Re: alternative goals

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

Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 03:32:06 +0000

> >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.
>
> --choke-- 128K a week of plain text? Wow, that's a lot of chaff to sift...
> Have you thought of any alternate publication methods?  A discussion forum, or
> e-mail list for the player-generated stuff?

128K... where the hell did I get that number? Sorry, it's only around 40Kand
then there's an eressea.rpg newgroup (with a mailing list gateway) that
generates another 50 K or so per week. But no matter how you look at it, it's
gotten big and impossible to read it all.

> How about an online database where players (and you) could submit their news
> with a headline, time/turn #, player name/# in addition to the body of news -
> this might help the players find just the news they need and would help new
> players get caught up on past game news without having to sift through years
of
> 128k text files!

All twohundredsome editions are on the web, indexed by a search engine. However,
we're going to change the format, and let players categorize the input more, so
it'll be easier to find out which parts really affect you.

> >> 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.
> I publish the top ten rankings each turn in various categories - the  players
> seem to like this as they can concentrate on climbing in different areas, or
> they can target the folks ahead of them!

We have always avoided publishing a top ten of best players, highest skills,
etc, although we've repeatedly been asked to do it. First of all, it's pointless
in a game where some players have played for five years and others have played
for a week. Even if that wasn't the case, we don't want that kind of competitive
spirit. It works counter the goal of "living" the game. Some people would go off
and try to rise in the rankings, others would complain about it being unfair
that they can never get thre because the race they choose is oh so much worse
off than whichever race currently holds the most places in the top ten, players
will create mules to rise help their faction rise in the ranks, and so forth, an
endless stream of terrible things I wouldn't wish upon any GM. I've played in
games where such highscore lists exist and fallen vistim to the same kind of
thinking. Empiria was the game where I played the meanest yet, only to keep my
alliance in that top ten.

> >> 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 :-)
>
> I'd be honored if you considered it a gift.

*grin* Thanks. We're currently stabilizing the code and not adding too many new
features, but this one goes on the big list of ideas.

Enno.
--
Enno Rehling                                 http://eressea.upb.de/~enno/
Programmer, Anarchy Online                 http://www.anarchy-online.com/
Funcom Oslo A/S                                    http://www.funcom.com/

References

Re: alternative goals
"Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de>
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 12:50:38 +0000
Re: alternative goals
jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)
Sun, 04 Mar 2001 02:47:40 +0000

Referenced By

Re: alternative goals
"Enno Rehling" <schick.mir.spam@gmx.de>
Sat, 03 Mar 2001 12:50:38 +0000
Re: alternative goals
jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)
Sun, 04 Mar 2001 02:47:40 +0000