Clint I sure appreciate that you don't change your policy due to some
of us whiners making a fuss. But please take into concideration that
the reason why you've not gotten more replies might also be that only
the ones who have actually be exposed to this problem cares. As you
said only 3-4 nation out of 700.
Cheers
Kasper
--- In mepbmlist@y..., "Middle Earth PBM Games" <me@M...> wrote:
> Just what is viable? A side can last forever by
> hopping from one dropped nation to another. If one player can
operate two
> nations, why not three or four?
>
I can't answer for this specific situation I am afraid (FK being
reactivated
as this was quite a few months ago if at the start of our tenure
running DGE
then it was nearly 9 months ago). But normally what is viable are
nations
that players want to play and have <100% tax, a capital and at
least one
character. (We have a lot of players who play such nations btw).
We
settled on two as an appropriate number. It is sort of arbitrary.
I think the game needing 10 players (or more) to be able to co-
ordinate and
stick together for a couple of years is often outside the normal
limits of
most players abilities to stick with in this present age (we
regualrly get
asked for 2 nation games, and lots fo Grudge games start with some
players
running 2 nations). But so that the players do not get too much of
an
advantage we limit it to 2 nations. (Note players can often Cheat
and play
nations under assumed names - and I know some players do this - but
there is
little we can do about this. So allowing 2 nations in some
situations
partially counters this.) (Note the extra nation is only allowed
when
another player drops the nation - and usually this means that the
overall
position has been penalised losing a turn or two on average).
(Note this is
available to both sides and most 2950 games, for example, end up
with
multiple nations on both sides played by less than a full team).
When we took over DGE the games had a number of totally viable
games, but
due to DGE's policy of one nation per player (and they had some
players - I
would estimate 8 such players frmo DGE's fold, and 2 from
Harlequins -
playing under an assumed name), this meant that the game was
effectively
dead. Very unsatisfactory for the game and the players playing the
game.
(Ie there were players waiting to pick up their team-mates dropped
nations,
but not allowed to).
This is the reasoning behind the method we have chosen. I concur
there is
an advantage to players picking up 2 nations (something we would
prefer not
to happen but the advantages for players and us, appear to offset
the
disadvantages). It's a bit like the way we do set-ups for games as
well.
We allocate nations DGE did not. We don't have a waiting list
(this slows
down game creations and causes more drop outs - there being some
150 players
waiting for games to start up with DGE when we took over), and
attempt to
limit the number of game types available - (a false choice due to
the length
of time to get games filled I feel - the 2950 1wk game had waited
over a
year and was still nowhere near being filled when we took it over).
So yes our efforts and mechanisms do not please all of the players
all of
the time, but we do try to listen to what players want (and not
just the
···
vocal minority). So please see the earlier email for a suggestion.
Thanks
Clint
