Changing systems after people join

Hello,
I see it happen all the time. I see a game server i want to log in to, usually with small number of small planets, i log in, and after that he changes the system into "Inner solar system" or some other huge system. Please, choose your system before making it public, and don't pick a system just to make people join and to change it later.
I think that's the polite thing to do.

I agree with this guy... It is infuriating whenever it happens.

I see a neat single planet system, and I'm like *oooh, pretty!* ...

I join, and some minutes later... *bam* a 14 planet system that instantly hogs my computer, generating all those planets.

you guys sound like any small thing can set you off

it doesn't seem to me like that big of a deal, you can always say you like the first system better and to go back.

I'm just glad to have the option to dynamically change system like this in the lobby.

One feature I find missing though is arrows to sift back through the systems you loaded and load a new random.

this way it's half/random (randomized systems but the values are stored in case you liked one it proposed and also stores the custom one you loaded in the history)

You might say he gets... cheesed off.

O-oh my?

I don't think people change system to trick people, just takes a while to get sorted out. I find it frustrating as well, due to my pc's limited ram large systems basically cause it to hang. I think this is a result of the lobby auto loading a system on creation of a lobby though....

Hell yeah. PA's primary philosophy is "what you see is what you get", but this doesn't apply to game lobbies (yet).

I join a 5player FFA on a single-planet system because I want just that: FFA. Single planet. Two minutes later I'm suddenly playing a 2vs2vs2 Team Army game on a system with 4 planets and 3 moons.

Make the system and game mode selection permament for each lobby; it's easier to create a new game anyway and you don't annoy several people along the way.

I often make a game, and then people halfway through decide team armies, or something like that, and it will pick a random system that often has way more planets than I want. So there is that, too.

I wouldn't want a restriction on changing it once the lobby is up. It's pretty often that my opponent and I get in the lobby and then mutually decide on a different map. I do get annoyed when people set a 1v1 lobby and then switch it to ffa after the first player joins, but that happens a lot less often than it used to.

I agree they are just nagging.

However, they bring up good reasons, like computer limitation on how many planets to generate, as to why "publishing" a game should be a "button" that locks some settings, like planet type and game mode, but not player spaces and AI spaces and shared armies and such.

Ranked/ladder/official games should honestly not even let a player touch a setting, any setting will usually be used to troll. Street Fighter has round limit and time limit, and some players will set that crap on 1 round 30 seconds just to troll... its literally the ONLY options you can edit!

People suggest things you don't agree with? They must be pedantic naggers.

The sad thing is, I did agree with it. For better reasons is all. Since I am on trial, I present the record to the court...

No further testimony, your honor. I rest my case. /AceLawyer

There's this thing called a debate. Often, people leading it disagree over one or more points; sometimes they even agree but debate for different reasons. There are also multiple ways to debate.

One of the wrong ways is to insult, or discredit, or to generalize the "other side". When your input begins with "they are just nagging" and you find no fault in this - or worse, consider this the proper way to argue - then you're no longer on topic - you're arguing ad hominem.

You (and others) may consider this even more nagging from my side, or nitpicking or whatnot. I don't care. Either debate in a polite way and think twice before posting, or don't bother.

there.

that's what I'm against.

you can change the game and all the mods in the lobby. its has all the practicality in the world. it's dynamic, fluid, adaptive, circumstantial.

Not: blunt, roundabout, impractical, obtuse.

Here we are contemplating getting rid of a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty discomfort in exchange for letting in another huge, gigantic discomfort.

I'm not going to side with this madness until you give your solution a bit more though.


it must be possible to think up a solution that doesn't remove some of the age-old elements of the genre that are home to a lot of the comfort and luxury we've grown accustomed to.

why haven't you looked into the loading for example? (Host side) you could sift through systems then have a button to "start loading" with an automatic timeout so you don't have to press it yourself.

with 20-sec on the timeout, people have enough time to communicate their displeasure at the change and obtain their own.

If your real issue is the supposed lack of control over what the host is doing, I ask you this : "why aren't you the one hosting?"

What? I did give it more thought. Don't allow changing big things that sold the person who joined to begin with. If you want to change them, make a new game and ask them to rejoin.

Mods in-lobby? That probably isn't great either. Slip in cheat mods, nobody but you notice, you copy-paste a few units here and there without anyone noticing and win the game underhandedly.

Planets are sort of a big deal to change last-minute. There should be changing the game settings, but then there also needs to be a settings lock at some point where the players joining know what to expect no last minute changes.

On that reguard, planets need a details page in lobby. A thing below the current one, you click it, the screen temporarily is covered with planet details like metal density. Because seriously, 3 games last night, all absurd metal density. It is like red alert 2 where people created maps with infinite-generating-oil-derrek.

no.

that's a no.

"don't allow" is a no.

I can't have that.

TA you could change your sodden map

FA you could change your maps and mods, you could even change to a map that contained mods inside the map file

PA you could change maps and soon to be mods too

You wanna break this, cuz you can't host your own and just apply the no-change-map directive as your credo, but instead want to impose this credo onto everyone else and remove this age-old lobby option, I say no.

Personally, I'd like to see an option where I don't start loading unless I hit a load button, that way if I join a lobby that decides to change to a ridiculously sized map, I don't suffer severe hang as a result & can back out, not mention as host I don't want to load a random map as soon as I start a lobby.

Would require an indicator for saying whether someone hadn't started loading the system yet.

Simple fix, host your own lobbies. Everyone has there own preference, & obviously not everyone will agree

that's what I’ve been saying.

This too would be good. Just some point and time where the settings are locked and you aren't jerked around.

No, because SOMEONE has to join a lobby as well as host, and as a courtesy of joining anyone else's lobby it would be nice that it not be some clever troll setup. Thus the "more planet details" request as well, I understand that everyone has their own rules but ridiculous ones are to cater to select crowds only by choice.

What I am talking about, is publishing to public servers a conservative rule game, then flipping it before launch where it is 16 planets and max metal settings. That wasn't why I joined the lobby, if MY opinion matters too why can't I choose to join a lobby that already hosted the right settings and not get trolled after the fact?

I don't want to limit anything. I just want there to be some sort of point where the rules can be locked. Maybe make the host able to "ready" and this locks the host settings? That way, at least you could see him un-ready to make changes. *shrug* is that really in violation of so many civil liberties?