close to 4 player.  They have an idea of what the original was like but not in terms of really understanding the 4 player game.  I always thought that MULE would have done much better if everyone at the time had the 4 player option.   One of my buddies had a C64 and he dropped that version like a bad habit after playing a 4 player Atari 800 game.   He said that 2 player version was not even the same game.  He grabbed a used 800 just to be able to play 4 player MULE. 

Now we finally have a chance to allow thousands of people to enjoy the 4 player version, I feel they are being cheated out of the original experience.  Taking a shortcut of improving graphics and sound while the gameplay took a nosedive.   There was a reason that the original programmers did not want anyone messing with MULE.  I would love to put my stamp of approval on this version but it does not (Yet) deserve it.

People that are new to MULE only have the internet version to use as a baseline.  Having the original version online would enable them to play it.   This would serve as a baseline to make changes.  

One must look at the past in order to improve the future versions.   I feel if this is not done much time will be spent reinventing the wheel.   Right now I see they are making changes that no doubt the original programmer already ironed out.   Things like the 50 cap was put there because he already tried the no cap back in 1982-3 and it did not work then and it won't now.   Could have saved time on that.

My vote is make the original, let people play it a ton then take suggestions for improvement and move forward from there.  When you get to a point where people do not want to play the original then you will know that the new one is an actual improvement.

[Big Head Zach]

I have a feeling that not too many people here have ever played the original as it was meant to be played.

You're making a big weasel-worded assumption here, one I'm sure all of the veteran MULE players do not appreciate.

Now we finally have a chance to allow thousands of people to enjoy the 4 player version, I feel they are being cheated out of the original experience.  Taking a shortcut of improving graphics and sound while the gameplay took a nosedive.   There was a reason that the original programmers did not want anyone messing with MULE.  I would love to put my stamp of approval on this version but it does not (Yet) deserve it.

You're implying the developers wanted to develop a brand new game with the Bunten's family's ok to put the MULE name on it. That's some serious accusations of ill intent.

Right now I see they are making changes that no doubt the original programmer already ironed out.   Things like the 50 cap was put there because he already tried the no cap back in 1982-3 and it did not work then and it won't now.   Could have saved time on that.

[Citation needed] regarding Dan's initial attempts at balancing smithore. Otherwise, you are speculating as to what the original developers did or did not do. There's only so much the developers can do without access to the source code (not MACHINE CODE, which takes time to disassemble). Most of what you see here is based on positive user criticism and testing, not blind accusations of incompetence.

My vote is make the original, let people play it a ton then take suggestions for improvement and move forward from there.  When you get to a point where people do not want to play the original then you will know that the new one is an actual improvement.

And that is something the developers have repeatedly stated on these forums is a priority for them, but you continue to bring it up as if they lacked the ability to read it the first time, or are in fact refusing to act on your command in spite. Perhaps there is something lost in translation (and if there is, I apologize), but I find your attitude towards this project rather sour despite your claims to be supporting it.

This game will attempt to be what it is, no matter whether you put your "stamp of approval" on it or not. Again, it seems like you are rather satisfied with the Atari-emulated version. If that is indeed the case, there is nothing further we can do to please you here.

[data2008]

Hello goblin,

I feel Zach's response to your post may be a bit harsh and I can understand most of what you are saying, so I appreciate your feedback!

Be assured that we didn't ignore any of the balancing issues because of ignorance, but because it may have slipped under the radar: As Zach explained, we don't have access to the complete source code and therefore felt that with the input of all the mule veterans it is much faster possible to get the game in the right direction with each following release.

As for Mule 2: It may be heresy to say, but as with most stuff from the 80's if you take a closer look, even the original Mule is showing its age: That is not to say it hasn't done a marvelous job at that time for what was possible then! But the world, especially the gaming world has evolved since those days, and i don't mean the technical innovations, but in terms of gameplay and mechanisms: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy all put a maximum of excitement into a comparable or shorter playtime.

So maybe even a 1:1 copy isn't even enough to satisfy you in a sense to 100% relieve the memories you have attached to this game and the era its lived in: To achieve this, you would have to also strip back the gfx, to make it "perfect". So rather we try to look ahead and think what can be analyzed and learned at looking very neutral at the game as is: Can this be brought to the 21st century?

We split this effort in two fronts: One is to make PlanetMule as close to the original experience as possible to analyze it due to another thousands of hours of spending time to put it on the test via the players here on planetmule.

We also try to develop a prototype of an eventual successor, and though nobody can be sure how and if thats possible, we do take the route to learn exactly from analyzing the past in as much detail as we can to then start thinking of the future.

[Enlightenment]

If you add features that differ from original 1983 MULE, then allow the user to enable/disable the feature in an option screen.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Don't know how many realized Commodore actually had it 4 player too, just that player 3 and 4 had to use the keyboard (IJKM, and RDFC, and I'm not sure what were the buttons in my memory, or something to that effect, but it was doable, of course I never had enough people to do more than 2 player and usually played 1 player.)

[mulefan]

The C64 version did have true four player support using two keyboard and two joystick players. The keyboard players would only use the keyboard for species selection, land grant and auctions and would borrow one of the joysticks for development.

On my C64 emulator the left keyboard player uses Q and left-ctrl (press both simultanously to press button), while the right keyboard player uses delete and asterix.

[donkyhotay]

Going through the forums it seems like the fanbase is pretty split on whether MULE needs to identically clone the original or if the game needs modifications to be more 'fun' or 'balanced'. Personally I fall in the second camp (I especially want to see changes to the land auctions) but the best solution to this would be to simply make planet MULE open source. I'm actually a little surprised this hasn't been done or even mentioned already (at least I haven't seen mention of it). By making the game open source, more people could work on it which would speed up development. Also people interested in recreating the original can continue to do so but those that want to modify it can then mod it. The server gets updated to report whether it's a classic game or a 'mod' and people can then play what they want.

[data2008]

We have given this thought, but then the copyright holders for Mule would have to agree to that, and I am not certain if they would agree its in their best interest to opensource their IP...

[donkyhotay]

What does the copyright have to do with anything? I'm under the impression the planet M.U.L.E. devs are not using nor even have access to the original atari/C64 versions source code or graphics. Admittedly I'm not a copyright lawyer but creating you're own game with similar gameplay is not a copyright violation. Sure you may not be able to use the name 'M.U.L.E.' without their permission but that could be rescinded at any time regardless of what you choose to do with your code. If creating your own game that has the same type of gameplay as another game is a violation of copyright then almost every single open source and commercial game is a copyright violation.

Examples are:
FreeCiv - copy of civilization
Lincity - copy of Sim City
Freeorion & Outer Space - copies of Master of Orion
Wormux - copy of Worms
MoonPy - copy of Moonbase Commander
Armagetron & glTron - copies of Tron
BOSwars - copy of Starcraft/Warcraft
Starcraft/Warcraft - copy of Dune

In addition to these specific examples there is also:
almost every MMORPG made after everquest
any FPS made after doom
any of the 500 million tetris clones

Most if not all of these games were made without any 'special permission' of the game they're based off of. I know for certain that in the example of the tetris clones that "the tetris company" will sue the pants off anyone making a game with the name of 'tetris' in it because of their trademark which is why so many of the clones are called *tris or something like 'block attack' instead to avoid this problem. It would only be a copyright violation if someone used their source code (even part of it) to create the game or ripped the graphics directly. But if you use your own code, then that is *your* code. As an example if I took your source code and tried making my own open source game then I would be violating *your* copyright (not the creator of the original atari version) since it's your code. However if I decided to make my own M.U.L.E. clone from scratch and called it D.O.N.K.E.Y. or something there is nothing either of you could do about it because I created the game myself using my own code. I would recommend asking the original creator if it's ok in order to avoid stepping on toes, especially if you want to continue using the name M.U.L.E. in the name, but be aware the code is your copyright and no one else's. The final decision of whether you choose to open source rests on the planet M.U.L.E.'s development team and no one else's. As you can probably tell I obviously think you should open source this game, it would speed up development, especially as you would get random programmers willing to implement features/bugfixes. Also it would allow those that want to recreate the original and those that want to "improve" the game to work on their own versions, although this would split the fanbase, the fanbase is already split on this issue. By allowing each group to go their seperate ways it will avoid arguments and many changes/fixes applied to one version will be applicable to the other so that it will be easier for both versions to grow together.

[Big Head Zach]

I personally don't want to see a dozen different takes on MULE, all not quite hitting the mark. Both old and new players have certain aspects of the game they would see different, and very few of them are the same, or are at all thinking of long-term replayability.

I'd rather see one dedicated group take the ball and work it out methodically.

[Cyclone]

I think if there are new rules set, it should be optional [being able to pick what rules when you create the room IE: M.U.L.E classic, M.U.L.E new] But I definitely would like some improvement in the Artificial Intelligence, or a difficulty setting for them, they are too predictable.  One example would be when they sell smithore at a very low price, the first person to intercept them selling it makes off with a fortune when smithore reaches the 200's.

[donkyhotay]

I agree being able to pick the kind of game you want to play (classic vs. mod1 vs. mod2 etc.) would be important. Having dozen different takes on a game isn't a bad thing. If you've ever played battle for wesnoth you'll see that there are a large number of mods to that game as many different people have different ideas about the details of the game. Players can choose which mod they want to play and changes/improvements to one of the mods will often help improve the program overall for both mods and classic. I believe the same type of thing could happen with planet M.U.L.E. as well.