[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Josh Olson]

Son of a...

I had a lengthy reply typed up when my computer lost power.  Pathetic
reconstruction of the original follows below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at verant.com>
> > But notice that in none of the games you mentioned does anyone spend
their
> > days doing one thing, ie making bread.
>
> Now you're just talking about the granularity of the simulation at any
given
> point. Is it conceivable that you might spend all day doing just one
thing?
> Sure, if the simulation level of that one thing is complex enough that in
> itself it provides sufficient detail and choices to keep you interested.
For
> example, it's easy to see how you could build SimAnt into The Sims, and
> SimsVille out of lots of cases of the Sims, and SimCity out of lots of
cases
> of SimsVille, and SimEarth out of lots of cases of SimCity. (In fact, when
> SimEarth came out, there was a key you could press that responded with
"This
> key will eventually place your SimCity into your SimEarth, in a future
> product.").

It's easy to see how you could do that, but I'm baffled at why you would
want to.  Each of the Sim games has a discrete and appropriate scale that
works well for that game.  Building enough SimCities to populate an entire
SimEarth would drown out the latter with endless repetitions of the former.
Before long you'd be praying for a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri-style
"governor" button that would build the cities for you.  Granularity may be
arbitrary, but scope is quite significant.

> If making bread was the point of the game, and there were dozens of
grains,
> many sorts of ovens, many possible bread shapes, and lots of
> variables--sure, what the heck. It could get especially challenging if
there
> were managing multiple ovens and bakeries at once. Not that I am
suggesting
> making this game--I am just saying that if you break down the games here,
> and examine them topologically (what is the SHAPE of the gameplay), you'll
> find extreme similarities.

This is a fine example of overextending scope.  Do you suppose that the
manager of a chain of bakeries is the same person who grinds grain, mixes
dough, packages loaves, etc. etc. in each bakery?  Almost certainly not -
there isn't enough time in the day to run the minute-to-minute operations of
each store as well as manage the corporate aspects of the entire chain.

You can either have a game about baking bread, or you can have a game about
managing bakeries - you can't have it both ways and maintain an interesting
level of complexity in both aspects.  The more detailed the simulation, the
tighter your scope must be.  Corollary: the broader your scope, the more
details must be glossed over.

> But I'd argue that even this is icing on the cake. The REAL attractant to
> RCT or Sims is the stuff that has fairly little impact on gameplay.
Painting
> wall colors and making new skins for your Sims, now THAT was fun--and it's
> what the fan community is out there going nuts for.

I'd argue that the painting and skinning would not be so attractive if the
underlying game didn't have a lot of merit in the first place.  If I just
wanted to play SimDressup, I'd buy a Barbie game.

> I'll say it again: I believe that a game about doing nothing more than
> interior decorating has a bigger potential audience than a game about
going
> on a grand adventure and saving the day.

Perhaps, but I don't think it would capture interest for as long.  Marking
your environment and displaying your originality is much more appealing an
an already-interesting context.

-Josh Olson






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