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Catan Online Set to Debut This Month
Thanks to GamingReport.com for the news that http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=14646>The Settlers of Catan Online will make its international online debut at Spiel '04 in Essen, Germany. "Catan Online will launch exclusively at MSN Games this winter. With MSN Games' base of 30 million registered users worldwide, more people than ever before will have access to this global gaming phenomenon." Besides being able to check out the game in depth, MSN is going to be running several tournaments and exhibitions of the game.
I wonder if they are aware of the open source (GPL) version of Settlers of Catan. Some guy wrote it for his thesis because writing the AI for a game where negotiation plays such a big role posed an interesting challenge. I was addicted to this version for several weeks when I came across it last year and I'd hate to see it disappear (but on the other hand, I don't think it was ever officially sanctioned by the owners of Settlers).
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I'll never signup for a msn account....
First Halo. . . Now Settlers. . .
Damn you Microsloft!!
Never before has a publisher tried so hard to avoid showing any screenshots on their website.
Gnocatan which is fairly playable on Linux.
But I lacked the requisite number of Ores to attain it.
Care to tell us what this game is about?
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
They do have the infrastructure to pull something like this off. Maybe if more game developers realised that the internet was the ideal self-publishing platform (think VALVe and Steam), or that people like Microsoft have the infrastructure to get things played, then we will see a sudden influx of new, cheap games?
The only trouble now is that I'll need the MSN application to play it. Curse those proprietary bits.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
I have no the before unused it. It is before very popular in country, and I have many hours spent Catan boardgame played with friends. Have made modified version Stripcatan and now play for fun when the drinking.
Read journal when you are not understand
I was just afraid I'd have to buy this and spend a lot of time on it, being a long-time Settlers fan. Fortunately, it only runs on MSN, so I probably will not be able/want to use it, and thus have time for other things.
-Lars
Perhaps Uwe Rosenberg will keep up his fued with Klaus Teuber. Each time Teuber released a new expansion/version to Settlers, Rosenberg released another card game/expansion to Bohnanza. Bohnanza is much better than settlers IMHO, but then that's because I like Uwe's wit.
I really think the future of online gaming is not going to be 3D accelerated shooters. These types of games appeal to a much larger audience and almost everyone has the hardware to handle it.
Some of my favorite online games?
Kingdom of Loathing - Hilarious multiplayer RPG
The Game Show - A daily phrase puzzle similar to family fued.
Diplomacy - Famous war game without random elements.
Global Combat - Risk-like war game, except all moves are made at the same time.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
OMFG have you seen the The Settlers Of Catan trailer?!?>11` ...
For those that really enjoy board games, it's a fun place (and there are many people that speak English there too).
How much will it be to play this game? Will there be a monthly fee?
I will give you two grain. No? Okay, two grain and a brick?
http://www.talknerdy.org
First of all:
What is this game about
Secondly:
Why is this news at all..
Thirdly:
wtf does this game look like and why should I even care about it.
Maybe I missed something, but I read the story, visited the site, read the comments here and I still don't get it.....
Maybe I haven't played it often enough, but Catan feels like "Civilization for Pre-schoolers on Valium".
:)
It seems to be about as far as you can go in the area of resource strategy games without losing the mainstream audience.
If they translated the rules 1:1 (or near that) for MSN, I fear it may turn out too simlble/boring/slow for the internet crowd.
IIRC it's based on a good clean wholesome family board game with almost as many expansion packs as The Sims, and there just ain't enough good plain killing & warfare in the game
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
I didn't know the games there were a secret. :)
There's also Carcasonne ("CC"), Lost Cities, Go, Puerto Rico, etc, etc.
I hope I'm not inviting a hard slashdotting if they can't take it, but it sure would be nice to have a few more players on there with some regualrity :)
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It would have been nice to have provided a link explaing what "Settlers of Catan" is other than some informationless Microsoft site.
Haven't there already been several lawsuits over just who is allowed to develop this game for the PC?
There are at least three different environments for playing settlers of catan online.
http://www.s3dconnector.net/ is a very nice client, with lots of options for choosing 'house rules'.
Also because of the ladder setup, many people don't quit just because they're losing, a perpetual problem with onlinegaming environments.
http://solito.free.fr/catane/ is a nice client, but there's no rating system, so not so many people use it.
http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ is the 'original' site. It lacks the nicer graphics, but is often heavily loaded, with lots of players around, (when it's up)
The game that gave us the unforgettable quote: "I have wood for your sheep!"
They actually have a t-shirt with that quote on it. Gamers giggle, and everyone else gives you a lot of room.
You don't have to be the person you've become.
Also, it is constructive (you are trying to get 10 points) than destructive (you are trying to make everyone else bankrupt).
For Settlers of Catan, the distinction is kind of blurry. While you do have to play in a way that builds up your resource base, a large part of the game is figuring out how to best screw over the other players (placing a settlement so as to prohibit several other settlement placements, figuring out where to best place the robber, figuring out how to deny "longest road" and "largest army" to others for long enough to win, and so forth).
So while there's no direct violence against the other players, there's plenty of indirect pressure being applied. Such is the nature of competitive games.
Settlers of Catan (and the variants: Seafarers, Spacefarers) is a fun game and something we always seem to come back to on our gaming nights.
However, one of the things that many people dislike about it is the die rolling. Too much is dependent on what the outcome of the die is. Even if you play it smart by trying to cover the odds and occupy as many numbers as possible, your success depends on whether the right combo of resources you own comes up.
Our boardgame group has been steering away from games that involve lots of chance (die rolling and card drawing), to those that involve all strategy such as Peurto Rico & El Grande (all players start out equal and must form strategies based completely off other people's actions). Makes for more intellectually intensive a game and less random.
But ultimately you need a mix of games. Light, fluffy, easy games...thought-provoking, strategy-heavy games, and lots of things in between.
Roborally - Program a robot (the best game ever)
Puerto Rico - Kinda fun, (Requires curl)
Brettspielwelt - many games including catan in german.
That's a good way to put it. The recent German board game invasion has brought lots of games that serious gamers can play with non-gamers. (Gamer: n. One who enjoys table-top games including board games, war games, card games, and role-playing games, as a primary hobby.) Several friends who really have no idea what I see in something like Twilight Imperium will enjoy Settlers of Catan.
That said, I eventually grew tired of Catan. A game that does similarlly well with non-gamers and gamers alike is Carcassonne, a tile placing game about building and controlling roads, fields, and cities.
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Maybe now I can turn my daughter from a Neopets obsessive to a Settlers obsessive, and at the same time get her to stop nagging me to play the board version of Settlers of Catan with her. It's a fun game, but never, never, ever play it with anyone who is under 20 or extremely competitive/obsessive.
---Christina
Thirty million registered users? Isn't that like 10 % of all (legal) windows copies out there? Or are they counting all MSN accounts (incl. hotmail) as "MSN Gaming Account". Heck, even I have a MSN account - from the time when Hotmail was untainted by Micro$oft. Haven't used it in years, but it still appears to be 'active'.
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God is a Numerical
http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ This is the java applet version of basic catan, four player max and you are able to play against bots. Two positives are that you can play solo(against 3 bots) and since it's an applet there's nothing to download/install(play from work.. who? me?!?) Using wancatan and finding players via wannagame you can play with any or all of the expansions, different maps, rules, sounds, dice roll tracker, more players etc.
I will never be productive again. Please don't roll a 7.
This is a much better boardgame portal. You need to configure it to use english instead of german (if that's your language of choice), but it has a great community and lots and lots of german board games. If you aren't familiar with classic titles like Saint Petersburg, Puerto Rico, and Carcassone, you should really check it out. These games have been beautifly adapted to the java interface, so anyone can play with any OS with java support.
The german style of boardgame is interesting. The games are under an hour, you may be down, but you're never out, and it'll be your turn soon. The are easy to learn but hard to master. Unlike the American designers, the germans don't like direct conflict or random chance. Instead, there's a lot of resource denial and bidding strategy.
Brettspeilwelt has a metagame that advances players in rank. Experienced players have more control over games, and can build game rooms of their own. Generally, playing space, in terms of server resources is optimally allocated this way. There's a lot of prestige in offering the new game and so forth. Also, the Germans are very polite gamers. No cussing or racial slurs, just "good luck and have fun" type comments. If you like boardgames like Settlers, this is the place to be.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Are they going to make this like the real Settlers of Catan where the dice that come with the box seem to skew (and change the skew randomly?).
I don't know how many games of Catan I've played where the dice suddenly seemed to start rolling 2,3, and 4 over and over again then suddenly start rolling a huge long string of 9, 10, 11... Around here the Catan dice are infamous for that behavior.
I read the internet for the articles.
I think one of the things that many people like about it, whether they know it or not, is the die rolling. It all depends on what you consider fun.
If your idea of fun is to see who is best, or who has the best strategy, or who has the maddest skilz, then you don't want an element of chance. But for alot of people, that element of chance gives you a kick of adrenaline even when you've worked out your optimal strategy. You can still play with your brainiac friends (who will always beat you at chess) and still hope to win. Why do you think gambling is so addictive?
It's a board game.
Click here for info.
A board game? Is that why the last word in the title is ONLINE?
Dumbass.
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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
There's no way this can be as good as playing the actual board game, because you miss out on the family dynamics of game play, such as watching your mom chuck the dice at your dad, or one's husband deliberately putting the thief on your only stone hex, and then somehow drawing the only stone card in your hand, as if he could see where it was... Not that I speak from experience or anything. No, not me...
Somethings are just meant to be played in the actual world.
Yes, there are women on Slashdot. Deal with it.
One of those "no chance" games. My gaming group loved it. I hated it. The game takes forever, games inevitably saw any aggressive players getting squashed and then the rest declaring a 4-way joint victory because no one wanted to take any risks. Stopped playing with them after watching 3 games in a row play out exactly the same way.
Is there an online version?
Play Command HQ online
It's very addictive, too; *everyone* I invited to play this game has bought it. *Everyone*. Be warned.
The nice part of the game is that you're always busy; even when it's not your turn you receive resources, you can trade with other players (although you can only trade with the person who's turn it is). The constant interactions suck you into the game, you're not waiting 80% of the time for your turn.
Also, with games like Risk you can lose early in the game, with Catan this rarely happens. Put all this together and you have a perfect recipe to spend a fun evening with some friends.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
was it ever released?a n/news_6023 908.html
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/puzzle/cat
Not to nitpick, but "-1, Inaccurate."
Settlers of Catan is the English edition of Die Siedler von Catan, a German Board game created by Klaus Teuber, and published by Kosmos verlag GmbH in Germany, and Mayfair Games in most of the English-speaking world.
In it, you randomly build a hexagonal island out of smaller, hexagonal tiles. Each tile represends a resource (wool/sheep, lumber/wood, brick/clay, ore/stone, grain/food: These are some of the names that the five resources are known by), each with a number from 2-12. Etc, etc, etc. You know what, just look here, or here.
Part of the appeal of Settlers is its scalability: For beginners starting out for the first time, there's the basic set, which remains fun several plays later. More advanced players, or those craving a bit more variety, can snap in the Seafarers expansion, which adds the option for larger maps, alternate victory conditions, and scenario-specific points and goals, while those wanting a more micromanaged approach can try the Cities & Knights expansion, which allows players to build up their specific cities with improvements, and generally mess with the core game.
The popularity curve tends to favor Seafarers over the basic set and Cities & Knights, but they all have a pretty strong following.
Also of note are the other Catan games, including:
Starfarers of Catan
Starship Catan
Settlers of Catan Card Game
Candamir: The First Settlers (which is not yet released or even translated).
Then there's the novel, the computer games, and the whiskey bottle edition. No, seriously.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
leagues, variablity, Depending, laid, certain.
I bet you sneer at the idea of playing Solitaire without cards, too.
That couldn't possibly be because its an online board game, now could it.
Nice sig file, is that your name?
Vermifax
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If it's online, there can't be any board. If there isn't any board, it isn't a board game. It's an online strategy game.
I sneer at the idea of playing solitaire, period, because I'm not a lame fag.
Although it is a very nice game to play, esp the JSettlers version, this is no game you can master in a sense that when master, you win all games. You won't even win most games if you are playing experienced people (and you won't win when playing against me ;)
;P
The dice play a much to big role in this game, so most just depends on luck. It is a nice passtime, but don't think it was all your work when you've won a game.
amelie
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Not for me . . . WebSense filters all.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
There's also the version that Capcom released exclusively in Japan for PC, PS2, GBA, and soon N-Gage. (webpage is here: http://www3.capcom.co.jp/catan/index.html )
Does everyone interested in online board games know about these sites:
www.gametableonline.com
and
www.ccgworkshop.com
Both are great but the folks on gametableonline are very good about teaching the games and there is always something on the calendar - and people actually show up for the games. Very recommended.