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

[JamesGecko]

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.

You're assuming that one dedicated group would do a better job than several competing dedicated groups. Isn't this a bit how economic competition works? 

The millions-o-mods approach worked out pretty well for Doom; the crap died out and people still play the good mods.

[goblin]

Donkyhotay - good idea about user options for Classic and other versions. 

Data2008 - yes I agree the Zach guy comes of a little on uncouth side.   So sure ALL vertern MULE players won't appreciate lol.   Like there is a army of them.   I know a few like 10 or so in my area, I can only speak for them and myself.

Actually a little critiques, while not good on the ego can be more helpful than someone blowing sunshine just to get along.   If the current programmers are good enough to make it this far I think they can iron out kinks.

When did 1.2.3 come out?  Not sure the version I played last.   Is there a version update list somewhere which explains the changes in each?

I've known about 100 MULE atari folks from the past.  Atari club back in the 80s.   Hardly any of them ever played 4 player with 4 humans.   Also have a bunch of old Atari magazines that had interviews with the programmers.  I'd have to dig hard to find them but they went into detail on balancing issues etc. 
I do remember on regret was the 128 max board layout, sound, mechtron AI issues.
Not too many issues on balancing though.

You may not have the source code but you can play the original code on 4 way LAN PCs.   

The mountain wampus could not be caught by pressing the button.   You just had to time it and walk over it.  It seems to easy to catch it in the last build.

[Blitzen]

Wow sorry I missed this for so long but I feel I have to say the dev's reply to this is rather depressing.

Open source this project before you do any more damage.

If you don't make the game exactly as it was originally, you might as well give us the Nintendo version... you cannot recreate a classic game just by copying the name and the "idea." Great games are literally works of art, if your intention is to preserve and pass on this great game to the future of everyone you should be working towards preserving even its original "brush strokes", not on creating cheap knock offs (see NES).

I would play the original forever if I only I could get 3 other competent players to sit down in front of the ole c64 with me.  I would pay to play a slightly improved version that could add in online players as required.

Please look at this from a "veterans" perspective. It is very frustrating believing that the dev's feel qualified to improve everything and anything when they don't seem to understand the original game.  Would you paint a better Mona Lisa and just call it Planet Mona Lisa, expecting everyone to be please?  Would you paint it without ever really looking at the original?

This thing needs a kick back into the right direction, I would give it a 5 out of 10.  Consider yourselves kicked.  I shall try to be quiet and content now while I wait and pray (and I ain't the religious type).

PS The funny thing is I bet the guy who painted the Mona Lisa never liked it, never knew the power it might yet wield.  Works of art are accidents, I'm absolutely convinced. Good luck and thanks for all the fish.   

[trellend]

Antique MULE is the future, until we all die off.  Then it will be forgotten forever.  If you really want to slam dunk this game, toss it up with the fancy graphics, original rules, and slap an IFrame with the game as an applet onto Facebook Apps, it's pretty easy to do.  Toss a little chat app under, and you are good to go.  Of course you need a dedicated game server, which you are working on..

Even if you can't do that, put leader board on facebook.com and JNLP the game from a link with auto login via FB (works smoother, not chat box overlay issues).  Very easy to do.  Then ask some folks with FB to join the app, post a couple spams on everyones wall, and spend the next 2 weeks leasing additional servers... Lol.

You should be broke in about 15 days doing that, but you'll have 100,000+ players in the process.

Watch, I'll spam you from FaceBook...