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PBEM-fans unite!


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Well did this one blow all out of propotions...

It was not what I had in mind at all.

Some good, some bad and some ugly replyes I´ve read. Let´s all move along shall we? Life´s too short.

"A man who has declared that another is an idiot and a bad companion, is angry when the latter eventually proves himself to be otherwise.

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche"

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Nietzsche, I believe you. Unfortunately, you picked a bad topic to start if you didn't want it to get blown out of proportion :D

Now that the Belgian contingent has arrived here, I know it is time to close up the thread. The last thing we want is to watch a Belgian slur people in three languages (four if you include English, the universal taunting language) because he can't figure out which one he's supposed to use. Silly Belgians! But since you make great beers (got a few cases of Tripel today in fact) I don't really care. Keep it up, Interbrew über alles! tongue.gif

Steve

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  • 2 weeks later...

All of this banter makes me wonder: is there actually another way of sending we-go game files that bypasses email, as in directly from one computer to another?

The reason is that PBEM has become a trial for me and many others that I know of. ISPs reject emails with attachments all the time now and PBEM is a hassle. Yet TCP is hard to coordinate.

By the way, this query is 100% curiosity, no strings attached. :D

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Yes ...and no.

I'm not the big brained software engineer here, so take this with a large dose of salt. But to send it via IP to IP then it either needs to be received at the time of sending. That's TCP play, really. If it's not, that file needs to stay somewhere where both sender and receiver can access it via the ingame interface at the time convenient to them. I mean, the turn has to stay somewhere in between sending and being received. That would most likely have to be a site set up for it by the game maker, if it's an ingame feature. For them, a PITA and expensive in bandwidth. For game makers letting us make out own file sending arrangement is the best way to go unless they make us pay to play. I do NOT pay after a game purchase, ever. Never ever. In a million years. Really I'm not. And I mean that. A lot.

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Originally posted by konstantine:

All of this banter makes me wonder: is there actually another way of sending we-go game files that bypasses email, as in directly from one computer to another?

Of course. Plenty of people run a webserver or a ftp server at their home machine where you can upload things to. I do that all the time with big files (several hundred MB) because I don't like my mailboxes bloated with mega-attachments.

Or a group of people can rent a server. It's not very expensive.

The Unix freaks will probably give each other ssh logins anyway.

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Bijlsma was right, the point is that you have an asynchronous way of communication. All the other methods are synchronous, you can only play with people near your time zone.

Building an ftp server to the game is technically possible, there are even simpler protocols (tftp I recall), but it makes no sense. Do you want to let your game run for hours/days when your opponent is ready to answer? Maybe you meant an ftp client...

You are better off with emailing if the file size is under 10M. If it's bigger I think ftp is the best solution, many ISP offers ftp service too. With file managers uploading a file is easy as if you were copying it to a local harddrive.

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Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

I'm confused. Is PBEM going to be in CM:SF?

What we are discussing is the question:

If the PBEM files would be several hundred megabytes, should the PBEM code still be included? Would people pass around files of several hundred MB?

The answer is clearly - yes, they would.

Most people here did not have to try to run a web or ftp server at home because they lacked a need. They don't know how trivial it is. But faced with the problem of getting PBEM to run at all they will try. And succeed.

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Several hundred megabytes is not an option unless you have very high upload capacity.

Setting up a web server at home is easy, configuring the firewalls is more difficult, having your PC run 24hrs probably even more difficult. An external service is a more viable solution imo.

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Lets move on to something really important now that we now PBEM will be in except on thursdays after Labor Day, but before Boxing Day in Canada, and you are not stuck in Iraq because you can't navigate the excellent American educational system(the rest of the world beware)

But really, whose grass mod will they be using?

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Originally posted by Kineas:

Several hundred megabytes is not an option unless you have very high upload capacity.

Even the lousiest DSL/Cable connections have upload speeds of 128 Kbit/sec. A 200 Megabyte file makes it through in four hours.

Remember, the whole exercise is for those who want to play not time synchron with their opponents.

So in (your) evening, after you plot, you start uploading it either to your opponents computer or to an upload site. Your opponent can come in any time after the 4 hours are over and either has it on his box already or he starts downloading it with his download speed (which is considerably faster than upload speed).

At worst you have to alternate days, which still make PBEM possible. Of course in that case it won't hurt if BFC isn't wasting an extra turnaround like they did in CMx1.

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A site set up as a depository for files works well with the concept of asynchronous gameplay. When you're done you put the file there, when the other guy wakes up or gets home from work he downloads and then uploads his turn. This server could be public too, since the players should be using passwords. So if two people find that their email services hate each other's attachments, an FTP service of some sort should work fine.

Steve

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If we do get PBEM (and I'm presuming we will), would there be any improvements over the current system?

I was recently introduced to PBEM Helper Fast& Trusted mode and it blows away the regular method. PBEM games are 3xtimes as fast and have almost a TCP/IP feel, while retaining the advantages of PBEM. It would be nice if something similar was built into CMx2.

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