Posts: 3822
Joined: 16 Sep 2007, 22:00
KaM Skill Level: Skilled
ICQ: 269127056
Website: http://lewin.hodgman.id.au
Yahoo Messenger: lewinlewinhodgman
Location: Australia
And when I host a game I tell people that during peace time you are not allowed to explore each other's bases (you must turn back as soon as you see a building or road) because without fog of war this gives you a huge advantage and just doesn't seem very sportsmanlike.
The person who wins a militia rush is just the person who can pump out militia the fastest, there are no real battle tactics or complex economic management. Sure it takes skill, but it's a very specific skill and there is little room for alternate tactics. I'd like KaM to be a game where each player has their own "style". Some might make lots of militia because they're cheap and fast, some might spend the time building a massive iron economy, some might go for 2 stables and lots of scouts so they can out run their enemy and encircle them. I think THAT would lead to interesting games. But with militia rushing, there is only one playing style. Make militia as fast as you can. You don't even have to worry about balancing your weapons vs food production, just forget food. That's not what KaM means to me at all. (but as I said I think it's cool if people want to play competitive games like that, but I don't think it's for everyone)
I believe enforced peace is an important feature, because it will give you time to build up your economy and tower defence meaning you will be able to defend yourself. The host can choose a peace time that suits everyone. By doing this I think you could have fun games with randoms.
Also, please remember that the English speaking community is a tiny part of the broader KaM community. Almost half of our downloads have been from Poland and the Russian and German communities are fairly strong too. So often people just don't understand what you're saying to them.
Yes I think KaM has imbalances, but I'm hoping we can address these and build it into a game that is less frustrating to play online. It's still very early days for multiplayer in the Remake, and this is really the only time KaM has been played multiplayer on such a large scale. It's never been tested like this before, so of course there will be problems. Don't expect it to be a full featured well balanced game so "early" in development.
In other news, I started work on the auto reconnecting code. I made it work once or twice (I killed the TCP connection and the game reconnected and continued without a hitch) but there's a lot still to be done as most of the time it doesn't work. But I think I've proved that resynchronising is not hard at all.
P.S. I'll care if you leave. I'd hate to see fans being turned away from KaM because of things like this. I know you are not the only one who feels this way because I've spoken to other people in games, they always seem amazed by how fun the game is once it really gets going without militia rushes.
tl;dnr?