Re: Odyssey Design Musings From: brj@en.com (Brent Johnson) Date: Wed, 01 Nov 1995 00:00:00 +0000 DLUKE@msu.edu (Doug Luke) writes: >I think that the design of Odyssey is nothing short of brilliant. It has such >good game balance that I'm amazed that it is so relatively new. The balance >between role playing/power gaming is excellent. Also, this is a close-ended >game that has the 'feel' of an open-ended game. While I agree that this is true right now, I can't help but wonder whether the balance will still be so good around turn 40 or so. I hope so... > >That said, I've been thinking of things that I think would improve the game. >I would like to hear what people think of these, and also what their ideas >are. Perhaps some of these suggestions will end up in future modules, or >Odyssey 2! > >1) Status/Standings Information > >I love watching my characters improve and my hamlets, villages and towns >develop over time. However, I'm always curious about how other players are >doing. There needs to be some type of list that gives us some information >about the standings or character/army/location statuses. This type of >information doesn't necessarily have to be so explicit as to identify both >the human player and game characters involved. I think it's important to >avoid the 'let's all gang up on whomever is currently leading' phenomenon. >However, some type of list showing biggest glory gains in the past turn, >largest player controlled location/guild, highest avg. prestige for a position, >etc., would really increase the tension/enjoyment of the game. This is the >biggest missing piece in the current game design, IMHO. There was more than one experiment with standings reports during the playtests, but no consensus was reached. Everything tried had numerous detractors and the designers decided it was better to have nothing than to have something a substantial number of players hated. Personally, I agree with this decision, and in fact I think that the tension in the game is increased by not knowing where you stand in relation to the other players. I don't want player standings reports. What _I_ think is the biggest omission, that would increase my enjoyment if it were added, is a system for propagating news and rumors. > >2) Addition of a command to do an automatic strip/free of every dead monster >in the current party. This is a minor point, but would save time for every >den-basher out there. I gotta agree. :-) > >3) Add the ability to send gold from one location to another (without requring >a character or army to carry it). This is the sort of micromanagement that >quickly takes the fun out of managing a large empire (sort of like worrying >about food in a long RPG game). You could handle it like the transfer of glory >works, i.e., to transfer X gold from one location to another would cost 2X >gold to accomplish. I like micromanagement, and I think figuring out creative relays is a fun challenge. It makes me feel like every extra little bit of effort brings a little extra reward. > >4) I know that Gamer's Den doesn't agree with my here, but I think there >needs to be much more data management/user interface improvements built >into the game. Mapping utilities, automatic generation of reports, etc. >Look around at what other PBEM game companies are doing, and what is >successful. If you want to reach a wider market, this will be essential. For a wider market, the tools are essential, but I for one am glad that they put their efforts into designing a solid game of such complexity rather than into designing glitz and warping the game to fit it. > >5) Lower the turn prices. (OK, this isn't a design issue, but what the heck!) >$5.00 per turn for a pure email game with no maps, utilities, player aids, >is too expensive. When you combine this with the recent turn credit fiasco, >it starts to leave a little bit of a sour taste in the mouth. (Hint: instead >of the long-winded and confusing explanation of what constitutes a turn, just >say that everyone gets a free setup and one turn.) So I gotta choose between Cable TV or Odyssey. Hmm. No contest. Odyssey it is. Seriously, the game should be priced so that Gamer's Den gets exactly as many players as they can handle. True, $5.00 a week is more than I would have considered paying for any other game I know about, but when I compare it to alternative forms of recreation it seems very reasonable. It's worth it to me, and apparently it's worth it to quite a number of other players as well. I certainly wouldn't object to a lower price, but I don't get any sour taste over the current price either. And to me "fiasco" seems rather a strong term to apply to the turn credit snafu, although I sure don't understand why they didn't originally word it the way you did. << Brent Referenced By Up