Real Time Multiplayer Space Empires IV! - Big news from PBW.

geoschmo · #1 July 11th, 2001, 09:13 PM

Announcing Admiral's Play-by-Web Space Empires IV Real Time Client: The biggest thing to hit Space Empires IV since, well, Space Empires IV.

You love Space Empires IV, but you are tired of kicking the AI's arse all over the galaxy.

You want to play against other people. Hot seat looks cool, but you can't get any of your Online friends to fly to your town and play you.

P.B.E.M. is too S.L.O.W., and although Admiral's Play by Web is better, you're still looking for a faster paced challenge.

Real Time Client (RTC) solves this problem, and it�s in Beta NOW.

RTC uses the existing PBW server but completely automates play. You log in and join your game. RTC automatically starts your turn. You don't even have to run Se4 and load the game. After you are done, you hit end turn, and RTC automatically uploads your player file to the PBW server. Once all the other players in your game do the same, PBW processes the turn as always, and RTC downloads the new turn to your PC and automatically launches you right back into your turn again.

NO clicking......NO email......NO waiting......YOU CAN JUST PLAY!!!!

Now for the fine print. You can't fight tactical combat with RTC, and you can only run games with simultaneous turns. In other words, you can't do anything with RTC that you can't currently do playing a game on PBW. And you have to have a few MB of space left on your hard drive for the client program and Java Run Time, but we'll get into all that later.

The good news is, it's all automatic, and it's FAST. Almost as fast as all of you can do your turns. Probably just as fast as TCP/IP would be.

Currently we need people to try it out and help us find any problems. This will be limited at first, and priority will be given to Groups of players that can commit to playing together for extended periods of time to give it a true test. But like PBW, you don't have to have a group up front. You can find others logged in a start a game that way.

We expect a HUGE response to this, so if you want to be part of the Beta group, let us know soon. Email us at [email protected]

The PBW Admin team

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 11 July 2001).]

Spoo · #2 July 11th, 2001, 09:33 PM

YIPPEE!

And there was much rejoicing.

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Magnum357 · #3 July 12th, 2001, 10:02 AM

WOW!!!! Great Job Admiral! Sure does make hot seat on the web possible. I'm still a beleiver of PBEM myself, but I would definitly consider this as an option for the PBW site.

Dragonlord · #4 July 13th, 2001, 06:36 PM

Excellent initiative by the PBW folks !

Happy_Dau · #5 July 13th, 2001, 06:46 PM

Can it be used for LAN-play? Or does it seek an active I-net connection?

geoschmo · #6 July 13th, 2001, 06:53 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Happy_Dau:
Can it be used for LAN-play? Or does it seek an active I-net connection?

You must be connected to the internet to use the RTC. The client program handles the auto-launching and sending and recieving turn files. The game turns are still run on the PBW server as they are now without the RTC.

Geo