"...you did seem like an idiot to me at the time trying to fill a 20 player game with so few members available

And it did seem to take a veritable eternity with me not even knowing if you did finally fill it or finally gave up on it. " TaurusRex

Regardless of how long it took, he filled it and I see no stupidity in trying, specially once he was successful.

Obviously with the now 12 active players left we need something different. So I will support Mog's quest to get more people involved but I have played this game long enough to know it is just not up to people's standards or my own for that matter(Heck if I decide to take on a handicap vs another player like I am doing in a game right now because I am too lazy to move all my troops this should tell you everything), hence why I believe we will have to eventually take the game and remake it on a new platform.

Back to recruiting!!!! It just dawned on me how few we have left struggling to hang on to the greatest strategic War Game on the NET! Just looked back on the old game and forgot just how booming WOL was! We even had Ladies, brought back many memories! I have tried over n over to recruit with no success and do not comprehend as to WHY? I know all the young Lads are into the shoot em up "push the button as fast as you can" games but yet look at all the dedicated Chess players? That is a turn based strategic war game, why can we not recruit them????
WARNET is a turn based strategic war game and loaded with players and I have attempted so many times to get players over to WOL with no success? One player stated he dint like the graphics? WTF? Theres very little difference! Maybe some added Boom-Bangs but its basically the same as WOL-"Capturing only-no building" check it out! They are swamped with players yet I cannot get one over to WOL so I am stumped and open to all suggestions! My next attempt will to spread the word on FB and ItsYourTurn. There's gotta be a Chess Player somewhere looking for an advancement on strategic planning!

I think it would be worth a try and post this game on chess sites. There are plenty of them,I'll do what I can to recruit some chess players.

Hey Ult, check this out, it's a couple of years old but I found it extremely informative about more current design and implementation of browser based games. A lot to consider, particularly with mobile devices. He goes with HTML5 and CSS and Java script it appears. Some good advice for optimizing game performance with browser given resources.

www.gdcvault.com/play/1015669/A-Practical-Guide-to-Building

Excuse me UB, but I think you missed my point ...
Mog may not be the host of wol, except that now he's trying to get more folks to play which because of his obvious dedication to the game should cause him to consider that there may be some merit to my opinion that after waiting several weeks to participate in his 20 player game, he was inadvertently lending a hand to loss of interest and boredom;

Whereas filling 4 player free for all camps in less than a few days certainly doesn't breed boredom and certainly does instead cause players to have fun enjoying the game with a greater chance of arousing their interest to come back for more.

rex

Hey Mog, thanks so much. That is highly useful from what little I have seen so far. Though I am trying to stay away from Javascript I might not be able to get away from that as it seems. On Tuesday I will be speaking with a Google Engineer on an advisor/advisee level about both design decisions and suggestions he might have regarding technologies I can use for this project.


@TaurusRex
What you seem to misunderstand is this: That filling a 20 player campaign in any way affects people's ability to just join another 4 player campaign if they need to while waiting. Specially when Mog has been very accommodating about membership renewals. Point is, I doubt this game had anything to do with why weve lost more players.

@doodoomite
Good luck buddy!

Ok so I have watched it now. It was great but now I need to figure out how much a few of the cons he mentioned have changed. Sound will not be important initially as the game is being put together but eventually it will be needed. Other aspects, like how HTML5 deals with CSS animation is something that will need further prodding as well.

It wouldn't be nearly as easy to program it in HTML5 I think, but he makes some good points about it being the most portable way to go.

The audio is pretty low on the totem pole for sure, there sure isn't much in WOL.

Being able to get working versions up and running faster is more important. Besides I think the canvas system works well. At least if we can make a working version of the game with HTML 5 we can then look at other available technologies. Honestly the most important thing is to have widespread reach and to be able to play it from anywhere with anything. This is the way to go in that aspect. Also keep in mind that game is a very rough draft of the type of gaming that HTML5 can do. I am willing to push the envelope in both graphics and animations to make this look as attractive to people as the strategy and tactics part is to us.

I'm ready to help with graphics, that is my specialty.

It's funny, he is discussing using what are really offscreen graphics worlds, and I used that method a lot when programming Macs in the old days. It's great for some stuff, but he says here that it is slower than just updating the canvas if all else is fast.

Fantastic. I will reach out.

I can see how that would be but I am still too noob to understand everything about it. I am glad he brings a lot of this stuff up, especially that part about canvas vs off screen(and that he has the server do some of the heavy lifting), cause it means I was not too far from the mark in terms of how to structure the game(I thought having the canvas do everything to be best since at that point with animations and the like we get GPU support.

This does not answer all my questions though, so hopefully i get some of those answered tonight with my session I spoke of earlier.

So I spoke with the software engineer. He brought in a great deal of experience to the brainstorming I am currently undertaking. One thing is for certain(I suspected this but its nice to get the confirmation) It needs to be built for mobile and then scaled up for tablets, desktops and the like. No way around this if I wish to simplify things for myself. It is just much easier to scale up than down. This is reflected on various blogs and tutorials about the subject.

With this in mind I will still need this to work on browsers for the older crowd here.

I am still unsure of what group of technologies to use. HTML5 still has limitations and these could show up later down the road when new features are being added. I have taken very seriously a few suggestions(specially LOD's) about the game needing to have some aspect that puts the player in control, a bit like how you have to control units and troops in Starcraft, Command and Conquer and Age of Empire games (RTSs that this game borrows some of its elements from). I am still unsure if this is the right way to go but so far things point to wanting to have that flexibility so I cannot just jump on the HTML5 bandwagon if I am really considering these options.

With that said we also have to think about latency if the game will not be turn based only(I plan to give it flexibility in that regard such that we have turn,tick and real time game modes under the new system) This will help immensely in accommodating people who are interested but have varying degrees of time, commitment and gameplay needs.

These will all adhere to the same system we see now but will definitely have different gameplay requirements and mechanics from each other.

Anyway, other than these I still have to actually break down the game abstractly before I begin building it. I think I can deal with hosting and the like later. I can probably get away with a couple of cheap options for now.

That makes sense to make it work on the smallest devices, then scale up for we dinosaurs. You'll have to master "pinch" tech as well.