Olympia: adding complexity

From: granboul@clipper.ens.fr (Louis Granboulan)

Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1992 02:30:59 +0000

In article rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
>More generally, to better put the point I was making earlier, about the
>adding of more complexity:
>
>In general, any information system with many users is going to encounter
>this problem: Each individual user will propose the modifications that
>he thinks desirable. Now, if all of those are indiscriminately
>implemented, the system will become unmaintainable, and will collapse
>under its own weight. I have seen more than one software project
>abandoned for this reason. The solution to this is to have one person in
>charge of the project, who decides the direction in which the project is
>going to go, and who rejects all modifications that do not fit in with
>this plan. It seems to me that Rich is making the mistake of
>implementing proposed modifications indiscriminately, thereby causing
>the complexity of the Olympia game to increase without limit, and
>eventually causing the system to collapse under the weight of its own
>complexity.

I agree with you, and since I think there is no good solution for this
problem, my answer is "take some holidays".
I'm trying to force the players to ally in big factions, with some war
with giant battles, so they will need time to organise themselves, and
will stop to suggest new complexity.
Rich will have enough time to make a coherent system that can include
some of the best ideas of the playtesters.
The game could run with our old bugged program, waiting for the new
all-redesigned program that will takes more than a week to create.
A week is too short for a big code change like the one I imagine.

Louis Granboulan (Silbur [545])

References

Re: Olympia: region resources
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Sat, 27 Jun 1992 00:12:28 +0000