The neutrals effectively helped with 0/2 win conditions by doing nothing.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
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Hi I'm Vee!Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
I'm really starting to lose interest in these megagames. There are just too many people, it's hard to establish good relationships with people. I like that I can basically choose who I want to hang out with, but on the other hand, that's kind of what makes Phallas so much fun, the paranoia that "oh, this guy I sort of trust might be playing me".
Not to mention, playing a support class was VERY boring, for me at least. I didn't get to kill anybody.
I dunno, I'm kind of looking forward to a more "traditional" phalla. Although I doubt that'll happen with precisionk's game...
^
That, by the way, is the inhabitants of Vault 7 laughing their asses off at you.
Edit: laughing at the players I mean. I thought this was a really good game, Ardor, Drez, especially considering no one has taken on a project of such scale on these boards before now. While I guess it wasn't technically a Phalla, it was still fun as hell, and because of that I judge it a success.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
heres how it went down:
1: Many people defending the vault in order to not win
2: I say that either we all attack or everyone dies
3: Everyone defends the vault
4: Everyone dies
Bitter much?
Not so much bitter as ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Haha! Next time maybe you won't sit on your thumbs spinning waiting for other people to win the game for you!
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
heres how it went down:
1: Many people defending the vault in order to not win
2: I say that either we all attack or everyone dies
3: Everyone defends the vault
4: Everyone dies
Bitter much?
Not so much bitter as ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Haha! Next time maybe you won't sit on your thumbs spinning waiting for other people to win the game for you!
Umm...I didn't sit on my thumbs the last two nights. I actively killed people to lower our head count so we can get in.
It was a BAD DECISION to attack the vault on the first night. If you look at how the math all adds up, attacking the vault then was suicide because Prisoner's Dilemma would cause everyone to hold back or defend, especially given a two round window of opportunity to wait and see how it pans out.
Really, other than logistical things, the best way I think to improve this one would be to force the showdown at then end. I didn't honestly expect it to be so defender sided, or I would have gone attacker to balance it out. I guess my heart is just full of neutrality.
heres how it went down:
1: Many people defending the vault in order to not win
2: I say that either we all attack or everyone dies
3: Everyone defends the vault
4: Everyone dies
Bitter much?
Not so much bitter as ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Haha! Next time maybe you won't sit on your thumbs spinning waiting for other people to win the game for you!
Umm...I didn't sit on my thumbs the last two nights. I actively killed people to lower our head count so we can get in.
It was a BAD DECISION to attack the vault on the first night. If you look at how the math all adds up, attacking the vault then was suicide because Prisoner's Dilemma would cause everyone to hold back or defend, especially given a two round window of opportunity to wait and see how it pans out.
So all the people who assaulted the vault died.
Yeah, um, how did that plan work out for you all...?
I see...
And if we had attacked the vault en masse...?
What's that? We would have won? Wow...
Color me crazy, but it seems to me that attacking the vault on the first night would have been the easiest way to win, and if you had problems with that win condition, you had to take direct action to secure the other win condition. You personally did that; most others did not. Neutrality is what killed you all this game, just as I and others pointed out it would two nights ago. I think we have earned the right to rub it in a little.
You guys could have won EASILY on the final night if all of you had actually attacked someone. Since when have people had a hard time turning on each other in a Phalla?
I hold no grudge towards the people who chose to defend the vault. I just find it astounding (and vastly amusing) that, given two very easily achieved win conditions, most of you would do the one and only thing that would cause you all to lose: NOTHING.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
heres how it went down:
1: Many people defending the vault in order to not win
2: I say that either we all attack or everyone dies
3: Everyone defends the vault
4: Everyone dies
Bitter much?
Not so much bitter as ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Haha! Next time maybe you won't sit on your thumbs spinning waiting for other people to win the game for you!
Umm...I didn't sit on my thumbs the last two nights. I actively killed people to lower our head count so we can get in.
It was a BAD DECISION to attack the vault on the first night. If you look at how the math all adds up, attacking the vault then was suicide because Prisoner's Dilemma would cause everyone to hold back or defend, especially given a two round window of opportunity to wait and see how it pans out.
So all the people who assaulted the vault died.
Yeah, um, how did that plan work out for you all...?
I see...
And if we had attacked the vault en masse...?
What's that? We would have won? Wow...
Color me crazy, but it seems to me that attacking the vault on the first night would have been the easiest way to win, and if you had problems with that win condition, you had to take direct action to secure the other win condition. You personally did that; most others did not. Neutrality is what killed you all this game, just as I and others pointed out it would two nights ago. I think we have earned the right to rub it in a little.
You guys could have won EASILY on the final night if all of you had actually attacked someone. Since when have people had a hard time turning on each other in a Phalla?
I hold no grudge towards the people who chose to defend the vault. I just find it astounding (and vastly amusing) that, given two very easily achieved win conditions, most of you would do the one and only thing that would cause you all to lose: NOTHING.
I do not believe you understand the Prisoner's Dilemma at all.
Don't separate your ideas with hindsight from reality. The attackers died for a reason on the first night, and we would have won handily in the second night had the whole neutral vote thing been clarified.
You made a very idealistic choice, and I don't fault you for that. But the same applies to the other side of those staying neutral. You can't play it both ways while trying to be smug on your high horse. The conclusion was clear: The attackers died. It was the wrong choice for them if they wanted to live.
B:L on
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GumpyThere is alwaysa greater powerRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
It was a good game
Thank you Robots who followed me until we hit the vault, and good stuff with the whole not butchering children thing.
It was a good game Ardor/Drez, very ambitious. Good game all round.
As for the different places, depending on where the vote went, we came up with most of it as we went, other than having ideas around.
The clarifications not being put in a central spot or even each narration made this a lot messier than it should have been. I apologize, I spent 6+ hours a day on this, I just could not find the time. I will make sure I do not help run a game in the future that I and the other(s) cannot handle.
EDIT: MrBlarney, thanks for your comments. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on the game, regardless of good or bad. We'd like general comments but we would like some feedback on some of the mechanics we tried.
1) Trying to prevent day 1 and day 2 deaths since people never like those (the ones dying).
2) Trying a win condition that everyone alive can achieve together.
3) Money and a purchase system
4) NPC oriented combat
5) Survival win conditions until we get you a real one
Etc.
Thanks again for your time.
You did a really good job with this. I appreciate you guys putting in so much time on the game. Props for running it with such a big group.
I liked all 5 of the things you mentioned above. You did a good job with all of these mechanics.
My few criticisms:
3) Overall this was good. I'd place a maximum limit on items a person can carry next time around so people cant carry 35 stimpacks (perhaps switchblades can be exempt ). Also, I wouldn't simply add up % numbers for things like damage mitigation. 50% + 50% = 75% not 100%. I'm not sure which you did but it sounded like people thought they just added up.
4) I liked NPC oriented combat. However, the NPC oriented combat seemed skewed to actually help inactive players. If run again in the future, perhaps add in some kind of "defend" action a person can choose that reduces your chances of getting attacked. Consider inactives as not attacking but also not defending (perhaps they have a chance of getting hit by any of the attacking NPC groups) so they have a chance of taking some of the hits.
Minor thing, you should have added who was a human, ghoul, mutant, robot next to the names in the beginning list. Just because it's info that should have been obvious at a glance.
Overall I thought you ran it great and it was a fun game. Well done.
Fun game, and I heartily echo the thanks and praises for Ardor and Drez in running it for us.
Also, we all could have won quite easily on the first night. Its the neutrals fault that everybody lost, in the end.
But its everyone who didn't attack on the first night's fault that everybody didn't win.
Less than 25% of the caravan attacked, and we still took out over a third of the people that needed to die in order to win. If there hadn't been more than half of the caravan defending the Vault, that would have been significantly less firepower thrown our way.
Hell, we could've won in the very first round of the first night.
So, I am pleased to see that in the end, everyone lost because of roleplaying.
Thank you Robots who followed me until we hit the vault, and good stuff with the whole not butchering children thing.
There were ways to attack the vault without targeting any kids. I think all the kids were in one group. One group was robots. One group included the elders who decided to put those kids in the line of fire instead of getting them out of the way.
I don't fault anyone for their choice but I find it amusing that there were so many people going "OH NOES TEH CHILDRENZ" but nobody voiced a problem with the fact that the vault leadership and populace put those kids out there in the line of fire with molotov cocktails. The vault had mounted miniguns and death robots with plasma rifles. Molotovs weren't going to decide the battle. The kids were intentionally sent out to face death as incentive to get you to gun down your partners.
Fuck the naysayers, this game was fantastic. There were some issues, chief among mine being loot distribution and weapon balancing, but who cares, TWO people were able to provide such a fun game experience for us all. You guys did a great job and should be commended. A++, would play again.
Ultarune on
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
Regardless of whether people decide to actually call this a phalla, this was still my favorite phalla to date.
Everyone got to choose what they played, how they played, had options to fuck or help the other players, and in the end it all came down to morality of all things. Awesome stuff!
The only thing I could nitpick at is the whole "you're not allowed to walk into the sunset" thing- Telling people they aren't allowed to do this, even when the alternative is EVERYONE walking off into the sunset- seems silly and kinda heavyhanded. But then, I wasn't the one with 104 players to coordinate, so I realize that it isnt really my place to demand stuff get added to Drez and Ardor's workload.
Overall, fantastic work guys. The amount of effort you clearly put into the game is mindboggling. If ever we do this again, we know that there's some tweaking to do- more GMs, less players, or more specialized tools to help the time go faster (I won't commit to programming a phallout helper application, but it could be done).
The only thing I could nitpick at is the whole "you're not allowed to walk into the sunset" thing- Telling people they aren't allowed to do this, even when the alternative is EVERYONE walking off into the sunset- seems silly and kinda heavyhanded. But then, I wasn't the one with 104 players to coordinate, so I realize that it isnt really my place to demand stuff get added to Drez and Ardor's workload.
I would have thought people walking off would have made the job easier. Less people to account for.
1) Trying to prevent day 1 and day 2 deaths since people never like those (the ones dying).
2) Trying a win condition that everyone alive can achieve together.
3) Money and a purchase system
4) NPC oriented combat
5) Survival win conditions until we get you a real one
1. Good idea, although it seemed to lead to the third day being considerd a 'day 1' death anyway.
2. Very good idea, I liked it even if I didn't agree with it.
3. Added another layer of tactical thinking to the game, it was appreciated.
4. Personally I enjoyed it, though I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.
5. The only complaint I'd have about that was that the eventual win condition seemed to pop out of nowhere with little foreshadowing.
Did anybody else start to wonder whether there was a secret group of bad guys in our midst, by the way?
I didn't, not really. Not one planned by Ardor or Drez at least. I was thinking the bad behavior was just people acting the way they usually act in a Phalla. Had I gotten a pm with role information or something of that sort in addition to the choices I made I would have been worried.
But considering the amount of info Ardor and Drez were calculating (merchants, npc battles, tradings) amongst 100+ players- including role allocation on top of that kinda made it seemed improbable.
The only thing I did not enjoy was the assault/defense of the Vault. Not because I had to make a BS ethical decision or because we ended up killing each other and not even winning. I didn't like it because it changed the rules of the game at the very end. Throughout the entirety of the game there were powerful incentives (imposed by both the GMs and the player base) to not kill each other and work together. By giving the choice to either defend the Vault or attack it (and you had to know we would not stay united), suddenly those incentives were no longer there. The game went from Phallout, a game based around NPC combat, to Phalla Royale 2.5, a game based around PvP. Obviously some people, especially RPers, took the change in stride and made the most of it. But I, for one, play the game to play the game, not to RP. Significantly changing things on the very last day does not, in my mind, a fair game make.
The only thing I did not enjoy was the assault/defense of the Vault. Not because I had to make a BS ethical decision or because we ended up killing each other and not even winning. I didn't like it because it changed the rules of the game at the very end. Throughout the entirety of the game there were powerful incentives (imposed by both the GMs and the player base) to not kill each other and work together. By giving the choice to either defend the Vault or attack it (and you had to know we would not stay united), suddenly those incentives were no longer there. The game went from Phallout, a game based around NPC combat, to Phalla Royale 2.5, a game based around PvP. Obviously some people, especially RPers, took the change in stride and made the most of it. But I, for one, play the game to play the game, not to RP. Significantly changing things on the very last day does not, in my mind, a fair game make.
Just to comment on that bit...that is something we had planned before the game even began. Though we did come up with many things on the fly, the "vault assault" concept and the shift in gameplay at the endgame was one of the first design choices Ardor and I agreed on.
When to do it was trickier. At first, we were going to do five days of travel and five days of vault assault, but as the "narrator" I found it hard to come up with plausible NPC encounters for the first five days if it each day was spent in a new town...so we agreed to have one day on and one day off as far as towns were concerned, with the middle day being an encounter and the town days giving the players other activities as well as the ability to attack each other once Day 3 (or was it Day 4?) came around.
We introduced the "you can attack each other thing" then as kind of a prelude to what we intended later on. We never intended the game to be PvE-only throughout. The nature of Phalla is, in fact, PvP. We wanted to see what people would do with the shift in gameplay.
I admit it was something of a parlor trick all in all but we really were trying to provide a fun game, not just experiment...I want that to be clear here. Though I also admit that I was very hungry to see what people would do and how people would respond. And I'm a bit surprised at the outcome. I expected more people to just ignore my pre-endgame moralization and storm the vault. I did that to give players at least a temporary mental stunner and let them choose between PvE and PvP at the end.
So, we had planned this "shift" from the get-go...actually, before the get-go. The moralization was something I came up with much later, but it was just a vehicle for me to try to give players an even choice between the two win conditions.
Nothing, probably. My issue is the timing, not the shift in the game itself. If real PvP had started earlier, or there had been some indication that the game would end this way I wouldn't have cared.
I'll be honest, when I first saw how the game was set up I assumed it would be very similar to Phalla Royale. Then the first day went by and no one died. Then the second day. Then the third day and only a few people died but still no win condition. Then the fourth day and the fifth day and by that point I had come to the reasonable conclusion that PvP was just not going to be a big part of the game. Then the Vault came and a few people decided that they wanted to save the children and that was the end of that.
Nothing, probably. My issue is the timing, not the shift in the game itself. If real PvP had started earlier, or there had been some indication that the game would end this way I wouldn't have cared.
We were all armed to the teeth, and this is Phalla after all. How else could it have ended?
I was quite surprised at how many players claimed they wanted to raid the vault. It was good to see that many of them were lying.
Part of the negatives of the final choice would lie upon us, because we crafted all of you as a whole to be survivors and doing what you can to survive, which is why we denied you the opportunity to leave the vault, seeing how you needed to somehow get in to survive and win the game. That's one of the things we were going for when we gave you the win conditions and stated you could not walk away. If more people had voted to execute the neutrals, we would have had the defenders win, only to avoid killing everyone in the end.
Posts
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Not to mention, playing a support class was VERY boring, for me at least. I didn't get to kill anybody.
I dunno, I'm kind of looking forward to a more "traditional" phalla. Although I doubt that'll happen with precisionk's game...
That, by the way, is the inhabitants of Vault 7 laughing their asses off at you.
Edit: laughing at the players I mean. I thought this was a really good game, Ardor, Drez, especially considering no one has taken on a project of such scale on these boards before now. While I guess it wasn't technically a Phalla, it was still fun as hell, and because of that I judge it a success.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Not so much bitter as ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Haha! Next time maybe you won't sit on your thumbs spinning waiting for other people to win the game for you!
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
If not his, then mine for sure.
Insane Asylum, his last, was awesome. And traditional.
"I'm KOS-MOS!" "No, I'm KOS-MOS!"
It was a BAD DECISION to attack the vault on the first night. If you look at how the math all adds up, attacking the vault then was suicide because Prisoner's Dilemma would cause everyone to hold back or defend, especially given a two round window of opportunity to wait and see how it pans out.
So all the people who assaulted the vault died.
Hmm, I bet the Matriarch did think it through.
Everybody will be KOS-MOS.
I didn't say that.
Yeah, um, how did that plan work out for you all...?
I see...
And if we had attacked the vault en masse...?
What's that? We would have won? Wow...
Color me crazy, but it seems to me that attacking the vault on the first night would have been the easiest way to win, and if you had problems with that win condition, you had to take direct action to secure the other win condition. You personally did that; most others did not. Neutrality is what killed you all this game, just as I and others pointed out it would two nights ago. I think we have earned the right to rub it in a little.
You guys could have won EASILY on the final night if all of you had actually attacked someone. Since when have people had a hard time turning on each other in a Phalla?
I hold no grudge towards the people who chose to defend the vault. I just find it astounding (and vastly amusing) that, given two very easily achieved win conditions, most of you would do the one and only thing that would cause you all to lose: NOTHING.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
I do not believe you understand the Prisoner's Dilemma at all.
Don't separate your ideas with hindsight from reality. The attackers died for a reason on the first night, and we would have won handily in the second night had the whole neutral vote thing been clarified.
You made a very idealistic choice, and I don't fault you for that. But the same applies to the other side of those staying neutral. You can't play it both ways while trying to be smug on your high horse. The conclusion was clear: The attackers died. It was the wrong choice for them if they wanted to live.
Thank you Robots who followed me until we hit the vault, and good stuff with the whole not butchering children thing.
It was a good game Ardor/Drez, very ambitious. Good game all round.
You did a really good job with this. I appreciate you guys putting in so much time on the game. Props for running it with such a big group.
I liked all 5 of the things you mentioned above. You did a good job with all of these mechanics.
My few criticisms:
3) Overall this was good. I'd place a maximum limit on items a person can carry next time around so people cant carry 35 stimpacks (perhaps switchblades can be exempt
4) I liked NPC oriented combat. However, the NPC oriented combat seemed skewed to actually help inactive players. If run again in the future, perhaps add in some kind of "defend" action a person can choose that reduces your chances of getting attacked. Consider inactives as not attacking but also not defending (perhaps they have a chance of getting hit by any of the attacking NPC groups) so they have a chance of taking some of the hits.
Minor thing, you should have added who was a human, ghoul, mutant, robot next to the names in the beginning list. Just because it's info that should have been obvious at a glance.
Overall I thought you ran it great and it was a fun game. Well done.
Also, we all could have won quite easily on the first night. Its the neutrals fault that everybody lost, in the end.
But its everyone who didn't attack on the first night's fault that everybody didn't win.
Less than 25% of the caravan attacked, and we still took out over a third of the people that needed to die in order to win. If there hadn't been more than half of the caravan defending the Vault, that would have been significantly less firepower thrown our way.
Hell, we could've won in the very first round of the first night.
So, I am pleased to see that in the end, everyone lost because of roleplaying.
There were ways to attack the vault without targeting any kids. I think all the kids were in one group. One group was robots. One group included the elders who decided to put those kids in the line of fire instead of getting them out of the way.
I don't fault anyone for their choice but I find it amusing that there were so many people going "OH NOES TEH CHILDRENZ" but nobody voiced a problem with the fact that the vault leadership and populace put those kids out there in the line of fire with molotov cocktails. The vault had mounted miniguns and death robots with plasma rifles. Molotovs weren't going to decide the battle. The kids were intentionally sent out to face death as incentive to get you to gun down your partners.
Everyone got to choose what they played, how they played, had options to fuck or help the other players, and in the end it all came down to morality of all things. Awesome stuff!
The only thing I could nitpick at is the whole "you're not allowed to walk into the sunset" thing- Telling people they aren't allowed to do this, even when the alternative is EVERYONE walking off into the sunset- seems silly and kinda heavyhanded. But then, I wasn't the one with 104 players to coordinate, so I realize that it isnt really my place to demand stuff get added to Drez and Ardor's workload.
Overall, fantastic work guys. The amount of effort you clearly put into the game is mindboggling. If ever we do this again, we know that there's some tweaking to do- more GMs, less players, or more specialized tools to help the time go faster (I won't commit to programming a phallout helper application, but it could be done).
This game was fun, but it really came into its own on the last two nights. The last two nights were fantastic.
I would have thought people walking off would have made the job easier. Less people to account for.
:roll:
Also, the decision of whether to attack or defend the vault wasn't really a Prisoner's Dilemma. It was just a good old-fashioned regular Dilemma.
It was a fun game, thanks Ardor and Drez.
Steam
1. Good idea, although it seemed to lead to the third day being considerd a 'day 1' death anyway.
2. Very good idea, I liked it even if I didn't agree with it.
3. Added another layer of tactical thinking to the game, it was appreciated.
4. Personally I enjoyed it, though I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.
5. The only complaint I'd have about that was that the eventual win condition seemed to pop out of nowhere with little foreshadowing.
I didn't, not really. Not one planned by Ardor or Drez at least. I was thinking the bad behavior was just people acting the way they usually act in a Phalla. Had I gotten a pm with role information or something of that sort in addition to the choices I made I would have been worried.
But considering the amount of info Ardor and Drez were calculating (merchants, npc battles, tradings) amongst 100+ players- including role allocation on top of that kinda made it seemed improbable.
Yes, I definitely did!
The only thing I did not enjoy was the assault/defense of the Vault. Not because I had to make a BS ethical decision or because we ended up killing each other and not even winning. I didn't like it because it changed the rules of the game at the very end. Throughout the entirety of the game there were powerful incentives (imposed by both the GMs and the player base) to not kill each other and work together. By giving the choice to either defend the Vault or attack it (and you had to know we would not stay united), suddenly those incentives were no longer there. The game went from Phallout, a game based around NPC combat, to Phalla Royale 2.5, a game based around PvP. Obviously some people, especially RPers, took the change in stride and made the most of it. But I, for one, play the game to play the game, not to RP. Significantly changing things on the very last day does not, in my mind, a fair game make.
Just to comment on that bit...that is something we had planned before the game even began. Though we did come up with many things on the fly, the "vault assault" concept and the shift in gameplay at the endgame was one of the first design choices Ardor and I agreed on.
When to do it was trickier. At first, we were going to do five days of travel and five days of vault assault, but as the "narrator" I found it hard to come up with plausible NPC encounters for the first five days if it each day was spent in a new town...so we agreed to have one day on and one day off as far as towns were concerned, with the middle day being an encounter and the town days giving the players other activities as well as the ability to attack each other once Day 3 (or was it Day 4?) came around.
We introduced the "you can attack each other thing" then as kind of a prelude to what we intended later on. We never intended the game to be PvE-only throughout. The nature of Phalla is, in fact, PvP. We wanted to see what people would do with the shift in gameplay.
I admit it was something of a parlor trick all in all but we really were trying to provide a fun game, not just experiment...I want that to be clear here. Though I also admit that I was very hungry to see what people would do and how people would respond. And I'm a bit surprised at the outcome. I expected more people to just ignore my pre-endgame moralization and storm the vault. I did that to give players at least a temporary mental stunner and let them choose between PvE and PvP at the end.
So, we had planned this "shift" from the get-go...actually, before the get-go. The moralization was something I came up with much later, but it was just a vehicle for me to try to give players an even choice between the two win conditions.
I'll be honest, when I first saw how the game was set up I assumed it would be very similar to Phalla Royale. Then the first day went by and no one died. Then the second day. Then the third day and only a few people died but still no win condition. Then the fourth day and the fifth day and by that point I had come to the reasonable conclusion that PvP was just not going to be a big part of the game. Then the Vault came and a few people decided that they wanted to save the children and that was the end of that.
We were all armed to the teeth, and this is Phalla after all. How else could it have ended?
I was quite surprised at how many players claimed they wanted to raid the vault. It was good to see that many of them were lying.
I didn't know who to kill and someone had to be killed. I picked you because I didn't think anyone else would try to kill you.