>From kirby@cs.unr.edu Mon Dec 20 11:53:36 1993
Message-Id: <9312201521.AA15393@pyramid>
From: kirby@cs.unr.edu (Stephen Kirby)
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 07:21:38 -0800
In-Reply-To: skrenta@shadow.com (Rich Skrenta)
"Exit interview" (Dec 17, 9:58pm)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: skrenta@shadow.com (Rich Skrenta)
Subject: Re: Exit interview
The reason I quit playing was a combination of things that
finally caught up with me.
I, in about 3 turns, gave myself about 7 nobles, and doubled
the number of charcters, it became to difficult to keep track of
that many. Turns wouldnow take on the ordr of 5 hours to do
properly, and I could put out the time with the added responsiblilty
of finals, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
I found the game interesting, but got lost in in when I
collected too many nobles.
I wrote to you earlier about why NPCS might be attractive to
players, and after more thought I think that a lot of the
attaction is in being forced to act within certain limitations.
Olympia is so broad that each player is forced to form their own
limitations. The create their own persona.
Oleg the explorer
Hildago the Trader
Dr. Pain the world conquerer
These are the most prominant (I know some are from atlantis, but I think
it help illustrate the point.) player, the most active, and I think
that they are having the most fun. It's the others, the ones that want
to do a little of everything, that get lost without any clear direction,
for them being n NPC really helps.
Now I've never played Legends, but the impression that I get
from that game is that you start with a 'kind' of a set up (adventurer,
overlord, hero, etc.) and expand from there, perhaps eventually
upgrading your position (from hero to overlord, etc.). There
is
also a lot of depth to the world with various temples and such to
devote to, and various status trees that further define your
charcter.
It seems as though in building the big world, and the open system
that you have that it is really easy for a lot of players to get lost in
the game without every finding direction, I know that that also
played some part in my losing interest, not really knowing where to
go from here.
I had planned on just learning as much as I could, a kind of
Oleg path, but, by virtue of starting a few turns late, I was
beaten to the punch in building a tower or castle for research, and
it was in the process of leaving the first continent that I lost
desire to spen the time to send the turns in.
I don't know if you want to try any of the ideas in here, but you
might try them out. Just give some game type goals for people.
Guilds of learning? Colleges?
It's tough because your trying to build a world where anyone
can do anything, kind of like real life. The differee is that in
real life there is already a system in place. Colleges, religion,
corporations, technology, countries, military, and people can still
find a place to define themselves, it's tough to define yourself
against the whole of mankind.
Sorry if I rambled a bit, I keeped getting new ideas as I typed,
Thanks
Steve
-- Rich Skrenta <skrenta@shadow.com>