Another suggestion - From the handsome...me!

[lobo]

Hmmm, let's think about this, shall we?

how about removing the quit/menu options, meaning the game would only end if someone loses or.... if they are really too damn coward, their only choice is to close the entire window and they will have to load again...hows dat

Ok, now imagine that you are playing the game and, sadly, the damnable thing freexes. Once upon a time, you could just leave the game, with the menu bar, and all is good - by freezes I obviously mean that the lag becomes to great, or both guys stand there coz the win pose has screwed up etc etc.

Now, in this scenario you'd have to exit, relog on, etc etc. Ok, not much of a pain, but have it happen a couple'a times in a row and it will be. You can't sacrifice usability to counter a small amount of cheaters - it flies in the face of current usability theory!

I (when I played yonks ago - i gave up the vs coz the lag on my aussie cable is something fierce generally, and it is not a fun experience) thought there was a system where, when you exited you got zapped some points, and that sounds ok. Except that then people who exited due to crazy lag, well, they got a hammered too!

How about this - this game will use udp for comms, right? Like, TCP will give too much unneccesary feedback, riiiight? That is just a FMI point, coz I am kinda curious!

Anyway, what about leaving in the quit button, but when selected the game quickly looks at the lag level, or the ping or whatever you wanna call it! And if it is above some level, then no points deducted, exit.

If it is, then maybe a little screen saying "Sure you want to quit? You will lose x points" - and if they say yeah, well, they lose x points, and the guy playing them - Does he get points or not? Maybe a fraction of the points? I dunno about that one.

Oh, and the little screen should pop up both times!

OK, that is my 4.5 cents (damned GST level keeps rising!))

Cheers
Lobo