19 replies to this topic

[TonyE]

Back in the day, like many of you, I played Harpoon OnLine but I didn't have enough money to play the paid, just the pre-pre-release <g>. Unfortunately my memory of the actual gameplay is foggy and my current coding efforts are running across some of the items that any multiplayer HC would face. So if you have the answers I'd most like to have my memory refreshed!

[TonyE]

1. My understanding was that we could have multiple players on the same side, i.e. 3 Blue players, was that correct?

2. How were staff assistant messages presented? Were the queued up and presented only every 15 or 30 seconds? If there were 3 Blue players did all three players get all of the messages? How did all of that flow?

That's it for now, thansk!

[Warhorse64]

1. My understanding was that we could have multiple players on the same side, i.e. 3 Blue players, was that correct?

2. How were staff assistant messages presented? Were the queued up and presented only every 15 or 30 seconds? If there were 3 Blue players did all three players get all of the messages? How did all of that flow?

That's it for now, thansk!

You could have multiple players on each side, one of whom would be the 'controller' in charge of distributing that side's assets among its players prior to game start. I don't really remember how the staff assistant was handled, but the minimum time compression was 10 seconds, which could be a real pain for key moments when you wanted to have 1:1 ...

[TonyE]

Thanks Warhorse! Do you (or anyone else) recall how the distribution of units was done? My recollection is that the first player to join each side was the 'controller' of that side. Was the distribution by group? Could the controller re-assign groups once the scenario started?

Hah, 10 second minimum time compression, I like it!

[Warhorse64]

IIRC, the distribution was by group. The controller could certainly reassign groups in mid-game if one of the players dropped out. I *think* he could also do this even if everybody was still there, but I'm not positive about that.

[TonyE]

Fair enough. How do you think multiple players on one side should be handled in the future?

I was leaning towards a free-for-all where any player on the side could give orders to any and all units/groups. The staff assistant is a problem (which of the 3 Blue players gets the message from group ABa?) in that arrangement.

[Warhorse64]

The old way actually worked pretty well, IMO. The down side was that there were some scenarios where one type of asset, for example long range bombers, did almost all the work for one side. If that type of asset was concentrated in one group or base, the other player(s) on that side might wind up with nothing to do but watch. OTOH, allowing any player on a side to give orders to any group sounds to me like a recipe for command confusion and general silliness. It might work to allow the controller such privileges, designating him as overall commander, I suppose.

For the SA, if you do go with a free-for-all, perhaps send his messages to the last player to give orders to a group. If nobody has given orders to a group yet, give the message to the player who is least busy at the time, perhaps judged by frequency of SA messages to the players. One thing about the SA: in HOL, time did not stop while a player dealt with the SA. With a minimum compression of 10 seconds, this often meant that whatever disaster the SA was warning you about had happened by the time you finished reading the message! This MUST be changed! Either time stops for the SA, or minimum compression needs to be 1:1 so you have a reasonable chance to react, or the units in question do the intelligent thing by default while you read the message and you can change it afterward.

[TEPonta]

For what it's worth, I never played this, but it sounds like a blast.

Buddha

[TonyE]

Surely more than two of us have an opinion on this aspect of multiplayer? Speak up folks or I'll get everything I want and you'll have to live with it and grumble.

[CV32]

I've been waiting for folks to further flesh out "how it used to be" before passing comment.

I missed the whole HOL experience.

[TonyE]

I've been waiting for folks to further flesh out "how it used to be" before passing comment.

I missed the whole HOL experience.

Makes sense though I think Warhorse fleshed it out pretty well in regard to this one point. It is a shame you never got to try HOL, much as I like an easy win, HOL and the human element made losing worthwhile!

[Warhorse64]

For what it's worth, I never played this, but it sounds like a blast.

Buddha

It was great fun. The biggest issue really was that the most interesting scenarios took too long to play, people would have to drop out.

[TEPonta]

Some of what people are pointing out as shortcomings seem to add to the realism factor if you ask me. Who among us with real world USN experience hasn't seen things unravel to the point that the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left hand is doing? We always seemed to be able to pull it off, though. That's where the pride in "Mission Accomplished" steps in.

Buddha

[Brains]

Some of what people are pointing out as shortcomings seem to add to the realism factor if you ask me. Who among us with real world USN experience hasn't seen things unravel to the point that the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left hand is doing? We always seemed to be able to pull it off, though. That's where the pride in "Mission Accomplished" steps in.

Buddha

I'll certainly take the shortcomings if you'll allow me the few thousand trained-human-equivalent AIs and the machine(s) necessary to run it real time. I suspect the DoD would make you a better offer though...

[Gopher]

Fair enough. How do you think multiple players on one side should be handled in the future?

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with HOL.
When I look to other games like http://eu1.battlesta...a.bigpoint.com/ then I don't think that it will be good when all players on one side could handle all units with no asking. Inside of a good team it would work fine. But often inside of a team is one "selfish" player who jam the operations of his co-players. So from my point of view it shall be rather an option to handle all units than a standard.

I was leaning towards a free-for-all where any player on the side could give orders to any and all units/groups. The staff assistant is a problem (which of the 3 Blue players gets the message from group ABa?) in that arrangement.

In every battle there must be at least one "regional" commander who care about low priority bases and familiar to this who care with prio about support, logistic and ferry missions.

And why shall a multiplayer game be limited to 3 players on each side? The bigger the team then the bigger the fun effect. If on one side are 30 players and on the other side only 5; then the 5 players shall be supported by 25 smart (Tony like programmed) AI players with units.
But first, let's please see a real through the internet playable multiplayer version with 1 vs. 1.

I missed the whole HOL experience.

Who is the owner of HOL? And why could we not get a trial period for it?

It was great fun. The biggest issue really was that the most interesting scenarios took too long to play, people would have to drop out.

For this has from my point of view today free multiplayer online game good approaches. On is, that the player define the behavior of the units when he is offline (which and how many a/c shall be ready for intercepting @ which range, ECON for each unit, how to act for ships when they are discovered or attacked (retread, or attack) and so on). By log out the AI finish the current orders of the units and then move the units to the predefined behavior till the player log in again (or all units are destroyed).

An other approach is, that all player units retread when the player goes offline. And when the player goes online after a couple hours he start with his units from a safe place (or at least from the safest place) an has to ferry to the battle.

An other approach is, that all player units are handed over to an other human player. If this player is overloaded with all units and don't hand the units over to an AI player, then a lot units loiter around or stay at the base till a new player goes online to whom the "surplus" units could handed over. If a new player log in to a running game, he shall be able to capture the role and units of an AI player. (My favorod solution, so a battle could go 3 to 7 real days and there it is then not necessary to stay the whole time online.)