From: "Kevin Brown" <mornhm@soltec.net>
> Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 19:43:50 -0000
> [...]
> This has been discussed before without too much input from
> "the company" except to state that this isn't a problem. I
> still think it is. I've seen a number of people drop or
> suggest dropping even when a team is winning or even.
Well, I have a bit to share on this point.
My team just played Clint's team this year in a grudge game. Half of
us were playing our first game ever.
They're good. Really good. They obviously know quite a lot about the
details of the game mechanics, etc. Not exactly news, but worth
noting. Plus they all live in the same place (or thereabouts) and
meet weekly to go over their strategy and orders. Very tough to beat
that kind of coordination when your team is scattered across three
time zones and your tools are E-Mail, rare usage of an Instant
Messenger program, and the occassionally expensive phone call.
Admittedly, this was a grudge game as opposed to the artistic beauty
of the original game intent. But it's still relevant to the point I
will eventually make here.
Anyway, the Northmen held on one of the most voracious combined LR/KE
assaults our Team Captain had ever seen. Though the game ended with
some DS in the Western back area, the Team Captain evaluates that the
"flanks held".
Unfortunately, a new player didn't protect against a Heavy Cav assault
on the Ranger Capital (did, in fact, move his defensive forced out on
the turn they arrived, and not as a roadblock) -- we lost the Rangers
on Turn 4. The *center* fell due to a number of newbie mistakes.
And here's the relevant bit: On Turn 10 they asked us to concede.
We initially declined. It's worth playing a bad game to learn how the
game works (and to see how well you react to the shifting sands of
your lot in life). In the end, even when losing, extracting the most
pain out of your enemy while dying is still a lot of fun, and you
still can hone your skills by playing the best of the best, so to
speak. You learn a lot about yourself and about Life during hard
times. As in Life, so in MEPBM. For us, the apparently inevitable
losers, there was great value in continuing. Most of the team agreed.
However, they countered by offering to surrender to *us* in order to
"stop the pain" and move on to a new game. So we surrendered and
moved on to a new grudge game.
My take on this is that they thought quitting when the game was
"obviously" over was the right thing to do.
So of *course* they don't believe it's a problem. *They* appear to be
on the side of the fence that believes you play not until the
inevitable comes, but rather until the inevitable is inevitable.
Don't get me wrong -- I love what Clint & company have done to
stabilize the availability of MEPBM. I love the modernization they're
undertaking (moving the code to PC, etc.). I love the idea that we
may soon have the option of playing games using the same (or similar)
rules but with new scenarios, on new maps, with new Characters, new
baseline assumption sets, etc.
You guys miss the old days where fog of war included the Dragons, the
Riddles and the Artifacts? Here's a chance to get some of that back.
When they write completely new scenarios to work on completely new
maps, you're not going to enter the game with a detailedly set idea of
the strategies needed. You won't have "canned" moves. You'll have to
actually think about things, do both short and long term planning,
etc.
It won't be Middle Earth, but it will be in the *genre* with the same
*rules*, while reinstating a lot of the unknowns. The game could take
on a lot of its old appeal in the fog-of-war department.
So I'm very happy with Clint & company and the work they're doing.
But when the company says early drop-outs aren't a problem, I suspect
it is not because they don't see it happening; I suspect it is because
when it happens, they don't see it as *problem*.
Two cents and all that rot.
···
_________________
Steven K. Mariner
skmyg@bhmk.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~marinersk/
http://www.whirlyjigmusic.com/
