07-25-2013, 09:40 AM
I notice now that I have not introduced myself in this forum, so this post will be a backwards look at my career in PBM, PBEM, and Mass MultiPlayer Online Games. The guiding principle from the very earliest days was strongly anti-war. This needs some explaining, given the centrality to warfare and fighting in Gaming.
The first expression of this was in an article I wrote for Lone Warrior in one of the journal's first issues in the 1970s on how impossible it becomes to move around a city which has suffered a nuclear strike. Indeed, how hard it is to even know where you are! Picture it: pile of rubble, no street signs visible, no buildings identifiable. You - and everyone else who survived - are in a state of shock: sitting around in lost apathy, dazed, unsure where you are. A few have become mentally unhinged by the incomprehensibility of what has happened. Some looting is taking place.
This was the article of the year in an early issue of Lone Warrior. In 1982 "When the Wind Blows" a few years later captures the chaos and disaster of a nuclear strike on Britain.
My first pbm game was the one I mentioned in the Play by Mail forum in the Ancient China PBM Game? thread, where my character became The Renunciate, with a band of friends as cavalry.
The next - and longest-running game was The Known World. Designed and Moderated by Bruce Douglas (using his Moderator name of Zeus) it was some time before I realised the game was based on Phil Barker's Wargames Research Group. Phil and Sue are still active and have created a new website that is well worth a visit.
I joined The Known World in 1983. Bruce gave me Chaldea, at the southeastern extremity of the map of the Known World. It was a desert horse-nomad society based on the Great Oasis, and paid nominal obeisance to the Imperial Realm. But basically I had the light-medium cavalry arm of sufficient numbers to be an important addition to the other Imperial forces.
This was just what I wanted, though Bruce could not have known this. I set about sub-creating the rival sheikh clans/families of the Chaldeans, building in many rivalries, jealousies and competitors as seemed realistic. After this came the marriages both between the rival clans and between the ruling clan and ruling families in the pro-Imperial alliance. Since I played in The Known World for some 25 years this meant that I was forging marriage alliances which resulted in progeny coming into adulthood by the end of this period.
I had never really enjoyed power struggles, but with the decline in active players in Known World - some 30 years of play before this got acute - is brilliant (perhaps unique) as far as long-running and open-ended games are concerned. For by the end many players had dropped out and others had struggled to keep going with the average age inevitably rising.
This was also what happened in other open-ended games. As soon as my position became too strong simply by quietly developing it and taking over from neighbouring dropped positions, I became anxious and lost interest in the game. I prefer to play with players and against the game dynamics. The big difference came with Ultima Online where there is scope for non-fighters, like crafters, and options are provided to play anti-hero roles.
The first expression of this was in an article I wrote for Lone Warrior in one of the journal's first issues in the 1970s on how impossible it becomes to move around a city which has suffered a nuclear strike. Indeed, how hard it is to even know where you are! Picture it: pile of rubble, no street signs visible, no buildings identifiable. You - and everyone else who survived - are in a state of shock: sitting around in lost apathy, dazed, unsure where you are. A few have become mentally unhinged by the incomprehensibility of what has happened. Some looting is taking place.
This was the article of the year in an early issue of Lone Warrior. In 1982 "When the Wind Blows" a few years later captures the chaos and disaster of a nuclear strike on Britain.
My first pbm game was the one I mentioned in the Play by Mail forum in the Ancient China PBM Game? thread, where my character became The Renunciate, with a band of friends as cavalry.
The next - and longest-running game was The Known World. Designed and Moderated by Bruce Douglas (using his Moderator name of Zeus) it was some time before I realised the game was based on Phil Barker's Wargames Research Group. Phil and Sue are still active and have created a new website that is well worth a visit.
I joined The Known World in 1983. Bruce gave me Chaldea, at the southeastern extremity of the map of the Known World. It was a desert horse-nomad society based on the Great Oasis, and paid nominal obeisance to the Imperial Realm. But basically I had the light-medium cavalry arm of sufficient numbers to be an important addition to the other Imperial forces.
This was just what I wanted, though Bruce could not have known this. I set about sub-creating the rival sheikh clans/families of the Chaldeans, building in many rivalries, jealousies and competitors as seemed realistic. After this came the marriages both between the rival clans and between the ruling clan and ruling families in the pro-Imperial alliance. Since I played in The Known World for some 25 years this meant that I was forging marriage alliances which resulted in progeny coming into adulthood by the end of this period.
I had never really enjoyed power struggles, but with the decline in active players in Known World - some 30 years of play before this got acute - is brilliant (perhaps unique) as far as long-running and open-ended games are concerned. For by the end many players had dropped out and others had struggled to keep going with the average age inevitably rising.
This was also what happened in other open-ended games. As soon as my position became too strong simply by quietly developing it and taking over from neighbouring dropped positions, I became anxious and lost interest in the game. I prefer to play with players and against the game dynamics. The big difference came with Ultima Online where there is scope for non-fighters, like crafters, and options are provided to play anti-hero roles.