Planetarion Forums

oabostad · 2 Dec 2004, 10:11

Is it possible to make an easier version of Pa, so i can play with my mobilephone. Iam traveling abit and sometimes it can take a day before i get an line to connect to. I have tried loggin in with my mobilephone (nokia 6600) sometimes but because there is so much picture and stuff on the pages its takes forever to load the page.

Kal · 2 Dec 2004, 10:17

can u actually login though?

oabostad · 2 Dec 2004, 10:23

Yes, but i have to first login, and then i have to save the picture with the login question. Then i have to open the picture and zoom it so i can read the question. Then i go back to opera on answer the question. That works. But after that it takes forever to load the pages inside the game.

Banned · 2 Dec 2004, 11:14

Can you get the text only css working with the mobile? I use because I find PA to be a bit slow even on my adsl connection.

furssie · 2 Dec 2004, 11:30

Jes. I asked Leshy once, he said it's not possible.

We're both using SPV mobile phone to play PA when we're out (in a meeting/working, partying, rl stuffs, etc..), so he teached me though on how to configure my SPV, for the bot page to display readable. Helped a lot during initiation stage.

Vencedor · 18 Dec 2004, 09:48

I'm using a Motorola MPx200 with Smartphone 2002 (Windows CE) on it and it's all good
Login, bot stoper everything
I just turn pics on, go through the bot stopper, then turn my pics off and all the buttons in the menu etc come up as just their rollover text, basically, they all just have their names as if the buttons were there but there are no images..
Much faster, and its a lot cheaper!
I'm using Internet Explorer on my mobile ...
So, no text only skin, I just turn pics off after I've logged in.

Marv · 26 Dec 2004, 00:08

Can we get a WAP/GPRS text only version of PA avalable? That would make it so much simpler :-)

Especially for those of us that cannt afford the posh phones or the costly connection costs of the net on mobile phones :-)

Marv

ils · 27 Dec 2004, 18:52

agree, I got a ericson t630 and it takes omfg much time

Kal · 17 Jan 2005, 13:52

tbh I don;t see this happening becuase of the coding effort involved to make it work well - also how would we get round the problem of the anti bot question?

noah02 · 17 Jan 2005, 17:46

Mobile phones is a bad idea Pa have tried everything in that dept I think ie texting malarky etc... It aint worth the money.

Kal · 23 Mar 2005, 22:17

eventually moblie phones will i'm sure be capable of running pa better than they are now, perhaps this should be revisited later?

Xeno · 23 Mar 2005, 22:54

I was pissed off the day I no longer could log in with my cellphone, and equally happy the day it once more worked (due to me getting a more advanced phone). Hell, I've been top 50 with a cellphone connection as my only option from 20.00 - 08.00.

My SE P800 (with Opera) handled this perfectly in round 10 (PaX, which was my last round). I'ld say the cellphone is inevitably linked to the game (for the hardcore players) - just look how they've been using SMS for several rounds already. I won't even mention the economical potential this holds...

Xeno

Ginga · 7 Apr 2005, 19:33

a wap version of pa would be ace

noah02 · 7 Apr 2005, 21:06

hmmm mobile phones will be the new small laptops soon the way they are making them nowadays :P

stubbsy · 5 Aug 2005, 23:13

i want mine working on my 6600, but it won't press the god damn login button GRRR

Monroe · 6 Aug 2005, 00:29

PA works just fine on my Treo 600. I can login get the bot stopper and everything. I find as long as I use the text only skin it loads reasonably fast. Screen is a little small, but it wide page mode I can get the entire page, I just have to scroll around a bit. I really don't think the PATeam should change the game for mobiles, mobiles are getting better and better at doing webpages, and soon enough the rest of you can join me playing on phones. Now if only they had IRC for my phone.... that would rock!

Alki · 6 Aug 2005, 04:24

doesnt this open pa to a new market though, dont see why pa shouldnt go with the times tbh

Kal · 7 Aug 2005, 12:13

i actually think enabling mobile functionality may be bad for the games interests, it starts to encourage activity rather than skill, and the reliance on activity is what is stopping the game from growing.

Monroe · 7 Aug 2005, 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

i actually think enabling mobile functionality may be bad for the games interests, it starts to encourage activity rather than skill, and the reliance on activity is what is stopping the game from growing.

It's interesting that you say that Kal, because in my opinion most of the changes to the games since PAX have gone a long way to simplifying the game and therefor making it less a game of skill and more of a game of activity. Things like single class targeting, single tick attacks, ect have really dumbed down the game, it take a lot less skill to play then it used too.

furball · 7 Aug 2005, 16:46

I think the skill vs activity ratio is not a problem any more. The introduction of pre-launch almost single-handedly did that, along with the removal of asteroid scans.

Personally I would like phone access, but perhaps limit the number of logins to x per day?

TheBerk · 7 Aug 2005, 20:51

Or use a phone that has full HTML internet on it..

Vas · 7 Aug 2005, 23:13

I wish it was possible on my phone

Remy · 8 Aug 2005, 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banned

Can you get the text only css working with the mobile? I use because I find PA to be a bit slow even on my adsl connection.

No problems here :/

Kal · 8 Aug 2005, 09:33

the in game text only skin should work on any opera based browser be it mobile or normal.

while yes mobile funcitonality maybe useful, mobile phones are going to improve at a fairly high rate to the extent that the question "why devote coding resources to produce a mobile version when the phones iwll be able to play PA just fine soon enough" arrises.

also is it only me that finds it a bit depressing that people want to be able to play PA on their phones.

pig · 8 Aug 2005, 11:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

also is it only me that finds it a bit depressing that people want to be able to play PA on their phones.

Is it not just as sad that people stay up till 5/6am each night, yet it still happens and thats how people want to play the game. To be honest although I aggree with you that phones now have the capability to access pa without a developed "wap" version. I still dont see why 4 years ago we had a wap version and now 4 years on we dont.

I guess im going to be told its some kind of bots or summet.

Leshy · 20 Aug 2005, 12:55

I found this thread when I did a search for my name, hence I'm a bit late to get to it. It's quite nice to see that people still use the text-only layout! As such, I've updated the CSS file on my site to make a few minor things look better, and to hide the Jolt logo image, which for obvious reasons the ingame skin can't do

Quote:

Originally Posted by noah02

It aint worth the money.

That is actually the thing that I've argued about in the past. Making PA useable on phones is not a question of money entirely. It is not even a question of having phones with browsers that are fully (X)HTML compliant or support CSS.

The only thing that is required, is so-called semantic markup. Code fully HTML 4.01 compliant pages that do not use a table-based layout, rely on images to function (apart then from the login image, then), and the pages will be usable on any screen, device or browser. I'll fully grant that it's a bit of work and will take some time, but the result will be much wider usability and also much lighter and faster loading pages, saving Planetarion a fair amount of bandwidth. Not to mention that instead of just different skins, people could actually do different layouts, giving far greater control over the look and feel of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

while yes mobile funcitonality maybe useful, mobile phones are going to improve at a fairly high rate to the extent that the question "why devote coding resources to produce a mobile version when the phones iwll be able to play PA just fine soon enough" arrises.

Because "soon enough" may still be a period of several years. It's not just a question of phones with (X)HTML browsers being available, it will also take time before a large amount of people actually start buying these phones. I know more people with a phone that doesn't do Internet, or just some basic WAP, than people who have full Internet access.

Not to mention that bandwidth on mobile phones still does not come cheaply, and as previously stated, Planetarion is all but bandwidth-friendly.

Quote:

also is it only me that finds it a bit depressing that people want to be able to play PA on their phones.

Yes, finding a new market for your product is always a bit depressing, especially when you have a very thriving and actively growing market going already.