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.

Comments

Open source version

[Tim Macinta]

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).

The story is uninformative.

[Staos]

Care to tell us what this game is about?

Re:The story is uninformative.

[bleckywelcky]

Anyone ever play Carcassonne? It might be newer than Catan but it shares some very similar characteristics. I'm not sure if they have any relationship or if it's just because they are both German style games. In Carcassonne the game starts out with 1 landscape tile (could be part of a city, farmland, road, or water feature) and everyone takes turns placing 1 tile and can place 1 "follower" (a guy) if they choose (you have a total of 6 or 7 followers, but there are many more tiles - 71 in total). The followers give you control over certain stretches of a certain type of tile. After all the tiles are placed the game ends and you tally up everyone's score based on what areas they control. Most points win. The game is based on the French city Carcassone (I guess the Germans spent a lot of time there :D). Additional information can be found here:

http://boardgamecentral.com/games/carcassonne.ht ml

The game also has a bunch of expansion sets to expand the number of players, add tile types, and to add some new types of followers (originally there was only 1 type).

I've never heard about Catan before this, but based on my experience with Carcassonne and the description of Catan, I think I'll try to pick up a set.

Maybe we'll see Bohnanza Online too...

[Saltine Cracker]

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.

Future of online gaming?

[Washizu]

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.

Re:Future of online gaming?

[The Kow]

I didn't want to reply to this because I wanted to mod this discussion, but I can't resist:

You may not realize it, but there's a huge, huge, huge presence of online games that are NOT Counter-strike (or Doom 3, or any other FPS). I'm a huge FPS fan, always have been, but online gaming certainly is moving in other directions - while still progressing heavily in the FPS market, if for no other reason than vendors wanting to push a viable competitive vehicle for them to show off hardware on.

Sims Online, the virtual morass of MMORPGs out there, Yahoo! Games, Starcraft/Warcraft 3, etc. By the way, I'm playing in the WoW beta, and I highly suspect it will make the biggest splash in the MMORPG world since Everquest, if not since Ultima Online virtually pioneered the genre.

While I'm on the topic, Blizzard for best game developing studio of the modern gaming era? I can't think of anyone who comes close to their unparalleled success in multiple genres, and if WoW works out as I suspect it will, the gap will just widen.

Re:As German

[Ignignot]

You don't have to be German to enjoy this game. I have a feeling that most slashdot readers will have played this game - it is a lot of fun and is a much more matured board game than something like monopoly. Also, it is constructive (you are trying to get 10 points) than destructive (you are trying to make everyone else bankrupt). A fantastic game, IMO. I happen to work at a commodities trading company, and people here play it every once in awhile. A word of advice: do not play this game against an actual commodities trader. They're crazy good.

Re:Much as we all hate MS...

[igrp]

Indeed. This is not just about bandwidth and infrastructure though. It's about using your NBR (name brand recognition) to establish yourself in a new niche market. The point is that you get a head start, attract a lot of users and watch your niche market evolve into a major money maker.

According to this article in Investor's Business Daily, "sales of fee-based content services on the Internet, including games, sports video and online dating, will reach $5.4 billion by 2007". Now, that's some serious dough. And Microsoft is doing what they're good at: supressing stuff they don't like while keeping all their bases covered.

They already have XBox Live which is a huge hit because they have basically no competition (another example of Microsoft's early-positioning). It's no biggie if something they invest in turns out to be a failure. And that's not because they have all the money in the world. It's because one idea that works easily makes up for 5 failed ones.

How realistic?

[jandrese]

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.