Re: The B. A. T. Debate

From: fabbott@athena.mit.edu (Freeland K Abbott)

Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1989 22:49:53 +0000

I can understand Tom's concern, and have in fact tried to mail
comments to him repeatedly: unknown host, no matter how I try to route
it.  If he can come up with a mail path I can use, I'm quite willing
to keep trying.  Apart from that, I gave up a little under a week ago.

Back when we were originally debating how to run the game-- we did
think about it, not just suddenly jump up and post wildly :-)-- Steve
suggested posting to r.g.frp on the basis of topic; someone in the
game (I don't remember who) suggested r.g.pbm on the basis of subject.
What we are posting about is a PBeM game, and I do think that it
probably belongs in that group (or in a new one under it, but I
understand that option has been overruled).  The problem is that the
game turn is very short-- like daily, at the longest-- which generates
a whole lot of postings.  A problem I can sympathize with, since I
don't much like "n'ing" through articles I don't care about (I have
kills but don't use them-- I'm that close to quota :-)

However, one of the major problems with PBeM role-playing games is
that a slow (week-long turn, say, which is more customary) game is
terminally boring: with a scale approaching 1 turn = 5 min. of game,
it seems like nothing happens.  There's been a fair chunk of
discussion on r.g.frp about that, and we're trying something new to
see how it'll go.  So far it's going incredibly well-- Steve can
provide you with the numbers, but suffice to say that I'm having fun
and all I've done is talk (by e-mail: only public movements get
posted.  We aren't trying to swamp the group) and do a performance.
Using news seems to vastly increase the turnaround time, especially
for those people who need to use bang-paths for mail.  I think that a
game like this on pure e-mail would quickly collapse under its own
weight.  So although I'll get off the group if that's decided, I think
that'll kill a very good game and hope it won't happen.

I do have a few thoughts to reduce the aggravation to Tom and any
other (far less vocal :-) opponents of the game.  The first is that I
think the posting frequency has already dropped appreciably, now that
the game has begun: some folks are in non-publicly visible areas and
don't post, and the others don't move constantly and don't post too
often.  The big wave of entrance announcements was the worst.  Is the
current level really that unreasonable?

If it is, would some sort of summary posting be acceptable?  There
would still be a lot of these-- one per turn, remember-- but they'd
list everyone's movement in that turn (to some extent this is already
being done, within each of the three "cliques" I count in the game
now).  The problem is that consolidation would be some work, and
Steve's already busy running the thing.  So at best he'd be able to
concatenate a lot of mail, making for one giant post instead of
several smaller ones.  If he is willing to do this-- it's a big
investment, I think-- that might solve the problem.

Incidentally, although I think it isn't really too relevant, I'm sure
most of news costs more than it's really worth to the folks
(companies) investing in it, especially anything under "rec"...
Freeland K. Abbott                    fabbott@athena.mit.edu
454F 410 Memorial Drive               MIT Undergrad (Comp. Sci. nerd)
Cambridge, MA 02139  USA              "stop the world, I want to get off..."

References

The Broad Axe Tavern
bonar@math.rutgers.edu (Doug)
Mon, 26 Jun 1989 06:33:22 +0000
Re: The Broad Axe Tavern
tom@tnc.UUCP (Tom Buchsbaum)
Fri, 30 Jun 1989 02:30:28 +0000

Referenced By

The Broad Axe Tavern
bonar@math.rutgers.edu (Doug)
Mon, 26 Jun 1989 06:33:22 +0000
Re: The Broad Axe Tavern
tom@tnc.UUCP (Tom Buchsbaum)
Fri, 30 Jun 1989 02:30:28 +0000