[MUD-Dev] Re: DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer

[Marc Hernandez <marc#ias,jb.com>]

On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> On 05:54 PM 12/18/98 -0800, I personally witnessed Marc Hernandez jumping
> up to say:
	(well I was sitting but...)
> >On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Ola Fosheim [iso-8859-1] Grøstad wrote:
> >> Surprisingly often does the sum of individual effort score higher
> >> than group effort, in my experience...
> >	This is true in certain cases.  
> What's your immediate reaction to being placed on a "quality team" at the
> office?
> When someone says "This must have been built by committee," what does that
> usually mean?

	Thus the "certain cases".  
> Hmmm. 

> >However could one person build a
> >747?  

> Physically or conceptually? An awful lot of HUGE accomplishments were made
> by one smart guy and a boatload of grunts. Consider architecture; how many
> of the world's most fantastic buildings were conceived, designed, planned
> by one man telling four thousand others what to put where?

	In certain instances we have too much knowledge for one person to
do everything.  Most large efforts are the product of many smart people
working very hard.  Thus the party system in various games.  You cant
expect your mage to start opening chests just as your thief wont start
saying incantations.

> If the workers don't have an effect on the final result, they're not
> actually members of a team. They're just grunts. Look at McDonald's. One
> man came up with that. One man built it. Find me one damn fry cook at
> McDonald's who thinks of himself as a member of a huge global team that
> satisfies the hunger of millions! That fry cook is a dork on minimum wage
> hoping he gets another quarter an hour raise next year, and praying that he
> gets to work full-time hours soon so he can qualify for benefits six months
> from now. And the grunts know EXACTLY what they are, no matter how many
> claims the managers and marketers make.

	And that vision would be nothing without people working there.
Admittadly it is not rocket science, but to be putting your best into your
job no matter what it is is very important.  Ironically the people that
do not put in there best do not go up the food chain (so to speak).  I was
a 'grunt' at Taco Bell and a few months later an assistant manager.
Perhaps the fry cooks view of work is a reflection of the american work
ethic (or lack thereof).

<Disneyland snipped>

> >I hope its not just me that is getting ... annoyed at games that place the
> >genocide of entire races into the hands of one person.  

> Design things for people like you, and only people like you will care. 

	This seems to map to identity to me.  So Im the only one that
would like to play team games?  That would be ironic.
	However judging by the popularity of Clans/Tribes/whatever in
various single player games I would suggest this is not so.  Quake
TeamFortress[1] is still going strong.  The metagame of team fortress and
even quake still seems fairly strong.  This is because of community and
teamwork.  

> It's an ego thing, and the ego isn't going anywhere. Most people will never
> do anything worth a good goddamn in their whole senseless, wasted lives.
> While it may be unrealistic to depict one guy saving the world, it's
> exaggerated specifically to make up for the utter pointlessness and
> futility of the rest of the average schmuck's existence. People *want* to
> accomplish something of real value. They just never get a chance, for
> exactly the reasons you describe -- but games should *not* reflect real
> life. Games are SUPPOSED to be fun. Life, on the other hand, generally
> tends to suck. 

	Hmm.  So if I like playing games I am an average schmuck with a
pointless existance?  Or does being able to program makeup for that?

	I agree that games should be fun.  I agree that there is a sense
of accomplishment.  I was merely putting forth that games that perhaps
reflected a little more of life could be fun.  It doesnt mean players will
have to do taxes and go to the bathroom, but that does not mean we have to
make them gods and give them super weapons.  Indeed balance is what makes
games fun.  Chaos, not monotony and not randomness.  

> | Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban#darklock,com 

Marc Hernandez
[1] - Team fortress is a team varient of quake.  The actual game boils
down to capture the flag.  What makes it interesting is that it has
classes.  Classes include medic, RocketSoldier, Sniper etc.