Tinker wrote:Regarding the Bid System:
I'm a bit put off by the bid being a silent auction with a single bid. In our Trinity startup there is one position that looks to be superior, but I have no idea how much I need to bid to get that position. Everybody is guessing at the "market value" of a start position and I don't think anybody has a good feel for what a superior position is worth.
I think it would be much more fair -- and fun -- if we could have a more traditional auction for each position, with open bidding taking place in turns. I assume we're going with a one-bid silent auction because of the (perhaps painfully long) time it would take to do anything else?
I do have sympathy with your point, Tinker, and I agree that revealed-increasing bidding would be a more perfect reflection of "market-value" of each position. But it has its own problems; effectively what you said at the end: Painfully long time it would take to do anything else!
For a game designer (sorry if I'm about to go off at length here, Duke), this is one of the big differences between turn-based-online and face-to-face. In FTF, I'd do it along the lines you say, round and round the table, takes 5 mins. In turn-based-online, I wouldn't ...
Imagine that all 3 players think they'll start with a low bid, might get that Violet/Yellow that they want cheaply; after all, they can always come back and bid more if needed ...
So the first bids from the 3 players are, say, 5, 6 and 9, each hoping to get V/Y cheaply Then 10,10 and 12. Then 13,13,16, then 17,20,21. Hmm. That's already 4 rounds of 3 people bidding, AND waiting each time for the slowest to find RL time to get a bid in. 10 rounds, 30 bids, and 3 weeks later, one has dropped out, and the other two are at bids of 68 and 69, waiting to see if the 68-bidder wants to increase his bid ... It could go on for weeks. There's no easy way to speed it up. You miss out if you take more than a day? Bad vibes, and may "only" reduce it from 3 weeks to 10 days...
Meanwhile, all 3 players are wondering whether the actual game itself will ever start ...! As I say, OK round a table, not OK online when you have to wait for the slowest?
Sure, in many games the bidding MIGHT be all over in 2 or 3 rounds of bidding. But a designer has to cater for worst-case, or at least "possible common problem".
I agree it's not perfect. It's just better for US than the alternatives!
You and I might find that first phase fun, but others might not, they just want to get to the game itself. They didn't sign up for a bidding game for 2 weeks. See Dragonette.
I also have to keep Korexus happy! Or he won't code it. He has something against bidding anyway (board games he's played), and continues to call even MY version of bidding for starts "needless and complicated". I wouldn't want to offend Godexus by ACTUALLY making it complicated ....
I reckon it will work well enough. And all in one simultaneous round of bidding (Don't ask about drawn bids, it wd lengthen my post, but I've got it covered). One email each and you are off. If one positoion is preferable, both or all three had one chance to bid the
max they thought it was worth in their view. In fact, T, you could say it was actually MORE FAIR: Imagine you had one good player and two novices. By your system, the good player is MORE likely to get the best position too cheaply, as the other two drop out; by MY system, he only has one shot, so might have to make his REAL bid first time !
Sorry if it's too long. I like talking game-design.
BTW, Kor, is this the right place? Why do you say bidding is needless? And are you sure you find the current system complicated?
Han