Re: Olympia combat From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) Date: Thu, 14 May 1992 17:29:06 +0000 It looks like there's an extremely wide difference of opinion on the combat system, primarily on how easy it should be to kill people. I personally think that the solution for people who want to avoid being killed is to have an effective combat system, but for players to set up areas which are relatively safe (like Drassa now that Zyzak's been killed :-( ) so that timid people can stay there. However, I think a lot of people are still going to disagree with this. So: How about having two versions of the game, one with a simple, fast, realistic combat system, and the other with a combat system which is so messy, slow and unrealistic that it's not practical to kill anyone. This would make everyone happy (just pick which version you want to be in) and I don't think it would be much extra work to run; just compile the program with two versions of combat.c; you could even use the same map for both versions. On the matter of the WORK command: the excuse for making it less profitable is that it's supposed to be the least effective way of making money. The problem is that all the other ways require a great deal of startup costs, time and energy to do. Fine, make them profitable for those who want to invest the effort required. But I don't *want* to be a merchant and spend all my time poring over profit and loss figures. I want a simple, effective way of supporting my units so I can get on with being a warlord/wizard/assassin/bandit etc. So I think the WORK command or some equivalent needs to be kept adequately effective. In particular, I think there should be a guarantee that a unit will always at least be able to support itself with WORK, a guarantee that is not currently given because maintenance costs increase with increasing unit combat skill. Finally: Rich, you realize you're going to have to write the other 80% of the manual sooner or later? So I wouldn't go overboard with the "hidden complexity" bit because it's eventually going to have to be unearthed. I understand that for a playtest game you don't want to have to rewrite a large, complex manual every week but when the game finally settles down, a manual which gives all the rules rather than vague platitudes will be required. -- "To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem" Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie Referenced By Up