Scared ? - why, no, it's only a game about death and destruction
eddys...@hotmail.com
War is about the scariest experience there is - death and destruction
all around.
And here we are, always going on about the "realism" in wargames yet
when we play a wargame we're never actually scared. We routinely send
hundreds and thousands of virtual soldiers on the path to a certain
death and we calmly stay in that bunker in Berlin trying to stall
defeat for just another turn just for the victory points, not because
of fear for the Red Hordes. We may jump up a bit surprised the first
time our tank gets hit in 1st person view mode but that's basically it.
Wargaming is not scary.
Ok, it's only a game you say. Entertainment. Yet there are games where
the main objective of the developers was to scare and people like to be
scared given the success of horror flicks, so why is this no element in
what should be the scariest genre of them all ?
Beats me how to introduce scary elements in a wargame - sound effects
?- or even if it is a good idea - but on Halloween night it seemed like
a good topic :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Vincenzo Beretta
We could ask JR ^__^
eddys...@hotmail.com
Vincenzo Beretta wrote:
> > Beats me how to introduce scary elements in a wargame
>
> We could ask JR ^__^
A guy who'd probably need two tries to find his left foot, all in order
to shoot in it, is not scary. The really sad bit from a wargaming pov
is that he may have ruined a fine game with his antics while with his
money and his interest in creating and producing wargames he could have
gone into history as one of the great. According to sources this last
thing is what he craves the most : fame and recognition by his fellow
wargamers, and all his millions don't seem to be able to buy this for
him.
At some level, I really feel sorry for him. And I'm always prepared [
for a modest consultancy fee of course :) ] to set him straight.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Oleg Mastruko
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Beats me how to introduce scary elements in a wargame - sound effects
>?- or even if it is a good idea - but on Halloween night it seemed like
>a good topic :)
Well despite some people - including you Eddy - doing their best
to keep Red Orchestra out of this Usenet group, where it should
naturally belong, I'll qualify it as scariest war historic game
available.
When artillery barrage falls, people turn into reddish mist and
you gotta watch out for their limbs lest they fall onto your head.
That's about as "scary" as any game can get considering it's
just pixels on your PC.......
It's hard to get that scary with your average "counter and hex"
dinosaur wargame.......
Defcon is qute scary too, although in different way, and it's
not "historic" :o)
pproc...@yahoo.com
This is a REALLY GOOD observation. I never really thought about this,
but, now that you have me thinking, I feel I might be able to offer a
unique perspective.
I am a wargame developer but I am, primarily, a military professional
(which compels me to say that everything else I am about to say is MY
OWN OPINION, and not the official view of any government agency, yada,
yada...)
>From this perspective, I can offer the following.
Most wargames are at the organizational level of leadership, the
battalion level and above, up to the national strategic level (in
military theory/wargame terms, this would be the "grand-tactical"
through the operational, to the strategic level of war). The further
away from the direct level of leadership (company command and below)
the more detached one becomes from the sheer terror of war.
That is not to say that one is not afraid in a war at the battalion,
brigade, division, corps/CFLCC, or JTF level. It is just to say that
the fear of instantaneous and painful death becomes replaced by the
overwhelming sense of dread that a decision you are making is going to
lead to the death of lots of people. To feel this sense of dread, you
have to feel that they ARE REAL PEOPLE. I am afraid that, in a
wargame, it is difficult to communicate or replicate this. In fact,
even in war, it sometimes is easy to forget that it is not battalions
you are directing but groups of 500 people (perhaps that is by
design?).
Two interesting books on this topic, On Killing and On Combat by Dave
Grossman and Loren W. Christensen, explorer the relationship between
the proximity to combat and the intensity of the experience.
That was a long way to answer your question, but I think the bottom
line is that, at the wargaming level, a player has to have a deep
emotional attachment to the outcome to feel the dread of real warfare
at that level.
Perhaps if your mouse were rigged to deliver severe electric shocks
every time you lost a tank :)
PAT PROCTOR
President, ProSIM Company
http://www.prosimco.com
Arjuna
casualties suffered. While this is not exactly the type of fear that
Pat mentioned it certainly would be high up their for dread and
loathing IMO. ;)
Vincenzo Beretta
> thing is what he craves the most : fame and recognition by his fellow
> wargamers, and all his millions don't seem to be able to buy this for
> him.
He had both of them when he published games with Talonsoft and kept his
mouth shut - but if you have a pathological crave for somethig - anything -
then nothing will saziate it, and it is entirely possible that you aren't
even aware that the object of your desire is already here.
> At some level, I really feel sorry for him. And I'm always prepared [
> for a modest consultancy fee of course :) ] to set him straight.
Take the consultancy fee but don't bother. No, better: act as a consultant
to Norm Koger about how to skip town and *we* will pay the fee.
JP
"Vincenzo Beretta" <rec...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JfP1h.11385$Pk4....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...
Oh, his mouth/antics were exactly the same back in the TS days. It's
nothing new. I recall a few "Rose Moments" on the TS forum.
eddys...@hotmail.com
I guess you haven't seen my rates :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
eddys...@hotmail.com
> That was a long way to answer your question, but I think the bottom
> line is that, at the wargaming level, a player has to have a deep
> emotional attachment to the outcome to feel the dread of real warfare
> at that level.
That's the core issue indeed - that digital company you're sending into
the path of the uncoming juggernaut just to buy time for the rest of
your forces to setup properly is dead meat and in a wargame we *always*
coldly make that correct decision. But things change if you personally
know the company commander and some of the others in that outfit and
you are the one to give them that suicide order.
I've got zero problems with that in a game, but I don't think I could
do it IRL - that's why there's a huge difference between us armchair
generals and the Real Thing (tm)
> Perhaps if your mouse were rigged to deliver severe electric shocks
> every time you lost a tank :)
Now, *that's* an answer in the spirit of this ng :) - technically it
can be done - feedback controlling systems have been around for some
time though I think the demand for electrocuting mice is fairly low :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
eddys...@hotmail.com
That's a cruel (but useful) punishment - I tried to convince my wife it
was covered and forbidden by the Geneva Convention but she didn't buy
it - you can't fool lawyers that easily - if I spend too much time at
work / on the computer at home that's *exactly* what I'm getting as
punishment. And it sure triggers the feeling of dread and loathing.
Current house favourite : re-runs of Charmed.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
eddys...@hotmail.com
> On 31 Oct 2006 08:17:28 -0800, "eddys...@hotmail.com"
> <eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Beats me how to introduce scary elements in a wargame - sound effects
> >?- or even if it is a good idea - but on Halloween night it seemed like
> >a good topic :)
>
> Well despite some people - including you Eddy - doing their best
> to keep Red Orchestra out of this Usenet group, where it should
> naturally belong, I'll qualify it as scariest war historic game
> available.
Hold your horses (of the Apocalyps) here - post as much as you like
about Red Orchestra as I'm always posting OT rubbish as well. Ooops :)
Seriously : I like FPS and RO is probably the most realistic one from a
military pov so go ahead and convince the stubborn hexed counter
pushers in here that it's a game they should try.
> Defcon is qute scary too, although in different way, and it's
> not "historic" :o)
They made an error with the demo : it contains too much of the game -
after playing the demo, you feel like you've gotten all the
entertainment you're ever going to get from that game already so
there's no incentive to buy it. Well, that's how it looked to me.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> > Perhaps if your mouse were rigged to deliver severe electric shocks
> > every time you lost a tank :)
>
> Now, *that's* an answer in the spirit of this ng :) - technically it
> can be done - feedback controlling systems have been around for some
> time though I think the demand for electrocuting mice is fairly low :)
Even better, in subscription-based online games, would be the economic
feedback I proposed long ago; "death" in the game means loss of one's
investment in the character until the next cycle begins.
--
Giftzwerg
***
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and
you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you
can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
- Senator John Kerry
"Way to support those lazy retard slacker troops, Lurch!!"
- Giftzwerg
Vincenzo Beretta
NP; Giftzy is rich ^___^
Paul Ney
<pproc...@yahoo.com>
wrote on 31 Oct 2006 12:48:30 -0800 the news message
news:1162327710....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
> >From this perspective, I can offer the following.
>
> Most wargames are at the organizational level of leadership,
> To feel this sense of dread, you
> have to feel that they ARE REAL PEOPLE. I am afraid that, in a
> wargame, it is difficult to communicate or replicate this.
> That was a long way to answer your question, but I think the bottom
> line is that, at the wargaming level, a player has to have a deep
> emotional attachment to the outcome to feel the dread of real
> warfare at that level.
Just quoting a few remarkable lines to illustrate agreement. In other
words, the mediation of various emotions is not the primary task of a
wargame. Persons without military experience are, probably, less
likely to get the feeling, but it is still worth to learn & play a
wargame. I would also guess that most wargamers know the smell of
gunpowder...
> Perhaps if your mouse were rigged to deliver severe electric shocks
> every time you lost a tank :)
Or getting a few drops of atropin...
Greetings, PY
Paul Ney
<eddys...@hotmail.com>
wrote on 31 Oct 2006 08:17:28 -0800 the news message
news:1162311448.2...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> War is about the scariest experience there is - death and
> destruction all around.
What about exploding nuclear reactors or chemical plants etc.?! I
certainly agree that fear and other emotions are important and must be
considered accordingly, it is also good, from time to time, to have
the subject matter in wargame talkgroups.
> And here we are, always going on about the "realism" in wargames yet
> when we play a wargame we're never actually scared.
Some combat games -- at team level or "egoshooters" -- put a cry
signalling a wounded enemy and this is also a useful gaming
information. If a gamer gets a hit, then the cry is "posted" to the
ear of the other gamers... Stronghold, a "building game & wargame",
has a lot of terrible cry voice files that might freeze the gamer's
blood when soldiers or villagers are set on fire. But, in my eyes, it
should not be the task of such games to trigger such emotions; what if
the un-experienced gamer does not know how to get around with it?
> Wargaming is not scary.
I agree. Also, you certainly meant computer or tabletop war
simulation. In some real military training, also a kind of wargaming
in the general sense of the word, people might really get the feeling
or something very similar. I never heard of target shooting training,
where cries come from some tape recorders illustrating a possible
outcome of a hit (some hits are not followed by a cry).
I just wished to communicate a few thoughts.
Greetings, PY
Vincenzo Beretta
> the path of the uncoming juggernaut just to buy time for the rest of
> your forces to setup properly is dead meat and in a wargame we *always*
> coldly make that correct decision. But things change if you personally
> know the company commander and some of the others in that outfit and
> you are the one to give them that suicide order.
I wrote a story, once, where a commander burned out under battle stress
because "she wasn't able to think to her soldiers as arrows on a map".
Rather coldly, in the next scene I showed the theatre commander looking at a
map with wooden blocks and arrows. It winded it up on the moment, but it
looked just right to me.
Anyway, a gaming idea could be using the stunt pulled by Dominions 3: each
turn the game is saved and overwritten, and when you click "end turn" and
the resolution phase implements your decisions, what is done is done. You
can squirm and twist on the chair how much you wish when your uberwizard
leader eats it thanks to a lucky arrow, and your whole army routs, but no
"reload" will save you. This way, you are really inclined to be more prudent
before saying "Uhm, this province does seem lightly defended... let's move
some dudes over there, shall we?"
Oleg Mastruko
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>They made an error with the demo : it contains too much of the game -
>after playing the demo, you feel like you've gotten all the
>entertainment you're ever going to get from that game already so
>there's no incentive to buy it. Well, that's how it looked to me.
I believe demo allows for two player only multiplayer games,
while full version allows for up to six players. Needless to say 6
player battles are BLAST.
In general though I agree they were too generous with the demo.
Vincenzo Beretta
>> not "historic" :o)
Well, as you may know, I debate the fact that Defcon is not "historic" :o)
However, I agree that it is scary. Maybe the scariest strategy game ever
done.
I played a little Defcon today, and I felt that a montage from a game could
be a very cool titles sequence for a movie set in a post-apocalyptic world
(like "Fallout: the Movie")
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> >> Defcon is qute scary too, although in different way, and it's
> >> not "historic" :o)
>
> Well, as you may know, I debate the fact that Defcon is not "historic" :o)
Because of your careful scholarship of the 2002 South American Union /
European Assembly nuclear exchange?
--
Giftzwerg
***
http://www.620wtmj.com/images/uploaded/Help%20Photo20061101105508.JPG
Epi Watkins
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
I don't care how bad the sitcoms might be, it's better than Dancing with
the Stars, or American Idol, and like that. Not as cheap I guess.
"Cheap" is the correct word here; not "inexpensive." That too.
--
Epi
----
Album of an Undetermined Period of Time:
Nebraska by Bryce Springsteen (I guess I jest).
It's the stories.
----
Beautiful Balloons:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=256632177&size=o
----
I understand some people to say that there's a
difference between Coast-to-Coast and The History
Channel.
----
http://www.curlesneck.com
Vincenzo Beretta
> European Assembly nuclear exchange?
No, because of my careful scholarship about "impressionism" as a way to
convey an image of the real world.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
And which "real world" is that? You know, the one where six imaginary
nuclear powers wiped out the globe?
"Impressionism" might work as a sophistic saving-throw, but carried
through to its ultimate logical conclusion, it suggests that there's no
such thing as a "historical" game ... or all of them are
"historical" ... or the term is meaningless.
What *isn't* a "historical wargame* if we allow that a game which
depicts unreal, imaginary, generic powers fighting a global war that
never occurred into the fraternity?
eddys...@hotmail.com
> What *isn't* a "historical wargame* if we allow that a game which
> depicts unreal, imaginary, generic powers fighting a global war that
> never occurred into the fraternity?
<Devil's advocate>
A what-if historical wargame ? Just like all those NATO vs. WARSAW pact
wargames :)
</Devil's advocate>
> http://www.620wtmj.com/images/uploaded/Help%20Photo20061101105508.JPG
I know it's the troop's response to the Kerry thing, but I keep getting
404 errors trying to access it - server overload ?
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> > What *isn't* a "historical wargame* if we allow that a game which
> > depicts unreal, imaginary, generic powers fighting a global war that
> > never occurred into the fraternity?
>
> <Devil's advocate>
> A what-if historical wargame ? Just like all those NATO vs. WARSAW pact
> wargames :)
> </Devil's advocate>
Well, all wargames (after the first turn is over, at least) depict
ahistorical events - that's the whole point of playing a wargame, after
all.
But it's one thing to game out a scenario which never occurred using
forces and sides that actually existed and *could have* fought that
action, and quite another to make up generic sides from whole cloth and
fight a fantasy scenario that could not have occurred.
Of course, there's no bright line here, but I wouldn't be nearly so hard
on something like DEFCON if it depicted the actual sides and actual
realities and actual weapons that formed the whole basis of the Cold
War.
What they've done is analogous to building a game called CARRIERS AT
WAR, but depicting a war between Vincenzonia and Giftzwergistan, two
naval powers facing each other across the Mar Ersatzica and possessing
equal potential for building carriers and airplanes and bases and other
stuff.
Oh, no, wait. That doesn't sound like much fun. Let's call our two
generic, indistinguishable powers "Japan" and "America." There!
Historicity and truthiness!
> > http://www.620wtmj.com/images/uploaded/Help%20Photo20061101105508.JPG
>
> I know it's the troop's response to the Kerry thing, but I keep getting
> 404 errors trying to access it - server overload ?
Heh. I'll bet.
--
Giftzwerg
***
http://tinyurl.com/yzlljw
eddys...@hotmail.com
> Of course, there's no bright line here, but I wouldn't be nearly so hard
> on something like DEFCON if it depicted the actual sides and actual
> realities and actual weapons that formed the whole basis of the Cold
> War.
The game you're looking for is Twilight Struggle - a boardgame, looks
pretty good.
> What they've done is analogous to building a game called CARRIERS AT
> WAR, but depicting a war between Vincenzonia and Giftzwergistan, two
> naval powers facing each other across the Mar Ersatzica and possessing
> equal potential for building carriers and airplanes and bases and other
> stuff.
>
> Oh, no, wait. That doesn't sound like much fun. Let's call our two
> generic, indistinguishable powers "Japan" and "America." There!
> Historicity and truthiness!
<Still in Devil's advocate mode here>
What about the old AH classic boardgame Blitzkrieg ? Fictional "equal"
terrain for both sides, WWII style 99% equal forces for both sides.
Wargame or not ?
<penny drops>
</Still in Devil's advocate mode here>
Uh, I got it, Blitzkrieg as a game was a soulless abomination - and no
fun at all - while I did have some fun with Defcon demo which says a
lot for what is basically a rock-paper-scissors type of game. The aim
of Defcon was not to create a historically correct wargame, but to
provide a tense and fun experience for those playing it.
I wouldn't classify it as a historical wargame either, but it certainly
is a game a lot of people in here could enjoy playing. We all have our
"not-exactly-a-wargame-in-the-strictest-sense" pet game we like to push
a bit it seems. Mr Mastruko and Red Orchestra, Mr. Beretta and Defcon
and me and my overtime calculator <sigh>.
That one worked - I doubt Kerry will even "get" it without help :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Frank E
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
><Still in Devil's advocate mode here>
>
>What about the old AH classic boardgame Blitzkrieg ? Fictional "equal"
>terrain for both sides, WWII style 99% equal forces for both sides.
>Wargame or not ?
Definitely a wargame, just not a historical wargame.
>We all have our
>"not-exactly-a-wargame-in-the-strictest-sense" pet game we like to push
>a bit it seems. Mr Mastruko and Red Orchestra, Mr. Beretta and Defcon
>and me and my overtime calculator <sigh>.
Mine would be EU2.
Overall, I'm on the side that prefers wide lattitude as to what games
can/should be discussed here. I'd much rather have discussions about
games that some will consider off-topic than the old endless flame
wars about what should and shouldn't be discussed here.
Rgds, Frank
Vincenzo Beretta
> WAR, but depicting a war between Vincenzonia and Giftzwergistan, two
> naval powers facing each other across the Mar Ersatzica and possessing
> equal potential for building carriers and airplanes and bases and other
> stuff.
Uhm, then games like ye olde AH "Tactics" wouldn't qualify as "wargames".
Not to talk about AH's "Stalingrad", with its immaginary OOB.
What people obsessed with "realism" usually fail to grasp is that "realism"
means that "things" in your game work more or less the way they do in real
life. I emphasize the word "things": the underlying structure of a game and
its relationship with RL *from the point RL is seen* is as important as the
stats of the entities portrayed.
DEFCON portrays (as I'm tired to explain) a possibile nuclear war seen from
the war room by a President. A President is not really bothered by the model
of the airplanes that just crossed his airspace, exactly as the theatre
commander in TOAW is not bothered by the fact that a tank in one batallion
has a broken track but a good gunner. A TOAW commander wants to know how
many runners there are in a unit and what firepower they have, and a
President wants to know that enemy bombers just crossed the home airspace
from the west, and "where the carriers are", end of the story.
DEFCON is a good "impressionist" picture of a nuclear exchange because it
emphazises the most vivid overall dynamics of a nuclear war rather than
details, recreating notheless these dynamics for the layman in what I feel
is a fairly realistic view. Every time someone connips over the nukes in
South America, you could very well connip upon divisions composed of only
Tiger tanks in Panzer General.
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> Uh, I got it, Blitzkrieg as a game was a soulless abomination - and no
> fun at all - while I did have some fun with Defcon demo which says a
> lot for what is basically a rock-paper-scissors type of game. The aim
> of Defcon was not to create a historically correct wargame, but to
> provide a tense and fun experience for those playing it.
And that's fine. I'm all in favor of tense and fun games. Heck, I
thought AGE OF EMPIRES was pretty much tense and fun, too. But in a
historical wargaming context, it's still a valid criticism of a game to
baldly state, "It's not a historical wargame. It's something else. And
I like historical wargames better."
> >http://tinyurl.com/yzlljw
>
> That one worked - I doubt Kerry will even "get" it without help :)
The old Washington joke goes, "A gaffe is when a politician accidentally
blurts out what he actually believes." Kerry's taken this one on the
chin for exactly that reason - everyone quite rightly suspects that this
is *exactly* what he believes; that American soldiers are stupid,
murderous scum. How many times has he said this?
If he had any presidential aspirations left, they just went bye-bye.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> > What they've done is analogous to building a game called CARRIERS AT
> > WAR, but depicting a war between Vincenzonia and Giftzwergistan, two
> > naval powers facing each other across the Mar Ersatzica and possessing
> > equal potential for building carriers and airplanes and bases and other
> > stuff.
>
> Uhm, then games like ye olde AH "Tactics" wouldn't qualify as "wargames".
Not as a *historical* wargame, surely.
> Not to talk about AH's "Stalingrad", with its immaginary OOB.
...which folks quite rightly criticize it for.
> What people obsessed with "realism" usually fail to grasp is that "realism"
> means that "things" in your game work more or less the way they do in real
> life. I emphasize the word "things": the underlying structure of a game and
> its relationship with RL *from the point RL is seen* is as important as the
> stats of the entities portrayed.
First off, it doesn't amount to some pathological "obsession" with
"realism" to criticize a wargame which couches itself in real-world
terms for being a laughable fantasy. There's no reason to create a
separate newsgroup for war-*historical* games if you've decided that
such distinctions are irrelevant.
Secondly, it's not merely a matter of a few virtually meaningless
"stats" which are made-up from whole cloth in DEFCON, the entire game is
so hilariously divorced from reality that you might as well spawn a
random globe and label the sides, "Red, Green, Black, Blue, and Yellow."
> DEFCON portrays (as I'm tired to explain) a possibile nuclear war seen from
> the war room by a President.
DEFCON portrays (as I've tried to explain) a fantasy world where there
are a half-dozen roughly equal nuclear powers blazing away at each other
with generic weapons in a fashion that owes more to online play-balance
than to the reality it ostensibly reflects.
> A President is not really bothered by the model
> of the airplanes that just crossed his airspace,
...nor a historical gamer by the sudden expansion of the bipolar Cold
War reality into the hexageneous DEFCON fantasy?
> exactly as the theatre
> commander in TOAW is not bothered by the fact that a tank in one batallion
> has a broken track but a good gunner. A TOAW commander wants to know how
> many runners there are in a unit and what firepower they have, and a
> President wants to know that enemy bombers just crossed the home airspace
> from the west, and "where the carriers are", end of the story.
Do you mean the Greater African Hegemony's fleets of carriers? Or the
East-Asian Prosperity Zone's wings of bombers?
> DEFCON is a good "impressionist" picture of a nuclear exchange because it
> emphazises the most vivid overall dynamics of a nuclear war rather than
> details, recreating notheless these dynamics for the layman in what I feel
> is a fairly realistic view. Every time someone connips over the nukes in
> South America, you could very well connip upon divisions composed of only
> Tiger tanks in Panzer General.
"COMMAND & CONQUER is a good 'impressionist' picture of future combat
because it emphasizes the most vivid overall dynamics of imaginary war
rather than sticky realistic details, recreating nonetheless these
dynamics for the layman in what I feel is a fairly realistic view.
Every time someone connips over the tank rushes or Tesla coils you could
very well connip upon how fleets of jeeps can destroy Tiger tanks in
TOAW I."
Oh. Wait. We *did* complain about this!
Giftzwerg
fakea...@hotmail.com says...
> Overall, I'm on the side that prefers wide lattitude as to what games
> can/should be discussed here. I'd much rather have discussions about
> games that some will consider off-topic than the old endless flame
> wars about what should and shouldn't be discussed here.
Oh, I'm not saying they shouldn't be discussed here, only that a
perfectly valid criticism of a game discussed in this group is that it
isn't a historical wargame.
If you bring a photo of your oil painting to a local photographers'
group, don't be amazed when they suggest you've managed to miss the
whole point.
Vincenzo Beretta
>
> Not as a *historical* wargame, surely.
OK, then let's remove TacOps too from the IT list of this NG, shall we? =)
> Secondly, it's not merely a matter of a few virtually meaningless
> "stats" which are made-up from whole cloth in DEFCON, the entire game is
> so hilariously divorced from reality that you might as well spawn a
> random globe and label the sides, "Red, Green, Black, Blue, and Yellow."
No, because you would then lose one of DEFCON's strenght: i.e. showing, even
if in simple terms, why certain areas of our world gain and lose
geopolitical importance according to the balance of alliances, relative
power of countries etc. No reason to struggle for the control of the Barents
Sea if the main enemy is China.
>> DEFCON portrays (as I'm tired to explain) a possibile nuclear war seen
>> from
>> the war room by a President.
>
> DEFCON portrays (as I've tried to explain) a fantasy world where there
> are a half-dozen roughly equal nuclear powers blazing away at each other
> with generic weapons in a fashion that owes more to online play-balance
> than to the reality it ostensibly reflects.
So what? No, really. You have made your point that in WWII battlefields
weren't divided in hexes and divisions hadn't steps. Again: so what? Does
this means that all the game that try to *PORTRAY* (not to *PHOTOGRAPH* - a
difference you do seem unable to grasp) WWII are a failure? Of course not.
>> DEFCON is a good "impressionist" picture of a nuclear exchange because it
>> emphazises the most vivid overall dynamics of a nuclear war rather than
>> details, recreating notheless these dynamics for the layman in what I
>> feel
>> is a fairly realistic view. Every time someone connips over the nukes in
>> South America, you could very well connip upon divisions composed of only
>> Tiger tanks in Panzer General.
>
> "COMMAND & CONQUER is a good 'impressionist' picture of future combat
> because it emphasizes the most vivid overall dynamics of imaginary war
> rather than sticky realistic details, recreating nonetheless these
> dynamics for the layman in what I feel is a fairly realistic view.
Thanks for the contribution, but I do not have the notion that C&C raised
debates about the realities of the Cold War and/or of a possibile real
world, future with other nuclear superpowers in the game (China, India...) -
something that instead DEFCON does.
> Every time someone connips over the tank rushes or Tesla coils you could
> very well connip upon how fleets of jeeps can destroy Tiger tanks in
> TOAW I."
> Oh. Wait. We *did* complain about this!
I was not among *those* burned outs, and my opinion of their conniptions was
quite dim (*). This because TOAW's purpose was entirely another one - while
still being, for its time, quite realistic and historical. It is the same
reason why I do not connip upon a nuclear armed South America in DEFCON,
considering it all the same one of the best historical games ever done about
nukes.
Giftzwerg
rec...@hotmail.com says...
> >> Uhm, then games like ye olde AH "Tactics" wouldn't qualify as "wargames".
> >
> > Not as a *historical* wargame, surely.
>
> OK, then let's remove TacOps too from the IT list of this NG, shall we? =)
You can argue this, if you'd like. I'll counter-argue that TACOPS is so
well-grounded in the real-world that we can excuse the fact that some of
its scenarios never, in fact, occurred.
And again, there isn't a wargame out there where the "history" survives
the first set of player decisions, so I tend to judge the historical
nature of a game by how well it *tries* to achieve a strong grounding in
realism, and how well it actually succeeds.
> > Secondly, it's not merely a matter of a few virtually meaningless
> > "stats" which are made-up from whole cloth in DEFCON, the entire game is
> > so hilariously divorced from reality that you might as well spawn a
> > random globe and label the sides, "Red, Green, Black, Blue, and Yellow."
>
> No, because you would then lose one of DEFCON's strenght: i.e. showing, even
> if in simple terms, why certain areas of our world gain and lose
> geopolitical importance according to the balance of alliances, relative
> power of countries etc. No reason to struggle for the control of the Barents
> Sea if the main enemy is China.
So what? Any random globe is going to feature quirks of geography that
become more or less important based on who's nuking whom - but the
problem is that DEFCON doesn't remotely approximate *real* geopolitical
balances in order to represent a half-dozen roughly play-balanced
entities.
"No reason to struggle for the control of the Madagascar Straits unless
Africa is your main nuclear-armed enemy."
> > DEFCON portrays (as I've tried to explain) a fantasy world where there
> > are a half-dozen roughly equal nuclear powers blazing away at each other
> > with generic weapons in a fashion that owes more to online play-balance
> > than to the reality it ostensibly reflects.
>
> So what?
So someone interested in a *historical* wargame would like a little more
grounding in historical reality than that represented by some bizzarro
world where there are six equivalent nuclear powers instead of two.
> No, really. You have made your point that in WWII battlefields
> weren't divided in hexes and divisions hadn't steps.
This is nothing more than a red herring. Sure, all games employ
mechanical conceits to conveniently distill a fabulously complex real-
world situation into something that can be gamed out on a paper map -
but that doesn't mean there isn't a titanic and trivially-discernable
difference between a kiddy game like MONOPOLY and an insanely
complicated business decision support program that moves heaven and
earth to accurately model the real world of financial and business
transactions.
> Again: so what?
So "more reality == good," and "more fantasy == bad" when your context
is *historical* wargaming.
That doesn't mean we need *perfect* reality or all is lost, it means a
historical game aims at minimizing laughable fantasy everywhere
practical - and we end up judging it largely by how well it manages to
achieve this.
> Does
> this means that all the game that try to *PORTRAY* (not to *PHOTOGRAPH* - a
> difference you do seem unable to grasp) WWII are a failure? Of course not.
Sure, but this doesn't mean we can feel free to start modeling WW2 as a
six-way struggle between the Allies, the Axis, the South African Unity,
the Caribbean Alliance, the Eskimo Pact, and the Antarctic-Alien-
Underground Entente ... without losing, uhm, that peculiar historical
flavor that *makes* a WW2 game a WW2 game.
> > "COMMAND & CONQUER is a good 'impressionist' picture of future combat
> > because it emphasizes the most vivid overall dynamics of imaginary war
> > rather than sticky realistic details, recreating nonetheless these
> > dynamics for the layman in what I feel is a fairly realistic view.
>
> Thanks for the contribution, but I do not have the notion that C&C raised
> debates about the realities of the Cold War and/or of a possibile real
> world, future with other nuclear superpowers in the game (China, India...) -
> something that instead DEFCON does.
The point is that one man's gritty, "impressionist" version of gritty,
grim reality is another man's dopey fantasy that signifies precisely
nothing since it's so laughably divorced from reality.
I fall into the latter club vis-a-vis DEFCON. Sorry.
Vincenzo Beretta
Now that's was funny =)
Graham Thurlwell
<snip>
> Anyway, a gaming idea could be using the stunt pulled by Dominions 3: each
> turn the game is saved and overwritten
That's an interesting idea, but is it optional? I have bad memories of
losing a number of Championship Manager saves through something going
wrong while the games were being saved - sometimes eight /months/
(realtime) worth of progress disappeared forever.
--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.
nos...@jades.org /is/ a real email address!
Mike Kreuzer
[snip]
>> They made an error with the demo : it contains too much of the game
>> - after playing the demo, you feel like you've gotten all the
>> entertainment you're ever going to get from that game already so
>> there's no incentive to buy it. Well, that's how it looked to me.
>>
>> Greetz,
>>
>> Eddy Sterckx
>>
>
Agree completely.
> Giftzwerg wrote:
>
>> Of course, there's no bright line here, but I wouldn't be nearly so
>> hard on something like DEFCON if it depicted the actual sides and
>> actual realities and actual weapons that formed the whole basis of
>> the Cold War.
>
> The game you're looking for is Twilight Struggle - a boardgame, looks
> pretty good.
>
[snip]
Now that looks interesting, I might buy a board game this year after all ...
I wonder what the equivalent to the card mechanism (if anyone here's
familiar with the boardgames We the People, Paths of Glory, etc) would
be in a computer game? It's a great mechanic for representing
constrained decision making, abstract production, fate, all sorts of
things in the one card play. When it works well it's really the
pinnacle of the art of abstraction in game design, IMHO. LOL, now I'll
get flamed about PCT again ... <g>
Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com
Vincenzo Beretta
No, it is clearly stated that it is part of the "philosophy" of the game.
I'm divided about the idea: you can fiddle with your empire/units as long as
you wish, in the planning phase, and even save what you have done so far in
the planning phase; but as soon as you click the "end turn" button the old
save is overwritten and you are committed. This adds an edge to the game
that I like very much, but if you click on the "end turn" by mistake (as it
happens) there is no turning back. And I can see how some players may very
well dislike the whole idea.
von Schmidt
I like the concept of not easily getting back to previous turns. And
one can still save earlier turns by copying the folder/files directly
instead of thru the game.
I do *not* like that the 'e' button *immediately* ends the turn. Since
it is nicely surrounded by other shortcut keys.
Aaarrrrgggghhhh!
-von Schmidt