Re: play by email version

On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 12:25:52AM -0500, Jason Short wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 13:58, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 09:36:21AM +0000, John Allman wrote:
> > > Hi - i'm new to freeciv but it looks great. I had a look on the site but 
> > > there doesn't appear to be a play by email version of the game. Is there 
> > > one being developed or are there any plans to develop one?
> > 
> > This feature is requested often but AFAIK nobody is working on it and
> > no patch exists. One solution is to play with a large timeout of 1 day
> > or so.
> 
> I had a few thoughts on what would be needed for such an
> implementation.  But then I ran into a wall, and I'm sure in any case
> there are many things I haven't thought of.
> 
> I assume we want to be sending one e-mail per player per turn.  This
> e-mail is sent to the server, which also receives every other player's
> emails and sends an e-mail back to each player.
> 
> There are two things this implementation would need:
> 
> 1. Change the network protocol to deal with binary files that can be
> emailed rather than a continuous stream.
> 
> 2. Extend client functionality & change game rules so that the server
> and client don't need to communicate at all *during* a turn.  This is
> assuming one email per turn will be sent.
> 
> 
> #1 should be pretty easy; the dataio code just needs to be extended. 
> Basically, we still do have a continuous stream of data - it's being
> sent in e-mail rather than through TCP.
> 
> 
> #2 would be much harder.  To begin with, nobody can make moves during
> the turn - we'd need something like the proposed goto-at-end-of-turn
> system where everyone enters goto moves and the server processes them
> all at the end of the turn.
> 
> But this is just the beginning.  Currently almost every player action
> involves the client sending a packet to the server and receiving another
> packet in return.  Here the return packet needs to be cut out.  In most
> cases this just means the client needs to know more about the game
> logic.
> 
> 
> My question is, what is the point?  The only advantage I can see to
> play-by-email is that a direct connection to the server is not
> required.  But the implementation would have many spin-off benefits from
> reduced lag effects.

As you point out it will change the game a lot (both gameplay and also
the code). IMHO will this create another game.

	Raimar

-- 
 email: rf13-r/[email protected]
 "The very concept of PNP is a lovely dream that simply does not translate to
  reality. The confusion of manually doing stuff is nothing compared to the
  confusion of computers trying to do stuff and getting it wrong, which they
  gleefully do with great enthusiasm." 
    -- Jinx Tigr in the SDM