Re: alternative goals

From: "Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de>

Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 12:50:38 +0000

> > you can be a mighty warlord, an explorer or a rich trader". Now, from almost
5
> > years of experience, I must admit that that's not entirely true. There may
be
> > secondary goals, but you won't live long if you don't follow rule #1: "Be
> > strong, or others will kill you". The powergamers can ruin the game for
> > everyone who sets himself an alternative goal. Why is it so hard to make a
game
> > where that's not the case? Waht are possible goals?
>
> Reminds me of a quote by my International Law professor, "There is no
> international law.  The strong do what they will and the weak do what they
> must."

It's worse. In the Real World, there exists such a thing as a moral system. If
you do something that all others consider an offense, you are punished. Not so
in a game. Players can do the most outrageous things, plunder, pillage and
xenocide, and if they have at least a little diplomatic skill aside from that,
they usually go unharmed by the others, who'd rather keep out of trouble.

> I certainly am not familiar with every game out there, especially the fantasy
> genre, but it would take a fair amount of skill to create a  game with all the
> viable strategies you've described.  The closest PbM game I can think of might
> be Lords of the Earth where sheer power is a strategy but not the only one,
> long-running roleplaying/storytelling exists if only because the games go
> forever, and there are numerous subplots beyond the obvious battle reports in
> the newsletter.

Eressea has most of these traits: Power is not the only thing you can search
for, but it is necessary if you don't want to get trampled. A powerful player
can wreck another players game, but not vice versa. There are usually no
negative sides to being powerful -- maybe that's what I'm looking for: downsides
to being powerful, and good alternative goals that make the game worthwile -
longterm.

Our weekly newspapaer is now regularly around 128 K plaintext, we can't complain
about the volume of submissions. However, the overall quality is going down, as
I said before, 90% of the postings revolve around some local war nobody's
interested in.

> However, the best match that I can think of to what you're looking for is not
a
> PbM game at all - it's a game like UltimaOnline or EverQuest.

Interesting you'd bring that up, since I'm currently working with a company
making such an MMORPG (in the SF genre). It's a different class of game, the
interaction is realtime, and most games have strict distinctins between PK and
non-PK areas. Still, killing (if only monsters) is a major part of UO and
especially EQ. You kill to advance. Making trade skills work is terribly hard,
and I've heard from the UO designers how bad the trade skills were for the
economic system, etc.

> 4) Building - Absolutely.  Build more stuff, new technologies, improve the
> efficiencies of what you've already got, expand your colonies, (and of course
> build up your military to go attack...)

But do they build to gain more power? The ultimate goal behind most building
activity is increased strength. There are some exceptions, like Eressea's
monuments: Monuments are nondestructible, name-once buildings of unlimited size
(you can keepon building forever). They serve no purpose whatsoever, but the 7
biggest monuments show up in the weekly publication: "The seven wonders of the
world". Plus one random additional monument, in the "noteworthy" section. It's a
small thing, and hardly a goal, but one of the many "little things".

> The official 'winner' of Gunboat Empires, the guy who gets the plaque, is the
> player who is voted 'Best Player' by his fellow players for that game.

In a game of 1400 players, where you only ever meet about 50-100 or so, that's
something that would be heavily influenced by roleplaying. A nice idea, really.
We might steal it :-)

Enno.

References

alternative goals
"Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de>
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 03:15:30 +0000
Re: alternative goals
jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 05:24:02 +0000

Referenced By

alternative goals
"Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de>
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 03:15:30 +0000
Re: alternative goals
jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 05:24:02 +0000