Galaxy, JUST a game...? From: bc@lnec.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira) Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1993 00:13:22 +0000 amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead) writes: >A bizillion people started posting about this and that not being >realistic. That's not the point. I find it incredible that anyone can >discuss the "realism" of a space conquest game. I can send a scout 75 >light years in one year. Maybe we should limit movement to 0.2 or so? >Or increase the length of a turn to a century (and re-arrange the >corresponding tech, COL, CAP and MAT production rates)? And what >immutable law of faster-than-light physics is used to determine that >only tiny ships can attain maximum velocity? Maybe we should be >inventing complicated hierarchies and taxonomies of weapons and their >counter-measures instead of sticking to the boring but simple and >playable Weapon and Shield? > >NO. All those changes would be dumb. Those rules work now even though >their realism is arguable (at best). Huh, what a discussion... Let's get you lubricating your flamethrowers again: "Realism" isn't just ships moving at 0.2 light-years/year. That is, don't expect to apply today's notions of what "reality" is to a SF setting. On 1490, Columbus discovered America. Back then, they had also their ideas on how to get to the Moon. If PBMs existed back then, we would be arguing about on how to build caravels to get to the Moon, and someone would be saying, "Don't be silly! There isn't an ocean between Earth and the Moon, so how can you sail there??" The point is, what one means with "realism" on a SF setting is "coherent rules". That is, thinks make sense, have their own logic, and are not contradicting themselves. Read an SF book of some _good_ author sometime. You'll find there an impossible future, but it's quite realistic. Each thing has its own rules and laws to follow, which have logic, and we can reason in those terms. That's what SF "realism" is. If, on Galaxy, ships _can_ break the speed-of-light-barrier, good. Nice. But if you say something like, "all ships can move about 75 light-years per month" and someone else says, "well, I have a ship which can move 200,000 light-years per second!!", that's being unrealistic - in terms of the setting, of course! So, when someone argues that "transporting cargo on the OUTSIDE of ships is unrealistic", what is meant is, "in the spirit of the game setting, such things are out of place". And NOT, "this is technologically impossible in 1993, so it shouldn't be allowed". All discussions about "realism" should take this in account: that what is or sin't realistic ought to be judged according to the setting's own rules and laws, and not relating to 1993 technology. Thus, I think it's not only possible to discuss realism on SF games, but it should be encouraged. I even think (in my humble opinion...) that realism CAN give greater playability, as you're playing by rules that you consider "normal". If something is so out of place that you have to adapt yourself to that stupid rule, well, then maybe that particular rule IS out of place, ie., isn't realistic... On the other hand, if you want a playable game, try Chess instead. :-) Just a thought. Luis Sequeira _________________________________________________________________________ / / Computer scientists do it byte by byte. _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ We don't ask for miracles to get the job _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ done, we RELY upon them! _/ _/ _/ _/ If the job still isn't done, we'll stick _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ with Emacs instead... bc@lnec.pt Luis Miguel Sequeira Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil Phone 351-1-8482131 Ext. 2752 Centro Informatica/Grupo Sistemas Centrais "Don't call me, I'll call you" Av. Brasil, 101 - 1700 Lisboa, Portugal / _________________________________________________________________________/ Referenced By Up