Re: the "increasingly complex" comment

[maceo]

Vassals lowering score, horseman frequency, SoP advantanges seen to be exceeding others, etc - everything back to Sand being too powerful a resource back in summer '05. All changes heavily influenced by what people complained about. At no point have I attacked anyone; sorry The Chemist, no fight here. Please don't assume i'm attacking Rast for being too doting a designer, or other players for being bitch-ass complainers.

My main point, highlighted in that it was the first sentence of my original anonymous comment that sparked a bit of a backlash (I knew it would too, since I hadn’t spent the time to adequately support my statements, hence the anonymity), was one of concern over the increasing complexity and codependance of game attributes (nobody really commented on that part). I'm not necessarily discontent over any of the multitudes of pedantic changes, recent or otherwise, that have been brought about by complaints, or 'suggestions' if you prefer (although, a convincing complaint is indistinguishable from a genuine suggestion):
I feel, perhaps wrongly so, that newbs are getting a hugely raw end to the deal in this game because it is increasingly becoming dauntingly complex to play - fun for those of us who play it all the time and can keep up with changes, like me – but not for n00bs that aren't willing to dedicate a serious amount learning time. Is the possibility that this game is/might be for a painfully niche audience okay? When we eventually shift interests and stop spending so much time here, will BM be doomed to collapse due to lack of interest, and is that okay (by the way, I’m making a overly optimistic assumption that we aren’t all completely static characters)? Also, I’m a Grizzled Veteran of Yore, so I’m not trying to make fallacious statements.

So, in summary:
I wasn’t intentionally attacking anyone, so get off your horses – sorry if I hurt your feelings (but it would only really hurt if you actually were a complainer).
“BM is becoming increasingly complex and codependent” is the topic – newbs and the future of the game are of the primary concern.
I enjoy BM and am concerned about its future, have an almost brotherly like respect for its creator, and a generous smidgeon of respect for other players.
No point has been argued – do to people’s reaction, I’ve decided to expand on how I’m perceiving the game as it stands.

[Noman]

Well *now* we've got something to talk about! Next time, perhaps you could also highlight your main point by not immediately changing tack to discussion of whiners, etc and then spending the rest of the comment writing about that.

Anyway, having watching a couple of others on my team take up the game recently, I can say with confidence that yeah, BM is extremely difficult to pick up. Based on the same observations though, let me add, with emphasis, that it isn't the new changes that are complex. Instead, the hard part (unless you're willing to invest the time to read the excellent documentation from end to end - which, it is clear most people are not) is picking up the basics of the game. What are the goals, both long term (rank, vassals, democracy) and short (cannons, academy, food, trade)? What are the play styles? Once you understand the basic game mechanics and the UI, all of the details (borehole vs fridge or whatever) are trivial to understand with a quick click on the relevant context link.

So given that nobody wants to read the documentation when starting, how to bring them into the fold? I dunno, but one possibility could be a "tutorial mode" that you can turn on and off in the policy page. Tutorial mode could make the Communication, Trade, Warfare, Policy, Construction and Documentation links more emphasized than the others, and toggle the display of a paragraph that does some trivial analysis of your situation, telling you that coal is needed if you don't have any, suggest the next building to make, etc. The paragraph could be at the top, with a border and a background color, so that it's impossible to miss.

[maceo]

Hmm, it wasn't actually a change of tack, but more a highly complex but fluid transition, understantable only in my head - which, if you think about it, is a grand metaphor for the exact point I was making; where "transition" represents the near weekly game aspect changes put out by rast, and "my head" is the community mind of avid, non-n00b BM players.
*dabs brow with handkerchief*

I've noticed a lack of a drive towards improvements in the aspects of gameplay simplification. As an example, people seems more worried about perfect production modifying banlances between the specific aspects of Seats of Powers or Powesinks, so that no one has some miniscule inbalance over any other.
last week I privately presented rasteroid.net/mark/markac.php to Rasteroid. My reasons for doing this were that it made it easier to see, allowed one's eye to follow through the maps while still maintaining a focus on the area of interest, and had a less cluttered appearance than his old tabular display.
After unanimous approval, it was implemented as a function of the game.
After this, I realized that almost, if not all other game modifications and improvements suggested by people and implemented by rast up to that point made the game and interface more complex.
I'm trying to encourage people to focus more on the overall gameplay, rather than being nitpicky over balance offsets that may, or may not actually exist.

hmm, that idea sounds really hard to implement.
I suggest an overhaul of the docs. Topic-by-topic on a single page is not condusive to ease of comprehension. I think a better idea would be to have the Docs as a 'textbook' with pages, not scrollies, that starts with what you need to know, then moves on to increasingly complex concepts with the final chapters being for hardcore avid BMers only. Important words should be wikified, and the current docs could be preserved as the appendix/glossary for these wikified words.

In the short term though, images should at least have heights declared to avoid the page getting pushed down as they load (i experience this in firefox).

[vilhazarog]

I thought the docs already did this in the Quick Start section... maybe it needs refreshing. You need both kinds of documation, a tutorial plus a reference, if you just have one, its frustrating for experienced players to find the bit of info they need or newbs have no idea what they're doing or why they should do it.

BM is pretty simple compared to most strategy games... you make trades, you build stuff, and you blow stuff up... and there HAS been some simplification... remember when you had to count up what your PM was going to be in your head? Or what your power use was going to be?

The only criticism I have of BM is the combat aspect is too simple and not strategic enough. I wish I had some ideas on how to change that but at the moment I still don't... However if that someone came up with something good and interesting I think BM would be a near perfect game.

[Rasteroid]

I kind of like it being complicated. It means people that hang around are dedicated, solid players, that will hopefully support the community rather than degrading it.

I'm still in no great rush to have tons more players, and have to set up new infrastructure to cope with it. The chat page alone would need some serious revision.

Gosh maceo, you're so smart and coo. Feel free to perform an overhaul of the docs as you see fit. Personally, I spend the aeons of free time I have these days lying in grassy fields and staring at blue skies, but whatever turns your crank. I should get around to trying your suggestion on how to fix those firefox lagging links. Or firefox should suck less ass.. meh, whichever comes first.

[Rycchus]

I completely agree, maceo. I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad, but the continual changes that are being implemented are going to do two things:
a) completely discourage anyone new from playing the game, because they'll never get the hang of it
BUT
b) as the game is continually evolving, current players are much less likely to lose interest and will continue playing.

Personally I'd prefer it if there weren't *quite* so many new things being implemented all at one (just getting the hang of Seats of Power and all of a sudden these powersinky things come along too, and in my eyes they're both pretty complex ) but as for your point about the future of the game... Well, like I said above, it doesn't mean the game won't have a future, but that the future will be different. The constant changes mean that the level of newbies joining the game is decreased, but the level of top-end players getting bored and stopping playing is also decreased, so... I guess it almost balances out.

[JCAgain]

I once tried to wikify the Documentation.

I think I'll try again sometime when I have time available to do so.

Might make things easier.