Players' impressions of Civ3 MP

[atawa]

So compared to gameplay in civ2, now does PTW rate?

[phelonius]

laglaglaglaglag

Unreal Tournament can host 16 players sending an inordinate amount of data to the server in a real-time 3D world. Asherons call has 2000 people running about with only the occasional lag. Hell, I can play Towers on Yahoo with 7 other people and click like mad with no problem.

Why can't I play a glorified board game on-line with out mind-numbing lag?!?

Hey Sid, I almost cried when I realized what you did to the program I was waiting forever for. And I thought SimGolf was going to be the only bad game you ever made.

[Dinner]

Re: laglaglaglaglag

Originally posted by phelonius
Why can't I play a glorified board game on-line with out mind-numbing lag?!?

I imagine the reason is a lack of investment on Firaxis's part. They seem to have tried to do things on the cheap. I'm glade they put the hot keys on sceen and added a few new civs, but, that costs almost nothing to do. The only real addition you get with PtW is the ability to play MP games... which doesn't seem to work for most players.

Heck, CTP2 was released two to three years ago and it's MP actually works and is enjoyable. To bad Civ3 MP is such a none event.

[ChaotikVisions]

From the chat today it seems the lag is from a few things. Lag from how gamespy does things, lag they never really noticed caused by a bunch of people trying to play, and the game will go the same speed as the slowest comp/connection, so a P42.5ghz playing with someone on a P350mhz will still probably be slow. Patch is supposed to fix the problems and improve things, as well as add a direct IP connect, so that you don't have to go through gamespy to play. Read the chat log if its out yet to see more.

[Dinner]

It looks like Firaxis is making an attempt to make MP usable which is good. However, I'm old fashioned and I don't want to buy a product until I see it in its final form. I think I will wait to buy PtW until the next patch comes out and I can make sure multiplayer really works. Thanks for the help everyone.

[Th0mas]

Re: Re: laglaglaglaglag

Originally posted by Oerdin


I imagine the reason is a lack of investment on Firaxis's part. They seem to have tried to do things on the cheap. I'm glade they put the hot keys on sceen and added a few new civs, but, that costs almost nothing to do. The only real addition you get with PtW is the ability to play MP games... which doesn't seem to work for most players.

Heck, CTP2 was released two to three years ago and it's MP actually works and is enjoyable. To bad Civ3 MP is such a none event.

Sheesh!

Firaxis are:
1. responsible for the internet infrastructure and should be able to guarantee connectivity
2. responsible for the specification of PTW users home PC's.

and...
3. the cost of development is so cheap to make it almost neglegble.

and we all know how good the CTP series was out of the box!

..enough said

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Oerdin
However, I'm old fashioned and I don't want to buy a product until I see it in its final form.

How comes you bought CtP2 then?

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by metalhead
With my VERY limited PtW experience - 2 1v1 games where the other player locked up and I won, 1 3 player game where the other players quit due to unbearable lag and I won - I think it seems quite promising. Once all of the lag issues get worked out, it seems like it will be a lot of fun. The 1 v 1 game where the other player locked up, we were playing turnless, fast timer, and accelerated production. I literally had 3 warriors built in 10 seconds, before I even had a chance to switch production. Crazy, but fun.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35785

this thread is about how to play a better than 2 player game.... it's not as complex as you think

[metalhead]

I tried that, but it gets old pretty fast, since you can only play against others who have uninstalled GameSpy, and finding compatable players with the patch and low PING is tough enough already. I think a lot of problems could be eliminated if everyone entered the PtW multiplayer lobby, instead of launching GameSpy. From what I can tell, GameSpy never launches if you enter MP through PtW. Shouldn't it be the same as uninstalling if the program never launches?

[NeOmega]

Shouldn't it be the same as uninstalling if the program never launches?

I believe so.