Re: Entering 'Beta' stage

Rich Skrenta (skrenta@shadow.com)
Fri, 17 Dec 93 11:52:37 EST

> Rich - could you very briefly summarise what subjects are under
> discussion and what their status is? Also, compared to the state
> the game is in now, what is likely to change in the near future?

The major hole at the moment is the lack of a well-defined NPC threat,
and lack of "adventure". There are three systems I'm considering to
address this:

o weak units in wilderness provinces get atttacked by npc's

o explore in "dangerous" sublocations prompts monster attacks,
and yields rewards, such as gold, nobles or artifacts.

o QUEST command, discussed previously on design.

Those are in order of likeliness to be implemented. The second two are
promising, but I have to work out some implementation issues.

The other major feature which might get in is some sort of team/organizations
system. I sent out a proposal about this a month or so ago.

The rest of the changes will be minor tweaks, such as adding more skills,
items, kinds of men, etc. These won't radically change the game.

I want to have all of the major stuff done before declaring the test
"beta". Two months may be somewhat optimistic, but we'll go to the two
turns/week rate now anyway to keep from losing any more players. :-)

> Also, Rich, it would be nice if you could annouce when the rulebook
> is fairly stable, and we can then print it out and seriously attack it
> looking for typos and inconsistencies. I'd have a go now, but with
> frequent changes and updates there seems little point.

The latest rash of changes is pretty much over. Now wouldn't be a bad
time to go over the rule book.

--
Rich Skrenta <skrenta@shadow.com>


Main Index  |  Olympia  |  Arena  |  PBM FAQ  |  Links