Buying tonight Ways to play Multiplayer

[typhoon]

Hi all I hope I want this as top of my Christmas list but before I purchase just want to ask if there are any bugs or major flaws still remaining that stop a game dead. I was involved in some of the testing so have a good idea that this is indeed a labour of love and I certainly enjoyed trying the game out though due to hard times could not afford the purchase price. Now times are better and I really do want to try the game again but don't want to buy it if it cannot be played to completion. Can you play the full campaign solitaire to a finish? Can you play the game either net play or some sort of PBEM to a finish? if the answer to these two is yes then you have made a sale and I intend no disrespect in this post nor do I wish it to cause negative comments about the game just my money is hard earned and I really want this title in my collection but reluctant if it remains something that cannot be played to a conclusion.

[AlbertN]

You can play the Grand Campaign to its end - yes. You could have to reload a very small amount of times due to some bugs rising - but you can live with that. That in solitaire.

Play by Email is not something I advice, this game is just not structured for that in its conception. You can do it with someone who knows you well, but they can still take that intercept, or where a plane is to base, or place that plane at sea you had totally different plans for.

Netplay is not ready, no. The best is play "face to face" via a voicecomm and a way to share screens / access the pc hosting the match. That is what I am doing with a gaming partner.

[typhoon]

Thank you for your answer. Seems a pity about the net play. I'm not convinced on the face to face option seems a bit problematic. Really want this title though so seems like I may have to be content with solitaire in the hope that they will resolve the net play.

[AlbertN]

By face to face I meant at distance via PC - you can easily use Skype to communicate via voice or share your screen.

[typhoon]

I agree the problem is having to be online and available at same time I tend to fit in PBEM turns around a hectic home life when the baby cries I can save and then head back to the turn when calm I guess it's similar to him knocking the counters off the map lol still going to buy but do hope they get the net play sorted

[brian brian]

I've been wanting to comment on the idea of a pure PBEM system for this game for some time. Perhaps we could use another thread or start a new one, or typhoon could re-name this one if he is so inclined. But somehow, I feel that my ideas below really need to be publicized a little bit more, as this game has so many unhappy people hovering around it.

In short, Matrix World in Flames is 100% ready to Play By Email.

And so is "Net Play." !


Y'all just need to take a step back and look at playing this game a little differently. Also, I think only experienced World in Flames players can realize what I am saying here...


I don't expect Steve will be able to implement a pure PBEM system any time soon. There are so many others things to work on that would be used more.

In the mean-time, the game seems to play very, very well via email already. I can see some excellent games underway through the After Action Report threads the players are kind enough to share with us. These are real games between people, not solitaire gaming.

I think what is being missed here is the idea of the software handling the emails back and forth for the decision making process. This is a hold-over from the days when emails could only be relatively small bursts of text. Now, it is quite simple to send email back-and-forth that is really just a large data file.

So people are already playing this game by simply emailing the game file back and forth. There does need to be a tiny bit of an honor system in that the Axis player should not look at the values of the US Entry chits. A system to make those hidden without a quick PIN# or something would be all that is needed on the programming end to improve that just a tad.

Another bit of the past that has people wishing for a pure PBEM is experience playing simpler games, that have just a movement phase, a combat resolution phase, and then it's the other player's turn to do the same. This game is shot through with decision making for each player, all the time. Every air or naval activity contains so many decision points I don't think anyone would ever want to play it via PBEM. Email is also a bit of an old technology at this point: the way to go with this game is to have one player running the software in solitaire mode for their main activity (their movement and combat decisions) and then asking the other player via any form of communication the players wish - voice call via cell phone or Skype, email, or an IM/Instant Message/Text/Chatroom connection. The player then running the software then inputs the simpler decisions such as intercept with FTR planes, or not, for the non-phasing player. At the end of their main activities (their "impulse" in WiF speak), they email the game file back over to the other player.

I would even wager that this will continue to be the superior way to play the game even when NetPlay is 100% operationally perfect. NetPlay presumes two players and their computers are connected and the players just send decisions back and forth. All well and good, but you are now back to face-to-face style gaming but between players not even in the same room or perhaps same country. And ftf play has an infamous well-known disadvantage: slow players.

Far better to agree to a set time to handle combat decision-making where both players are simultaneously in communication and ready to make decisions. Once that ends, basically after the combat phases, take a break from being in live contact with the other player - that is what is realistically going to happen anyway, especially as you get deeper into the game in terms of the year of the war. By 1944 there are hundreds and hundreds of counters in play.

The beauty of MWiF is that it enforces the rules for you - so when the other guy is moving, you don't have to wonder if his Panzers moved seven hexes into your Home Country, rather than just six, and whether they really did start out in supply.


I think if more people embraced the email-the-game-file back-and-forth process, they would lose concern over when NetPlay will be 100% perfect and work could progress on other things the customers want. Rather than people just always checking the Matrix site to have Matrix tell them PBEM or perfect Net Play is ready to go. In my opinion Net Play already is - that just depends on how you define the odd term "Net Play".

One caveat is that all this is only true for 2 player games. Multi-player games like that should also be possible, though just slightly more complicated. I could see a good robust 6 player game happening that way if there were 2 Team Leaders who accepted emailed orders from their team-mates running the smaller powers - China, Italy, France, pre-war USA and USSR, Japan (i.e. the powers with the lowest counter densities) - could just have a CW and German player handle many of the decision points for them. I know some multi-player attempts have been made with TeamViewer, but that goes back to everyone agreeing to play at the same exact instant. The more players you add, the more trouble scheduling becomes; I'm sure we are all familiar with that from face-to-face gaming sessions. Computer technology can be used to get around that problem; once in a while you get shown the light, if you just look at it right.

[brian brian]

And for the TL;DR generation - You can "Net Play" this game all your want, today, if you just step up and think a little bit about the actual game play and player communication processes.

[brian brian]

And to make this a little more clear for those of you who haven't played World in Flames yet - there is no real reason your computer has to be connected to the other player's computer, directly via an extra layer of tricky programming and a server connection somewhere, for you to play it live against another player. Just use your phone. You can be looking at the map on your computer showing the locations of all of your FTR groups when your opponent asks "Do you intercept the Strategic Bombing mission over Berlin?" Then have the other player click the buttons needed to send up your shiny new Me-262b and blow those Liberators out of the sky. The software will handle the die rolls and you will be able to see the results when the game file comes back to you.

Waiting for Matrix to make this all happen for you seamlessly is taking too long. Just play, already!


(OK I confess here I don't know if MWiF has enough of a "playback" feature to support my ideas here. But it should be extremely simple to add a small feature of a text output log, created by the MWIF program that could be read by the other player, to verify die results playing this way. So perhaps just a few small program features - locked US entry views, encrypted/locked/un-editable combat results report - and a bit of publicity could get people playing this game instead of waiting for more time-consuming programming of making all that seamless, transparent, 100% super easy and convenient, etc.)

[brian brian]

And to be clear on what I am saying about "Net Play" - the reality of playing any scenario of World in Flames aside from Barbarossa and Guadalcanal, is that playing through them against live human beings will really be one long negotiation between the players over when they can both have their computers connected together, with lots of starts-and-stops making even a computerized game take many weeks or months to actually play out. Just like cardboard. Even the intro scenarios will be like that to a degree, though over a long afternoon or evening.

Be honest here - as you see how the software enforces the rules, are you really going to sit at your computer and intently watch the German player move each piece in Army Group North, Army Group Center, and Army Group South? Or are you going to surf the web or look over at your TV or finish cooking dinner or whatever, while you wait? When the game needs your input, you get a text or a chat or something, and you return to the game....that I think is the reality of playing a wargame by remote.


And sure, there will be players who will insist on knowing just exactly where the enemy HQ moved behind the lines before they can decide whether to send a Ground Support mission to the combat being supplied by that enemy HQ. Or where the extra pair of ARM on that front moved off to before the news came in of a 5:1 +2 blitz hitting their weak point in the front and they have to make a similar decision regarding their last available 2 point bomber. But those players are the ones who are tough to play against in a face-to-face game too.

[paulderynck]

Our Teamviewer game does not need the three off us to be connected all at once. The game is installed on a cloud server and any one of us can go look at it anytime we want. Typically we only meet on line for the combats since we know MWiF enforces the rules. There's beauty not having to sit and watch because FREX the other player cannot unintentionally move his units from a fine weather zone to one with rain and forget the double hex cost. A quick Skype text gets sent to the next player who has actions to perform. We have no problem waiting a day or three if real life prevents the next player from doing his thing (but understand others may not be as patient).

I really feel this is far superior to sending the game file back and forth and IM/text/emailing individual decisions (of which there are a great many).

Also, I see no issue in regularly meeting up on line either. Do it our way or by NetPlay, it's no different than committing to play the game face-to-face FREX every Saturday daytime and on Thursday evenings (or whatever). But our current process is more forgiving schedule-wise.

There has been progress on getting NetPlay operational, but it's not quite ready yet.

[brian brian]

yes I've been wondering how your TeamViewer game was working out.

I am curious what makes you say using TeamViewer is better though? I can see that that method would have up-to-the-subphase current information available to the deciding player, a definite plus. That would increase as the war moves along and the counter density goes up. It seems like your method is most akin to how I envisioned playing WiF over a computer even in the 1990s - via connection to a central server that runs the software, allowing each player to input their decisions when they can, making multi-player a true convenient reality.

I recognize that setting up a NetPlay PC-to-PC via TCP/IP is essentially no different than arranging a face-to-face game. But I think using the computer to make for simple start-and-stop play will ultimately lead to more gaming time for everyone once freed from schedule matching.

But ultimately any system you use to play the game will have Pros and Cons. I have my doubts that 100% of players will find configuring NetPlay on their unique machine situation all that simple. It is simple for Xbox gamers all running the same device to play against each other but a bit different to connect 2 PCs together amidst an incredible melange of hardware, OSes, routers, firewalls, etc. Simply emailing the game file back and forth plus setting up an IM Chat could well prove to be less technology lifting for some people.

A serious question I have about NetPlay is whether one side can 'move forward' without being connected to the other player. Do I really need my computer connected to my opponent while that opponent does a naval impulse to completely overhaul the CW convoy lines in the middle of the war?

And a final hurdle still to solve is the device people use to communicate. How much more can I keep a game moving if I can answer my opponent's request to make an interception decision for a single bombing mission if I can answer that question with my phone from anywhere instead of having to be physically sitting at my lately-infrequently-used PC?


I just haven't seen anyone mention here that if you want to play World in Flames against another human being quite some distance away, well MWiF now makes that fairly simple already. You don't have to wait...

[paulderynck]

As a beta tester I have been concentrating on NetPlay testing and I can tell you that connecting to my opponent through the Slitherine server has been completely bulletproof. The fact they provided the server is why all the problems you mention going PC-to-PC are not problems.

I agree there should be a mode of NetPlay where one player can do a lengthy move without having to connect to the other player. That and being able to "study the situation" at your leisure, along with the possibility of playing with more than two players; are why I would say the Teamviewer (or other screen/mouse sharing programs) approach is superior to NetPlay.

Some of our players have connected on a laptop via mobile data or wifi from time to time. That beats the heck out of trying to remember the board and which fighter might CAP and then telling somebody that over the phone.

For communication, we use texting on Skype which is equally accessible as voice on the vast majority of mobile phones these days.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck
Our Teamviewer game does not need the three off us to be connected all at once. The game is installed on a cloud server and any one of us can go look at it anytime we want.

This is an interesting set up--how did you do that? Is it on Dropbox or something, with each player having access? How do you install and run the program to/from a cloud server?

[Jagdtiger14]

And ftf play has an infamous well-known disadvantage: slow players.

You aint kiddin! We have a ftf player we nickname "Real Time".[>:]

[brian brian]

thanks typhoon!

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: paulderynck
Our Teamviewer game does not need the three off us to be connected all at once. The game is installed on a cloud server and any one of us can go look at it anytime we want.

This is an interesting set up--how did you do that? Is it on Dropbox or something, with each player having access? How do you install and run the program to/from a cloud server?

Sent you a PM.

[typhoon]

Just to update purchased and available for download though on pain of well not sure exactly what pain the other half would commit am not allowed to peek at it till Christmas thank you everybody for your comments and the level of response helped as much as anything to sway my decision shows there are still many committed to the cause.

[FeurerKrieg]

Thanks for the comments in this thread. I recently ordered MWiF and I'm sure it will take me some time to get my head around the game - I did play table top for a turn once, so I know about 1% of the game.

However, the appeal of the computer version is the ability to sit and study the map for as long as I like. My questions for anyone out there are:

1) Are there phases of your turn where you can make moves that do not require opponents decision making? Or, is it easy to identify which moves won't require decisions from the opponent?
2) When the opponent needs to make decisions, are they typically in depth or are many easy to make?

I find the idea of being able to text a questions "do you want to intercept this mission?" great, but I would think there are times that question would require a look at the map, but other times maybe not. Just wanting to get a sense of how often the opponent reaction decisions are simple versus complex.

I also like the way one AAR I saw seems to use that as a medium for communication. Nice for those who want to follow along.

[paulderynck]

1) Yes, definitely.
2) Usually easy to make, however there can be a large quantity of them. It likely is possible between two long term trusting players to have a an agreement like "do what I would do" and/or "here are some standing instructions for my reactions during your impulse, in case A, B or C happens".