Is TCP/IP Supported?

[timewalker03]

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

I presume FtF stands for "Face to Face"

Yes HanBarca it Stands for Face to Face or players within close physical proximity to each other.

HanBarca have you ever played a FtF game before?

[fvianello]

ORIGINAL: timewalker03

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

I presume FtF stands for "Face to Face"

Yes HanBarca it Stands for Face to Face or players within close physical proximity to each other.

HanBarca have you ever played a FtF game before?

Are you joking ?

[timewalker03]

No HanBarca I am not Joking. If you have ever played a FtF game of EIA you would realize that turns move very fast when the world is at peace and slows down when the world is at war. The two things that have slowed the game down in the games I have p;ayed FtF are diplomacy and wartime calculations and money expeditures during war. Even then we could play 12 turns in one hour when not at war since the builds for economic interphases were done when others were taking their turns. Now that the computer manages all battle losses and money expenditures that actually speeds the game up even more because you don't have to sit with a calculator and figure out % of losses and morale losees. The computer simplifies the rigorous portion of the game and would allow for better gameplay with TCP/IP.

[fvianello]

Let's see...my first "FtF" game was a WWII miniature game, in 1977....First EiA game was probably in the '80 and something.

Actually we didn't call them "Face to Face" as internet wasn't invented yet.

[timewalker03]

Yeah they used to be called gaming sessions and my first FtF game was 1977 and the advent of dungeons and dragons. I played in a campaign that lasted from 1980 to 1995. Same people dedicated to the game as was my late 80's and early 90's EiA gaming group. The argument you have against TCP/IP is a senseless one since there are so many games played this way today. I play not only World of Warcraft which is even more people intensive than EIA ever will be. You nee 5 people to run instances which can take up to two hours to run and as many as 40 people to run 3-4 hour instances and that is on a daily basis. I also play Astro Empires which is a realtime space wargame. In there we coordinate attacks of 20 and sometimes more people and we do it with people from all over the world. Finding 7 people really is not that tough.

I am 38 with a wife and 2 kids. I work 40+ hours a week which doesn't include a commute and I coach my sons 7th Grade basketball team. I know in all of that that I would find time to play EiA over TCP/IP. I play WoW and Astro Empires at least 3 days a week 1 hour at a time without any problems. I also read and keep 4 fish Tanks going without any problems. It's all about time management. My wife and I have a great relationship so the ideaof adding something else would be easy if only EiA supported TCP/Ip

[timewalker03]

You know Marshall I would even give time to test TCP/IP out. I have 7 friends right now who would play the game if it was supported. We all play other TCP/IP online game as it is now, yet this is one we would love to play the most.

[Marshall Ellis]

Wow! Careful HanBarca, we're aging ourselves. I think my first FtF was ~77 and it was "Victory in the Pacific".
 
Curious about IP FtF ...
 
How long would a session be?
Could 7 people sit at their PCs for 1, 2, 3 hours?
What happens when the phasing player goes to dinner, drops a connection?
 
EiANW will require all players to be present if it is to move. It's not like a first person shooter where the game can move on if a player drops out. I can see a lot of frustration in this area. I saw a lot of frustration in this area from PBEM alone. There is a lot of messaging between players that are collaborating which would delay a turn. I guess what I am trying to say is that I've seen very little in EiA move fast. The more humans, the slower the game. This has little to do with the technology.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[timewalker03]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Wow! Careful HanBarca, we're aging ourselves. I think my first FtF was ~77 and it was "Victory in the Pacific".

Curious about IP FtF ...

How long would a session be?
Could 7 people sit at their PCs for 1, 2, 3 hours?
What happens when the phasing player goes to dinner, drops a connection?

EiANW will require all players to be present if it is to move. It's not like a first person shooter where the game can move on if a player drops out. I can see a lot of frustration in this area. I saw a lot of frustration in this area from PBEM alone. There is a lot of messaging between players that are collaborating which would delay a turn. I guess what I am trying to say is that I've seen very little in EiA move fast. The more humans, the slower the game. This has little to do with the technology.

Funny that you say that Marshall, with the use of voice communication now available game turns would move closer to FtF speed. Using a Ventrilo or Teamspeak server aids in this because of realtime communication. Also why does everyone think that you can't find 7 people who would be dedicated to play. Are people you know and play with that unreliable?

[fvianello]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
Wow! Careful HanBarca, we're aging ourselves. I think my first FtF was ~77 and it was "Victory in the Pacific".

Yep, I have a clear vision of me arguing about blockade rules while trying to stand up from my wheelchair to change the peacemaker's batteries

[timewalker03]

What are Peacemakers? A gun? or did you mean Pacemaker?

[cato13]

and whats the obsession with havin 7 players? granted it would be optimal but surely the AI will be improved enough so that even 3 or 4 players could have a tcp game goin?

[zaquex]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Wow! Careful HanBarca, we're aging ourselves. I think my first FtF was ~77 and it was "Victory in the Pacific".

Curious about IP FtF ...

How long would a session be?
Could 7 people sit at their PCs for 1, 2, 3 hours?
What happens when the phasing player goes to dinner, drops a connection?

EiANW will require all players to be present if it is to move. It's not like a first person shooter where the game can move on if a player drops out. I can see a lot of frustration in this area. I saw a lot of frustration in this area from PBEM alone. There is a lot of messaging between players that are collaborating which would delay a turn. I guess what I am trying to say is that I've seen very little in EiA move fast. The more humans, the slower the game. This has little to do with the technology.

A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP.

If all players are online he game could progress really quickly. A 3 hours session once in a while is probably manageable from time to time for most dedicated players/groups. In such implementation nothing then stops you or anyone else to have a break to go make food or do some work. With a 4-5 minutes average turn time (most turns except land and economy is usually quite quick, in peace time you often do nothing) such a session would then make you progress 1-2 months and on average it would take around 30 mins between your turns. I think that at certain slow times you probably can go much faster than that maybe as much as 6-12 months. The constraint of any round based game is that the game never will progress faster than its slowest player. As a worst case scenario the game would progress as fast as a PBEM game. A game played on a server would also limit the possibility of certain types of cheats.

[fvianello]

A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP

Right, but being a programmer myself I understand that this would require a totally new game engine.

In such implementation nothing then stops you or anyone else to have a break to go make food or do some work.

except the fact that there are 6 guys waiting online for you to come back from dinner

With a 4-5 minutes average turn time (most turns except land and economy is usually quite quick, in peace time you often do nothing)

Maybe playing France with no allies, but if you're Austria in a coalition of 3 players it's going to take a lot more.
Moves must be coordinated , strategic objectives must be decided, depot placement assessed, money and promises exchanged...All these while the others 4 players are waiting online for you to come back from discussion.

A game played on a server would also limit the possibility of certain types of cheats.

Right, but the price is high....

[zaquex]

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

A TCP/IP implementation is best served by a client server model. The server should preferable be online 24/7, then at anytime any player could log in to the server see where the game is up to. All game mechanisms should be run on the server and the players machine should only act as an interface to provide input and output to the players in essence it would be a hotseat game with a remote interface over TCP/IP

Right, but being a programmer myself I understand that this would require a totally new game engine.

I haven't enough knowledge of the engine to know for sure but the features that are implemented suggests that the engine in itself should be able to handle it, connectivity, data interface etc would however still require alot of work.

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

In such implementation nothing then stops you or anyone else to have a break to go make food or do some work.

except the fact that there are 6 guys waiting online for you to come back from dinner

With a 4-5 minutes average turn time (most turns except land and economy is usually quite quick, in peace time you often do nothing)

Maybe playing France with no allies, but if you're Austria in a coalition of 3 players it's going to take a lot more.
Moves must be coordinated , strategic objectives must be decided, depot placement assessed, money and promises exchanged...All these while the others 4 players are waiting online for you to come back from discussion.

This is not any different from any FtF game, if you use the 30 minutes to make plans with your coalition mates you might even be able to do your turn in 5 minutes. Over a 10 year campaign you always have periods of slow time, enforced peace, buildup etc.

I never said that the land phase during that big coalitions war against france would be done in 5 minutes and even with a coalition Austria usually should be able to do reinforcement phase in a few minutes and naval in less than a minute.

I do not however expect 7 players to be online at the same time very often I do however think that most games/groups should be able to pull off one or two phases a day with such a system.

ORIGINAL: HanBarca

A game played on a server would also limit the possibility of certain types of cheats.

Right, but the price is high....

not as high price as a pbem game...

[NeverMan]

Marshall and Han,

It seems to me that your only real argument against TCP/IP is that you can't account for a-holes. That's not really a valid argument. Yes, some a-hole could just leave the computer without telling anyone and leave everyone waiting for him to come back. Why not have a time-out? If none of the other players can contact him eventually then he gets replaced (based on groups descretion). This is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENT than PBEM. WHAT HAPPENS IF SOME GUY GOES ON A YEAR LONG VACATION AND FORGETS TO TELL ANYONE? My point: This isn't a problem specific to TCP/IP, it's a problem specific to the game, just like in FtF games.

Also, like one of the other posters said, what about peace time? (which happens more often than most who haven't played the game think) TCP/IP would roll through peace time with no problems. I have seen a year or more go by in a very short amount of time while everyone is recovering from a large coalition type war. This is pretty standard in the beginning of the game after the first coalition war.

You can have your cake and eat it too. TCP/IP AND PBEM can both be implemented so I don't see the problem. If the game is currently playable (meaning, you can play and enjoy yourself without too many annoying bugs) then why not implement TCP/IP? I just don't think it would be that hard. I'm not a network programmer, although I have done some, but I'm just assuming since most modern games have some sort of TCP/IP multiplayer play.

[Grognot]

Perhaps because you're conflating

(1) a fundamental redesign from trusted clients which do the computation themselves, to thin clients and server, which has some possible advantages but is a lot of work if you didn't design the code with this in mind

and

(2) the differing transport mechanisms.  PBEM, in fact, does use TCP/IP.  Considering that with the small player base of a niche, complicated wargame not well-suited to Ritalin addicts, you're probably going to have substantial delays *anyway*, it's not clear that PBEM itself causes any problems whatsoever unless you're using a poor e-mail system which regularly delays mail or loses attachments.

And, since you don't actually have to use e-mail to transfer the .pbm files, but can use the transport mechanism of your choice (CVS, for instance), that's not really a problem that requires an in-game solution, either.

[timewalker03]

I have been very critical of not having this feature in the game. I actually Pm'd Marshall and asked him specifically about it and vented my frustration. He responded back with a very rational answer which I will not add here, but I am convinced after it that the game will be a worthwhile game and Matrix will continue supporting EiA. Even though I still hold that the people who defend PBEm and put down TCP/IP play as very narrow and small minded about it, I will continue to play the game and will get my friends who I know will be dedicated to the game to start playing. And for the people who stand to believe that the game would need to be reprogrammed to handle TCP/IP, well you would be surprised! Thanks Marshall for all you do and keep up the good work.

[cato13]

im gonna take a stab in the dark here and guess that tcp wont be implented then based on what marshall may have said. am i far off there?

if there are technical reasons why it cant be done then at least that would put this subject to bed

[moopere]

ORIGINAL: Grognot

(2) the differing transport mechanisms. PBEM, in fact, does use TCP/IP. Considering that with the small player base of a niche, complicated wargame not well-suited to Ritalin addicts, you're probably going to have substantial delays *anyway*, it's not clear that PBEM itself causes any problems whatsoever unless you're using a poor e-mail system which regularly delays mail or loses attachments.

And, since you don't actually have to use e-mail to transfer the .pbm files, but can use the transport mechanism of your choice (CVS, for instance), that's not really a problem that requires an in-game solution, either.

Yep, and this is what the TCP/IP promoters seem to have missed. If you send me an email right now I'll likely get it within the next 30 seconds. Logically then, if all 7 players are gathered at their PC's right now we can play the game using the PBEM infrastructure but in 'real time' just as quickly as if there were a direct client to client network based system implemented.

I'd like to see someone actually tell me -how- the much hyped TCP/IP direct play model is faster or better? We might actually be arguing over interface in my humble opinion, the assumption possibly being that a TCP/IP implementation would hide from players all the work currently required with attachments and files.

Cheers, M.

[timewalker03]

To make a quick summary of TCP/Ip play what I was told is that if enough people want it then it will be implemented sooner than later. I was told some other things about it, but it can be done but there are other fixes needed first which is understandable. Also most decisions come down to what the EiA forum community wants. If many people are against having TCP/IP then that will slow down the implementation of the feature. If people really want the feature then they need to express it sooner than later. As I told Marshall and his response change my feelings about the game completely that it would be more important to bring about IP play and less on AI Play In my opinion. I have voiced my concern to him and the answer was very reasonable.