Re: Odyssey Design Musings

From: dmanva@aol.com (DmanVA)

Date: Wed, 01 Nov 1995 00:00:00 +0000

>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.

>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.

I agree that some sort of mechanism to somehow keep track of who's in the
lead in various categories would be a welcome addition.  I'm just not sure
how they would implement something such as this.

>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.

This would be a welcome addition as it would cut down on the number of
strip/free orders that I have to issue every turn.  I still strip all of
the monsters that I kill but I believe that it is really unnecessary.
Correct me if I'm wrong please but if you kill a monster in combat, don't
you  automatically strip the monster? Thus, if you are a den-bashing
position, you wouldn't have to worry about stripping any monsters unless
you captured them alive and then executed them.

>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.

This is something that could really use some work.  Is Gamer's Den really
saying that I have to use one of me valuable characters to run errands?
Even if I hired a new scout, as someone suggested, that's still 10 glory
that I have to blow that could be used much more profitably somewhere
else.

>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.

I think that Gamer's Den really does need to be more concerned about data
management improvements in the game.  To keep track of all the info is a
royal pain in the rear as I'm sure others have noticed.  It would be
really nice if I had the time and ability to sit down and write up
thousands of wonderful lines of code so that I could create a program to
simplify data management but I just can't do that right now.  As Doug
stated, if Gamer's Den wants to reach a wider market, then they will have
to put the time and money into developing mapping utilities, generation of
reports, etc.

>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.)

Five dollars really isn't that exorbitant a price to be asking for a game
as great as Odyssey.  Let's just hope they don't plan on raising the
prices anytime soon.

>OK, let's hear other suggestions!

>--Doug Luke--

References

Re: Odyssey Design Musings
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Sjoerd Schreuder)
Wed, 01 Nov 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Odyssey Design Musings
sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Sjoerd Schreuder)
Wed, 01 Nov 1995 00:00:00 +0000