Remove SP from UN games, and games in their likeness.

There was a thread posted to stop UNs in general. As the discussion progressed, an idea was presented, and I want to focus on the idea specifically. The original discussion centers on broader and unorganized ideas / arguments.

http://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=9617

Let us first understand what a UN is here. UN is any roleplaying game that centers around one a moderating the actions of other countries and their interactions with one another or the union itself. Typically, the United Nations is emulated in a "UN" game. The rules and regulations in UN don't matter or affect the definition. So long as a union is INTENDED or IMPLIED, it is still a UN.

Now onto the rest.

UN is without a doubt a real problem for Atwar. Let's first make sure this is well established among us.

First and foremost, UN is a massive SP farming scenario . If you play it and you disallow for the killing of players a UN can, in theory, continue on forever. This is because you can have a series of border wars and then pause before a victor is decided. Next, there is simply the killing of a single entity. In a lot of UNs there tends to be several entities ganging up on 1. In most of these, the intended union designed to moderate actions is either absent, abstained, or generally doesn't care for any moderation of any sort. At times it may even be the intended union at odds against the world. This allows for any player to participate in war against 1 very weak entity. No one is going to win a war against the world.

Secondly, UN is very unbalanced. If it weren't bad enough, the same roleplaying game that corrodes our players is also unbalanced. One large country that did literally nothing to get large can destroy all the small countries that did nothing to deserve being defeated. So suppose you're Mexico, and USA decides "hey, forget the rules" and then invades you . You're mexico against USA. That really wasn't a foreseeable event- and you're at a total disadvantage. This and more are an ongoing problem in UNs, again as if UNs themselves weren't a problem now we've got to worry about what goes on IN UN.

Thirdly, UN isn't conducive to strategic play. As mentioned in 1 and 2, you can practically sit there for most of the game on a wad of cash while your allies do all the fighting . Then when you've got enough money you go invade the person who is trying to recover from fighting 2 of your very powerful fat-cat allies. You'll get tons of SP that you didn't work for. This means, the player in question gained no understanding of strategy. They just know how to pop in when their allies threw enough units to critically wound the opponent.

Fourthly, UN is snuffing out other games. So on top of ruining players, it's ruining damn games. Presently, we can't host a good world game anymore. All anybody wants to play is UN (for the cheap SP gains and sitting there doing nothing). Even 3v3s, 6 player games, are a challenge to create. Even if a game host wanted to include low ranks in 3v3s so they could learn from high ranks, all of those low ranks are out playing UN (for the cheap SP gains and sitting there doing nothing). This leaves game hosts unable to host games. Here is testament from Tunder3:

Geschreven door Tundy, 24.08.2013 at 20:07

i give up hosting scenarios and making maps along time ago, each time i make one super map people never play it cuz UN gets all the players, and when i get to get it full is ruined within 5 turns by a wf or leaver.

That is testimony. This is affecting players everywhere.

Fifthly, AW will rot as a result of the above. Game hosts and good players will quit. Only the foulest most disgusting traits of the community will survive (much like simplistic life forms will survive a nuclear winter but not being squished by my thumb). Eventually, AW will collapse because these UN players simply won't be able to play UN anymore. They'll become high ranked and try to experience other forms of the game and won't know how to excel in them. Once then, bored and not needing SP of the UN, they will quit AW and thus the generation of UN will seal the fate of AW.


Now, these arguments are generally solid. The fifth one is up to interpretation of course

However, it should be well established by now: UN is indeed a real problem for AW. Being in denial is absolutely ridiculous unless you can prove all my points wrong.

So, on to the suggestion:

As a solution to the UN problem, it's been suggested that SP be removed from UN games and games in their likeness (UNs as defined earlier). At first, this may sound far gone. I mean we're really going to remove SP because a bunch of people want to play a popular game?

Considering all of the above arguments and the potential death of AW, I'd say it's at least worth looking into. Removing SP from UN is like removing venom from a snake. Now, one very powerful argument against the fight to stop UNs is that UN is fUN (;D) for the people who play them. Removing SP from UN will effectively prove just how many people actually play it for fun and not for SP . Next, SP removal means that UN players will be forced to play other games and experience other battles not like those of UN in order to achieve their precious ranks. So, the second concept works whether or not people still play UN after an SP removal. If SP is removed and nobody plays UN ever again, they will be forced to play other more sensible games (assuming they don't want to play UN for fun hehe ) OOR if they do still play UN, they won't be at rank 8 playing like rank 5.

This suggestion is probably the most straight forward by far and it is the second most barbaric method at attacking UN- due the fact that removing UNs altogether ranks above removing SP gain.

Please voice your thoughts on this, and please don't attack me individually. I like the IDEA of UN, it's all fun and games until the community has to suffer

Also, don't use the logic of "don't attack UN games because people like it". UN is by far the only game that actually harms the site as a whole