Well, i am repeating rather similar things in my (now rare) posts, but when I believe to see what is crucial problem, than i lose interest for side effects.
the subject is "merging strategy and rp", isn't it? and author presented his impression, which i fully agree with, that competition is so limited.
i would go one step further and say that most of roleplaying is currently related to long green letters with more or less stylish efforts to bring in fancy expression and to describes feelings and visions about... nothing.
almost all roleplaying is about trivialities as there are rarely any dramatic events, ever, and i admire players who put effort into it, but am not optimistic such enthusiasm will last for too long as enthusiasm is flower that fades without proper food, and there is no basic food - events.
when i mean events, I would be exact - "event" is something that changes many things - change of people in power, drastic change in war situation, like acquiring cities, taking large lands, secession that make significant influence on power balance.
what event is not - change of people in power because players leave the game, finishing phase of gang-bang wars. secession from realm that is dying anyhow.
to be more specific - "finishing phase of gang-bang war" is the moment when there is clear noone will help gang-banged any more.
all described as non-events bring no fun, no drama, changes are not results of any interactive efforts - there is no any competition about anything.
more and more i believe the problem is in game mechanics more than in anything else, and i fear there is already process in place where many players who were carrying funny events for years are leaving because of that.
I will state some things to show why game mechanics kills competition, while it could be subject of new thread as well, or not, because all is about competition:
tome called the game battlemaster, as he described once, as in the beginning all become from this impressive battle mechanics we see in our battle efforts. though some current tweaks erased my ability to learn from battle reports, it is still deep and sophisticated thing.
it would be logical that skills in battles bring some in-game benefits, but currently it is on contrary
1. marshals, who need to have much of game knowledge, interactive skills, leadership, charactrer skills, deep understanding of players mutual relationship, and, of course IR - those marhsals are miserable in rank and influence, any completely unimportant region lord who barely ever talks to one of two of his knights outrank them. that is rather absurd in may opinion.
2. generals, that are mostly selected among the most experienced marshals, are on position which could give depth to overall game-play - from tiny little interests to overall continental politics. generals could organize their armies according to excellent wiki article which describes difference between generals and marshals, making wars much more than "go-to-region-A-fight-refit-to-region-B-than-go-back-to region-A cycle"
they could, if they are not rendered completely powerless.
finally
3. rulers. they have so little power and so much burden and responsibility, that any sense in playing left to them is to "keep things stable" as their power is so fluid and imaginary. they, only they can create really dramatic continental struggles, but they have to hold their shivering thrones, and have no power to do anything more than that.
4- all that influence which is coming from designed base of power - landed lords - is reactive power. i mean they can obstruct things, but cannot move things forward. nobody can move things forward as nobody is powerful enough to do so.
drama can come only from overly powerful characters, who feel strong enough to take risks, reasonably expecting that they are so strong that even failure will not cause absolute disaster for them.
fun could also come from sophisticated wars, but as war commanders are made shadows, nothing can move wars toward sophisticated events which could bring attentions of large number of players.
martial skills mean little, as large-alliance diplomacy is so much more important than military effectiveness that noone really cares. in future, who will actually care to develop martial skills?
the only real skill you need these days is to be very silent (not troublemaker), and extremely loyal (never question anything), and you will eventually be granted opportunity to collect wealth and ignore everybody else, forever.
