LOL I need a wry smile icon for my posts
Yes my ironic humour sensors are down at present. 
Kin-strife - things are going well. We’ve had to create the code for developing encounters (the old format was all hard coded which is a “quick-fix”). It’s done in a modular format so if you want to “call” the Gain 2000 Gold “Function” for an encounter then that’s now a function that can be called, rather than the old format of hard-coding it all.
The NPCs code is done, as is the 3 actions and develop the nation but as mentioned we’re a small company with limited resources so I’ve developed that as fast as resources allows here. I’m wary of saying… “it’s just, very nearly here guys” but it is close… ;):eek: On the way we’ve developed UW, Bofa, updated the Grudge format, FA set-ups, GB and so on, so I’m happy with the development we’ve put into the game here. We’re working on the initialise code as well here so that it should be a relatively seemless operation to join up, and will look for beta testers soon.
Robs been off ill a fair bit recently with “teeth” problems. So he’s probably forgot to update the forum. I’ll remind him.
Other developments - as mentioned before I’m in the process of developing other branches of my business and keep them quite separate. My day to day running of ME went to a minimal period a long time ago, Rob runs the office and the games and does it fine IMO. If they work then this will be very beneficial for ME Games though…
As to the British thing, bit bored of answering that one, but if you guys have the players for a particular format I’m more than happy to have you guys play it… 
Think I’ve shown my colours (should that be colors!!! 
:D) there many times. I guess Ed just gets bored from time to time… 
As an aside: Pete Stassun and his good wife were over recently for a few days, visited us in Cardiff and very happy with what we’ve done with things. We took them around a few castles, gamed and mealed together and had a “lovely” time… (He finds the use of the British phrase “lovely” to be amusing…) I told him about some of the ME stuff, raising a few old names, and he just sighed… :rolleyes: LOL…
As always if you have a problem or question get in touch, there’s no “big conspiracy” here…
Clint
Clint,
That’s great to hear. Yes i think it was the silence that caused this thread.
I know when it comes to Beta testing you will ask for vols etc but thought I could get in first
Put me down for beta testing
Cheers
John S
KS: Yeh, I’m wary of raising expectations. So when I’m ready to get players for the game then I know where to come.
Clint
[QUOTE I told him about some of the ME stuff, raising a few old names, and he just sighed… :rolleyes: LOL…
Clint[/QUOTE]
Got plenty more to say about British Fairplay. Sure you don’t want to hear it?
Upto you, it’s a free forum, so if you want to raise any concerns then that’s fine with me. If you have a problem, you know I’ll try to help out wherever I can.
Clint
I’m immensely curious myself, unless he’s going to go off into the East India, the Boer War, etc…
Very well. I assert there is such a thing as ‘British Fairplay’. Certainly, I have exploited it from time-to-time. Further, it forms part of the assumptive base of some/many British ME players. Ten seconds worth of thought should reveal the improbability of American game designers incorporating this insular concept into their creation.
It must be hard to budget the time to think about the game creaters’ intentions. Much easier to uncritically accept what your friends say the game is. Never mind their knowledge and experience in the game may be barely more than your own. As long as it is easier to change this game than investigate the mysteries inherited from Stassun and Feild, there is little motivation to intellectually exert ourselves.
Bring to the attention of the interested, pages 1 (right column) and 108 (left column 2nd para) of the GSI Rulebook. Stassun and Feild challenge the players to imagine. They also mention the “alias” section on the order sheet. In the GSI game this “alias” section was right over from the “Daytime phone number” section. Shortly after comeing to Harley I noticed this section was missing. Now this ‘change’ would be ‘non change’ to a person who gives no thought about purposes or motivations. The purpose, of course, of the “alias” section is to assist players in tricking oneanother.
Early on, with Harley, I asked if I could use an alias. The answer was an emphatic “NO!”. He was unable to imagine why anyone would do this and was horrified at the suggestion. Afterall, wouldn’t it mess up communications with team mates? I submit that was British Fairplay at work.
I think you’re being, well, at the best, overly “nationalistic”. I find many people of all nations, backgrounds, gaming history, quite aghast at a whole variety of suggestions…especially when I’m a neutral…
The most manically fascist Team Players I’ve ever run across have all been American. Regardless of where you come from, how you think and how you believe the game should be played is, well, how you think and how you believe the game should be played. There is certainly no intrinsic “national” quality that tends some this way and others that.
Point to the changes and the impacts, keep the flags out of it. Your arguments have to appeal to the rational, else they’ll be lost amid the "ism"istic slant of your tone.
So do you whip out a ME-map, face Miami and pay homage every afternoon?
Us “yanks” are only fascists when you all don’t listen and follow our instructions
I think it’s 7 times a day, no?
Isn’t it “y’all”…? If there’s ever been a nation of linear “fer or agin~!” peoples, well geez, I’d’a guessed a dozen or so European countries before the world renouned intellectuals to the south of me…
Brad, as I have been trying to explain for the past seven years: Tolkien’s universe is an amoral one. Good and Evil can only coexist in an amoral environment. The Stassun/Feild game WAS an amoral universe and so well disguised that the amoral and moral intermingled, largely unaware of each other’s presence. Do I admire Stassun and Feild? Yes, I do—how many game creators could have pulled this off? Very few.
Yes, this is an international game and not a national one. Hence amorphous and subjective standards such as ‘spirit-of-the-game’ and ‘British Fairplay’ are inappropriate when applied to it.
Amoral, sure. “disguised” and “intermingled”…??? And how can bytes in an archaeic computer program be “aware” of anything, let alone each other?
I’ve proposed solutions to this “issue” you raise, mind you. Do you remember? They were shot down for reasons other than Money (and $ was certainly a valid reason, lots of programming to do…). T’would appear the “Market” has ruled - apparently players want to communicate and cooperate with their Team. Now, how the Market and Democracy caters to the lowest common denominator, etc, is a much larger argument, yes? It’s simply “the way things are”…
So what you have are a couple of options:
-
Fly off to Cardiff to meet with the gents at MEGames and fund a technological solution to this problem you perceive (online app reproducing the “relatively” controlled environment that mail and recipe cards were able to restrict the players to before the rest of the world’s technological gains eclipsed the “intentions of the designers”)
-
Buy the company.
There are lots of metaphors and sayings you can apply here, right? S or get off the pot. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. There’s that boy who called Wolf a lot - people stopped listening, etc. Can go on and on. Amusing for the voyeurs amongst us, tedious otherewise.
why does this dead horse continue to get beaten? Isn’t it a fully-well bloodied mess by now?
The world has changed from the late 1980s. Communication mechanisms have evolved tremendously. people want to use them. they do use them. anonymity is harder to preserve. aliasing / anonymity are now things that must be forced on a game as a part of the rule-set and to do so requires people to be honor-bound. Frankly, in some of the games I’m playing in right now, where there is supposed to be honor-bound anonymity and no coordination or communication, I’m observing an awful lot of apparent coordination turn after turn… So methinks that some feel less compelled to be honor-bound than others.
Ed - we’ve created game instances/rule-sets specifically designed to try to recreate that whose passing you mourn. There are players playing them, but there are far more players playing the high-communication games.
anyway, i’m amazed that this topic just won’t die. the market evolves. ME Games has attempted to adapt their gaming offering to the changing market, and to be responsive to requests for rule set variations, etc.
why oh why does this dead bloody mess of a horse continue to get beaten???
Dave
because people like to talk, but when presented with a call to action, they, so curiously and entirely unpredictably, disappear… :rolleyes:
Paranoid ideation can be exploited. If you think you can detect this, then persuade the man he is being cheated. Usually, he will lose the will to fight on and drop. One more irritation I have with Harley. You use insight, skill and minimum force to eliminate an opponent and they just refill the slot. The reason given is that it makes for a longer game. Hopefully, I will soon produce further evidence that this particular belief is a misbelief. One among several.
Keep in mind Ed that this item is a Player vs Player issue and you’ll get lots of counter arguments regarding whether it’s “realistic” or not for an entire nation to dissolve just because the current leader went on a fishing trip and never came back… Back to the “intent of the designers” and whether you can prove this Was or Was Not a subtle part of the design, or just a happenstance policy issue.
Say, did you work on the Unabomber’s Manifesto by chance?
:rolleyes:
As always, you are smarter than the average bear. Yes, during a portion of my working life I helped uncover and break up criminal conspiracies.