Hello Xarn,
xarn wrote:it's still on my TODO list, but I'm investing my time in other things lately. I also wonder if it's a good idea. Don't take me wrong, but it just adds fragmentation to this project.
I agree, having multiple rule sets adds to defragmentation. But it has a pro's to. More ideas, more things freedom.
xarn wrote:
Basically, every third person in this project re-invents the rules. There was yours, ravenchild's, several more or less developed in the wiki (which I find a bit sad to have been removed instead of having been put in an obsolete section. Some were quite thought out and had perhaps interesting concepts to glean from). And I'm sure I missed some.
I wanted to clean up as much as possible in the wiki, because it looked like a trash, and there were and you got the idea it wasn't taken care off any longer. So I removed as much as possible from the main page. The 'abandoned' rules there where in no way near finished, or had much information in it. Fortunately, they are not removed from the wiki (just the link from the main page), So I/You could bring them back easily.
xarn wrote:
So, instead of everyone writing a new set of rules, can't we just tweak the ORC so that it suits our needs? I'd also be very interested to know about your motivation to create the ARC ruleset. For me, the VSR, it was because I found the ORC too long to read. I just wanted something simple, and with interesting novel mechanics (front/back rows, buildings). What about you?
Good question. No easy answer. When I came to the project in december 2015, I found something with a huge lure/attraction, but totally abandoned and near death. It seemed that after 5 to 7 years the project had produced not even the smallest ruleset/game. Just a lot of ideas, but nothing concrete. I still found it worthy enough to dig a little deeper and decided if I could bring it back to life.
So, I started to read the forum post, the wiki, started to gather resources, ... I also did a post-mortem to figure out what went wrong before. Finally I hunted down snowdrop, and started kicking up some dust here.
One of the things that was a problem in development of the game in the past, is that snowdrop got to much work and things depended to much on him to actually make decisions and make progress. So despite his good intentions and the work he did, he became a bottleneck for the project and it stalled.
So, why the ARC?
Snowdrop and I have different style's of working. He develops his ideas very profoundly and tries to have them perfect before testing them out with cards. Progress is slow, but good and sound. He's very critical about new ideas, (which is good), but again that's something that slow downs the development.
Me on the other hand, I like to push things forward. No finished ruleset? Well let's see what is around, ask people to proceed, make one, and if that doesn't work create one of your own.
As I see it the project needs someone to push and push, because having another 7 years on it will not do. So actually snowdrop and me are opposites that work well. Due to me, he has some pressure to proceed, I have so pressure to be reflective and rethink things when they are not sound.
So, the result in a couple of months (started in late feb), there is an actual playable game, with two decks and a ruleset, and an artist that is working trough the missing art parts, so that by the end of the year there could be a print-ready version of the ARC. This was never possible without the freedom given to the ARC.
Kind regards,
Nico