Lexiconomistake in Off Topic

ID:27493
 
Feb 17 2007, 7:21 pm
Keywords: lexiconomy
I had an interesting moment tonight when I discovered that it's impossible to start a new game in the version of Lexiconomy that's always hosted on the digitalbyond servers. I didn't put any special coding in for that because I assumed that even in a game that's being hosted all the time, the game would still basically shut down when everyone left and start up again when new people arrived. Apparently it doesn't.

This could explain why I never see anyone playing Lexiconomy. No one brought up the bug, though... of course, it's possible that anyone who joined thought they were doing something wrong, instead of the game doing something wrong.

But I've sent Digitalmouse the new version, and also put it up for download, so you can have your own.
#1 Feb 17 2007, 7:26 pm
I joined once, waited a bit, and left.
#2 Feb 17 2007, 7:49 pm
I'm sorry, but I don't have a subscription to test this line of questioning. May I ask how you determine who can start the game? Many of the old techniques for determining the host in Dream Daemon ceased working.

The recent 3.5++ Dream Daemon may help things, but the model itself is a tough sell to players nowadays. It has been a problem so long that some players seem to actually take offense when they are not allowed to control a game on someone else's server. Meanwhile, hosts often think that all they have to do is start a game in Dream Daemon.
#3 Feb 18 2007, 4:21 am
thanks for the update Zilal! new version is online and running now.

one thing to consider (and maybe you already do this) is a method i've seen in two games currently hosted on digitalBYOND: the first person in the game is the 'host' (in terms of starting the game or changing certain settings).

perhaps when that person leaves someone else becomes 'host'. when no-one is actively in the game, the game resets or just waits for someone to start (for example, a spectator 'joins' the game - if she is the first person to join, she becomes host).
#4 Feb 19 2007, 5:46 pm
You can test without a subscription! The subscription just gets you more features.

How I coded Lexiconomy is... the first person who logs in is the host, and can play with settings if they have a subscription. But the game starts automatically once three people are joined IF the game's round is "Waiting for more players."

The really weird thing is that when we played the other night, some of the information in the game seemed to have been reset from the last game played (there was no host listed, for instance) but the game's round was not reset. The game still thought it was in the word-definition round of a game that was played weeks ago. Which was really weird.
#5 Feb 19 2007, 6:18 pm
Doh, I missed the second line when I logged in. =)