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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 20, 2007 23:01:29 GMT -5
The gamemasters have prepared budgets some time ago, but we are having a technical problem posting them in any workable format. Please bear with us. This is one of the differences between being a playtester and playing a finished game.
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Post by Kortelan on Jan 21, 2007 2:10:28 GMT -5
For what its worth the scrolling isn't too bad. I hope you can get it into a bit of a cleaner format sometime but all in all its pretty good.
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Clabbuk
New Member
Ulor of Salan Vinrat Inuvesh Azh
Posts: 22
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Post by Clabbuk on Jan 21, 2007 2:55:13 GMT -5
I've looked at the source code, and I don't know what's making it do that, but I know it's definitely something inside the table that's acting up. Maybe as a temporary workaround you could do something like this in the source code: Just after where you typed about scrolling down, put:
<a href="#budget">Budget</a>
and right inside the table just before the name of the region, put:
<a name="budget"></a> ...so that someone can just click the link instead of scrolling. I'm not exactly familiar with Blogger, so I'm not sure if you can directly edit the HTML source. I'll keep looking at it and see if I find out anything.
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 21, 2007 19:41:17 GMT -5
Yes, we can easily directly edit the HTML source code. That is one reason we chose blogger to host the site.
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 21, 2007 20:25:08 GMT -5
At least we have it so you can see it and the columns line up. Previously blogger was rejecting our HTML and it wouldn't display at all. Then it would, but the numbers were all over the place instead of in a neat column.
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Clabbuk
New Member
Ulor of Salan Vinrat Inuvesh Azh
Posts: 22
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Post by Clabbuk on Jan 21, 2007 22:36:44 GMT -5
I found out what's wrong. There are a number of <br /> tags that are in between the <table></table> tags, but not inside <td></td> tags, each pair of which delimits the contents of a single cell. All the <br /> tags that are inside the table tags, but not in the td tags are just transferred to the very beginning of the table, making it appear way down on the page. When I ran the "replace" command, I told my text editor to search for all instances of <br />, and replace it with a space. The page turned out fine. Here is what it looks like after all the <br /> tags in the page are removed (sorry about the size of the image):
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 24, 2007 2:59:14 GMT -5
It turns out we can't edit the HTML as directly as we thought. You appear to be correct, Clabbuk, in finding the problem and the solution. However, there were no <br/ > tags in the code we entered. Blogger seems to have added them and we can't figure out how to take them out.
Every time we repost the HTML code, Blogger automatically adds those in. Not sure why.
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 24, 2007 3:01:27 GMT -5
We got behind on posting news reports. We've caught up now. There are three new news posts. See them here: nationsandempires3.blogspot.comNote that older news reports can be accessed by scrolling down or clicking on the links to earlier months on the archive on right near the top.
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Clabbuk
New Member
Ulor of Salan Vinrat Inuvesh Azh
Posts: 22
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Post by Clabbuk on Jan 24, 2007 3:14:28 GMT -5
I noticed that Blogger converts its pages to the XHTML format before it posts them on the Internet. There is probably a script that converts the HTML tags to XHTML, and part of the script includes inserting <br /> tags into the table. Perhaps there are <br> tags in the file? If there are any, then you might try taking those out. I doubt it, but it's possible the <br> tags (if any) are being converted to the <br /> tags, but it seems more likely that Blogger added them in for convenience.
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 24, 2007 6:06:29 GMT -5
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 27, 2007 2:24:22 GMT -5
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Post by Gamemaster on Jan 28, 2007 4:35:31 GMT -5
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Post by Gamemaster on Feb 5, 2007 17:15:52 GMT -5
Sorry for the delays. We have been spending a lot of time working on a significant new addition to the game: an online library full of scrolls on various topics, especially history. As you may have noticed, there is no history of the Zekresh Empire posted. We've been wanting to correct that for some time since we do, in fact, have a detailed history not just for the Zekresh Empire and the people it rules, but for the whole planet going back to the physical origin of the planet. This includes maps of earlier historical periods, maps of prehistoric periods. Maps of geologic changes over time, etc. The problem is not that there's no history, it's that there is so much detailed history that it is obvious that the characters would not know even a tenth that much. Also, the method of keeping track of time used by the game masters is dfferent than and considerably better than the in-game system used by the Zekresh Empire. This means that none of the history information could be published in the form we have it. We have been working for months on editing together a comprehensive history of the Zekresh Empire and some events preceeding it. This is not yet completed and we have decided that it would be a mistake to publish it at all. In the Zekresh Empire, there is no one comprehensive, authoritative, unbiased history of the Empire that people can rely upon to be completely accurate. So we shouldn't publish one. Instead, we're going to break up the narrative we've already got into multiple documents. It will be painful, but we are going to also have to take the history that we have gone to such lengths to make consistent and introduce errors and bias as we turn it into scrolls available to players. We will, of course, keep a copy of the original for gamemaster use. Some scrolls may also have completely accurate information. Anyway, the idea is to publish a library of scrolls that are commonly available in the Empire at: nationsandempires6.blogspot.comand make them available to all players. Additional scrolls will be added over time. Here's an interesting point, players can write their own scrolls and send them to a library. If the librarians consider it valuable, it will eventually be available in all major libraries of the Empire and will be published on the library web page. (The Empire has no public libraries, but there are government and college libraries as will be explained on the library page.) We already have enough info we sent out via e-mail to edit it into a scroll about a player character which we intend to put in the library. That's the latest. We have delayed the passage of game time to allow this library to come online in time for players to read up on Zekresh history since some of it may be highly relevant to what's going on now. One Ulor's advisor is about to actually recommend that he read up on history in response to an inquiry by the Ulor.
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Post by Gamemaster on Feb 5, 2007 17:47:20 GMT -5
In addition to what I just posted above about history and libraries, the gamemasters have been paying attention to the amount of time it takes to run this game and comparing that to various approaches to making it profitable.
Although we are planning to continue playtesting, we do not seem to have a workable product yet. We're getting a lot of positive feedback from you guys, so I think we have a good product, just not a profitable one. It would be a little helpful if you playtesters would post your estimates of whether you think people would pay money to play this and approximately how much per month. Don't worry, we're not about to start charging you money. And we're not asking if "most people" or the "average person" would pay. That doesn't matter. If only one person in 10,000 is the type of person who would play this game, then that's a potential market of over 30,000 players in the United States alone and of course, many more worldwide. We have already developed the capability to provide game support in multiple languages, but we are not playtesting that yet.
There are four approaches to this game that might make it commercially viable. We are looking for feedback on this as well.
(1) Stop supporting play on the forums, go to an "issues only" sort of game like Nation States. We hate this option, but it would allow a primitive version of this game to be played by thousands of players with minimal gamemaster time involved. One thing that might make it acceptable would be to have two versions of the game, one primitive one more like Nation States, and an advanced one that is for the most successful players in the primitive game. The more advanced game would either cost a lot to play or would be subsidized by revenue from the primitive game.
(2) Continue the game as it is with continuing improvements and charge each player a monthly fee. This fee would have to be high for this option to be feasible and that would make it difficult to find and retain players. We don't like this option either.
(3) Same as option 2 above except that players can pay a lot or a little depending on what features they want. Perhaps the low cost option is "issues only" sort of playing by e-mail. Perhaps paying more would allow a player to start out in a better situation or gain some other in-game advantage. Players who spend more money would, unfortunately, have advantages, but it would still be possible for an active, intelligent and skillful player to overcome a humble beginning or adverse circumstances and have all the benefits of the game for a low price or even for free.
(4) More players per province. It is time-consuming for gamemasters to keep up with the action in different provinces and to play the parts of so many non-player characters. But many of them could easily be player characters. The Imperial Councillors, for instance. Also, provincial garrison commanders, unit commanders, treasury officials, even advisors. Although this would give us more people to have to respond to, there would be certain synergy. For example, instead of preparing budgets, tax proposals, etc. as we have to do now in the guise of provincial treasury officials, if those posts were held by players, much of that would be done by the players. Gamemasters would only be needed to confirm whether expected revenue actually came in or whether something unexpected came up. The people doing "micronations" seem to be having lots of fun with multiple people holding different posts in various simulated countries. That may be an option for Nations and Empires, especially now that a couple provinces have declared independence.
Let us know what you think of these options. Also, answer this: If you weren't a playtester playing for free, how much would you pay to play this game? (The original playtesters may be exempt from being asked to pay.)
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Post by Wanderjar on Feb 5, 2007 18:32:35 GMT -5
Well, I do not believe that many people would pay to use a forum, or the general play by issue game either. I feel that if you want to charge, it'd have to be somewhat like Cyber Nations, i.e with actual ingame trade, war, etc. It is very unlikely that you will find many people willing to pay. Even then, I think the maximum you could charge is five dollars or so per month. That is the absolute maximum too.
I hope that helps put in perspective what I feel the average person will think. This is a great game, but not something which many would pay for.
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