More Arguments. Favourite games. From: "Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de> Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 20:49:16 +0000 Let's fight over something more PBM-related, shall we? Let's play "My = game is better than yours!".=20 No. Let's not. Let's rather do something constructive. As some may have noticed, I'm into medieval strategy/roleplaying games. = Atlantis was the first PBEM I ever read the rules of, Olympia was great = fun (for the two turns it took me to figure out that I wouldn't stand a = chance), I have enjoyed the german "Schwerter & Magie", and I've been = designing, writing and GMing Eressea for the last 4 years. I have merely had a glimpse of all that's out there. What are the elements in these types of games that you've liked the = most? If for every game you've played, you should pick one aspect that = made it stand out from the others, what would that be? What is your = biggest influence when it comes to making PBeMs? I'll start with my very = own, very limited, list: Atlantis: The sentence "players set their own goals" was what got me = hooked. It didn't turn out to be so true, but that's still something I = strive for in game design. That and making a world with long-time = motivation and no set goal. Olympia: Ah... I loved having a skill tree (though you didn't need a lot = of the skills, I was told), but especially the order stacks. However, = those were also what gave me the most problems. Planning up to 30 moves = ahead, with no means of synchronization or error-recovery was a = nightmare. I would forget to transfer money to a unit, and all the rest = of my orders be in vain. Greater campaigns really have to be planned by = one person that does all the moves for the involved parties, or they'll = be hopelessly out of sync. I think shorter timespans (7 or 14 days) and = some synchronization primitives would be worth exploring. Schwerter & Magie: It had a great production chain that was more than I = had ever seen before, but most of all it was fully client-based, no = orders to write, while still being fairly complex. I know its extremely = hard to take a game that already exists and wrap a client around it. = Schwerter & Magie was designed to be played with a client from the = start. I would do that next time I start a PBEM. But I'd always leave = plain text as an option. Eressea: I should really leave it to others to talk about this. One of = the goals that crystalized during development was to not make everyone = be able to do everything. That vreates dependencies on others. However, = deceit becomes a road that's only infrequently travelled, because losing = your allies is always such a blow to yourself. The open-endedness and = size (230 turns, 1500 players) are great fun, because your world = develpos a rich history. But you also get stuck in it. As a designer, = I'm more willing to do small, closed-ended games now, because at some = point you want a blank slate, and try some new stuff without upsetting = everyone who doesn't like to have new rules thrown at them every other = week. Big influences were always Civilization, MOO2 and the german "The = Settlers" boardgame, I think, for different reasons. These days, MMORPGs = are on my mind a lot (it's my job. We make http://anarchy-online.com/ = where I work). There's something to be learned from those, no doubt. Enno. -- Eressea PBeM http://eressea-pbem.de/ Referenced By Up