 |
|
 |
 |
| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
|
|
|
|
| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
 |
A discussion between St*wart and AKMA about the deities of GNE.
This is one reason I love GNE: classical erudition in theHear, hear.
underpinnings. Very cool.
To add a little realism, you could make it so the players could mogrify how certain gods appear to small groups of other players, or convince other players that certain gods exist where, in fact, they do not. Is TRG going to have “credulity” and “piety” in addition to “strength,” “mood,” and “karma?”
A few thoughts off the top of my head and I dont know how relevant they are to this. But, they are general comments on gameplay:
1) It occured to me while reading that discussion that many of the issues are the inverse of those encountered in the play of god-games such as Molyneux’s Populous or Black and White. Can the gods themselves be “players” either in the form of fickle AIs or of real-life players who are playing a different game than the players of GNE. Has this been done before? Overlapping games within the same game universe?
2) The tradeoffs discussed as well as the problem of players who gain absolute knowledge about controlling game-states is easy enough to solve. In the first instance, the actual effect of actions can be thought of as “moves” within an abstract game space (a chessboard is a simple example) where the effectiveness of certain operations depends both on knowledge of the current game-state (impractical) as well as an understanding of the rules. Its not hard to get a sufficient level of abstraction where even an understanding of the game board (or an isomorphic equivalent) is not a major advantage.
3) The best option is simply to build a simple non-linear model of god-player interactions. This has the advantage of being generally unpredictable and yet “controlled” (since player interactions are themselves part of the feedback loop.) A simple example is a stock market analogy where gods are companies that you invest in and where maximum karma is attained not by praying to already-popular gods but to gods who are on their way up.
I was reminded of B & W too.
Abulafia, how did you find this “conversation”? Is there somewhere that conversations, ideas, etc. are being posted by the devs, or did you get lucky? ;)
I found it via BoingBoing, so I guess I got lucky.
Oh dear… Do we really have to have gods in GNE? Couldn’t we opt out somehow and not forfeit our forward advancement? I am so tired of what Orbst refers to Imaginary Friends out here in the real world. I escape to GNE to relax and tickle my mental muscles, not to monitor my blood pressure and avoid evangelists.
I supposed it might be possible to do it right, but somehow the idea of having to appease some deity in some way, or fend off its minions bent on converting me, just leaves me shaking and tense and wanting to run away Really Fast. Please tell me this is just a concept and not a foundation block?
Smoochies, ER! Sweetie, I think they will institute a way to keep it balanced, as PV suggested. I really don’t see any of the devs thinking religion should be compulsive in the game. On a bizarre side note, I will miss the old GOD. (S)he was a great deity.
This whole thing came as a complete surprise to me. How are players to begin their own cults if there are 13 already predefined? It sounds like one of those “any colour so long as it’s black” kind of things.
Capo: nice ideas!
Meer: we will start posting stuff like this in general, but this time it was presaged by Cory’s link (I was discussing it with him and he wanted to get it out there).
Eleanor: we don’t have to do anything, but having a zodiac-type arrangement of deities makes things easier for us since we have a natural system to group talents, tools and items (and for a few other reasons which will become clear in due course).
Religions will not be compulsory and I don’t think spam from evangelists will be a big problem. And they will be as wacky/surreal/absurd, etc. as the rest of the game. Ensuring that the system is balanced between believers and atheists will be one of the goals for the play test.
Outis: cults are not defined it advance, just the zodiac (and there are a few hundred combinations of 1, 2 or 3 gods). If we want them to be capable of any programmatic interaction with the system, we had to put them in there in advance. However, people can create cults which have nothing to do with them (or they can choose combinations which suit). Not all cult-like groups have to be “religious” in this sense either (secular tribes, clans, sects, guilds, movements, etc. are all possible).
We will start a thread on the GNE boards and do a poll (similar to the terrain one) in a week or so.
/me breathes sigh of relief