Althorn
Full Member
Thing is, this has actually been done before 
I used to play a play by mail (not even email!) game that some guy up in guilford ran.
It was called "Global Supremacy" it was even quite good, you start with a country, and have to do research, and build stuff, then go out and smack the other c*cough*ountrys about.
It started off cheep, as you only needed one order card, so it was like 50p/�1 a turn, which typically took a week to "process", due to the speed of snail mail.
But, as you took over "uncontrolled" countries this slowly grew, but you carried on paying because you liked it.
Eventually (I started out as Romaina) I came across my first player, Germany, and whuped him good. We then struck up a (brief) friendship and I asked him how come he didn't put up much of a defence?
He explained, as he didn't earn much he had set himself a limit of �2 a week. Each week from the start he put this �2 by even if the game cost less. So for the first few weeks he build up a nice tidy pot, but soon spent it a few weeks down the line.
I was gobsmacked, I had been feeding my "empire" quite the tidy sum, because I wanted to win, at "any price" ... I had no idea how much I had spent, and frankly I don't really want to know. It shocked me badly, so I decided to stop playing, to remove the temptation.
I can see the same effect is going to happen to players of MMOGs what with the addictiveness of it and all.
Actually, I'm now pretty worried that we'll get a major "event" like the kid who shot himself over "loosing" in EQ. Except now it will be a father who looses his home due to spending too much on the Sword of Doom.
I used to play a play by mail (not even email!) game that some guy up in guilford ran.
It was called "Global Supremacy" it was even quite good, you start with a country, and have to do research, and build stuff, then go out and smack the other c*cough*ountrys about.
It started off cheep, as you only needed one order card, so it was like 50p/�1 a turn, which typically took a week to "process", due to the speed of snail mail.
But, as you took over "uncontrolled" countries this slowly grew, but you carried on paying because you liked it.
Eventually (I started out as Romaina) I came across my first player, Germany, and whuped him good. We then struck up a (brief) friendship and I asked him how come he didn't put up much of a defence?
He explained, as he didn't earn much he had set himself a limit of �2 a week. Each week from the start he put this �2 by even if the game cost less. So for the first few weeks he build up a nice tidy pot, but soon spent it a few weeks down the line.
I was gobsmacked, I had been feeding my "empire" quite the tidy sum, because I wanted to win, at "any price" ... I had no idea how much I had spent, and frankly I don't really want to know. It shocked me badly, so I decided to stop playing, to remove the temptation.
I can see the same effect is going to happen to players of MMOGs what with the addictiveness of it and all.
Actually, I'm now pretty worried that we'll get a major "event" like the kid who shot himself over "loosing" in EQ. Except now it will be a father who looses his home due to spending too much on the Sword of Doom.
