brian brian
Posts: 3191
Joined: 11/16/2005 Status: offline
|
It all just is what it is, in my opinion. If you want to play World in Flames electronically and can keep track of the rules yourself, this is easy to do. If you want to play World in Flames electronically and have some software assist with rules enforcement, this is mostly easy to do via the MWiF product. It's not "all the way" there yet but it continues to get closer, all the time. Steve is advancing the World in Flames hobby quite a bit through this labor of love type project, because MWiF introduces new players to the game, and we all need that. In a world of video gaming, our small hobby of hexagonal maps and turns is just that - small. Unless one of us WiF players wins the Lottery and can't figure out what to do with the prize money, there will only be Steve, moving the ball down the field, slowly but surely, the best that he can. Is there another way? I don't know. Although I love World in Flames and can't wait to play the newest iteration in another 3-4 months, I also don't see the point of continuing to shoe-horn the playability compromises necessary to play wargames on paper into a computer where most of those playability compromises could be designed away through the power of computing technology. It's not quite as silly of an idea as programming Advanced Squad Leader when gamers are already experiencing being a squad leader in real-time multi-player shooter games. But I think this is what the idea of liberating MWiF out into an Open Source community project would run into: Why? Why invest in re-creating the gaming design techniques of 30 years ago? Harry's design is a brilliant simulation of the constraints and decision making process of a Commander-in-Chief of a war machine made up of millions of human beings. I hope someone can talk him into writing a new, computer based version of his design with total Fog of War, operational planning, attritional losses, computer adjudicated logistics, simultaneous movement (so the IJN can invade Pearl while the Pacific Fleet is trying to invade Truk), and in general, the classic "limits" you experience when playing World in Flames - so you can't just order your aircraft designers to design only Spitfires and never fail with the Defiant, nor can you keep your regime in place by denying your oldest pal Goering's demands to create Luftwaffe field divisions while Manstein is screaming for trained infantry replacements. I have never wanted to play WiTP when it wants to show me how many artillery tubes a division of infantry is toting around. And this is Harry's brilliance - editing gamers eventual desire for more detail, detail, detail until the game is so much simulation no one can play it any more. I really hope publication of Collector's Edition frees him to move the game forward electronically by truly harnessing what software could do for it.
|