I am ready to start taking the first participants for the simulation.
First understand and accept the following items:
- This is very limited test of a few aspects of a much more complex overall game design. The program used is rudimentary and the interface is mostly textual. The action will most likely progress very slowly. This is not a finished game by any means and the system might not even be able to handle as many calculations as we may soon be placing on it. Someday a browser-based application with a more user-friendly and immediate interface is the goal, but for now testing will move forward however possible with what we now have.
- It is assumed that for the purposes of the current simulation all participants are expected to keep all actions and dialogs appropriate. While war and combat are represented, the main focus will be to keep language appropriate. Any violation will most likely receive one or two warnings depending on the degree of infraction, but the administrator reserves the right to delete accounts and bar participation at any time.
- As a preliminary requirement you need to have access to Microsoft Excel in order to view/edit the current input/output files for the simulation. It is preferred to have the older versions of Excel (Pre 2007) but the newer version might work as well. If you don't have Excel and can not access it anywhere, i.e. school, work, computer lab, library, friend's house, etc., then you might have to join up with someone who has it and work together with them. They will do the actual inputs and will keep you informed of everything and you can correspond with them on the decision making.
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If you are interested in participating here is how things work:
1) Contact me using an email account other than your mmorpg.com mail. Send a message to iron0re@yahoo.com with a character name and perhaps a brief background and your choice of the following two starting scenarios:
- The first is with a group of settlers that have just arrived in a strange new land basically by going through a cave that is actually a portal from other worlds. Not too original, but we need a clean slate for the world and if you choose this option you might have access to some basic equipment and you can begin interacting with other participants right away as they all arrive in the same location. The whole point to this option is so you can start with a slightly more advanced society with some explanation of where they came from, as there are no other cities or civilizations in the entire world at this point, so they must have arrived from somewhere completely different.
- The other option is to be an indigenous tribe with very basic technology and located at a random location on the map (although you can specify if you would like to be in a cold or warm climate, near mountains, in the desert, on the coast, etc.) If you choose this option you may not meet and interact with others for quite a while, but you never know.
So be thinking about those options and generate some ideas.
2) Once you are approved for participation we will correspond as I create an interface file for you and make it accessible at a unique personal link that you will be given where you can download the file each time it is updated. You will then open it in Excel, and using the updated information it contains make any adjustments you desire before saving, closing, and emailing it back to me at the iron0re@yahoo.com address. I then regularly recalculate all the updated files I have received with the main program code, save everything, and then upload the updated files to the unique personal links where they are downloaded, edited, saved, and sent back again as the process repeats.
3) Between updates you can browse around my blog here to get tips and help on using the interface as well as ideas on how to accomplish goals of various kinds. You are also encouraged to use your blog in one or more of the ways suggested in the Simulation Participants section of this blog, such as for a more detailed description or to post an (appropriate) image of your character, town, tribe, flag, etc. as well as a place where others can communicate with you between updates. If you choose to use your blog in this way I will link to it from this blog.
Basically participation can take as little or as much time as desired. At a minimum one can download the file, take note of the current state of the simulation, and make a few adjustments before sending it back. This only needs to be done every few days if desired. Other participants will want to plan and communicate between updates and make all sorts of compositions based on their knowledge of the world to further their goals and policies. It is all up to individual preference.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Thanks.
