On Sat, 4 Jun 2011, Pavitra wrote: > On 06/04/2011 09:06 PM, ais523 wrote: > > On Sat, 2011-06-04 at 21:03 -0500, Pavitra wrote: > > > What was it about the AAA specifically that made it successful? Was it > > > that it was run in the private sector and so mostly insulated from the > > > rest of the ruleset? Was it that it had several types of assets that > > > interacted with each other nontrivially? Was it that the rules were > > > relatively stable over a long enough time for players to usefully engage > > > in long-term strategy? > > > > I don't know. On paper, it really shouldn't have been as successful as > > it was; it was a relatively simple mechanic that could be analysed > > mathematically quite easily, it was rather grindy, it wasn't all that > > interesting in its own right. Capturing what makes something like that > > take hold seems to be the core issue with BlogNomic, which lives for > > that sort of minigame. In Agora, it's not so much of an issue as > > something like that that's successful can drive play for months, but > > obivously you need something like that to start with. > > Is it possible that 'grindy' is a virtue here? Maybe we need light, goofy > condiments on a solid, grindy base.
IMO, it was successful solely because enough people were involved with its beginning that they weren't apathetic in the first few rounds. I don't think the mechanism mattered one bit (other than it not being completely broken and unworkable). Isolation helped: many completely isolated contests (only tie to Agora = champion at end) are successful. Mafia, AAA, the Puzzle one, BF Golf & Joust, Ace of Spades, etc. The ones that are difficult to get working are the ones that try to tie strongly to voting, proposing. (Mind you the Grand Poobah and the List of Succession weren't too bad). I don't think grindy is a virtue at all in these (AAA is the only one of the above contests I avoided and despised) but that's just me. Of course, all of the above were working against the background of a stable-ish economic system (Notes, and previously Stems). -G.
