Seeing how obscure basic features of the game can become to be for newcomers (and current players), to improve gameplay, I proto-propose the following competition:
"The Ruleset is our Joystick" Our Ruleset is essentially the "joystick" to our game, because it lets you know how you can push and turn the various knobs in Agora. However, we have the problem of it not being sufficient for the newcomer player to effectively play with us, because we have a set of unwritten rules granted by our culture which are necessary for play. Basically, the Agoran "joystick" looks like this: https://i.gyazo.com/bb8464b339b7b179d9ff3bcc4c0612bf.png It's supposed to be a tool that you can use. But what does it do? How do you use it? Could someone who has never seen it before use it effectively? No, and that's a problem Agora currently has. Compare it to to the Playstation joystick: http://i.imgur.com/kQOvFCG.png People, without having ever seen it before or having ever seen someone else use it, instinctively put their hands on each handle, which leads their grip to the buttons, which allows them to easily and quite instantaneously acquire the basic skills needed to use the tool. When we make rules, it's very easy to resort to more complexity to solve problems, but that kind of patching isn't *efficient*. Think of human attention as RAM resources. The more you have to use to run your code for a certain goal, the worse it is. And it gets worse when we start to depend on those unwritten rules - it's like writing code without providing enough libraries to run it. So, with "Our Ruleset is our Joystick", the goals shall be: (something something) --- I personally believe that a solution could be: - Recognize which mechanics are Essential for play (proposals, anti-ossification, etc) - Establish a maximum wordcount for Essential mechanics Like that, we help make sure that it's clear and easy to play at least the basics of the game. But we also have to add: - Remove all references to "tradition" and "play custom" and make them EXPLICIT. Those words are euphemisms for "consult a veteran player", and we can very much just write them down instead, or make such knowledge more easily accessible. Players are pretty much unable to play more interesting things without needing to suckle on the teats of veterans so that they can provide them with the milk of ancient CFJs. What if the veterans, the holders of all the ancient tradition and what "should be" are gone? We wouldn't be able to play Agora? There's a big gerontocracy problem with unwritten rules and tradition. In Blognomic, there's a simple solution. Unwritten gerontocracy simply doesn't matter for current gameplay. Of course, the history of play is generously recorded in the wiki with each dynasty, but unwritten content from a past dynasty is hardly relevant in any current dynasty. However, turning into a dynastic nomic would be too much of a drastic change I feel, so I feel like a better solution would be to make "tradition" and "play custom" EXPLICIT, if we want to make it matter. Or at least, much more easily accessible, like a handbook, so that without needing to run into problems or having to suckle on teats, someone can have enough independence to play the game on their own, just like how someone can grab a playstation controller and instantly play versus needing to pester others or deal with a massive, not particularly didactic archive which is only going to get larger and harder to use for any newcomer.
