I’m going to start with a pre-EoG commentary on the game itself building on my prior comments: NWO is an awesome game and greatly improves on the game of Diplomacy. Vastly more complicated that standard dip, new rules, new powers, new units, new geography, more diplomacy. The game balance has been greatly improved. While Diplomacy is a FTF game that is better suited to internet play--anybody who tells you otherwise is not being logical--NWO is a game that can only be played via the Internet, and it makes the most of the media: a 50 player game. 50 players! In the same game!! There are powers on the board that I don’t think I ever even dipped with! I shared the victory with Orang Pirate, but he and I only started dipping at the end of the game. In standard dip, you've got 6 other players, here you have 50! Don’t like this guy, screw him and pick another ally.
In standard dip the games have self-reinforcing feedback loops a stalemate lines so that most games aren’t even played to the end! That’s a staggering indictment of game flawed game design; that the players, even committed players, will vote to end a game prematurely. In NWO, anyone, absolutely anyone who’s still on the board can win in the end. You just have to survive and keep on dipping.
Players can take commanding leads in standard dip and the outcome is all but assured. Why bother playing it out till the end? In NWO you can have a leader and he’s constantly looking over his shoulders (yes, both of them!) What are the other powers saying, are they going to nuke the crap out of me? Should I nuke them first? But then would they vote for me? You've got to be so paranoid in this game! Rob D found out first-hand how tough it is to be a leader. His game was so strong, but he was nuked into bits and pieces of an empire scatters across the map.
Just to convey the scope of this game: I save the dip I receive from all my games, which allows me a little quantitative analysis:
I got 1,378 messages individual messages this game. Any other PBEM game I've played in the last 15 years, I never got more than 400 messages. The game went about 150 days so that works out to over 9 messages received every single day! I told Dave when I signed up for this game give me a tiny, quiet power in the middle of nowhere, and I got 1,378 messages! I had no clue what I was getting into. This game is a major commitment, and I was Sweden, starting with one stinkin’ army! What was it like to play the UK, the US, France, China, etc.?
I can’t imagine what it’s like to GM. Impossibly hard. Real yeoman work! Someone needs to figure out how to have a Realpolitik extension to handle this game, because without it, I think it would be too hard to find a GM.
Finally, let me say that I've played a lot of board games, not so many computer games, but enough, and I found the very concept of a 50 player game to be novel, and it’s not often that one has a completely novel gaming experience after playing games for 30 years. So part of my effusiveness may be related to novelty, because I will also say that the game was exhausting, and requiring of a great deal more thought and attention than a standard dip game, even beyond the extra dip. I’m not familiar with the provinces, for example, so even writing orders became both difficult and new experience; you've really got to think about them, because you've never seen these territories, or worked with these units before.
Tom was very modest in his accepting of praise for his game design in my earlier comments, but he shouldn't be, he should be very proud. It makes me think that if someone really put their mind to it a whole new subclass of games with dozens of players to interact with could be developed.*
Anyway, depending on my time commitment at the time, I would love to try it again. I’m sure that I won’t be winning again anytime soon, but would love to try another power.
* I realize that MMORPs have hundreds of players, but the nature of those games are so different, to my knowledge.
In standard dip the games have self-reinforcing feedback loops a stalemate lines so that most games aren’t even played to the end! That’s a staggering indictment of game flawed game design; that the players, even committed players, will vote to end a game prematurely. In NWO, anyone, absolutely anyone who’s still on the board can win in the end. You just have to survive and keep on dipping.
Players can take commanding leads in standard dip and the outcome is all but assured. Why bother playing it out till the end? In NWO you can have a leader and he’s constantly looking over his shoulders (yes, both of them!) What are the other powers saying, are they going to nuke the crap out of me? Should I nuke them first? But then would they vote for me? You've got to be so paranoid in this game! Rob D found out first-hand how tough it is to be a leader. His game was so strong, but he was nuked into bits and pieces of an empire scatters across the map.
Just to convey the scope of this game: I save the dip I receive from all my games, which allows me a little quantitative analysis:
I got 1,378 messages individual messages this game. Any other PBEM game I've played in the last 15 years, I never got more than 400 messages. The game went about 150 days so that works out to over 9 messages received every single day! I told Dave when I signed up for this game give me a tiny, quiet power in the middle of nowhere, and I got 1,378 messages! I had no clue what I was getting into. This game is a major commitment, and I was Sweden, starting with one stinkin’ army! What was it like to play the UK, the US, France, China, etc.?
I can’t imagine what it’s like to GM. Impossibly hard. Real yeoman work! Someone needs to figure out how to have a Realpolitik extension to handle this game, because without it, I think it would be too hard to find a GM.
Finally, let me say that I've played a lot of board games, not so many computer games, but enough, and I found the very concept of a 50 player game to be novel, and it’s not often that one has a completely novel gaming experience after playing games for 30 years. So part of my effusiveness may be related to novelty, because I will also say that the game was exhausting, and requiring of a great deal more thought and attention than a standard dip game, even beyond the extra dip. I’m not familiar with the provinces, for example, so even writing orders became both difficult and new experience; you've really got to think about them, because you've never seen these territories, or worked with these units before.
Tom was very modest in his accepting of praise for his game design in my earlier comments, but he shouldn't be, he should be very proud. It makes me think that if someone really put their mind to it a whole new subclass of games with dozens of players to interact with could be developed.*
Anyway, depending on my time commitment at the time, I would love to try it again. I’m sure that I won’t be winning again anytime soon, but would love to try another power.
* I realize that MMORPs have hundreds of players, but the nature of those games are so different, to my knowledge.