Gridding was never an issue "back in the day". Not that we didn't lay grid figs, but the universes were so heavily populated with players that laying or maintaining the type of grid that's used today was simply impossible. We were lucky to maintain a 3-4 hop radius around the area we were working. We would try to maintain a few areas at a time so no one knew exactly where we were.

Yeh, I know that. But we aren't talking about back then. We can't travel
back in time.

Today, if you do that, it's too easy to find you.

Today gridding is an issue. If you just add a planet delay without anything
else, you're giving the game to gridders. That's fine, I'm very good at that
particular aspect of the game, but it certainly shifts the balance away from
builders and other "old school" mentalities.

Now I think a fast planets & stock ships game with high eprobe costs in a 30k
uni would be less gridder friendly, even with a marginal planet delay. If we
do get the 65k unis, I think the size of the universe shifts the balance back
a bit.

Frankly, tho, I think there are times where a planet delay is a PITA. An easier
way is to implement a variable message delay, so that figs, limps and mines
don't show up insantly. If they took a half-second, you'd eliminate most of
the pgridding/ptorping of today. There really is no reason why messages from
your figs clear across the universe take practically no time to arrive.

If you want to see what effect message delay has, log onto Archy's server in Australia (I believe). I had a 500+ ms ping and that made twarp photon risky and attacks almost impossible against someone hitting figs. This isn't to bag on that server, just that it is a long way away from me.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Nod. If msg delay was in 250/500/750/1000ms incs, you could do a lot with that to slow
down attack scripts. Add in stock ships, limited turns, fast planets, high eprobe costs
and a big universe... and you've got yourself a builder game. Boring as heck, but that's
what ppl want these days.

I have never understood the builder mentality, but to each his or her own. If I wanted to build in a game I would probably be playing Farmville or whatever it is called on Facebook or MySpace.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Yeh. Same here. But apparently it's what most people seem to want to do.
That's kindof the problem w/ facebook games, they're all based on similar
processes. So people that want to facebook TW want, naturally, to make it
more like those games. It's the model ppl are pushing. Gotta love fads.

Anyway. When TW becomes nothing more than a game in a box, I'm done.

Prom , welcome to my world .. high ping games .. I think Cruncher would like to have a 120 ping in game where I have a 480 , but maybe not ...

I have to deal with this all the time and have found a work around.
Get a corpie that has a good ping to do the hit and stop and then I can go after them.

Cruncher thinks that we TK are afk in kill scripts , but just cause we don't
always talk on fed doesn't mean we are not close by keys.

TK is probably the only corp that has full 24/7 coverage with someone at keys.

But I do think if old school is what you want , message delay is the way to go , toggle that and I think they will get the feel they want ... just leave it out of normal tradewars games.

I want "normal" pacing back and I want time limits and low turns. You geeks and JP figure out the details, I just know that planets should NOT move as fast or faster than ships. I know ships need tpw pacing back, an IC should not move as fast as a scout. You guys keep your kill'em all games, I like to build and make war and capture my opponent's stuff. I like a well rounded game, playing all aspects of Classic TW. If you want to call that Old School that's fine with me. There's no way you can "edit" the game as it is today to get that feel back. This is something JP needs to do.

How would you know that? Have you tried it? I am curious to see anything close to this 'well-rounded' ideal. Planets moved just as fast back in the old days.

H

i dont see it. ive played games that felt like it did when i was a kid playing. i wont touch them now, i prefer the shootemups.

i dont think that its a question of a planet outrunning a ship. its a question of how you think of a 'transwarp drive'. now, if transwarp means 'really really fast in a straight line' then i get you, but i think more along the lines of it being a spacefold type of thing, so if your ship is moving in a straight line at regular warp and then a portal pops open and a planet falls out its not a question of outrunning but one of a powerful predictive computer picking the right spot to pop out based off of a heading and speed.

They didn't pwarp faster than twarp, speeds were the same. I just tested it in a pre TWGS version of TW, half a dozen times with a 4tpw ISS against a mobile. If they move faster now, that is a change.

Then maybe it is as JP says, the game hasn't changed, but the speed at which players connect has.

Yes, high speed and dedicated internet connections (dsl, cable, etc) have changed the game and how we play it.

So is it based on the tpw of the ship doing the pwarp then? If so, that's beatable
w/ bots.



K3 was on dialup, IIRC. Didn't really stop him from being aggressive.

What's changed is the attitude of players. Originally the game was just this
casual laid back play-once-a-day kind of game. Now it's full contact sport.
People from the casual view would rather gripe about the change than speed
up their play, and apparently find it too difficult to setup their own server.

This particular argument has been going on since, at least, 2003. It won't
stop aggressive players from being aggressive.

nor will it stop the whiners from whining. especially when these same people refuse to recognize that you cant turn back a clock. alas, but it accounts for a lot of forum posts.