I'll post on my new turn results first, and then scroll back and respond to any new postings since my last visit to this thread.
So, for me, the big issue is gold, though perhaps it should be food, also, as both of those commodities continue to hover near the bottom of the proverbial barrel. Both are vital, right? Yet, my efforts last turn to increase the amount of gold that I have increased my gold dilemma only marginally, at best.
Turn #9 - Ending Amount
Food = 956
Gold = 4,012
Turn #8 - Ending Amount
Food = 1,802
Gold = 3,411
Obviously one doesn't ever want to find themself in this kind of a situation, but that's neither here nor there. Rather,
if one does end up finding oneself in this kind of situation, what is the path out, and how is the time frame for accomplishing such? It is important, not for my kingdom in this particular game, but for any newcomer to Alamaze that finds them in such a dilemma. Otherwise, despair can set in, which results in a diminishment or even a loss of hope, which in turn can motivate the new player to drop out of the game. After all, if they perceive the end to be near, why waste their time to stick around for the ending?
Now, compare the gold amounts above to certain gold costs for my kingdom:
Our magical research cost is 8,000 gold per level.
Plateau levels have additional cost.
At 3rd level: +10,000 gold
At 5th level: +30,000 gold
At 7th level: +60,000 gold
To reach 5th level: 40,000 + 30,000 = 70,000 gold
So, how does one (namely, a new player in a situation similar to my own) perceive themself to be able to afford the costs associated with increasing the magic levels of their wizards? The quick math off the top of one's head swiftly perceives the numbers game to be a bridge too far. Perceptions frequently become more powerful and more persuasive than actual realities, where games are concerned. Put a veteran player who possesses substantial knowledge accrued through experience in the game over a span of time into my position, and what that veteran player will do is simply set about trying to fix the problem as best as they can. What might seem obvious to a veteran player, though, is not necessarily so obvious to a new player.
If new players drop out of the games that they are in because of the perception that they can't fix their gold or food dilemmas, even if the actual realty is that they could, if they do the right things in the right sequence, then they never reach experienced player status, and the advantages that such naturally confers. Players dropping impacts game balance considerations, right?
It appears that one player in this particular game has already dropped out or been defeated. Well, that was certainly quick, wasn't it?
The Warlock ruler has surrendered and their kingdom has been removed from
the conflicts within this contest: no new orders will be issued. Artifacts
in possession may have been relocated to an area that was previously
explored by our kingdom.
A glance back at Turn #0 reminds me of who is playing what kingdom in this game:
UN The Crown Islands(1) The Underworld Cult of Secrets Zarashand
LY Darkover(2) The Vile Culture of the Lycans shaun tolley
IL The Diamond Coast(3) The Sphere of the Illusionist Canticar
SA Krynn(4) The Theocracy of the Sacred Order of Knights Strylian
LI Triumvia(5) The Empire of the Lizard Kings Windstar
FO Zanthia(6) The Lost Assembly of the Forgotten GrimFinger
DA Nyvaria(7) The Onyx Imperium of the Dark Elves Harry O
FF The Sword Coast(8) The Encompassing Realm of the Fairy Folk Eregnon the Black
GI Pellinor(9) The Giants Above The Trembling Ground uncledarkseid
WA Zamora(10) The Fire Realm of the Warlock Runigruth
RD Mythgar(11) The Reign of Terror of the Red Dragons Vball Michael
BL The Untamed Lands(12) The Dark Skies of the Black Dragons DuPont
So, it looks like player Runigruth is no longer with us. And what would go through a new player's mind, once their situation is as perilous as my own is, and there's already other players either quitting or defeated? The game says that the Warlock ruler has surrendered basically means quit, right? Is this the point where the new player gives up and the snowball rolling down hill begins to grow bigger? In other words, does the
combination of a perceived hopeless gold or food situation and another player surrendering/quitting/dropping out act as an
increased catalyst for the new player to abandon ship mid-game?
On Turn #8's results:
Zanthia (6) Minor Suspicious NA
On Turn #9's results:
Zanthia (6) Significant Suspicious NA
Thus, the "conquest" of a village, this turn, resulted in an increase in my kingdom's regional influence in Zanthia. Yet, my kingdom is still a lot smaller in Zanthia than it was, so I already know that it's gonna be a slow slog, rather than a fast one. With a reaction level of
Suspicious, this means that my emissaries will find it more difficult to usurp pop centers in this region, in a bid to try and reverse my gold and food situations. And if my emissaries fail in their bids to usurp control of pop centers, then they can be
captured or
killed, right? I know that, already, because that's what happened to my
Count early in the game. Plus, emissaries of
The Forgotten start the game at a
diplomatic disadvantage, right?
From the kingdom set-up:
Special Rules For The Lost Assembly of the Forgotten Kingdom:
Our
political emissaries are at a disadvantage from the lack of engaging with others and have a
-15% penalty when rebelling/usurping pop centers
And because a new player simply isn't likely to have memorized the charts (and the knowledge contained therein), the new player will likely be
more apprehensive about the possibility of their emissaries failing -
and thus, getting captured or killed. This, in turn, induces doubt and hesitation, further reducing a new player's inclination to stay in the game and seek to reverse their kingdom's misfortune over a longer span of time. Why not just quit and drop the game that they are in, and simply join another game? In the meantime, game balance deteriorates, because the player dropped, right? Or am I missing something here?
Overall for thus turn, Turn #9, I felt that I enjoyed some degree of success in trying to stage a comeback (I use that word loosely, here), but the numbers for gold (and now food, also) remain exceedingly troublesome. It's not about
rules, and it's not about
mentors. Rather, it's about
perceptions!
Even though this game conveys unto me the impression that Alamaze is one of the
quietest PBM type games that I've ever played, which is an issue and a problem all its own, one thing that might be helpful at "encouraging" players to communicate more, rather than less, would be to include the
Ruled by info that appears on Turn #0 in each turn. Do I remember who all signed up for this game, and who is playing what, where all of the other kingdoms and players active in this game are concerned. Nope! I sure don't. New players, especially, will have a lot of other stuff on their mind, that they're grappling with and trying to remember. Trying to remember who the others players are, and what kingdoms that they are each playing, strikes me as a wholly unnecessary
additional burden.
Thinking back on my Fall of Rome days, that game had a built-in messaging system. That helped facilitate player-to-player communication, I think. Hyborian war, another PBM game that I play at present, does
not have a built-in messaging system. Yet, player-to-player communication in my last three Hyborian war games (HW-955 (as Shem), HW-957 (as Hyperborea), and HW-982 (as Nemedia) has been
heavy. The difference is enormous. Active engagement with other players makes a very noticeable difference in how much that I attach myself to a game. In the absence of it, here in Alamaze, I have on numerous occasions over the course of this particular game to date noticed that my attention drifts. It drifts away. It doesn't stay locked in, like it does when I receive new turn results for Hyborian War. This isn't so much a game design consideration, flaw, or shortcoming as it is one of a secondary and external nature.
Yes, I could fire up the forum's built in message system, but that would miss the point that the veteran and experienced players in this particular game of Alamaze are not lighting the message system up, and utilizing that as a mechanism to build and maintain player interest, and especially with a new player. The next time that any of you in this game wonder why the Alamaze player base is as small a s it currently is, you might want to remember that. The
primary mechanism for
ensuring increased and continued player engagement is
you! Remember, Alamaze should be
more than a game. it should be an
experience!
Conquering the village, this turn, was a good feeling. It was not, however, as good of a feeling as capturing the province of Northern Bossonia from the Kingdom of Vanaheim in my most recent turn of Hyborian War. A conquest is a conquest, right? Not necessarily. So, I asked myself,
"Why? Why doesn't it feel the same?"
I think that it has to do with a couple of things. One, the visual depiction is different between Alamaze and Hyborian War. In Hyborian War, the blue map updates each turn, and the conquered province appears as part of your kingdom's holdings. It's a visual depiction. In Alamaze, by comparison, the conquest of a village, this turn, was more of a text depiction. And two, the level of engagement on the player level elevates what it is that I feel, where one conquest is compared to the other. In Hyborian War, you also have conquests manifest themselves via the text depiction mechanism. That animated flame flame image (battlefire.gif) denotes that a battle took place. If I had the option, I would likely turn off the images that appear in my turn results in Alamaze, not to mention that parchment style background image. To me, they just visually clutter my turn results. Also, my eyesight not being quite as good as it once was, my visual preference is for less ornamental effect and more visually crisp text. The
presentation of information directly impacts how players perceive a game. I get that such visual ornamentation was probably incorporated to try and help
build atmosphere of the setting, and for some, maybe it does. For me, though, they end up being more of a visual annoyance.
I've also converted some of my Alamaze turn results HTML files to PDF format. I am attaching a copy of my most recent turn results for The Forgotton in this game to this posting. As this game is more of an experiment and a learning experience, there are no "national security" considerations for me. Thus, I don't mind if my fellow players in this game see what I see. After all, I've already invited other players to come after my kingdom, previously.
For me, using the arrow keys to move from page to page is a
lot faster, thereby allowing me to more swiftly access particular sub-segments of information, compared to when I just use the HTML output file. I don't know how hard or time-consuming that it would be to provide a PDF output option for turn results (in addition to, or as an alternative to, the current HTML turn results)? Just some food for thought and consideration.
Conquering a village in combat, this turn, saw one of my characters promoted, and a new character/leader joined my kingdom, in the style of Fall of Rome of old. A Centurion, huh? Am I still in ancient Rome? Titles such as Centurion and various character names undermine the fantasy feel of Alamaze. As there are different levels of characters in numeral form, I'm not sure why a Centurion level character in Alamaze for a kingdom called The Forgotten would be called a Centurion. It's a small detail, for sure, but small details have a way of adding up, and especially where
feel and
atmosphere are considerations.
- Conclusion -
Within a few hours, the village defenses were obliterated and an unconditional surrender
was offered. The Forgotten banner now waves nobly in War Devil! Forgotten casualties were
put at 19.57%. All Forgotten leaders survived the battle. Catun Heamoor once again shown
great valor and has earned a promotion to Captain Major. In the heroic tradition of the
Forgotten kingdom, a courageous leader has risen in this battle. He is Centurion Beadon
Weocot. All the Forgotten wizards survived the fray. The troops are anxious for more
victories: morale is up!
I am also attaching a small snippet of a screenshot that features some attempts by some of my kingdom's agents to gain a clearer picture of where the Lizard Queen's population centers are. The visual impact of this to the new player is disproportionately greater than the same revealed information is to one who is used to receiving it. The old Fall of Rome way of doing it was better, I think, if for no other reason than that the player then wasn't required to input four separate coordinates, in order to obtain the "big picture." I could be wrong, of course, and simply remembering things incorrectly, but in that interface, you would just click on one area, and you would automatically gain that area and all of the immediately surrounding areas, information-wise. Yes, I know and grasp and realize that this is a different interface, but from a standpoint of user-friendliness and intuitiveness, the old approach was noticeably smoother and better, and for the extra effort, my memory wants to say that the player actually ends up receiving less info for the increased effort. For technical reasons, this route may have proven to be a necessity, but that doesn't mean that it was an improvement.
Each turn results that I look at, one thing that my eyes keep coming back to is
how the information is presented, visually. Different methods of
visual dividers are used, to
visually segment one area of the turn results from another. My eyes persuade me that there is likely room for substantial improvement in this area. This is all about presentation, and not about programming of the game's design, itself. It is, in essence, an output issue -
and a visual problem that occurs after the turn is run.
And so, as my eyes run back and forth and up and down over my turn results, my mind wonders to itself whether there isn't a better way to present at least some of what all gets presented to the end viewer, the player. My eyes
prefer clarity over ornaments. Collectively, it all constitutes the
visual methodology (my term, it doesn't have to be yours). If you're used to it, then you may think nothing about it. I'm not used to it, however, and my eyes begrudge me continually subjecting them to it. They resist it, because what they are encountering is not conducive to what they want to see.
A variety of different things, a number of different visual mechanisms, are utilized in order to present information to the player i the form of turn results output. Lets consider some of these:
1. Animated gif - This reminds me of an earlier era of the World Wide Web. Yes, it's noticeable, and yes, it does visually stand out. That's not always a good thing, though. It can be, but it may not be. It's worth noting that most of the images that display on the turn results are not animated gif files. Replace the static images with animated images, and the problem of which I lament will immediately become obvious, to any who might have doubts. This is a relatively isolated visual problem, and it's certainly not the biggest visual problem. Animated gif files developed a bad reputation in early web design for a reason, though for visual memes, they remain quite popular, today.
2. Large Brownish Text - One of the visual divider forms is that of instances of large brownish text is used to visually divide and distinguish certain sections of the turn results from other sections. A few examples of these are where it says
Universal Events Around the Realm,
Political Events,
Forgotten Regional Summary (for my kingdom), etc.. Is there a reason why this color was chosen instead of, say, the color black? Was it viewed to be a prettier color? Or was it an attempt to color coordinate these text portions with the parchment background? On my Hyborian war turn results, I encounter similar bold large text used to visually separate and distinction areas or sections of information from one another. Yet, as I sit and compare the two, back and forth, my eyes prefer the large, bold, black text on a white background (paper) of my Hyborian war turn results to the large, bold, brownish text on a parchment background of my Alamaze turn results. This isn't a game design issue, but an information presentation issue.
3. Different Color Text - Let's see, we have blakc text, that brownish text that I referred to above, green text, blue text. The different colors are used to make things stand out. That's why one utilizes a range of different text treatments or visual impact treatments (bold, italics, underlined, strike through, etc.). Yet, when taken as a whole, over-resort to such visual treatments can yield a rainbow effect on the eyes. At what point are there too many colors on the visual output? Why do you need the green
and the blue? Is it a necessity, or is it superfluous?
4. Double Images - By this, I don't mean that the same image is used twice. Rather, I am referring to where the turn output file uses two images in conjunction with large, bold, brownish text as visual dividers. Did the large, bold, brownish text suddenly become deficient or insufficient in its primary role of visual divider? Are those images merely for ornamental effect? Are they included to promote the feel and the atmosphere of the setting? Instead of using two short images per section where these images are use, why not just use one, but make it wider/longer, and overlay the lage, bold, brownish text on top of it, for display purposes? When I browse my Hyborian War turn results, my eyes are beset and bedeviled by such a visual smorgasbord as what's going on, visually, on my Alamaze turn results. Forget how well or how poorly that a player is doing at any given moment in their games of Alamaze, and come back down to the Earth of
visual basics for a moment. My gut feeling is that there are much better, and more effective, ways of incorporating visual imagery to promote the Alamaze experience and to enhance the feeling and atmosphere of the setting. On the one hand, Alamaze skimps on visual imagery. Building up and growing a
visual repository of Alamaze-unique imagery has never been a driving force in either promotion of the game to a larger potential audience, or to enhancing the feel and atmosphere of the setting. The way that visual imagery is currently incorporated into the the turn results output files is
not a particularly effective way of accomplishing such. There are
better ways.
5. Small Images - Scattered across the turn results output files are a number of different small images. How much do they add to the visual impact of a turn, and how much do they enhance the feel and atmosphere of the setting? One thing about resort to small images is that, while they often fit better on a given page or output file, the very act of shrinking them (or of presenting them in shrunken form is that said images lose a portion of their
visual impact. All else being equal, when you compare two of the exact same image, but in different sizes, the larger file will invaiably yield more visual impact on the viewer.
View this image by itself in your web browser, and then compare it to the smaller version of it that appears on your turn results:
![[Image: magic2.png]](http://fallofromegame.com/alamazeorders/images/magic2.png)
6. Single Dashed Lines - The use of single dashed lines works pretty well, in every instance that I have encountered it. Its use as presently implemented doesn't strike me as a visual problem.
7. Double Dashed Lines - With the use of double dashed lines, my eyes encounter a mixed bag. Primarily, when they are used as long dividers to visually separate and visually distincguish one Grop from another, they would likely function better in that capacity if they were bigger and bold. It wouldn't require the use of as many keystrokes to deliver the entire divider length, but the dividing lines would become much more pronounced. I think that the end visual result would be better.
8. Visual Clutter - In their current incarnation, the turn results come across to my eyes as
visually cluttered. This is entirely a presentation issue, and not a game design issue. Many times,
HOW you present information is as important as
WHAT information that you present. Information presentation should not be the red-headed step-child to the game design child. They go hand in hand. Visually, visual presentation can be as important as game design to the end user.
Buddy/Ignore List
