[Discuss] Activity (was: The state of the game)

[Timothy Collett]

On Jul 11, 2006, at 9:55 AM, Robert Croson, Jr wrote:
> No matter how hard you try, you *cannot* remove all of a specific  
> player or group of players' advantages.

Of course you can't.  However, you can do your best to mitigate the  
ones that *can* be mitigated through code.

Your example is (probably intentionally) absurd--partly because  
BattleMaster is billed as being *in English*.  Would you like me to  
provide you another absurd example?

"I think that smart people have an advantage in the game, too. They  
have the unfair ability to come up with better strategies, and write  
better speeches. These people have the advantage of being able to  
learn the ins and outs of the game faster, and win more battles  
because of their superior strategies. Not to mention the fact that  
player intelligence is a purely OOC factor."

Would you like to try to negate the intelligence of the player as a  
factor, as well?

The point here is that BattleMaster *is* billed as a *lightweight*  
game, where there is *no* significant material advantage to being  
able to log on a lot.  If we can remove this way in which there *is*  
such an advantage, we will (I believe) bring the game closer to what  
it ought to be.

Yeah, it would be nice to be able to negate the disadvantages of  
having less-than-average English skills, but we can't do that with  
the technology we have now.  Maybe in a hundred years, when we have  
sophisticated AI translation programs, we'll be able to have people  
write eloquent speeches in their native languages, and let everyone  
read it translated into a similarly eloquent speech in *their* native  
languages.  But that's just not possible right now.

Timothy Collett
Anaris Family

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