Who's Available?

[SkulkrinBait]

How about an indicator on the members list so you can see who is accepting invitations to new games?

Sorry if it's already been mentioned!

You could have the option to advertise for invites to regicide or citadel grab games maybe?

[Natmus]

In theory you could read the latest post about availability in a player's personal thread. Personally the very first post in the thread is used for my current status, and updated when necesarry.

And don't get offended if somebody declines an invitation at some time, usually there's a good reason for it, and it's not meant personally.

[SkulkrinBait]

I often get turned down so don't get offended ;D

I think once this game is out of beta and millions of people sign up, it might get tricky to follow the forums.

But you are right of course, I'm just lazy! ;D

[sparrowhawk]

good idea - i;ll add a Y/N flag in the members list page

btw, the indicator is visible if you drill down on a member in that page, but you have to do it one by one, which is not great.

millions of people? ;D

i think that maybe a few dozen will be our maximum (maybe more initially, but after a few weeks I doubt that all will sustain their interest)

[Perun]

Jean-Yves said:

i think that maybe a few dozen will be our maximum (maybe more initially, but after a few weeks I doubt that all will sustain their interest)

It would then be a good idea to start advertising M/MU across the Net!

[SkulkrinBait]

Perun said:

It would then be a good idea to start advertising M/MU across the Net!

I'd wait until it's just about to go live, the full version, once all beta testing is finished. Unless more beta testers are needed?

I can post adverts on boards that I frequent etc (not spam, just posting under "other" "off topic" etc) and I'm sure I can drive a fair bit of traffic this way if needs be.

I know you aren't charging for the game JY, but are you going to take advertising? What's Mike think about you maybe making money from this? More importantly what do the copyright holders to LOM/DDR think?

I personally am only pointing this out to stop you getting into any trouble, you deserve to get some kind of payback for all the hard work that has gone into it but I'd hate for this to be canned as some greedy company doesn't like the idea of it making money.

Who owns the rights to LOM etc now?

[sparrowhawk]

As far as I know and understand (and reinforced by the LOM article in Retro Gamer #5), Mike holds the copyright still, and is ok with the current crop of remakes, including M/MU, so long as they are non-commercial.

He's reserved the right to stop mobile phone versions - fair enough.

As to other copyrighted stuff - only the standard LOM graphics and names are still copyrighted, as all the code is written from scratch (except one or two bits, but these are either public domain, freeware, or can be replaced)

So very worst case scenario, I could switch to Jure's graphics (or someone could do new ones?), and we could run the game on scenarios that are completely new.

[sparrowhawk]

Oh, and I don't intend to make anyone pay. However, when it goes public on the icemark site, maybe a Paypal button so that Chris can get help with paying for the hosting?

[Ringthane]

Is Paypal safe?

[merlin]

Jean-Yves said:

Oh, and I don't intend to make anyone pay. However, when it goes public on the icemark site, maybe a Paypal button so that Chris can get help with paying for the hosting?

If we get to that stage we would just move midnightmu to it's own site. That way it is really only paying for itself.

We can asses this as we move forward with it... For everyones interest. To be self suficient, Midight/MU would only need to "earn" between £50 -and £200 a year depending on what the actual bandwidth requirements turn out to be.

Add on about £20 a year for a domain name.

So on the whole you would only need a donation of a few quid per person depending on member numbers to make it work. Currently it would mean about £3 each with the current user requirement as I think it will be happy with the £50 package, therefore the theory would be as a problem occurs it is because there are more users and therefore possibly more donations. And you could just "upgrade" the package later.

However, I am happy to leave it on Icemark until I can't get my email anymore!

BTW: Mike would have no problem with this method of funding... but obviously I would clear it with him first.

[Matija]

The problem with Paypal is that it only accepts payments from a very limited number of countries.

[merlin]

Matija said:

The problem with Paypal is that it only accepts payments from a very limited number of countries.

I think there are numerous options, lets worry about that if we *need* to go down that route.

[SkulkrinBait]

I'm more than happy to pay to play this great game, heck I'd even pay the hosting costs out of my own pocket!

But I'm sure if needs be there are others who would contribute too ;D

I think there will be a potential gaming community of a few hundred people on here once word gets out, with probably 1-200 playing frequently, many "lurkers" who might not quite get it!

I'd be happy to write a players guide for the newbies if you think it's worth doing? Is there one already?

[sparrowhawk]

Other than the out-of-date manual, no. It's one of the main outstanding items for the 1.0 release

There have been several abortive attempts at getting a guide written, but so far nothing's come of it.

If you do have a chance to get something started, then I would be very, very grateful!

I would guess that you need to pitch it at fairly detailed without getting bogged down in detail. For example at Lakes:

"Lakes may provide the exhausted army with much needed refreshment. But beware, some waters are dangerous to drink" (but better than that!)

rather than
"To reset your armies to 100% energy, search at lakes for waters of life. you have 90% chance of success, with a 10% chance of Stagnant waters which, blah, blah)

.

[SkulkrinBait]

OK I'll see what I can come up with - time's a problem for me so I can't give you a deadline ;D