On 08/24/17 20:15, Alex Smith wrote: > On Thu, 2017-08-24 at 19:53 -0500, Nic Evans wrote: >> * We have too many subsystems. It's hard to admit because nearly all of >> them are neat and well designed, but it's just too much in one game at >> once. Do we need three different binding agreements (agencies, pledges, >> organizations)? Probably not. We should either combine them or remove >> the least popular two. What about all of our winning conditions? > On the contrary, I think the relative lack of activity in Agora is that > there isn't actually anything to /do/. Much of what you list (like the > winning conditions) is harmless. On that subject, I don't think we have > nearly enough win conditions (most of the ones we do have are either > scam release valves, or very long term goals). It used to be that you > could win Agora every couple of months by outplaying people on the > economy and on regular gameplay. That's no longer the case, and I don't > think there have been any non-scam wins for a very long time (maybe a > historically long time?). > > The thing about Agoran complexity is that there are two sorts: the > rules you have to know about, and the rules that are only relevant when > you interact with them. (Perhaps these should actually be in separate > rulesets, at least presentationally? Most real-life rulesets work like > that, after all.) If you don't know what a Trust Token is, it's > unlikely ever to bother you. If you do, you can keep track of them and > try to make progress in that direction (although with the mechanic > unpopular, it's unlikely it'll ever result in a win).
We actually largely agree here, I think I was just poorly worded. It's not that there's too much to do, it's that, from the perspective of a new player looking at rules, it looks like there's too much to do and that makes it really hard to see how everything fits together. A new player doesn't know they don't need to worry about Trust Tokens, or that the 7 rules about Organizations and 8 about Punishments are largely irrelevant to them. In that regard I agree having a separation between 'Core' and 'Subsystems' in the rules would be nice. But I also think that we should seriously consider scaling back and simplifying the underutilized systems, at least for now. Add back the complexity as needed. > > Likewise, the fix for SHALLs is probably to make them only apply to > officers, and have a neat list of all the relevant SHALLs in the rule > defining the office. They serve an important role in preventing the > game breaking, but they're the kind of thing that can easily trip up a > new player if they apply to everyone. >
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
