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Author Topic: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great  (Read 5485 times)

Znegil

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"Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« on: April 25, 2009, 01:59:59 am »
This game would be getting even better if there would be a "Play by mail" feature.
A bit like Mail Chess ;-)
So, you would play Multiplayer, you make your move, the game creates a data file in a spezial folder, your movements/shots/map/positions... are in this file.
You send this file to your opponent by mail attachment.
He openes the game, choose "Play by Mail" in the menu.
Options show up "New game" or "Open sent data"
He choose "open sent data", he picks the correct file...
and he sees the battlefield as it was the last time he saw it, then he sees you movments and shots (if visible to him) and now he makes his own movments and shots.
After his move a dialog pops up to ask him about a filename and where to save.

Matches like this would take very long, but who cares? It would be so cool.
I would play against at least 3 or 4 others and make at least 2 turns in each battle per day.

If you want to see how this is done quite good, look at "Incubation - Battle Isle Phase Four" it was a game from Blue Byte in 1997.
I had play by mail this way.  :-*

Offline BTAxis

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2009, 02:06:47 am »
I used to PBEM Battle Isle 3, actually.

Anyway, we can't do this for UFO:AI because the game does not, and will not, support saving on the battlescape.

Znegil

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2009, 02:08:11 am »
But it would be only for multiplayer, so where would be the problem?

Offline BTAxis

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2009, 02:13:11 am »
You don't understand. There is no support, code-wise, for saving on the battlescape.

Znegil

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2009, 02:16:10 am »
 :'( that means.... never? Never ever?
Is the no way to track down where everything in a level stands, where it faces and where it shoots?

Please answer : "Maybe someday"

« Last Edit: April 25, 2009, 02:17:43 am by Znegil »

Offline BTAxis

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2009, 02:18:39 am »
No, sorry. Never is the best I can give you.

Znegil

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2009, 02:29:49 am »
Sooo.... I will just ignore that I read something right now and wait for some paralell universe to open up.....

oh da**
I was really hoping it would be possible.
You or someone know a game with strategic possibilitys like UFOAi that is playible in "Play by Mail" I really want something like this to play against my friends. (not chess, done that, something nicer looking like that)

Offline BTAxis

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2009, 02:48:45 am »
Battle Isle 3!

Offline Destructavator

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2009, 03:49:49 am »
I remember VGA Planets was fun - I actually paid for the second version series a long time ago.

I heard they are still going with a totally new version now somewhere on the net, but I haven't checked up on it, so if that's true I have no idea what it's like now.  If I had more time on my hands I would Google it and look it up...

Offline Borsti67

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2009, 11:27:51 am »
http://www.vgaplanets.com/ ;)

But it still seems quite outdated to me (last changes 2005?)...

Offline BTAxis

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2009, 12:05:00 pm »
The website looks more like 1995...

Offline Destructavator

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Re: "Play by Mail" Multiplayer would be great
« Reply #11 on: April 25, 2009, 02:05:02 pm »
Hmmm...  You're both right, it looks like either people lost interest in it, or it died, or both (although I only glanced at the page, I don't know how many people actually play it now).

That's quite a shame, I remember back when it used to be one of the better games around, even before the Internet really took off (It was on quite a few BBS systems one could dial up with a modem - a very different world back then).