Author Topic: The Realm as a Team  (Read 20582 times)

Anaris

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Re: The Realm as a Team
« Reply #15: May 13, 2011, 02:33:47 AM »
1. Official realm goals- For regularly-elected realms, only changeable at elections. For less-regularly-elected realms, perhaps make them "periodically" changeable.
Unresolved issues- Should these goals be mechanical (preset list of 20 goals, you pick'em, and the game sends out a message if/when they are achieved... or, at election/goal review time, a message noting your failure) or should they be freeform? Pro for mechanical: creates a strong mechanics-backed sense of team objectives and whether they are met or not. Con for mechanical: pain to code, not flexible, might not reflect real game concerns. Pro for freeform: opposite of con for mechanical. Con for freeform: opposite of pro for mechanical.
I don't think I'm a big fan of these. Especially if it is some kind of checklist where candidates just click checkboxes from a set of pre-generated options. I think game mechanics criteria would lead to gaming the system, where people will do things that don't make sense for their character/realm/situation just to meet some mechanics-based trigger point. I really don't like things that promote that kind of play.

If I were to implement something like this, there would be a sliding scale of "reward" (which might just be a notification of how impressive an achievement is that you have, um, achieved) based on how far away from a given goal the game judges you to be when you set it.  So if you set as a goal to control 15 regions, and you control 14, it wouldn't get you much.  But if you only control 10, it would acknowledge that as being a far more ambitious goal.

Bearing in mind, of course, that this is all just vague top-of-my-head brainstorming about how such a feature might work, in theory.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan