Multiplayer Fridays
 

Hello!

After our recent Tanksgiving day, you demonstrated that there’s an appetite for co-ordinated multiplayer events so that you can find more opponents for asynchronous games of Ogre. That’s why we’re going to make every Friday a multiplayer day!

There are six key times on a Friday to be aware of, they are:

UK - 5PM, 7PM, 9PM, 11PM, 1AM, 3AM
Eastern - 12PM, 2PM, 4PM, 6PM, 8PM, 10PM
Pacific - 09AM, 11AM, 1PM, 3PM, 5PM, 7PM

To get involved, you need to be online and under the Ranked Matchmaking multiplayer tab at one or more of those times, then hit Play to search for an opponent.

Due to the way our system is structured, you only need to be online to matchmake with an opponent. Once a game is in progress you can safely log off, play another element of the game, or even exit the game entirely, and leave it for up to 24 hours before you need to return and take an action (or concede the match). You’ll also receive a notification within Steam when your opponent finishes their actions.

You can also participate in multiple games at once - simply repeat the steps above. To see your active games, go to the Multiplayer screen, and select 'Active Games'. You should see 'Ranked' and 'Custom' tabs, where each type of game is held.

As always, if you want even more Ogre multiplayer outside of these times, join the Auroch Digital Fans Steam Group and check the Members tab to see when other Ogre players are online, and you can add your details to the Multiplayer Meeting Post too.

Important note! We’re going to run these “official” Friday sessions for a trial period up until (and including) 26th January 2018 with reminders on our social media, and we have something very special planned for the end of the year with this too. But whether it continues in an officially organised capacity past that date is entirely down to whether there’s continued interest.

If you feel like this is something you’d like to see more of, please help us spread the word, encourage your friends to get involved, and if you have feedback on how it’s being run then let me know via jake@aurochdigital.com as I’m keen for this to be a collaborative effort between our studio and yourselves.

Important note #2! There will be a small hotfix to address a Scenario Creator-related issue tomorrow ahead of the event, just so you're aware.

Thanks!

Jake & the Auroch Digital team

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I hope things went well last night and the event was a success. I had to work late so I couldn't participate. It's on my calendar for next Friday though!

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I was on a few times, but never managed to connect :-(

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I found one game, and got stomped. :)

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

same here. but then I am in Tokyo and up when everyone else playing this game is probably in bed.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I'm up a lot more than I should be. :-)
We just need to work out a time to get together and play some skirmishes directly.

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That looks like it is going to end up being the way to get multiplayer value out of the game. And if you can find each other on Steam you can do a custom invite and pick scenario and side.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

If I'm understanding how Steam works, it looks like the most efficient way would be for all Ogre players to friend each other. That gives you a continually updated list of who's online - easy to pick one, message them and start a fight. Groups as such don't seem to give you that option.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

This might be best - the Auroch fan group is a good place to start as you can add people through there, or start chats to make sure people are online and available to play.

Thanks :)

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Looking forward to the session later on today :)

It would be good to get an idea of how many players we can expect - if you're planning on getting involved, let me know in here, on the Steam forum, or in the Auroch Steam Group.

If you are unable to join in on these days or have any feedback on how these sessions are run/organised, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave your thoughts in this discussion thread.

Thanks a lot!

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I am going to try to get in on one of these today, if I can.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Pacific - 09AM, 11AM, 1PM, 3PM, 5PM, 7PM

The 3PM, 5PM, 7PM slots are great for me as they are 8AM, 10AM, 12PM respectively. And I prefer playing in the morning until early evening. I am too tired after about 6PM.

I will be looking for a game next week (my Saturday, PST Friday) late afternoon-evening.

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I'll try to be around. I have on-call this week, so no promises, but those times are 5PM, 7PM and 9PM for me, so pretty doable.

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I should be around for the first couple of slots.

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Is this still a thing? I finally remembered about it in the morning and it doesn't look like anyone else is on.

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I can't promise I'll be too responsive, but I'm logged on.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Hey there,

We'll be carrying it on from this week. I was out last Friday but we'll be carrying it on as usual from Friday :)

Thanks

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I'll be online today from around 4pm - 5.30pm UK time (11AM - 12.30PM Eastern / 10AM - 11.30AM Central / 8AM - 9.30AM Pacific) if anyone is available :)

Thanks

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And it's on!

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We'll see. I am not having much luck yet. I guess I will leave it running while I am doing stuff today.

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Anyone on today?

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Not today. I'm packing for a weekend in St. Louis

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I just "lost" a game to gerollama. Before I had placed a single unit. What the heck was that? (And part of the UI seemed to think I won.) Now back to waiting.

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Maybe later.

Edit: I have been on for a couple of hours now, BTW. No games yet.

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Before moving on to other projects like http://www.aurochdigital.com/blog maybe they could have instead worked out all the issues with the OGRE PC game.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

There's no reason to think they've abandoned Ogre, and such rumors are rarely helpful. Jake still responds to bug reports, and the Ogre dev team still seems active.

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Had to head home from work and get the kids to bed. Sorry I missed you.

I'm not quite sure how to make it work. I can wait for a game to start for a few hours, logged about three or four hours of waiting during the day, but eventually need to unplug and go home. I'd be fine committing to play my first turn in two days, but I can't commit to an active connection for more than a few hours (and even that's an inconvenience).

Is there a better way to set up a two-player game? Did I just miss it in the instructions?

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

We are still working on Ogre and have further updates planned. I appreciate it's been a little while since the last update and you've been great with submitting reports and issues in that time. We recently confirmed that we have an update planned very soon (a matter of weeks) which we'll have more info on shortly.

We have several teams within Auroch working on different projects at any one time, which is necessary to keep doing what we love which is making games :)

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

It's worth noting that this is a pretty normal cycle for application development. It's unreasonable to expect "all hands on deck until every bug is squashed" with exclusive attention to a single title. As much as it would be great for that to happen, it's not realistic to think Ogre is the only thing that deserves the company's attention. The ebb and flow of initial release, early bug fixes, and a lull while the priorities are assessed is to be expected. Unfortunately, what pays the bills it putting focus on "the next thing." Bug fixes are a diminishing return activity, so you have to minimize that work as much as possible to not lose money.

You can't expect bug fixes forever, so I'd rather see it take a bit longer to get them fixed properly the first time. As long as more updates come out in a reasonable amount of time, I don't see any issues with the pace.

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I'll be online this Friday, some time in the morning, some in the afternoon.

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Hope to catch you there. I'll be on briefly, 8 am-ish EST, then late afternoon. I won't be able to leave the connection open during the day.

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I slept too late to get on in the morning, but I'm on now.

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I'm finally on, too.

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Is anyone running a campaign?

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Is anyone trying to pick up a game today?

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I saw no one on last night.

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Looks like this game is a big success will the active on-line community.

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Be careful, your sarcasm is showing :-)

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Well, in spite of the lack of people on Friday night, I really like this game as a simple direct port from an old stand by classic.

I hope the development team can straighten out the bugs so that people will come (or come back) to it.

Another campaign, or MP campaign support, as well as multiplayer skirmish support, and it's the perfect SJ digital port.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Could I suggest something to the SJ team? and Auroch Jake. I've haven't seen the Friday game announced weekly on the FB sites ( not just the official one) as well as posted weekly on the BGG forums.

As an old time marketing and salesman, you have to get the brand out. Keep hitting it until it becomes natural to your client to behave the way you want them to.

I would think that SJG would use our extensive Ogre/Carwars/ Munchkin email database to send out a robo weekly reminder. The same would apply to the BGG group.

Hopefully this will turn up the amount of people that at least stop by to watch. Some of us(myself in this) have been unable to play for personal reasons(honey do lists) but we still need to be reminded of the event.

Some of the fan scenarios especially TK's stuff are what keeps it in the back of my mind and make me want to bring them to the table and off the screen.

OK, stepping down from the soap box. Next person up?

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

The main issue I see right now is we've been getting a steady stream of "there's an update coming in a few weeks" with no indication of what will be in it, or what "in a few weeks" means. We are now approaching "a few months" since the last update which, even being generous, is starting to wear pretty thin (and that's a lot coming from me).

Honestly, I don't _want_ to see a marketing push until that update happens. The game is still a buggy mess and it was a mistake putting it out in the condition it was in at launch. The reason it didn't catch on wasn't because Ogre is a bad game, it fell flat because what people were being asked to pay $25 for honestly wasn't worth $25. People new to Ogre had no issues giving it a hard pass because the value wasn't there based on the myriad of lackluster reviews because the core of the game needed a LOT of work (and still needs a lot more).

I want to see more beta testing, and a solid product for the 2nd pass at trying to push the game.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

In particular, there seems to be a broad class of bugs in the multiplayer version around keeping track of game state. State synchronizing problems can be extremely tricky to fix after the code is written. They often require major surgery on a code base.

I'm not envious of Auroch's effort to fix those problems.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Too tell the truth, when you look at a game like Steel Division Normandy 44 which is a very complicated RTS that can be played on-line real time and 10 vs 10 without a hitch, it makes you wonder about the skill level of the coders that did the online component of this comparatively simple game.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Based on your comments and those after I would have to agree. I've not experienced the issues to that extent, perhaps because I haven't played it of late (time and honey do lists wait for no gamer).

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I haven't been logging into the game when I'm not there to babysit, such as when I'm at work . . . but is it stable enough to handle being left in a search for a player for nine hours? Are people willing to start a game, knowing they won't see the opponent's set-up for twelve hours or so?

If we're willing to tolerate it, maybe just leave the game up all the time and start games that way. When I get home I can start it up and see if I have an opponent in the morning.

Then we can use this thread to check if we're having "who's turn is it?" bugs.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I usually do it in one-hour or so attempts - maybe a half-dozen during the work day. (The lap top travels with me.) No luck with that approach. I'm not sure if it is a matter of stability or of no opponents - no way to tell.

I am, but I can't speak for others. I'm OK with a turn or two a day, with the two-day timeout. (I'd prefer a four-day timeout.)

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I would be, too. Make it more of a PBEM experience. The only issue I have with that is there's a very high risk of the game falling on its face playing that way.

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Then I'm going to start leaving the game up and searching. We'll see if I get any takers.

This might be a good test. If two of us report on here we've had the game searching at the same time and there's no game, time for a bug report.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I'll do the same. I usually start ~ 10 am US EST, stop at 4 pm.

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And I've found an opponent: mdmike67

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I've got one, too. Playing MkIII on defense. (Hopefully not too slowly.)

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I just logged on and noticed they also had an update. Long-term PBEM-style games would be good for testing some of the mentioned fixes.

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Who timed out after my first turn. Not my favorite way to gain rating points.

And dwalend, if we're playing together, we both can't roll worth a damn.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Yep. That was me. "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today."

I usually plan for one shot in four landing cover for bad luck. Normally I'll smugly scoff at blaming bad luck for bad maneuver, but after I started keeping a tally I had two shots land of 23 fired in the clash. I've got no tactic or strategy for that on a tan map.

The defense *should* have an advantage in MkIII Defending. Did you decide not to take the time to wipe out my missile tanks and MkIII because none of the guns were working? I was expecting to be annihilated after you drove through the craters at M3. Excellent job driving that MkV.

(And mercifully my guns started working again on the way out, so I didn't spend the whole week chasing you back to the south edge of the map. I was worried that three turns' work was going to take 12 turns. )

Up for another game? I should start looking for one at about 10:30 am EST.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

All shots missing favors the attacker. Once I was close enough to the CP that I could make it even if you hit 1/3 of the time I did the sprint. I'd rather get a marginal win than try for a complete victory and get smashed.

The thought of having to traverse the map at one hex per turn was one I dreaded too, so I'm happy it worked out that way.

I'm signed on if you try again.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

Yes. At the exteam, eventually that MkV can just run over the CP.

I gave up on the CP at about six hexes, guaranteeing that end. You'd done more damage to your own treads ramming my HVYs. At 4 hexes to go I finally started landing shots again. But at that point I didn't have a big enough broadside to go through 38 treads in two turns, even if I was hitting 2 of 3 shots.

I've been on since maybe 10:15. Let me try bouncing Steam...

... Nothing for 12 minutes.

Did you get a game? Else we've found another bug.

Re: Multiplayer Fridays
 

I did, but I think it was a few hours later. Against JJsomething.

Possibly we should start a thread logging the hours we're signed in.

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Is anyone looking for a game today? I waited overnight, then while getting the kids to school and me back - maybe 11:30 PM to 9:30 AM.

I'm back to waiting now (10:45 AM).

... 3 pm. No game. I gave up around 4:30.

I checked one last time around 11:30 pm and picked up a game.

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I tried last night and tonight, but no one was on. I may try again Saturday night.

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I'm sitting out until the next release. We sent a massive bug report from our last game. We both had fun but the buggy state problems made for a bit of a fiasco.

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Anyone looking for a (slow) game starting tonight or tomorrow? I want to try the new release, will be on for a bit tonight, then on and off through the day tomorrow.

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A slow game testing some of the multiplayer fixes sounds good. I should be around.

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My laptop should be looking for a game for the next hour or so, then starting at 10 am after I get to work.

I left it looking for a game last night. Was anyone else trying to start a game?

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It's changed from the usual counting clock ticking up to "Waiting for Players 2/2 ..." but has been sitting there a long time. Jake, is that a bug?

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I started mine up at 10:08 central, and it's sitting at Searching for a 1vs1 match

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hit 15 minutes, so I canceled and restarted a search

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I just restarted mine and got the game. Breakthrough!

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Already seeing issues. I did my initial deployment, then exited back to the main menu. I got a notification that you had moved, but when I went back into the game, I don't see any of your GEVs, and I don't have any UI (just the map and the controls on the top right (nothing for the turn details on top and nothing at all on the bottom). Time to grab some logs.

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Just tried a full restart of Steam. Still nothing.

Logs will be forthcoming...

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logs sent, but I just left the game running and it just now popped up. It looks "mostly" right, but says it's your turn.

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Time for my GEV move...

...When is the reveal supposed to happen? I'd thought it was just before my first move, not just after. No good way to dodge that SHVY in any case.

I see two MSL guarding the NW shore of the lake, one SHVY just south of the two town hexes on the road, two GEVs - one on each flank, 3X 3 INF along the road, with a 2 INF north and west of the SHVY, 3INF due south of the SVHY, 3 INF in the woods, covering that critical clear hex off the lake, and the last 3 INF between the two MSL. Is that the whole list?

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That sounds about right. 6/6 AU and 20/20 INF

Assuming they followed the ODE scenario, "All defending units are revealed at the end of the attacker’s first movement phase." so that sounds about right, too.

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Arg. Looks like I just missed my GEV movement phase somehow. It was asking me to shoot roads, then said it was your turn.

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Yeah, it's showing it's my turn at this end, too. So at least it doesn't appear to be completely broken, just really odd in how it's presenting data. During that entire time, it was telling me it's my turn, but whenever I'd log on to the game, it would still be in some phase on your side.

It doesn't look like any turn phases were "lost" but it's still not cleanly recognizing when a full turn has been handed over.

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Ok, had a relatively clean turn on my end. I've exited back to the lobby to see how it goes again. It still shows "[unknown's turn]" on my side for you.

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I've picked up a second game as well - Train - but every time either of you finishes a turn the UI goes into an unusable state. I'll send a log file to Jake for that one in a minute.

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You were you at the beginning, but after the last round of rebooting Steam, now you're Unknown, too.

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I'm starting to think this is falsely reporting it's my turn every phase rather than at the end of the turn. I just got another limbo "my turn but it isn't yet" notification.

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I'm now getting "You have no ranked games.." in a dialog. Not looking good. I've got to get dinner on the table - Back on late tonight or tomorrow.

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Yeah, that's not very promising. I just got another notification that it's my turn, but it's waiting for you to do something. If you don't have an active game listed, we might be in trouble. I guess we'll just have to let it sit and hope it shakes loose like it did earlier.