Since we are NOT playing Empire, what ARE we playing? (non..

OK Guys and Gals,

You can't fool me. I know you are playing something!!!

We all do. We play games because they are fun for us. ut not eveyone
plays teh same types of games. Whether is board games (chess, risk,
chutes and ladders), console games (xbox, wii, playstation, whateveR),
pc based games, or internet based games. We play Empire (whatever
version) because it's fun, but there have not been a lot of choices
lately. We play (computer) games because we want to have fun. Except
for the blitzes there is no Empire. So I know you are playing
something, hell, I am.....

I know there used to be a few local groups that did their own thing in
the past (Texas, Netherlands, Paris) but don't know if they still are
or not.

I know I am starting out kind of silly, but I am getting to a more
serious point.

OK, I'll start.

My name is Old Dog (not my real name, but good enough for today's
purposes), and I started playing a java based strategy games 2 months
ago..........

This sort of goes back top the long thread a few months ago about
RTS. But not the same. I see fairly complex games up on the internet
with 100's of 1000's of players. I see us being able to put the whole
Empire community onto a few rented coaches. I don't know how many are
on the master list, but I'd be surprised if it were over 300. Ok,a
jumbo jet then...still not very many.

We are independent people who do things just a little bit
differently. But we seem to be so independent that we have no
critical mass. I don't have the answers, but don't see a very rosy
future.

An idea.... would be for the past deities (if we can find them)
develop and teach a Deity Academy. Hopefully we can get enough people
involved so that we can develop a foundation of talent who could then
be relied upon to put up a game on a periodic basis.

Showing how poor my memory is, most of the games I remember playing
have been hosted by Overlord, the Ice Barbarian Warlord, Geoff
Cashman, and Bungy. I know Savoia tried developing a Trafalgar
series, and there was a crew in Texas who opened their private games
up for a short time, and someone did a Star Wars theme (I didn't play
in that one. If I am forgeting anyone its because of early
Alzheimer's, massive apologies for forgetting your effort and
contribution.

The point is that there have not been a lot of people doing it, and at
some point they have either burned out, got busy with real life, or
both, and have moved on. Without a mentoring and promotion system we
are left with fewer deities to carry on.

With a set of deities, perhaps a schedule could be developed to spread
the "pain" er, workload, over time. If we could get even 4 people
started, each one would be responsible for setting up a game to be
ready for a certain time. One for the sring of '08, one the summer,
one the fall, one he winter. Dare I suggest that we get more
involved, then perhaps we could have multiple games going at the same
time, theme games, fixed tech games, new unit games, etc. Not
everyone plays the different games that are offered because of
something they like or dislike (hell,one of my favorites, mob_access,
my least favorites, fuel and plague).

The issue we need to get around is that not all players are coders. I
for one am not, and do not have any confidence in being able to do
anything with the information that is out there now. We need to be
able to allow those that are interested in being a deity a place to
learn from some who have been there already. I think that if we can
pull this off that the Empire community has a real chance of growing
instead of shrinking. As the new crop of deities become more
experienced, they can then mentor the next generation. Without that
transfer of knowledge Empire may become a lost art, and then a memory.

My 2 cents
So that's it. It's my opinion that we are not passing on the
expertise of being a deity to enough people, and if we don't try to
reverse that trend, the last deity will shut down his/her server and
that will be that.

cheers
Old Dog

ps (have to login to the other game now, see ya)

Yes, sign me up! I would love to learn from your "Deity School",
as I am quite sure that I have much to learn.


Seriously, it doesn't take a lot to be a diety.
- ethics : keep what you know about who is playing to yourself.
- game stability : monitor the game every 7 minutes to make sure it
is still running and hasn't crashed or got corrupted. You can
probably extend this to a few hours if you make many backups
and aren't totally paranoid of data corruptions.
- webport/pc : doesn't take much in the way of today's HW to
run a game. A 300+MHz system will do quite well on any
isp with connections of 128kbps or faster. For games larger
than 16 countries on large maps, 2x-5x those figures, but still...
- sense of humor / thick skin neck : yes, some players will be funny
while others will piss on your pork chops. Eat some salt with
grains (and just take it, shrug it off). Hey, if they don't like it,
they can go run their own dang game!


Ok, so who wants to join deity school 101 hosted at bungy camp.
But it's a bring your own sheep deal, I don't have enough to go
around.


Bungy
(still dragging out the BBB4 end game report due to deity burnout)



"taodnt" <taodnt RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f07918ff-5a2e-4e1a-9f1c-7ed4ae172d46@q39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> OK Guys and Gals,
>
> You can't fool me. I know you are playing something!!!
>
> We all do. We play games because they are fun for us. ut not eveyone
> plays teh same types of games. Whether is board games (chess, risk,
> chutes and ladders), console games (xbox, wii, playstation, whateveR),
> pc based games, or internet based games. We play Empire (whatever
> version) because it's fun, but there have not been a lot of choices
> lately. We play (computer) games because we want to have fun. Except
> for the blitzes there is no Empire. So I know you are playing
> something, hell, I am.....
>
> I know there used to be a few local groups that did their own thing in
> the past (Texas, Netherlands, Paris) but don't know if they still are
> or not.
>
> I know I am starting out kind of silly, but I am getting to a more
> serious point.
>
> OK, I'll start.
>
> My name is Old Dog (not my real name, but good enough for today's
> purposes), and I started playing a java based strategy games 2 months
> ago..........
>
> This sort of goes back top the long thread a few months ago about
> RTS. But not the same. I see fairly complex games up on the internet
> with 100's of 1000's of players. I see us being able to put the whole
> Empire community onto a few rented coaches. I don't know how many are
> on the master list, but I'd be surprised if it were over 300. Ok,a
> jumbo jet then...still not very many.
>
> We are independent people who do things just a little bit
> differently. But we seem to be so independent that we have no
> critical mass. I don't have the answers, but don't see a very rosy
> future.
>
> An idea.... would be for the past deities (if we can find them)
> develop and teach a Deity Academy. Hopefully we can get enough people
> involved so that we can develop a foundation of talent who could then
> be relied upon to put up a game on a periodic basis.
>
> Showing how poor my memory is, most of the games I remember playing
> have been hosted by Overlord, the Ice Barbarian Warlord, Geoff
> Cashman, and Bungy. I know Savoia tried developing a Trafalgar
> series, and there was a crew in Texas who opened their private games
> up for a short time, and someone did a Star Wars theme (I didn't play
> in that one. If I am forgeting anyone its because of early
> Alzheimer's, massive apologies for forgetting your effort and
> contribution.
>
> The point is that there have not been a lot of people doing it, and at
> some point they have either burned out, got busy with real life, or
> both, and have moved on. Without a mentoring and promotion system we
> are left with fewer deities to carry on.
>
> With a set of deities, perhaps a schedule could be developed to spread
> the "pain" er, workload, over time. If we could get even 4 people
> started, each one would be responsible for setting up a game to be
> ready for a certain time. One for the sring of '08, one the summer,
> one the fall, one he winter. Dare I suggest that we get more
> involved, then perhaps we could have multiple games going at the same
> time, theme games, fixed tech games, new unit games, etc. Not
> everyone plays the different games that are offered because of
> something they like or dislike (hell,one of my favorites, mob_access,
> my least favorites, fuel and plague).
>
> The issue we need to get around is that not all players are coders. I
> for one am not, and do not have any confidence in being able to do
> anything with the information that is out there now. We need to be
> able to allow those that are interested in being a deity a place to
> learn from some who have been there already. I think that if we can
> pull this off that the Empire community has a real chance of growing
> instead of shrinking. As the new crop of deities become more
> experienced, they can then mentor the next generation. Without that
> transfer of knowledge Empire may become a lost art, and then a memory.
>
> My 2 cents
> So that's it. It's my opinion that we are not passing on the
> expertise of being a deity to enough people, and if we don't try to
> reverse that trend, the last deity will shut down his/her server and
> that will be that.
>
> cheers
> Old Dog
>
> ps (have to login to the other game now, see ya)