Re: why noone plays best game around?

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Thu, 04 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Greg Lindahl <gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> writes:
> I guess you weren't around when the moderator of the game was
> repeatedly posting boorish messages about it.

And if the world champion says so, then it must be true.

> Part of why it isn't discussed much is probably because it's a pretty
> simple game, not to mention that it's kind of like the free game
> "xconq", not to mention Walter Bright's Empire Deluxe.

It's hard to believe that these reasons have anything to do with it.
I've never noticed originality of game design being a crucial
requirement for r.g.pbm discussions, or for success in pbm moderation.
Furthermore WC does have many original concepts, including an
implementation of phased movement, which make it much more suitable for
pb(e)m play than XConq or Empire Deluxe.

I think the main reason is that WC is not really playable by email.  As
I understand it, you can only play the game in two ways: (1) sending and
receiving paper mail; (2) sending and receiving binary files and viewing
them using a proprietary PC viewer program.  Most of the discussion here
revolves around games which are playable by sending and receiving
text-formatted turns and orders by email, because historically most of
the people who had access to Usenet interacted with it through Unix
machines rather than PCs.

Personally I would be happy to play WC, but only once they start sending
and receiving text turns, and get rid of the PC requirement.
Unfortunately their recent WWW activity doesn't seem to include any
proposed support for the "text-based" pbem world.

> Walter Bright invented the underlying concept that World Conquest
> uses, by the way.

I don't agree with this statement.  Although WC clearly shows some signs
of having been influenced by Empire and its descendants, I don't believe
that the notion of abstract military units moving around on a
rectangular grid map, one unit per grid square, is so unobvious that it
could be said to have been "invented."  Rather, Bright was the first to
implement a popular and widely available game along these lines, and
many subsequent games have naturally adopted some of his conventions
while extending the basic concept in various ways, such as the phased
movement of WC.

David desJardins
--
Copyright 1995 David desJardins.  Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.

References

why noone plays best game around?
GEORGE CAMPBELL <70523.2375@CompuServe.COM>
Mon, 01 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: why noone plays best game around?
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Mon, 01 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

why noone plays best game around?
GEORGE CAMPBELL <70523.2375@CompuServe.COM>
Mon, 01 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: why noone plays best game around?
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Mon, 01 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000