Re: The nature of the beast

From: Andrei Jirnyi <jonn@i-connect.ru>

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000

delurking ...

Henry Penninkilampi wrote:
> unaltered; however, diplomacy is a human action - if it takes five days to
> think of a devious plan to pitch to your allies, then it takes five days -
> having access to email during that time *won't* make your brain think
> faster.  Shorter turn-arounds *do* result in less diplomacy.

I think you are not quite right here. It depends on what definition of
"more diplomacy" you use. The same game, when faster paced, will likely have
less letter exchange per turn, but more per day.
I never played anything by mail, neither am I going to, so all the observations
are based on Galaxy and Vga Planets that I did play (did not like the latter
though).
But I can not imagine myself writing lots of letters on paper, and then waiting
for more than a week to get an answer. In fact, I often find email slow enough,
and try to conduct the diplomatic affairs in Galaxy on IRC, when the time is
critical. In fact, I often spend much more time communicating than writing
orders.

> Now for the third generation of PBEM games, which I will refer to as PFEM
> (Paper Free Electronic Mail) games.  Not a particularily great acronym,
> granted, but it emphasises the major evolutionary step taken by this
> mutation.  Here we talk about games like VGA Planets, Stars, etc., where
> the turns were never meant to be displayed on a paper medium - a program
> not only being used to display reports, but compile orders as well.

I would not use unreadability as a classifying factor. Galaxy reports are
technically human readable ASCII text, but it is impossible to analyze them
without tools in practice, and in fact, the best tools for Galaxy are
much more technically advanced than those for Stars! or Vga Planets, or
any other game I have seen so far, including single-player commercial
strategies.

> interested in.  PFEM games tend to have even shorter turn-around times
> than PBEM games, with even less opportunity for diplomacy as a result!

The last statement is not true.

> Pulling it all together, it seems as though, as a result of technological
> advances, the time available to play these sorts of games has gradually
> decreased.  This, in turn, has resulted in shallower games with less
> personal interaction and less emotional payback.

I did not get this statement.

> an affinity to that method of play.  (The newest generation of players
> seem to be throwing around the acronym RTS (Real Time Strategy) without,
> it seems, any idea of what the word 'strategy' actually means!)  As the

RTS is a totally different kind of game. Saying that they take players
away form pbem's is like saying Quake is taking players away from pbems.

> mass is lost, then the PBM industry will crumble and take PBEM with it.

i see no much connection between PBM and PBEM either, at least not to the
point to taking each other along when going down ;) The paper based
commercial RPGs, usually with exorbitant turn fees, are much more alien
to me as a Galaxy player than the said Quake is ;)

> PFEM has not yet finished maturing and so will be around for a while to
> come - even so, it is doomed because of societal (primarily time-based)
> pressures towards real-time entertainment.  The RTS generation is in it's

RTS are nice, but as I said -- they are totally different. They are not
strategies in the full sence of the word, in fact. That does not make them
bad games (I used to like warcraft when I had time to play), but of course
they are no substitution and they are not to take pbem's market.

> medium (the Net) has obscured the fact that the quality of entertainment
> it delivers has gone down the drain.  The big question is whether or not

Not at all. I am observing no decline in Galaxy community, in fact it's
increasing.

P.S. If someone cares to reply, s/he might want to send a copy along to my
email address, for I do not check this group often.

--jonn

References

The nature of the beast
htp@dove.net.au (Henry Penninkilampi)
Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

The nature of the beast
htp@dove.net.au (Henry Penninkilampi)
Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000