Re: Play by Web Sites -- Could they be better?

From: jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (JonMMorris)

Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Geoff wrote:
>Strategy games lend themselves much better to PBW than RPG's, from what
I've seen. I think RPG's *could* do well, but the interfaces,
development, methods, etc. just haven't been worked out.

Even a RPG could benefit from a web-based turn-submission form.  (help with
syntax, formatting, spelling, help links,...)

>We've been working really hard to put out a basic play-by-web strategy SF
game (Third Millennium, currently in open public beta at http://
www.jubal.com/), and I can say from personal experience that it is far,
far trickier and more difficult than it looks. We have over half a dozen
people working on it, granted only in their spare time, but it's been
amazingly difficult getting things to work properly.

"...over half a dozen people..."!   Gen-x slackers!  ;-)
Seriously, your site is very professional looking and has some good content too
- you've got some games listed there that I've never heard of before.  I'll go
back again and check them out.

>I think PBW has a lot of potential, and I suspect that it will start to
be used more often as the tools get better. I don't think it need remove
the human referee from the equation, rather, I think it has the potential
of making it easier for the human referee to do a good job.

I'm just one rapidly-aging boomer working in my spare time but I'm trying to
implement some of the ideas you suggest.  (shameless plug for
www.GunboatEmpires.com) - the breakthrough for me has been learning to work
with Active Server Pages.  The client-side javascript gets cumbersome and your
intellectual property is hanging out for the world to take.  I don't have any
ASPs on the site yet but soon...

Players want their turns to be error-free.  It is a great help to players if
they can validate their actions before submitting them to the moderator.
Especially helpful for newbies to flatten the learning curve.

--John
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References

Re: Play by Web Sites -- Could they be better?
tuffli@my-deja.com
Thu, 06 Apr 2000 00:00:00 +0000