Matchmaker
From Populous Wiki
A Matchmaker is a chat room where Populous players can create games and play against other players over the internet.
Official Matchmaker
The official matchmaker was a java based app running on a web page also known as www.populous.net. There were a total of 9 lobbys which were used so that different ranked people could play with people with the same skill in a lobby. However there were not enough players on the matchmaker at the time so only the first lobby was used. The lobbies had a picture of a populous landscape with several huts which were the rooms in which people launched from, some huts held only 2 players, some only held 3 and some only held 4. At the bottom was a chatbox and on the right was the player list.
Launchers were clones of the java based app which used the same server but were on different sites.
On 8th January 2004 EA closed down the server, but another matchmaker was then used and still is which is run by Populous Reincarnated.
Populous Reincarnated
- Main article: Matchmaker (Reincarnated)
In the late days of when EA were still hosting the official matchmaker, Populous Reincarnated created a new matchmaker which was a win32 application rather than on a web page. The matchmaker used the same server as populous.net so you could have alternative matchmakers. The matchmaker is not as graphical but more simpler as all huts/rooms are formed as a tree diagram. The player list is still on the right and the chatbox is between the hut/room list and the player list.
After EA closed down there matchmaker server Populous Reincarnated hosted a new one so players could still play Populous online. The matchmaker was then updated frequently with new features like Mappacks, Mods, Skins, Private Messaging and many other useful features.
The matchmaker can be downloaded at the Populous Reincarnated site.