Comments on: Things missing in FA, Session 6

By: Jon R

Jon R — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:30:17 +0000

I have been dying for multiplayer Saves with this game for so long. I have had some games drag on for 4 hours, just because the game-time slows down so badly that 30 seconds of game-time is 5 minutes of real world time, even at +9. I know that this engine has an insanely huge amount of information to save, But they were able to do it with Starcraft in 1994. That was the latest RTS engine of the time. You would think they should be able to come up with some way of doing it 14 years later. I dont want to dump on anybody’s programming skills, because just to create this game is a master feat. Nevertheless, I still think they should be able to do it.

By: h

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:43:20 +0000

I look forward to the day when features likes these become standard in most games.

By: FA-Boycott

FA-Boycott — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:51:20 +0000

I’m neither a teenager or a student anymore. Same things for my friends.
While I bought SC, I’m not buying FA. I’m not interesting in a game where currently I must know I will only be able to play on very small maps, because otherwise, it’s going to be too long for the time we have, and we can’t save.
As for the various save problems (cheating, file size) : I don’t care about them, not at all. I’m not going to cheat with my friends, and we’re computer-savvy enough that a 100 mb save game will not be a real problem.

By: Molloy

Molloy — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:12:03 +0000

The TADemo rewind was indeed very buggy.

I just thought of a suggestion for a future “Things missing..” update. Improving the community aspect of GPGNet.

I’d personally love to see a little more social interaction in the game. In TA most of the popular services had pre-launch game rooms that the match would launch from. You’d discuss what maps/rules/teams you wanted to play beforehand, have a bit of banter while you waited for the other players. Then after the match you’d get thrown back into the gameroom, rather than the main lobby so you could discuss how things went and maybe arrange a rematch.

Mplayer also had voice chat in the game rooms. While this was abused by a minority of idiots, it was invaluable in improving communication between people you actually knew. Saved people typing reams of text to explain things.

Most FPS games have voice chat as standard. But it’s not a common feature in RTS unless you use a thirdparty program. I’d love to see voicechat handled automatically through GPGNet in the same way it is on Steam. None of that having to download programs and swap IP’s. I can’t understand why this is. RTS is far more suited to a bit of chat and interaction. There are large periods where you aren’t doing anything (assuming it isn’t a really serious ranked match) and a bit of conversation would really help improve the situation.

I set up voice chat a couple of times with my clan over Roger Wilco. We ended up finding out more about each other in a 30 minute game than we had in the preceeding 3 or 4 years. Voice chat is brilliant, just make sure that there’s an easy to manage mute button to sort out the lamers.

By: a_Tick

a_Tick — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:07:16 +0000

The rewind function in the TA Demo controller was really iffy, though. I tried to use it once and gave up on it.

Rewindable replays would be like a debugger that could rewind: it’s a good idea, but more trouble than it’s worth to implement.

By: Fing0lfin

Fing0lfin — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:05:01 +0000

TA Demo controller put a rewind function in TA, although you had to ALT-TAB out to get to the options menu, then ALT-TAB back in and wait a few seconds.

By: Gryphyn

Gryphyn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:34:56 +0000

It should be fairly simple to set up rules at the start of the game to limit abuse of a rejoin system. A time limit to rejoin after exiting, for instance, would prevent the team hopping as described above, or possibly a “do not allow switch teams,” stuff like that.

I like the AI idea, it goes quite well with what Covert and I were talking about. If a friend crashes out, other players can select “AI control” for that player, so they can keep playing while the friend rejoins and grabs their stuff back.

All I want for Christmas is my multiplayer options…my multiplayer options…

By: LucusLoC

LucusLoC — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:03:24 +0000

the fastforward feature would be a good (not great) workaround for lack of rewind. the only drawbacks i can see are a need to restart the replay to look at a few different things happening. but its better than having to sit through an hour or more of replay just to look at whats going on in another part of the map. replays are a huge part of the community here, it would be nice if a little more attention was given to them.

and now for another episode of “insanely wild ideas!!!”

what about an option to join a match already in play, by replacing an ai? so you could get a group of 4 people, go make an 8 player game, fill in the empty spots with ai, and start the game without sitting around waiting for four more. others could see how long the game has been under way, and decide they want a quick late game play (granted with what the ai built, but some of us play for fun, not to win. and bringing an ai back from the brink may become a sort of hobby/good training for pros). also, players that got eliminated could rejoin and replace another ai. furthermore, you may not feel so guilty about leaving, because you could just set you ACU to ai, exit and hope someone else joins and takes over (hop by the chat before you log out or something) you would of course have to put into play ways to limit abuse. a player from one team could not drop out, rejoin on the other team, drop out again, and rejoin original team with dishonest intel.

i know i would probably use it. . .

yes, im pretty sure im actually crazy. one too many hits to the head as a kid.

By: Gryphyn

Gryphyn — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:28:46 +0000

CapnCovert makes a good point. If multiplayer saves can’t be easily accomplished, why not the ability to rejoin a game in progress if you’ve crashed out?

Scenario: friends get together to play, after 30 mins a friend crashes out. Right next to the “kick from game” button is a “allow reentry” button. Remaining players hit “allow reentry” button, and patiently wait until their buddy gets back into the game, rejoins with the password, and viola, you’re off and running again without a problem.

By: MeDDish

MeDDish — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:44:06 +0000

ive seen RTS saves before umm LOTR:BFME 1 & 2 has it! (i think)
next ive heard that C&C has a fastforward in replays THIS would be enough for me, being able to set it fastfoward to 1 hour 10min and it displaying NONE of the units just a counter going forward till it reaches 1 hour 10min, processing as fast as ur CPU can handle!

being able to rewind replay realy i dont think this could EVER be in this engine, the replay file is basicly a list of everything that happened in the game by every unit and every bit of damage that has been done, and every movement done by every unit, now i dont see WHY this data thats added together to get the game from the start to the end just be subtracted to work backwards. something to ask a dev when they have a sec