While We Wait: Part 3

[Demetrias]

You mean in the five years I wasn't here nobody ever, ever conquered the whole map?

 

[Symphony D.]

Not as far as I'm aware. And that isn't "winning" either, as everybody can then just start terrorist or rebel groups simultaneously to bring the world-spanning empire down. In fact, this would invariably happen if the mod didn't end the game in that circumstance, NESers being NESers. Maybe the player achieves his goal, and that's a "win" for him, but he has no way of stopping everyone else from acting unless he has the power to defeat all possible attempts to eliminate his power (exceptionally unlikely) or the moderator agrees with him that he's "won" and hands him a little gold star upon killing the game.

There is no such thing as a final, ultimate victory condition in NES unless the moderator shuts the game down. In that regard, "Never Ending" remains apt.

"Win" is a nonfunctional word in this hobby except as a little Boy Scout merit badge you can pin on your Wiki profile. That is why I protest its continued usage as some vaunted argument--all it does is dilute the intended argument that players excessively metagame, which is one of the real problems in NES.

 

[Demetrias]

Some of the Maps were orginally quite small in scope so it didn't have to be world conquering but I would assume the mod would close any game that reached that point because most people would consider that winning.

 

[Demetrias]

Do you think stricter controls by Mods or individual player self regulation would help more to end the problem with Meta-gaming? By the way what is the meaning of the prefix meta?

 

[Daftpanzer]

By the way what is the meaning of the prefix meta

I second the question, ashamed as I am to show my ignorance thus...

 

[Symphony D.]

Do you think stricter controls by Mods or individual player self regulation would help more to end the problem with Meta-gaming?

Ultimately the latter. The only way to really get there however, as people on this forum are as a general rule lazy, is the former. I believe the simplest answers are dolling out harsh punishments and generally restricting players solely to the in-game position of head of government when possible (as told to certain other people in an earlier discussion in this thread).

Freedom in this case actually is slavery. Players can generally do whatever they want. They don't have to make choices, really, except when it comes to dealing with other players. That's a large part of why NES tends to become a war game. And since people can do mostly whatever they want, even there they don't have many restrictions. So it doesn't just become a war game, it typically becomes a total war game.

As a result success in the domestic fields is generally unfulfilling and of little utility except to leverage that success against other players. What you tend to see therefore... are attempts at success in foreign fields. Again, war.

Striving for success is natural. Infinite success is not. When success is a curve whose upward growth is more or less only ever broken by other players, and exceedingly few players (Stormbringer being the major and perhaps sole exception) are willing to engineer negative events themselves for the purposes of mimicking the actual ebb and flow of a society's fortunes, it falls to the moderator to do it instead. Utilizing that as a rationalization to punish stupid or wildly out of character behavior fits snugly.

Restricting player choices and forcing them to actually grapple with issues beyond each other actually expands the number of things they have to do, or can do, since they no longer control everything, and must work to get results. Diminishing the competition aspect should diminish metagaming correspondingly.

If it did in fact work that way (as this is just my theory), then I think the result would be games where you could do more varied things, like build an laissez-faire economy, or a welfare state, dabble in politics or research, work at building a stable and prosperous society, conduct actual meaningful diplomacy, and yes, occasionally let slip the dogs of war.

That sounds to me more interesting than the current state of affairs where almost all of those things are almost invariably directed into apocalyptic struggles to decide the fate of the world. Fun as those are, it gets a little old when that's all there is to do. I think if players could actually experience this, and it worked, most of them would agree, and take steps to regulate their own behavior to maintain it.

But you'd have to set it up and impose it on them first. That takes someone who is not afraid of crushing dreams and egos for the common good; moderators who are too nice are also something of a problem in NES, I think, but that's another story.

By the way what is the meaning of the prefix meta?

Meta (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with").

 

[Demetrias]

Meta (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with").

Hmmph we seem to be using it as super-gaming though I guess they want the beyond idea but to me it just seems like milking the system not going beyond normal gaming. To me going beyond would be something like forging an alliance out of once bitter enemies or holding off the super powers with innovative tactics not using the loop holes to jump a nobody into the superpowers.

Also Symphony I wanted to do some of those things you listed for one of my nations but as soon as I got to a place where I could do them I was surrounded by large hostile nations and if I make a voluntary miss step for reality in my nation I will be gobbled up by my neighbors. Also lots of games that seem to have little warfare turn on Boring Times turns because the PC's want to skip the boring nation building turns and just concentrate on the personal struggles with each other in terms of warfare and alliance.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Ultimately the latter. The only way to really get there however, as people on this forum are as a general rule lazy, is the former. I believe the simplest answers are dolling out harsh punishments and generally restricting players solely to the in-game position of head of government when possible (as told to certain other people in an earlier discussion in this thread).

Freedom in this case actually is slavery. Players can generally do whatever they want. They don't have to make choices, really, except when it comes to dealing with other players. That's a large part of why NES tends to become a war game. And since people can do mostly whatever they want, even there they don't have many restrictions. So it doesn't just become a war game, it typically becomes a total war game.

As a result success in the domestic fields is generally unfulfilling and of little utility except to leverage that success against other players. What you tend to see therefore... are attempts at success in foreign fields. Again, war.

Striving for success is natural. Infinite success is not. When success is a curve whose upward growth is more or less only ever broken by other players, and exceedingly few players (Stormbringer being the major and perhaps sole exception) are willing to engineer negative events themselves for the purposes of mimicking the actual ebb and flow of a society's fortunes, it falls to the moderator to do it instead. Utilizing that as a rationalization to punish stupid or wildly out of character behavior fits snugly.

Restricting player choices and forcing them to actually grapple with issues beyond each other actually expands the number of things they have to do, or can do, since they no longer control everything, and must work to get results. Diminishing the competition aspect should diminish metagaming correspondingly.

If it did in fact work that way (as this is just my theory), then I think the result would be games where you could do more varied things, like build an laissez-faire economy, or a welfare state, dabble in politics or research, work at building a stable and prosperous society, conduct actual meaningful diplomacy, and yes, occasionally let slip the dogs of war.

That sounds to me more interesting than the current state of affairs where almost all of those things are almost invariably directed into apocalyptic struggles to decide the fate of the world. Fun as those are, it gets a little old when that's all there is to do. I think if players could actually experience this, and it worked, most of them would agree, and take steps to regulate their own behavior to maintain it.

But you'd have to set it up and impose it on them first. That takes someone who is not afraid of crushing dreams and egos for the common good; moderators who are too nice are also something of a problem in NES, I think, but that's another story.

I certainly agree with you and hope I have included many of those aspects you talk about in Forge of Empires. As far as including negative events, i have been surprised at how many (half maybe) of the player in FoE have "bad stuff" set their nations back in the opening 100 year turn.

 

[das]

Symphony - if that were a petition I would sign it. Well said.

I realise that my NESes are some of the most obvious examples of the total war game right now; I can't change everything in mid-game, though. I have been brainstorming about a better (less war-oriented, more historically-realistic) rules system; hopefully I will be able to make something good out of it later this year, if I have the time.

As far as including negative events, i have been surprised at how many (half maybe) of the player in FoE have "bad stuff" set their nations back in the opening 100 year turn.

Good to know that I'm in good company.

 

[LittleBoots]

@Daftpanzer - The game is beautiful and flying that plane is a lot of fun. Other than including a plot and either a tutorial or some sort of reference (i.e. Civilipedia), I would suggest giving the vehicles the ability to launch the superbombs. Anyway, you said it was mainly a display of what the engine can do, and it is a good engine.

Name me a single example of a country that has won reality.

Good Lord, how did this come up again? I was under the impression that this had been put away quite handily some time ago. In the interest of settling it once and for all, I prepared a few things "playing to win" could mean, as well as a brief opinion as to why it is not a bad thing.

1) "Powergaming," wherein the rules are examined and exploited to their maximum capacity in order return maximum reward. See Abaddon in BirdNES I.

Not a bad thing: This seems to be entirely fair and nothing more than an energetic and intelligent ruler working the system he finds himself in. Doing anything less is either lazy or unintelligent.

2) "World Dominating," wherein the player attempts to conquer the entire world, or large swathes of it. See Insane_Panda and Symphony D. in NES VI.

Not a bad thing: Hitler. Hirohito. Napolean. Carolus Magnus. Mohammad. Rome. Conquering the world/attempting to conquer the world happens quite reguarly in OTL.

3) "Conducting oneself with prudence and cunning," wherein the player attempts to secure what is best for their nation in the most efficient manner. See das in INES. p)

Not a bad thing: ...

In all seriousness, unless, as Symph said, a definition for "playing to win" is given at some point, can this discussion never happen again? Please?

Symphony - if that were a petition I would sign it. Well said.

Cheers.

Striving for success is natural. Infinite success is not. When success is a curve whose upward growth is more or less only ever broken by other players, and exceedingly few players (Stormbringer being the major and perhaps sole exception) are willing to engineer negative events themselves for the purposes of mimicking the actual ebb and flow of a society's fortunes, it falls to the moderator to do it instead. Utilizing that as a rationalization to punish stupid or wildly out of character behavior fits snugly.

Do you think there is a way to represent foolish leaders? Or is it unnecessary, given that if the President/King/Premier is stupid/weak, an intelligent advisor will step in? I am curious because I attempted to roleplay a subpar leader ruining the work of his predecessor when I played the Papal States in BirdNES I. I remember das in INES had a disinterested, weak, hedonistic king for Israel, but he also had a strong High Priest that took over the reigns of power.

In short, is it necessary (or even possible) to compel a little stupidity in high places sometimes, or will the stupidity remain solely player-generated?

 

[Luckymoose]

Bad stuff happens to me so often I don't have to plan them. But I do plan them a lot more than people think.

 

[LittleBoots]

Anyways, what kind of NES would be best for me to moderate, since my other NESes have been almost complete failures?

Then let me rephrase it to, why don't more experienced people want to join my NESes, besides history.

First off, as I believe has been said, calling your NES a "complete failure" because experienced players did not join it is silly. Mod because it is entertaining to you, not for some bizarre badge of pride wherein you convince a variety of internet personae (that are more than likely all actually different accounts das made in order to lure innocents into dark alleys and eat them) to join your game.

And if you say, because you are too inexperienced, I will tell you to shut up, and I need a chance to become experienced.

Well, for one, you need to stop complaining that "experienced" players aren't playing your game and just continue modding. Then, with effort and time, you may have the experience needed to attract these elusive "experienced" players.

On that note, who exactly are you looking for? I glanced at the player lists of your NESes and you have plenty of capable people playing. Abaddon is a skilled player, and Lord_Iggy and Wubba360 are both long-time NESers. If you are looking for others, you will need to make your games more realistic with a far greater attention to detail.

However, I don't really understand why it matters. If you make an NES that has a million nukes hit the planet, but somehow humans survive, that's fine. You can have a fun and crazy space NES. If thats what you want to mod, if thats what is fun for you, DO THAT. Make an NES that has aliens and nuclear holocaust if thats what you like. There will probably be an audience for it. Just don't expect to be able to pick who is in that audience. If thats not good enough for you, go take a long, hard look at NESes run by Birdjaguar, das, Disenfrancised, or Iggy. There are a host more of excellent mods, but I think you can find them yourself.

Modding isn't for everyone. I'm not trying to discourage you - if you want to mod, go ahead. But players joining your game is not some sort of natural right. Creativity earns it, attention to detail earns it, dedication earns it, experience earns it. Experience which is only gained through time and effort. There are plenty of mods out there and plenty of NESes to play. You can take a break from modding and focus on gaining experience playing, if you want. That will broaden your understanding of the people and the way NESes work, which will reflect in your modding ability.

Finally, you are going to have to accept that time is unavoidable. It is also a good thing. Be patient. Without trying to embarrass him, take a look at Insane_Panda's first post on the NESing forums as Cesar_Augustus or something like that. He showed us a while back. Its from when he was 10 or 12ish. In the years since then, he grew, with experience/time, to become one of the more articulate and cunning NESers around, before surrendering to the Great Devil of Real Life.

I hope this helps answer your question in an overly thorough manner

 

[North King]

1) "Powergaming," wherein the rules are examined and exploited to their maximum capacity in order return maximum reward. See Abaddon in BirdNES I.

Not a bad thing: This seems to be entirely fair and nothing more than an energetic and intelligent ruler working the system he finds himself in. Doing anything less is either lazy or unintelligent. ?

I'll have to disagree that powergaming is desirable in any game. Seriously, I've run a huge variety of rulesets (probably more so than most on the forum, since there's a tendency to use clones of das' rules), and the main point of them is to provide some sense of structure in a game. That structure is quite simply disturbed if the rules are used in some way they are not meant to be (e.g. exploited). In anything else, I'd argue chaos is fun for NESing, but when you break down the rules, then the whole system breaks down. Bottom line, powergaming just destroys the atmosphere of the NES and seriously hurts playability at the same time.

 

[das]

Which is exactly why I have argued for hiding the mechanics better during the discussions for BirdNES. We'll see how that works out there.

Ofcourse, one might bring up the examples of some of the more succesful economical visionaries in history, but I don't think that was really a matter of them reading the actual Rules; at most you could say that they tried to guess and came close enough for success. That's not the same.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Which is exactly why I have argued for hiding the mechanics better during the discussions for BirdNES. We'll see how that works out there.

A lesson I learned in "The New World". A formal structure needs to be there to keep players from going overboard and the "giant wargame scenario" taking over. I need a large automated support structure to track of it all and provide consistency over time. Information managment is very difficult for me in a large game. Hiding the mechanics should force players to think more like a leader than a player. When the first turn stats for BirdNES are posted, it will be clear that very different spending strategies were used. Some nations opted for army strength others for culture etc. Players who wanted one thing, but got another will have to think about how they spent when turn two comes around.

 

[~Darkening~]

Decloak: As informed and resourceful as ever, it would seem. What the christ, it's in the drat Wiki.

What Lucky said . Anywho, don't worry Symph- no matter what you say, you'll always be my friend .

And I had forgotton to dig this horse up: Who honestly started the war in DaNes- Wubba, Thlayli, or Dachsmpg?

 

[Cannae]

My question never got answered.

 

[Luckymoose]

Looking for people to volunteer their names for DwarfNES II: Island or Jungle Adventure .

 

[Demetrias]

You can make as many Demetrias drunken Dwarven peasants as you want.

 

[Luckymoose]

You can make as many Demetrias drunken Dwarven peasants as you want.

Post in DwarfNES is you would please from now on everyone.

+ Drunken Demetrias Brewer/Grower