Hello TA members, For several months now we've been toying with the idea of enabling 8 player iMech over 3G. The decision has boiled down to whether it will truly offer a more compelling game play option or if it would hurt the overall online experience for players. After extensive testing with various location and connection combinations, we've noticed that 3G reliability and speed is based on a player's location. In some areas 3G is fast enough to play iMech with little or no difference from a Wi-Fi connection, while in other locations you can't even load the Google home page so there's no way to play. Bottom line is that it works fine... sometimes depending where you are.(Inside a moving car is not ideal...) So with that said, we would like to ask you, the user if you would want iMech to support 3G. The poll will close some time Friday morning and of course feel free to chime in on the topic, we're always open to discussion. We're finishing our 3.0 testing & optimizations and when a decision on 3G has been made by you guys we'll either put it in or leave it out and submit to Apple. ( Also we would like to mention that we have 2 iMech versions already one with and one without 3G so no extra development time is needed if that was a concern.) We look forward to what you guys have to say. -Flying Dino Team.
I don't know, if the 3g is in a spot with a weak connection, it could freeze, with wifi its not as likely to do that.
Hi (I'm assuming Dave?), This is Josh, we met at WWDC and E3 Anyway, so I have a question about this. This is the way I picture the server/client model: -Official game logic is handled server side -Clients send user input to server -Clients replicate unofficial game state -Server sends official game state back to clients So, now lets take the case of a 3G and WiFi enabled iMech round. Say, 4 players over WiFi and 4 over 3G. It would seem to me that while the 3G players would experience lag, the WiFi players would not see any unusual amounts of lag from the server. The result would be sporadic/inconsistent turning/shooting of the 3G players, but the game logic (physics, damage, etc) would all be handled correctly on the server and received correctly by any WiFi player. So then the only issue would be that WiFi players would have a huge advantage over 3G players. But, if I was a 3G player, I'd rather be at a disadvantage than not play at all. Is this a correct interpretation, or am I missing something? As I mentioned at E3, I have little network coding experience, but I read about the theory often.
I voted yes even though I'm not a big fan of doing anything latency sensitive over 3G. I guess when it comes down to it if I was somewhere away from wifi and I wanted to play I have no choice but to try 3G, giving me that option is a plus. -THIRSTY-
Just do it guys. Or else when they compare you to LiveFire/KillTest/??? you can match their 4 players on 3G with 8 players on 3G. Also don't think ppl won't make the comparison.
With the way LiveFire's news trail going cold, it's a welcome relief to see activity on the small guy's camp still churning away LOL. -THIRSTY-
Flying Dino any news on this game? All the other games I've been waiting for keep postponing it and its pissin me off Is it at least close to submission...
ENABLE IT!!!! Also remember AT&T is upgrading it's 3G network from 3.6 to 7.2 or something like that but they are going to double their network speed and if they suceed then my iPhone 3G will rival my internet very much and adios Time Warner Cable with tethering.
Might as well. Don't forget, some people have Wifi that is just as bad (or worse) than the 3G experience you described.
Thanks for the feedback so far guys, this really gives us more confidence to implement 3G. -Randy of FD
