Re: [Rails-devel] autosave files

[Chris S. <chr...@gm...>]

p.s. I think what Jim was getting at is that in pbem, it is common
practice to play a game forward, taking other player's turns, just to
see the outcome of a certain action or set of actions.  Then, once a
course of action has been decided, you exit without saving, launch
again, and take your one action.  As you play through perhaps entire
operating rounds and stock rounds to see how the trains will fall out,
to see how the CGR formation will occur, or whatever, a series of
autosaves exposes a lot of potential "thinking ahead" information.  It
also potentially confuses people because they see all the saves and
think it is their turn to act.

--
Chris

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.



On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Chris Shaffer <chr...@gm...> wrote:
> A couple of things.
>
> 1) Yes, the 18xx.log file is on Dropbox.
> 2) Some players, like me, use Rails from multiple computers with
> multiple operating systems.  Any file system that isn't relative to
> the current directory is problematic - the paths on my home Ubuntu
> machine, my work Mac laptop, my work Mac desktop and random borrowed
> or library computers are all different.
> 3) Many people share all the files on Dropbox - even the executable
> jar and properties files.  I know this is a security risk and not
> recommended, but it's a fact of life that it happens.
> 4) PBEM requires frequent saves anyway - between each player's
> actions.  The farthest you ever have to back up is one player action.
> Thus, autosave doesn't add any functionality that I can see.
> 5) Yes, some people use Dropbox as a poor man's online play already.
> If everyone is online, you can just watch as the files update and when
> your name shows up in the new filename, you know it is your turn.
>
> Not sure what you mean about asking for the preferred configuration on
> first startup, but if that means every time I launch Rails, it would
> be annoying.  I launch an instance of Rails for each action I take in
> pbem games.
>
> --
> Chris
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Stefan Frey <ste...@we...> wrote:
>> Jim & Chris,
>> thanks for your comments. Seems that the preferences for pbem and ftf players
>> differ substantially here. I am an example of the latter species and I
>> currently save frequently during ftf play (even if I had no problem so far),
>> which is a little annoying and would still require some replaying.
>>
>> Options in the my.properties will be available:
>>
>> save.recovery.active
>> to activate/deactivate
>>
>> save.recovery.filepath=18xx_autosave.rails
>> to change filename/path information
>>
>> A possible solution for the conflicting "defaults" are predefined
>> configuration files for ftf and pbem plays.
>>
>> Maybe even asking for the preferred configuration on the first startup?
>>
>> Stefan
>>
>> PS: I assume that you currently have the working directory of Rails set to the
>> dropbox folder? Is the 18xx.log file also generated there? In principle this
>> would leak information to other players as well.
>> On the other hand the autosave file would allow an easy synch as you only have
>> to restore the game from that file. Maybe one should consider dropbox as a
>> possible "poor man" solution for online play?
>>
>> On Tuesday 06 July 2010 01:25:28 Jim Black wrote:
>>> Stefan wrote:
>>> > I added a simple autosave and game recovery mechanism. ...
>>> > The current defaults activate autosave and
>>> > stores a 18xx_autosave.rails file in the current working directory.
>>>
>>> Auto-saving files to the current-working directory is problematic for pbem
>>> games, where players inevitably open the pbem game from a shared dropbox
>>> folder.
>>>
>>> When autosave files appear by magic, it reveals all temporary/session-level
>>> analysis to other players, in real time (by constantly saving temp-files in
>>> the dropbox).
>>>
>>> For this reason, I think it's a pretty undesirable feature (unless Rails
>>> can become more clever about distinguishing shared/game folders, from
>>> personal/config folders, which it doesn't do well imho) ....
>>>
>>> regards,
>>>  - jim
>>>
>>>
>>>
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