Revolutionary PBEM

[Tim Snoddy]

I have been enjoying multiplayer games of a well known Ancients table top wargaming system now available on the PC. I am not very technically minded but I understand they are "hosting" the games so that when you start multiplayer if your opponent has played a turn, the game is sitting waiting for you in your saved games. In other words no messing around sending or receiving game files. Seems like a pretty revolutionary improvement to me. Would this be possible with any of the CM2 games or just an impossible pipe dream?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

And then the server shuts down and that's that, no more PBEM.

To my mind TCP/IP is there to serve those that can't (be bothered to) email files and I hope it gets expanded to it's former glory. That should go a long way. But a third party between me and my opponent? I'd rather not, even in a dream world where BFC had unlimited programming time.

Besides, with the size of files that sometimes crop up in CMSF, I'd think it would be rather costly in terms of bandwidth. 20MB don't sound like much, but even a few score mailing that type of file back and forth throughout the day, that adds up.

We are asked to e-mail a file back and forth. Surely we can manage that?

[Tim Snoddy]

And then the server shuts down and that's that, no more PBEM.

To my mind TCP/IP is there to serve those that can't (be bothered to) email files and I hope it gets expanded to it's former glory. That should go a long way. But a third party between me and my opponent? I'd rather not, even in a dream world where BFC had unlimited programming time.

Besides, with the size of files that sometimes crop up in CMSF, I'd think it would be rather costly in terms of bandwidth. 20MB don't sound like much, but even a few score mailing that type of file back and forth throughout the day, that adds up.

We are asked to e-mail a file back and forth. Surely we can manage that?

Good point I hadn't thought about the server shutting down. Hopefully it would be such a success Battlefront would never want to pull the plug.

Sure we can manage to email a file back and forth, can we be bothered, is the more relevant question. I played a handful of PBEM games on the original CM. Maybe things have improved, it all seemed desperately clunky. I have played far more multiplayer games of FOG PC in a few weeks than I ever did of CM. The AI is weak but the multiplayer lifts the game to a whole new level and I am sure the ease of playing multiplayer is big draw for a lot of purchasers. I was able to say to members of my gaming club, hey this is really good because of the multiplayer, and they went and bought it.