Re: Open-ended games (Olympia, Atlantis)

From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 22:46:41 +0000

Indeed, a secondary reason for the only-3-magicians limit in Atlantis
was to prevent a single player from becoming all-powerful.

Another way to prevent open-ended games from stagnating is to encourage
specialization, which I think the Atlantis economic system does (no
background NPC economy from which you can buy things, commodities are
only produced by other players, unless you want to be a jack-of-all
trades, you must trade; also, different region types produce different
things).

Finally, the map should be sufficiently large that new players can
always find somewhere relatively uncrowded to set up shop, without
having to go head-to-head with established players; this also I think I
have achieved in Atlantis.

It certainly is possible to create an open-ended game which does not
stagnate; many commercial such games have been running for years and are
still drawing players. Notice that neither T'Nyc nor Olympia had
stagnated when they went down; the Dark Prophet (my character, aka
Amber) was all set to have another go at world conquest in about 10
turns or so, once his army was sufficiently large. Nor do I think
Olympia would have stagnated.

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie

References

Open-ended games (Olympia, Atlantis)
hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)
Tue, 27 Apr 1993 20:11:37 +0000
DM: the Hatchet
picasso@acs2.nntp-read.bu.edu (David Ondzes)
Tue, 27 Apr 1993 10:58:52 +0000

Referenced By

Open-ended games (Olympia, Atlantis)
hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)
Tue, 27 Apr 1993 20:11:37 +0000
DM: the Hatchet
picasso@acs2.nntp-read.bu.edu (David Ondzes)
Tue, 27 Apr 1993 10:58:52 +0000