On 09/30/2018 06:44 PM, Aris Merchant wrote:
We can and have played for extended periods of time of time without a
minigame. So, right off the bat, I'd like to note that that doesn't
necessarily make Agora boring or mean that there isn't anything to do.
I mean, we have stuff to do now, with practically no players using the
map. Sure, the game is _less_ interesting that way than with a good
minigame, but good minigames are hard to come by.
I agree, we don't *have* to have a minigame, but I sure do find Agora
more fun with one. And yes, it's hard to find a good one, but Agoran
history has many examples.
One possibility, which I've raised in the past, is that we could
reimplement the politics system Alexis came up with last December. It
looked like an sound system and was already starting to create
interesting gameplay. It had a few major bugs, including the one that
netted me my Champion by Politics title, but nothing that can't be
easily fixed. Honestly, I think repealing it to make way for land was
probably a bad idea in the first place. Land could have been an
interesting system, but repealing something you know to be good in the
hope that the next thing will be better isn't a good strategy.
Reinstating politics is the route I'd tend to go if we decided to
repeal land, which I'm known to favor doing.
Full disclosure: I didn't ever finish reading the rules for Politics. It
sure seemed like everyone had fun doing it. I'd also like to note:
despite the fact that you don't like the land mechanic, that doesn't
give you the right to say Politics was repealed *because of* land.
Politics was repealed because of the bugs. Land was enacted over two
months later.
I'd also like to get something like points passed so that we can have
an economy that isn't entirely dependent on the implementation details
of the present minigame. As I'm sure everyone knowns by now, I'm of
the opinion that forcing people to play a minigame is actively harmful
to the game as a whole. We should have a good minigame, but it should
be something optional that players can do for fun, not a required cost
of getting anything done.
You seem to want to separate the economy from the minigame and have the
minigame work in its own enclosed system. I disagree with this
sentiment. Participation in minigames should bring financial reward,
just like participating in the main game should.
I'm a proponent of a rewards system where fulfilling office duties,
judging CFJs, and generally participating in the main game should reward
players financially. In fact, once Points get set up, I'm planning on
reintroducing that mechanic. Doing well in minigames should just be
another thing that rewards you. Forcibly separating minigames from the
main economy makes it so that you can only play the minigame for the
benefit of the minigame, and I believe that's unhealthy for Agora.
I'm happy to write up proposals to implement something like these
proposals if they are agreed upon, but I've learned my lesson about
how unsuccessful it is to try to convince Agorans to do something they
don't want to do. For the record though, my vote is FOR full repeal.
sed "s/Agorans/people/"
-Aris
On Sun, Sep 30, 2018 at 5:24 PM Reuben Staley <reuben.sta...@gmail.com> wrote:
Inevitably, the question had to come up again: should we get rid of the
land mechanics? Five months and some change have gone by so far and it
really doesn't look like it's going to continue much longer.
This has been heavily argued before (specifically, when Aris brought up
the question a couple months back) and most of the points that were
brought up back then are still applicable here.
Additionally, now that both G. and Corona, two people who supported the
subgame in the first place, have become disinterested in the mechanic's
continuation, it remains that the only active players are D. Margaux and
twg.
Moreover, it's just not that fun. It feels like it's less of a strategic
game based on trying to own the most stuff and more of a
going-through-the-motions type deal. When there's a land auction, a few
bids are cast and no competition ensues. Then you do the rounds and
collect your assets. Then you wait for the next week so you can do it
all again.
Additionally, I'm just burned out at this point. Making reports each
week is more of a chore than anything. I'm not interested in playing all
that much.
So, what are our options?
We can repeal all the rules and stop playing. This solution would be the
quickest and easiest. We should also implement a different currency like
points in place of coins. But the problem is, the rest of Agora isn't
actually all that mechanically interesting or unique so we'd be left
with a hole in the ruleset.
We can rework the Arcadia rules. New assets, new map, new everything. I
would try to get back into the swing of things if the mechanics sounded
interesting. But notice how it took months to get to where we are today
where the map is more interesting that a few squares of land in the
middle? Yeah, that sounds boring as heck.
Or we can continue on this path. I would probably stop being the
Cartographor just because I'm really not interested in doing more of this.
I currently favor a full repeal, but if someone has new and innovative
ideas about how to save Arcadia, I'll listen.
--
Trigon
--
Trigon
