Oolite Bulletins

Isn't there a danger in a multi-player version that the first players to be able to afford an ironass with all the trimmings will simply take to hunting helpless newbies for their precious cargoes? Wouldn't there have to be some sort of "honour code" to let new players build themselves up a bit or they'll simply be shot to pieces before they'd even got started. Or could you separate the more experienced by having a minimum number of kills before you could jump into a new galaxy, for example?

I forgot about the relative time thing. But I'm not too worried about lag: Xpilot, SubSpace, and even World of Warcraft (for a 3D example) all manage to keep a reasonable playing experience even with servers in remote locations. Of course, I know the secret: you're not seeing things instantaneously. You're seeing things on a quarter-second delay. When your ping time goes beyond a quarter-second, you "lag".

But relative time will be a much more difficult nut to crack.

On the other hand, people are working on it. Heck, we're doing design right here. And other space games are solving the same problem, too.

With Eve on Line, Contracts can be issued on named players. I guess rich players would do this to such unsporsman-like Commanders.

morigen wrote:

DO not worry about servers in USA and Europe having a lag. There are ways well documented to handle these things.

If you can give me a link to a good example of such documentation I'd be interested to read it.

I recall an occasion where I (in the UK) was 'chatting' online to a guy in Poland and a guy in the USA. The server we were using was in London and it was clear that the guy in the USA was struggling to keep up. I was typing things and the guy in Poland would reply. I'd reply to that and then we'd get something from the guy in USA that was a response to the first thing I'd said. That was just chat - nothing so fast moving as a game.

thats americans for yer.


(just teasing ofcourse)

Easy there, big fella'.

Congrats on your 1200th post.

Michael (from Baltimore, in the USA:-)

lolwhites wrote:

Isn't there a danger in a multi-player version that the first players to be able to afford an ironass with all the trimmings will simply take to hunting helpless newbies for their precious cargoes?

A multi-player version could perhaps have an increased number of police in the high gov systems of Galaxy 1. Perhaps the game could even give the player an emergency call option and some of the cops an increased scan range and an AI that makes them likely to use fuel injection to come to the rescue of players attacked by players in those systems.

Perhaps the issue with missions could be solved by having them spawn with certain intervals. I think that's how it's done in some MMPOGs (I haven't ever tried one, but have had a few reports coming back from friends that wandered off on Everquests or disappeared into worlds of Warcraft).