1,200 member Guild Alliances and Server Control

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Ok thanks, I won't bother detailing all those points because they don't fit your definitions, as far as I can tell.

Sorry for dragging it out, I feel like there's a pretty good chance I understand your position now. o7

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For my education, truly, what part of the Ashes' Node system are we considering to be unique enough that this would matter? At least one of my examples would have come from a game with 'over 100 locations that are heavily influenced by, or entirely built up by, players'.

But obviously, if it was exactly Ashes, then it would be Ashes.

So I just want to know if any game design theories that show up in other games are demoted to 'not having much meaning' if the game is not extremely similar, or if games like Elite Dangerous (specifically the PowerPlay aspect, if you want to look it up) are 'allowed to be brought as evidence'.

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Your reflection 'technique' is 'good', or at least, 'impenetrable'. But I have no interest in the Infinite Mirroring scenario of discussion.

If everyone else in the thread is using a different definition, then I have been educated sufficiently on what that definition is, and since only Noaani seems to remain with any objection to that definition, I will assume that either any other readers of this thread are satisfied with both the definition, and my education, or they will have something to say when I bow out of it.

Elite Dangerous' current iteration was released in December 2014 after a two year kickstarter, having spent a while in planning before that point.

Whether or not you consider a game with 600 Control systems (which are star systems controlled by a particular superpower which in turn influence 15-20 others, all available for player manipulation, to be chosen as a home and altered by their actions) to be similar to Ashes or not (after all, you can't destroy StarPorts, only change who controls them and thus interactions, or rather, such things as Starport Destruction only happen by Dev intervention) is up to you. There are other games with Nodes, Regions, and so on that can change in control and effect, but they obviously have less freedom than Ashes, so you could simply deny the relevance of them all, if you wished.

o7, as they say.

EDIT: As for why I'm willing to think like that, I have to. I'm usually a manager of programmers. There are entire programming frameworks that people get hired for knowing or studying that have existed for less than 10 years. So in my line of work that's the point where 'known and studied' can be used relative to methodologies, best practices, and techniques. I genuinely ask to be educated if 10 years is not enough.

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I agree completely with you, here, I simply don't like wasting time debating with someone who occasionally uses 'X is not Y' to apparently disqualify entire things.

So to be clear, I am willing to give the examples, but what I have learned to expect from you is things like 'Elite Dangerous is not a Fantasy MMO so it is not Ashes/is not relevant', and therefore it's a waste of my time. You get this reaction because I begin from the Appeal to Authority, offer indicatives or proof (which would or does take my time, so I don't always provide them), and you discard them out of hand in situations I don't see the reason for doing so in. I was specifically asking whether or not it was worth my time to go beyond the Appeal to Authority, because with you, it is often not.

Other than that, we have no disagreement. The definition of dominant, as given by the OP, does not match the one I was using, and at the moment, anything further is extrapolation or abstraction.

Your responses on the forums have not yet convinced me that you understand or are willing to accept parallels and abstractions enough to make it worth bringing them into discussion with you, so I was asking. I still don't have that answer, so I'll leave it to someone else.

For others reading:

Also, does Elite Dangerous provide guild structures designed specifically to reduce the impact of mega-guilds?
Yes, more complex than those I can find on the Ashes wiki.
Does Elite Dangerous offer a variety of quest and progression types that promote conflict and changing the status quo in similar fashion to the Ashes hypothetical I shared?
Yes, more complex than those I can find on the Ashes wiki, though they come close.

Further explanations may come from someone who has more time and patience than I, if they are deemed to somehow be relevant to the thread.

Then for absolute context, for said person, once she arrives...

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In my perception, my main response to the above was to offer to provide examples of the Thousand Spears specifically, contingent on clarity of understanding (which resulted in my education on the definition being used).

Azherae wrote: »

I'd be giving those examples as examples of 'the fact that people who are going to lose and then suffer, chose not to fight, and instead just went along with the powerful'. That's what the Thousand Spears is about, at its core.

Lots of games encourage you to fight, many of them don't even penalize you for losing, and people still get demoralized simply from 'losing too much' and quit those games (an equivalent action in Ashes could be to give up and join the winning side). As I always say, MMOs don't even get matchmaking.

At which point terminology was called out like so:

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And my ask was to determine if I could use a game with a similar system in such a discussion. So where I perceive this to be now is:

"Show me an example of Thousand Spears."
"Ok but are we talking about the same thing?" (answer was no)
"I don't think you can use that Appeal to Authority for a game that doesn't use Ashes' Node system." (Valid)
"Would you even accept a game that wasn't basically the same, as having 'Ashes' Node system'? What is unique that I have to 'be able to find or prove within the game?"
"Why don't you just name the game?"
"Elite Dangerous."

So my perception is that if anyone does continue, they'll be trying to clarify 'that Elite's Background Simulation is a reasonable equivalent to Ashes' Node system', relative to the idea that the way to influence player behaviour can be referred to as 'known and studied'.

If not, then I apologize for any further misunderstanding.

And yes, explaining the Background Simulation in reasonable detail would still take longer than even these interactions.

I don't get why you're still trying to convince Dygz. As you said yourself,

Azherae wrote: »

Your responses on the forums have not yet convinced me that you understand or are willing to accept parallels and abstractions enough to make it worth bringing them into discussion with you, so I was asking.

All that's going to happen is you're going to post some links, he won't read them and you'll have to slowly and painfully explain all of that information here, only for him not to accept the parallel. I'm not even convinced that if another fantasy MMO showed up with the exact same Node system and showed the exact same effects that happen due to big Squadrons in Elite Dangerous, that he'd believe it would also happen to Ashes.

Good links, tho. Hope someone else reads them.