Who ever used those terms or when? Materialistic? Cripes, last word I'd ever use to
describe myself, and essentially an extreme insult in my vernacular. Self-Interested?
While I can't recall the usage, not only by myself, but by any others, I wouldn't have
a difficult time claiming to be self interested.
Keeping to Middle Earth, of course:
I am self interested because I want to win. I want to be on the winning team. I want
to enjoy my....quid? bucks?... I want to interact with other people, "friend" or "foe" in
fun and interesting conversations concerning the game we both/all enjoy. I want to do
the best job, within my capabilities (nation capabilities) to promote both the teams
interests and my own, over the long term, with the final goal, of course, winning.
Bloody self interested, I think. This isn't some government program. If I'm not enjoying
myself, I will quit. Self interested, definitely not in the best interests of the team. If it
is in the best interests of the team to have me send Sinda 20,000 and give my ONLY MT
back-up to North Gondor, done. Because I am self interested enough to understand the
long term needs of a group of self interested individuals working together for their own
self interest.
As for the argument against victory points: Yes. The "Greedy" "Selfish" "Materialistic" (?)
"Self-Interested" player can do as you say, and ALL of them CAN, when dealing with
EXCEPTIONS be built up to leading positions from behind the scenes.
I would argue below, though, against the idea that a "Newbie" can read this thread, and
think that's a good way to go.
Characters - can build up by NOT being in danger. But, only 1/2 as quickly. The only way
to build characters quickly is to have them doing things, in danger, in the front lines. It's
only common sense that if you are actually trying to "win" the character points, you'd get
them out doing something meaningful. You'll actually get to kill your competitor characters
in the process, accomplishing a) your team gets ahead (may even WIN) and b) your
characters are now that much better.
Armies and Gold - are mutually exclusive. If you sit and recruit recruit recruit, your gold
goes down down down. The people who win the armies, are they not the players who
have armies in the field, armies on their way to the field, armies at home preparing to go
into the field, etc. Meanwhile, they may even be capturing pop centers on the way.....
The concept of the victory points is a good theory, excepting that nations do not start
evenly. If there were 25 exactly equal nations (Laurence wanted to play that game, didn't
he...;), then the better player would end up having the most victory points at the end.
Period. If one team ended up with more guys being "greedy" "selfish" et al than the other
team, then the other team would win. One of THEIR players would end up with the
individual winner, who was able to balance and/or find the orders for, the two theoretically
disparate considerations: MY interests vs TEAM interests. We all start with 8 characters.
Some of us get more skill building orders out of them and STILL acheive more war
accomplishments. Why? Better, more knowledgeable, more long-term capable thought.
They deserve a reward.
One of the current problems in the game is that people do not want to play some nations.
One way that this may be addressed, balancing out the quality of play throughout the nations,
May be to find a way to rate the players accomplishments versus what they were expected
to accomplish. Give a grade 3 student a university test, and if he answers 1 question, he
gets an A. Give it to a university student, and he has to answer 80 of them.
When I sent out what I still think was an idea to use the VP system we ALREADY HAVE, but
to try to make it more fair, I received very little constructive criticism regarding whether or
not it would acheive what I thought it would acheive. I (we all...) received loads of opinions
that VP's aren't fair, VP's are selfish, and VC's are stupid too...blah blah blah. I DID receive
numerous voices of support for the concept. The one attempt to actually criticise the idea
based on its own merits was totally and completely irrational. It went like this: because it's
harder for the usual powerhouses to win with this system, they would actually try HARDER to
be even MORE selfish, solitary, "anti-team" etc. That's called a logic loop to nowhere.
Regards,
Brad Brunet
ยทยทยท
On Fri, 16 March 2001, "Winn Keathley" wrote:
Only if you will get over the "Individual" EQUALS "Materialistic and
Self-Interested."
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