The key to a successful G2 is not that it gives everyone a chance to
start at the beginning. If that is the only reason for it, then G2
will soon suffer the same fate a G1 if people find it hard to start
after a few turns. Not very "open ended". Remember -- this is an
evolving situation with new players all the time and the game should
try to support that. Otherwise, Olympia will be just another
closed-ended game.
The valid reason for a G2 is to fix the problems that have shown up in
G1 which should, ideally, make the game more equitable and challenging
for all. The reason that G1 cannot be retrofitted any more than it has
been is that players who have staked their positions on the broken bits
will have their positions destroyed by any fixes. That isn't really
fair to those players. G2 would provide the oppotunity to make fixes
and adjust the map to hopefully provide a more balanced game.
As for roads -- fast travel is BAD. If you can quickly get from point
A to point B, so can everyone else, including your enemies. Part of
the problem with the AOO is that they aren't just a Provinia problem
(which would be reasonable) but a *global* problem thanks to Scry,
Vision, Teleportation, Faery, and Hades. If the wilderness isn't hard
to get to (for some reason), it doesn't stay a wilderness for long.
Being able to pinpoint and get to someone (with an army, no less) in
the wilderness in a few short months is a real problem. Roads will
only make that worse. I'd personally like to see a map of more
smaller continents although that would require a lot of new names. :-)
>What does the rest of the community think?
What I'd like to know is how many G1 players would jump to G2 and
*stop playing* in G1 and how many would play both? The reason I ask
is that I think that the people who have spent a lot of time on G1
might get a bit annoyed if everyone jumps to G2 and leaves them in a
dead game. One could argue that that is what you get for trying to
"win" in an "open-ended" game but I'm still curious. :-)
I think that both games *could* be viable side-by-side, each offering
something a bit different. But I'd like to know what others think.
John Morrow