Re: [spoon-discuss] Lots of stuff

["Orc In A Spacesuit" <orcinaspacesuit@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Wow, stop paying attention for a day, and all sorts of stuff builds up... 
> There aren't as many messages as in the days of yore, when two days could 
> easily mean 100 new messages, but these msgs are much, much longer. So, 
> Lots of replies:
>
> --------------------
> On Pooker:
>
> It's a nice idea, but that's really an A Nomic thing. If nothing else, the 
> proposal ought to be giving most of its passage points to Rob, as it was 
> really eir idea, IIRC. But also, that was A Nomic. This is B Nomic, and 
> although we may share a player or two, and may be run off the same server, 
> we're not the same game, and I think I'd like to avoid taking too many 
> ideas from other games.

Hmm.  I didn't think of it so much as taking a lot of ideas from another 
game, but taking one thing that seemed cool, and had an interesting history.
Regarding points, well, I did rewrite it for B Nomic rules, as well as 
changing it up, and stand to lose the points if it fails.  And the proposal 
does give Rob the Ace of Spades from the Red Pack.

> Besides, I had some other ideas for cards, that make them more like Magic 
> Cards than Poker Cards.

Heheh.  Who says we can't have both?

> --------------------
> On Multiple Grids:

I like your ideas, but wince when I think about making them work with the 
current ruleset smoothly.

> ---------------------
> Okay, next issue: Rules on the Grid
>
> I don't think every rule should be on the grid (do we even have enough 
> squares?). But some rules, I think, would be very interesting on the Grid. 
> Certainly Rule 10, for all the argument it's caused, would be an excellent 
> Rule to have a war over.

I am in general against things that modify the rules other than those things 
specifically mandated by a proposal that the majority of the players voted 
for.  Perhaps some rules could have different functions based on things that 
happen on the (or a) Grid.  Something like that is already in place a bit, 
like the Weather Rule being activated by a Weather Gnome's destruction.

> ----------------------
> What Gets Reset in a Reset?
>
> Personally, I think that the total leveling of the field is a bad idea, if 
> for no better reason than that it means that someone who's invested a lot 
> of time and effort in improving eir position in the game is, once a Reset 
> happens, in exactly the same situation as someone who just joined a week 
> ago and hasn't done anything since.

I think this is a matter of viewpoints.  One way you can look at this, after 
a win, everyone essentially joins a brand new game.  All the players would 
have started after the win started the game over.

> I believe that certain intrinsic properties of players should be kept 
> through Resets, because otherwise things like the Force which can take a 
> long time to build up, become worthless - if it takes three nweeks to get 
> up enough force to advance to the next Jedi Level, and you get reset to 
> Untrained every five nweeks, then why bother?

Indeed.  I thought myself, "Why bother?", when I saw all the stuff for 
Jedi's, then noticed that such things lasted through to new games.  Maybe we 
should rework the Jedi system, with fewer and more equal ranks (essentially, 
perhaps Untrained, Adept, Master or something), and not make the transition 
between them not take as much time.  Perhaps have it be something you can 
purchase after a reset, for an amount of that "starting BNS"?  Masters could 
pay to keep their rank each time.

> To bring back the WarCraft III analogy, yes, in a battle between two armies 
> where all else is equal except that one has a level 10 Ogre Mage and the 
> other only has level 1, it's more likely that the level 10 guy will win. 
> But when is all else ever equal? Having nine extra levels on your champion 
> doesn't help if you're attacking a fortified base with an army otherwise 
> identical to the one behind the guard towers.

But the way things are now, those who have built up get thier Level 10 
whatevers, and those who haven't still get Level 1, but no fortress.  If two 
people had made a mad point-dash for a win last game, and a third focused 
simply on building himself up, and the first guy won, then the third guy 
would dominate the other two.  It would be like a the very beginning of the 
game, even before anyone got their peons mining gold, one player already had 
a Level 10 hero, while the others have the same starting stuff.  Guess who's 
gonna win now, and many more games in the future?

However, in your example, one guy had a Level 10 hero, the other a giant 
fortress.  That would be like someone purchasing back his Jedi Master rank 
after a win, and another being able to purchase back his mass of 
Improvements.  And maybe a third buying up a few armies and a nice set of 
droid upgrades.  That I am down with.  That sounds great to me.

> This is not to say that *all* abilities need to be kept through Resets... 
> One interesting approach I found in a game called "Rumble", which was based 
> on the idea of superheroes beating each other up for no particular reason. 
> The idea was that before the game started, every player would come up with 
> a couple 'Super Powers', which could be anything they wanted, from "Every 
> turn, gain three hit points" to "if you get up and do the chicken dance, 
> every other player must do the same or lose 30 hit points." These abilities 
> were then put into a pool, and one by one they were pulled out. When an 
> ability was pulled out, each player would write down how much they were 
> willing to pay for that ability; all players would reveal their bids 
> simultaneously, and whoever bid highest would lose starting hit points 
> equal to eir bid and gain the ability.

That sounds absolutly awesome.  I'm gonna try that with my brothers and 
sisters next time I go home.  I wonder how hard it would be to make an 
online version; I assume some of the qualitly would be lost with the real 
life aspect, as you can't really chicken dance online.  Or at least I don't 
want to see it.

> What if some special abilities were passed on like that? So at every reset, 
> we could all bid on who wanted to take over the Ministry of the Force, or 
> Wealthy Bastard Enterprises; you could get instant promo to Jedi Lord, or 
> control over the sale of Speeder parts, but you'd have to pay more than 
> anyone else was willing to to get them....

Yeah, sounds good, for those things there might be stiff competition for.  
Would help with setting prices as well, as each person would put up what 
they truly think it's worth to them.

> ---------------------
> On the Uber-Prop
>
> I've been thinking about standardizing and generalizing much of the current 
> system, and it seems to me that the best way to do that would be to create 
> a new class of Object, call them New-Style Objects or NSOs, which have 
> certain properties that eventually, all objects will have. The idea is that 
> changes could be made in how NSOs behave to generalize things; while this 
> was happening, other objects could be ported from Old-Style Objects (OSOs) 
> to NSOs. Once the transition is complete, the Old-Style rules could be 
> deleted, and NSOs could stop being called New-Style Objects, and just be 
> called Objects.
>
> This would make the transition fairly easy, and wouldn't require a single 
> massive overhaul prop.
>
> For that matter, we could create a second Grid using the guidelines put 
> forth in the Uber Prop, and move things from Grid 1 to Grid 2; then scrap 
> Grid 1.
>
> Just for the record, I got the above idea from Python, where a new, easier 
> to manipulate class of object is being introduced; the idea is that 
> eventually, all objects will be derived from this class instead of the 
> current base class, but right now the older class is still hanging around 
> for compatibility purposes.

Sounds good, but the transition would not be smooth.  Too many rules would 
have to be changed each time a new object was made an NSO, at least if you 
wanted to keep loopholes and bugs out.

> ---------------------
> On a Guide

Sounds great.  We actually wouldn't need to include it with the database, so 
it could be worked on now, though of course databse inclusion would be great 
once it's possible.
I'd set up a page where people could submit such entries, but I'm still not 
too good the complicated online stuff.

> --------------------
> Closing Remarks
>
> Um... I don't have any Closing Remarks, except to request Comments from 
> anyone and everyone, about anything and everything.
>
> How's my vision look?
>
> --
> Wonko

Here, you got a little smudge on your glasses.  Wipe that off, and your 
vision should be just fine. :)

Orc in a Spacesuit

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