Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?

From: spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)

Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 02:49:40 +0000

> How are you going to handle players who don't participate regularly
> and what is the minimum wait time you will have for people who want to
> play a lot?  A problem you will face here is the irregularities in
> scheduling between players.  Some will play a lot, others
> occationally.

Its a tradeoff.  1 week seems right to me.  Less would place too much
presure on people who either 1) dont have so much free time to devote
to the game and 2) those who have a lot of diplomacy to do.  My idea
was that if a player didnt put in any orders for 3 weeks in
succession, their position would be killed off, although their account
would remain valid as long as it was paid up.  They could start
another position.

There could be a box to tick for 'reuse last orders' in the emergency
case that they missed sending their orders.  Otherwise no orders would
be used.

It would not be possible to resign a position, other than by their
position being destroyed by game events, or by letting it remain
inactive for 3 successuve turns.  This merely to discourage people
restarting a new position each week which would be undesirable for
other players trying to interact with them.

> By the way, I wouldn't bet on the game having THOUSANDS.  Be thankful
> if you get 1000 regular players, tops (actually 500 should be
> considered a success, particularly for a small time operation).  You
> may get more, but you better make sure the game is interesting in and
> of itself, without needing a large amount of people to make it go.

I think a minimum of 200 for this game.  Less and the desired gameplay
wouldnt eventuate.  1000 would be fantastic.

> Keep in mind why Majestic flopped.  One of the reasons is the game
> made demands on people's time (aka, the game invaded their personal
> space).  This is arguably a no-no when it comes to entertainment.
> People play games, games shouldn't play them.

The game will not demand time, as actually entering any orders is a
trivial thing that might take 5 minutes.  However, the amount of
brainspace and diplomacy the game takes up would be dependent on the
player.  Players not actively involved in _something_ at the time
could lay low for a while and not communicate with other players and
enter 'development' rather than 'interactive' orders.  Good if you are
busy at work, life intrudes on game etc...  But you always would have
the option of becoming more involved...it would depend on your
position in the game, and the position you wanted to achieve....

References

MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:36:15 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
richardhutnik@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik)
Sat, 11 Jan 2003 04:21:34 +0000

Referenced By

MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:36:15 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
richardhutnik@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik)
Sat, 11 Jan 2003 04:21:34 +0000