PBEM improvements needed?

[Henri]

Having just started a couple of pbem games, I find the process rather clunky and requiring a photographic memory to remember file names ; so here are some ideas on how to improve it. I realize that some of the changes might need too much programming for a patch .First thing I know, I'm looking at a screen asking me for a file name, and I have no idea what the previous file was called (memory error )

One of the confusing factors for pbem is that all "moves" don't end the same way: the first player changes every turn, sometimes the turn ends when one finishes the movie, sometimes not, and so on.

Here is what would help:

1) Automatic file naming: the first player would give the game a name (for example "AAAA"), then the computer would automatically name the successive files in a manner that would allow AUTOMATIC loading of the correct file by the game when the player chooses the original file name ("AAAA").

2) Automatic mailing: CM would save the game and tell the player the file name (in case he wants to know), then transfer control to the mail program (say Eudora) and attach the file and put in the opponent's address. All the player would have to do is add any remarks he wants to and to press the "send" button. Right now it's a major hassle to quit CM, open Euidora, start a message and address it, find the correct mail file to attach.For received files, CM would be told where to look for it once, after which it would load it automatically after the player identified the game name as "AAAA".

Since CM requires the exchange of 6 files for the first move and 4 files for subsequent moves, it seems to me that some way of streamlining the process is required. Just having to transfer the files from CM to the mail program after my play and having to transfer received files from Eudora to the CM pbem folder seems a needless hassle to me.

Yes, erasing files after they have been used can simplify the problem of file identification, but it prevents looking over the game later, and what happens if one destroys the file and then then it turns out that something went wrong and the players have to move back to a previous move? I move the files to a different folder, but that is an additional hassle. There must be a better way.

Henri

[This message has been edited by Henri (edited 08-11-2000).]

[Dick Reece]

So now you want Charles to program the game to Mail turns for you??????

hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha

[L.Tankersley]

The first couple of PBEMs I did, I tried naming the files according to turn number and whether they were Axis or Allied films or orders. This got tedious and confusing, though. Someone here (don't remember who, sorry) posted what they did: assign a name to each scenario (e.g. "Singling" or "QB7" or "Rematch"). Then append a serial number to the filename (so the first file you send will be e.g. "Singling01"). This makes thinks remarkably easy: the default filename CM provides for PBEM files is the name of the file you just loaded, so all you need to do is increment the number by one every time you generate a file. If you do this, you can throw all your PBEM files in a single directory and sort by date modified, so all your most recent files will be at the top of the list.

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Leland J. Tankersley