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[Kedly]

Syv, I was viewing it as two missions with the city one being a bit more abstracted. Just because its less detailed doesnt mean it has to be significantly less frequent. The lesser detail would make it significantly less work.

[syvarris]

Here's what PW said about cutting down time spent on non-active group people.  He's likely to do "something like what [he] was talking about with the mostly player run on ship stuff".

In other words, an RP thread which he doesn't have to be involved in.  So, no PW posts, or very few.  PW very obviously doesn't view it as two missions, like you, and he is evidently of the opinion that doing posts with everyone would be too much.  Maybe he'd be open to more frequent but "zoomed out" posts, like MMWW, but that would likely detract from the active players' play--it would be even more work than running MMWW with everyone getting zoomed out posts.

[Ozarck]

I'm like Pancaek. I get attached to the characters I play - even to the characters I GM. Omega is supposed to have some risk, but was intended to be a more laid back "idiots in fantasy" game to hearken back a little to old school "idiots in space" ER. I've been reluctant at all three deaths that have happened (though only one was "permanent"). Worse than losing characters for me is losing players, especially when I feel like it's my fault if they didn't have a good time.

I know ER was originally intended to be high-death, quick missions, with quick turn around, but I agree that the player community is a large part of what makes the game popular and strong. And part of that is the sense of potential growth and progress personally for the characters. So, if you really want to retain the feel and atmosphere of the ER experience, create a setting and story that leans toward development and interaction. But that doesn't mean that every player should get to go on missions, especially not if you want fifty players involved. I mean, it is unrealistic to expect a GM to process that many players. Especially if you want the characters to grow and change over time. it is a lot of work. So you need either a smaller number of players / characters with potential to develop, or a game in which characters aren't expected to evolve much, like a "you are a grunt" army combat game.

Maybe, with this "on base verses on mission" system, you do a tournament style selection. Again though, how would one keep the game from being dominated by the strong? maybe by making them ineligible upon immediate return frm mission for the next set, or by having the tournament while they are out, or whatever. idk.

[syvarris]

IMO, MMWW would be better about encouraging RP and character growth.  In Oro, off-mission people can RP, yes, but they can significantly affect much of anything in the game world.  I imagine that'll lead to a lot of people just leaving or at least staying quiet until another mission draw comes up.

In contrast, in MMWW, everyone is involved to some extent, so everyone would be more willing to pay attention and RP between PW posts.  Additionally, people would have more complex relationships than "we're all part of the holy city's vanguard!".  There would be a lot of people who're in different gangs, and have the different cultural traits that accompany that, but they wouldn't necessarily be enemies.  Lastly, there would be more RP for the simple fact that there'd be more players around to RP with.


OH.  Another thing:  In Oro, developed characters will have a habit of being corrupted and dying, essentially reseting all the development done by that player.  In MMWW, you can be deleveled by losing magic, but not straight-up die, so a significantly developed character could exist while also not completely destroying balance.

[piecewise]

but not actually achieve anything in.

There would be some limits but its not like you couldn't do ANYTHING.  You just won't be able to run off into the world on your own. Can't really do that in ER's on ship though.


Also, Sy, you forget that ORO missions would most likely be shorter, and MMWW would have quite a long update cycle. I Ain't doing 60 people in one thread.

[Radio Controlled]

Yeah, was gonna ask about that just before the skeleton ninja'd me, but one thing that doesn't seem to match up is how the effort to run a large game with lots of active players (MMWW) would equal that to run a game with a small amount of active players (the missions peeps) and where the others off-mission are self-flagellating organizing

[Ozarck]

@syv
True. MMWW has that potential. it's just hte setting seems to be aimed in hte wrong direction for my taste - irreparable loss of a fundamental aspect of life leading to social decay / destruction, and hopelessness. On the other hand, with Oro, Faith and Hope are two driving factors in character growth / sustainability, and the ultimate success of the mission for the greater good is actually possible. that's a personal preference for me though.

Ancient greece had three types of play:
comedies (with happy endings)
tragedies (flawed characters and much sorrow - think oedepus) and
satyr plays (drunkenness, slapstick clowning, sex, potty humor - the Three Stooges meet Deadpool)

the entire internet is the third type, but I lean heavily toward the first. MMWW seems to lean more toward the second.

but not actually achieve anything in.

There would be some limits but its not like you couldn't do ANYTHING.  You just won't be able to run off into the world on your own. Can't really do that in ER's on ship though.


Also, Sy, you forget that ORO missions would most likely be shorter, and MMWW would have quite a long update cycle. I Ain't doing 60 people in one thread.

I have a feling that the missions will become progressively longer and lower mortality as the game ages. I bet this won't take long, either.  On the other hand, the Magical Girl Madoka vibe has a good counter to the inactive player syndrome - your doom counter - despair, will increase each round you do not actively decrease it. That will eliminate lurkers from on mission thread. of course, known periods of absence for real life or whatever could be factored in there as well, but that would have to be used sparingly, I think.

How big a player base are you shooting for, PW? that might help determine the kind of game you want to run. I mean, heck, you've run enough different games by now to know what works for what size player pool.

[Lenglon]

sy, oro will have higher quality because of the downtime, not despite it. also you are assuming conspiracies. yes, the way ER has become dominated by certain players is horrible, but that is a function of the high active playercount and it overwhelming pw, forcing him to outsource management. a simple queue would be fair and functional for team selection. dont overcomplicate things.

[Radio Controlled]

That sounds like a good idea.  Especially because the AIs and the environment could do all sorts of weird things, allowing PW to do different fun stuff with those worlds. A world where humans have been genemodded into malleable boneless things. A world where everyone lives in a giant tower or underground. A world where there is no light, so people have been genemodded to compensate. A world where the AI has made everything sentient in order to fulfill the desires of the people living there, Good Directorate style.

Yeah, part of the original pitch to pw was that he'd get access to an even larger amount of settings and options for whatever would come after ER.

Oh, I've been reading Neverness recently, and in it society has a rule that you might find helpful in designing your colony. It's more or less: "You can modify your body in any way you like, but you may not modify your genetic code in a way that allows you to pass those modifications on to your children. You may modify yourself, but humanity as a whole must remain relatively pure and compatible with each other, so that we don't end up creating new species."

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure if we should intentionally prevent letting a society branch of in whatever direction. Like, if one if the colonies' inhabitants evolve in a certain weird way, I kinda feel they should have the freedom to do that? As long as they don't actually start trying to exterminate other branches of humanity, I kinda feel they should have the right to determine for themselves what direction they go in.

More seriously, because I don't know what will happen but shooting it will probably increase my chances and the chances of everyone around me for survival.

You action says you're flying away to try and dodge. Remember that Miya is opening a portal near you, so you could use that to get out of the blast radius much faster if you want to.

Thats one thing: that poll remains evenly split and we've not heard much out of people who want ER to keep going. What are your opinions, other side of the poll?

I love ER because I like the setting (always preferred scifi over fantasy personally) and the mission structure, makes it rather easy to follow the most important bits. I like how much we could influence the game world in significant ways, and really feel like your actions had an impact, both on missions and outside (eg tinker something good, and people might use it to turn a bad situation around sometime later). Also the fact that there wasn't any real downtime most of the time, you could always piss away some turns just looking things up or dicking around in VR.

The other players were also always a big plus, and things like movie night or just hanging out on irc or plug dj really helped create a sense of community beyond just 'people I play some rtd with'. And of course, over time the attachment to my character also played a big role, getting to play the same char for several years and see him evolve and grow was something extraordinary.

So yeah, in my ideal world, pw's next big game would still have some sort of lore connection to old ER, though the exact details of this world can be very different from old!ER. Like I said, let's get weird.

Semi-related: Every time I check the poll "connection to ER" has exactly one more vote than "no connection to ER".  The only time it was different was when I voted.  I'd think that there wouldn't be such an absurdly clean split in the polls, and I'd think they wouldn't vote in such a clean, organized pattern.  Can Radio see the voters' accounts/IPs and vote times, or are we just trusting the fairness of everyone who can access the poll?

When I sent that previous pm to you the 'no connection' option was winning by 2 votes, so it was probably just by chance. And no, I don't have a way of seeing that, far as I know of.

@player caps: Personally, I'd prefer having 2 5-man missions who update once every day (or even once every 2 days) than 1 missions that updates twice a day. Mostly because the latter doesn't work with my timezone, and I remember my first mission where I'd miss several turns due to my weak fleshy need for sleep.

Plus, I could very easily see player politics getting into Oro if we seriously tried to pursue the heart; Leaders wouldn't want weak or semi-inactive people going on missions, because they'll only get corrupted and become enemies, making other people's jobs harder.  If literally any system aside from straight random draw were used, there would be "golden" people who would preferentially get chosen for missions, to ensure they don't fail.  Hell, even with a random draw, I could see something similar happening where vets team up with vets and share equipment between each other, but don't share equipment with newbies because they might lose it.

Things like this could happen, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with doom scenarios. Besides, between MMWW and Oro I kinda think the former is more likely to lead to player politics and power structures and such than the latter.

[spazyak]

Let's get weird you say?
How about this for weird
sir jackson strips his clothing off and uses vigorous thrusting to indicate where the portal is and to stop robbing people..

[Pancaek]

Mostly because the latter doesn't work with my timezone

Yeah, I'd like to get PW's attention to this. Please keep us schmucks in different timezones in mind. If you start updating too often or start doing thing in real time (IRC and the like), we'll fall out of the loop pretty fast.

[Kedly]

Oro also has a natural gaurd against the strong dominating against the weak. In Oro, being strong is DANGEROUS. If you reach for too much power, too fast, you risk the corruption taking over. Also, personally, Ive found quite a bit of enjoymemt in games where the players get to have a bit of control over game mechanics. Oro makes that possibility easier to pull off because the city has limited influence outside of itself. And again, I like that it could be easily tied into ER lore based upon how much we know about it so far. Going into a new universe and possibly time skipping, makes a handwave of the mehanics change easy to accept.

Also the shipping company mission was one of my favourite missions once I learned how to start manipulating the city. I'm focussing so much attention on Oro partially because of this. Two significantly diferent types of playstyle. Mission vs ciy influence

[piecewise]

@syv
True. MMWW has that potential. it's just hte setting seems to be aimed in hte wrong direction for my taste - irreparable loss of a fundamental aspect of life leading to social decay / destruction, and hopelessness. On the other hand, with Oro, Faith and Hope are two driving factors in character growth / sustainability, and the ultimate success of the mission for the greater good is actually possible. that's a personal preference for me though.

Ancient greece had three types of play:
comedies (with happy endings)
tragedies (flawed characters and much sorrow - think oedepus) and
satyr plays (drunkenness, slapstick clowning, sex, potty humor - the Three Stooges meet Deadpool)

the entire internet is the third type, but I lean heavily toward the first. MMWW seems to lean more toward the second.

but not actually achieve anything in.

There would be some limits but its not like you couldn't do ANYTHING.  You just won't be able to run off into the world on your own. Can't really do that in ER's on ship though.


Also, Sy, you forget that ORO missions would most likely be shorter, and MMWW would have quite a long update cycle. I Ain't doing 60 people in one thread.

I have a feling that the missions will become progressively longer and lower mortality as the game ages. I bet this won't take long, either.  On the other hand, the Magical Girl Madoka vibe has a good counter to the inactive player syndrome - your doom counter - despair, will increase each round you do not actively decrease it. That will eliminate lurkers from on mission thread. of course, known periods of absence for real life or whatever could be factored in there as well, but that would have to be used sparingly, I think.

How big a player base are you shooting for, PW? that might help determine the kind of game you want to run. I mean, heck, you've run enough different games by now to know what works for what size player pool.

I was thinking of having faith automatically tick down so long as you stayed in hostile territory. Good way to limit mission time and simulate fatigue without worrying about food and stuff. Also, with the system I'm considering there would be numerical things to tweak, meaning presenting stronger monsters would be easier to do than currently. So ratcheting up the challenge wouldn't be as hard. That and if it really becomes a thing, we'll have a manditory retirement level. They can be assigned to an area as a permanent guard.

As per player base, I dunno. To be honest I just want to make the game that the largest group of people here want to play and go from there.

[MidnightJaguar]

I think making Oro in ER would be perfect. We just say that we are a universe that somehow lost contact with the rest of humanity and over time a sister city has slowly mutated into the city of the dammed and shut the doors to heaven(contact with the rest of humanity). So now the rest of humanity, having adapted to this universes surprisingly pliable laws of reality, must delve into the depths of the city and kill the heart(corrupted AI) and find the key to heaven(a packed up EUE).

[Kedly]

I think making Oro in ER would be perfect. We just say that we are a universe that somehow lost contact with the rest of humanity and over time a sister city has slowly mutated into the city of the dammed and shut the doors to heaven(contact with the rest of humanity). So now the rest of humanity, having adapted to this universes surprisingly pliable laws of reality, must delve into the depths of the city and kill the heart(corrupted AI) and find the key to heaven(a packed up EUE).

It could even work without the cut off from the rest of humanity if we end up in universe sized entity-verse. After we settle, time skip happens and the entity has now grown an almost immunity to humans, so now we have to kill the creature before it's immune system kills us, or, alternatively, we find another entity in this verse that has matter inside it that lets us start using origin style magic again, only this beings body is extremely hostile to us from the start