Re: WOULD U BE WILLING TO...

From: Alan A. Hench <Alan.Hench@mail.utexas.edu>

Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000

In article <4pqkoo$p56@ci.ist.utl.pt> Rogerio Fung,
l41186@alfa.ist.utl.pt writes:
>Would any of you be interested to control it(with all the full 'commands'
>, just like if you were in the game) for the player in question, and, in
>resume, become his employee? So, if he told you, go to that planet, and
>trade, you would have full cntrol of the ship, but you would have to
>'obey' him(no option to try and get free)?

I believe that an important of what makes a game good is the number of
informed meaningful decisions the player gets to make.

In the scenario you describe, the subordinate player is not allowed to
make some decisions. The player's enjoyment as an employee would depend
on
how many other decisions are left for him to make.

Imagine the owner tells the employee where to go, what commodities to
sell, what commodities to buy, and what prices to do it at. What's left
for
the employee to decide? All he gets to do is mindlessly carry out the
orders given. Not much fun.

Let's say the owner just tells him where to go. The player then gets to
decide what commodities to sell and buy, and what prices to go for. But,
if
that's just a matter of picking the item and selling it or buying it at
the standard market price, the only decision he gets to make is what
commodities to trade.

If the owner decides where the employee goes, then to make the game
interesting the trading the player does there HAS to be detailed enough
to
allow for many decisions. Maybe there is no standard market price, so he
has to negotiate the prices. Maybe the market itself isn't in a standard
location, so he has to track down the buyers and sellers.

Similar considerations would apply to military subordinates. If the
commander tells the player where to go and who the enemy is, the battle
resolution has to be pretty detailed. If the battle is simple or
abstract,
running the battle will be trivial for the player. With that being all he
gets to do, the game won't be much fun for him.

Of course, if playing the game as a subordinate is only one third as fun,
someone might be willing to do it if he only had to pay one third as much.

References

WOULD U BE WILLING TO...
l41186@alfa.ist.utl.pt (Rogerio Fung < Rapa >)
Fri, 14 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000