Why is Reg played the way it is?

[wolf bite]

A good question by Kilk.

So I have a question about what's going on here. Why does any of this really matter whether or not you guys are actually at war. More specifically, what are the benefits to avoiding a war? I get that you are mega attached to your game accounts and don't want them to die or something, but is there a reason that I don't understand as to why you would all rather sit around and net?

Basically killing one another is part of the game, and it seems like any time anyone tries to get a leg up it's viewed now as "dishonorable", deplorable, and not in the spirit of letting everyone sit around and grow food.

Why is war bad?

Why not harm others?

Why not go for emperor?

Has things changed from the old ways and why?


Wolf Bite

[Kilkenne]

I'll open this up by taking a stab at the the last question, as I know way more about the way it used to be than I do about the way it is now, which is why I posed the question in the first place.

Has things changed from the old ways and why?

I can't answer the why to this, but things have definetely changed. I sound like a crotchety old man I'm sure, but when I consider this, there are a few important differences that I'd like to lay out.

1) The game is more complicated
2) Leaders are stronger than they ever were
3) People generally understand the game on a deeper level as a whole. (There are more 2004 Wolf Bites than there are 2004 Kilks)
4) There are fewer players than there were when I last played by about 1/3

The game used to be populated by people who didn't really know what they are doing. You could run a train on everyone back then if Indying was as commonplace as it is today, and that's a fact. But we didn't know anything, and everyone played this weird balanced strat where you tried to keep your leaders at 175 whilst building enough markets to keep income positive while you managed barrackses. It was an inefficient way to play but it's how things were. Thankfully we know much more now than we did then.

The other difference that I see being most relevant to the current situation is that people literally don't play a diplomatic game anymore. There are three powers in the game, those being Woof, Squire, and Knight, and I have no evidence to suggest that any of you guys are trying to leverage one another. You, for all public intents and purposes are all content with only maintaining the status quo and allowing everyone to grow food and hang out.The only player (Sevah) that plays the game in an aggressive, personal-gain fashion is ostracized and demonized.

These are just my observations on what's going on, I don't have answers for the other questions, because I'm not a part of the status quo thing, not being in any of the clans that have a super pact going on.

[Shadow]

People take the events of the game less in character and more personally than they did back in the day. I think war is fun when it is played in character, but when things are taken personally it is a lot less fun, hence the status quo.

Also at the moment, as you say, leaders are disproportionately strong in wars, and takedowns are nearly impossible with expensive open attack ops and such. So further balancing will make the game better in this respect as well.

[Yellow Eyes]

I miss the old days too. There was a group of like 5 of us that played it from my class (8th grade, wow I'm old now) but we certainly took the events of the game personally. There might even be one of those friends that still hates me because of this game. haha. But those were the days. We all formed a clan, and then  few of us decided to backstab the clan, and create our own other clan, while killing our old allies. It was a great time. As for a strat, I never ran anything. I made barracks to build some troops, markets to get some cash, and some foragers to get some food. I didnt' know the purpose of tents camps or huts. But I had more fun than ever, (mainly cuz I'm sick of doing the math to calcluate my 'run'.)...such as I'm doing this time. I'm just fooling around.

I think adding the whole "immortalization" list is when things started to change. There was no reason to have fun with your friends, but to just stick to yourself and get as much net as you could to be in the top 15. People would know me then, right?! I think I knew more people back in the day, not from being an emperor, but from the diplomacy of clans.

[Neobaron]

The art of diplomatic intrigue in redwall is something I am trying to reintroduce.

The problem is, as Shadow put it, people taking the game seriously beyond their game persona.

[Pac-man]

I actually recently asked myself a similar question: Why does everybody make a huge deal out of a conflict or war? Isn't that what this is all about?

And I think a big reason for the ending of aggressiveness in this game is that--like Shadow said--people take the game personally instead of IC...

[Shadow]

Perhaps we should all resolve to start a random war for the run of it.

[Neobaron]

Your current random was kind of pathetic. :P

[Shadow]

That's cause people started doing silly things like negotiating

[Kilkenne]

I don't think this is calling into question your ability to negotiate a peace or whatever, it's asking why would everyone rather sit and net and hold hands. If it's just that that's the only way for someone to win, I feel like that's pretty poor game design and should probably be rectified. I was more looking for that kind of answer, or at least someone to explain what's fun about the current state of reg. For all I understand, everyone just sits around scratching their butt, then they send all their troops to someone else so they can maybe attack someone, or maybe feast/loot some more for money to support more troops. Then the guy holding their stuff sends it back.

I honestly think I just don't get what the exciting part is, because there must be an upside somewhere.

[The Lady Shael]

I think people just don't remember why this was fun for us in the first place. The fun part was always diplomacy, sending in-character messages, making in-character alliances, playing out a storyline...etc.

We've been invaded by hardcore promisance players over the years who don't play for fun...they play to win. I think that rubbed off on us, and we grew out of our role-playing ways as well. It's been years since most of us even read a Redwall book, so we don't remember much about this universe we're still playing in.

[Neobaron]

As I remember, every other promi invasion ended with us kicking their butts though, didn't they?

As to growing out of it - just because we're all 20 somethings IRL doesn't mean we can't still have fun like 13 year olds on the interweb.

It might seem/sound childish, but if I want to spend all of my time posturing and acting like an adult, I can request more hours at work.

[The Lady Shael]

Psh, I didn't mean we weren't willing to role-play anymore, only that most of us just got tired of it after a while (plus all the good role-players left).

I totally want to start role-playing again, I'm just waiting for all this tractor and butts lol nonsense to phase out.

[Kilkenne]

I resent the implication that tractors and butts need to go someplace.

I can be perfectly serious while not discussing butts. Or tractors. MAYBE YOU SHOULD START AND BE A TRENDSETTER HM?

[wolf bite]

I agree with much of what has been said. I also think people forget a lot in retrospective. That old game could seem less aggressive in those days when you factored in that everyone was afraid of making enemies and only attacked others 3, 4 or if they were gutsy 5 times. Scrapping up land was difficult, there was no person sitting on 100,000 land and no army. Someone having over 300,000,000 net worth as emperor at the end of the round was amazing and had help, now it about takes that much net worth to get into the top ten.

The reason there was a "2004 wolf bite" was because I invented different strategies. (No I don't want to debate that statement with the one or 2 people who disagree with no proof). I had found that changing to 100% of one army and doing what today would be a sloppy indy I could break an emperor. That I could go all huts and net my way with food or put away so much cash I could jump up with a purchased army, or no one could defend against my murders. Frankly everyone else was playing "basic". I also found that since everyone was basic, I could land lock with 30% huts and 70% towers. I could look down at literally hundreds of people wanting my top rank and no basic strategy could touch me. Eventually Retto would ask me to step down so others could play. Was great for me, I am sure anyone today would love to be the only one that knew those strategies in a game.

There were paid spies (yellow eyes was the best of them) and paid hit men to wipe out a building army. Half a bill cash would amaze people that I could afford to send it. So there was that part of diplomacy. All the clans were making plans to try to take the top, few actually made good attempts.

The problem was that the original makers of the game never intended for any but basic to be used. So the math for leaders (for example because it was for emergency funds) with all huts and a good ratio beat all expectation. So over time everyone has had their hand in trying to "Balance" the game. If one thing is too powerful, "let us make everything else more powerful" has always been the solution. In all the development discussions I have always been called against progress. However I was always saying it would be easier to depower one thing then to overpower everything else. Later we always need to find a way to give the lowest thing more power and it never ends. (Hated Peace's overpowered superhero races). The end result is no one can hold emperor against a small field of only 40 players.

So today, who could hold emperor? Our net worth could be 5 times what held off hundreds of enemies and one or two people could take them out. Claiming the top is suicide. Even getting mad at some random person you can wipe them out with the overpowered features.

So the dynamics have changed. If 2 people get mad at each other they wipe each other out. If 2 clans go to war, they wipe each other out. Just give me a random name and I will wipe them out. Easy!!! Maybe too easy. So now the game is to try to be seen in the top 10 and diplomatically not have anyone want to wipe you out.

Not to pick on Sevz, or take away from all the much more interesting things I said above, but to answer Kilk's question with this example. Sevz is looked down on not for his aggressiveness, but his letters tend to be personally threatening and since players can wipe out anyone, they pick Sevz. When I would have Ereptor cornered and there was nothing he could do, I would open a chat with him as he watched his emperorship fall, then he would go on the forums and in character make threats to me. It is a GAME and there was showmanship.

(I think we were going to have a basic only turbo coming up)


Wolf Bite