2 interesting articles about Wargamers and Wargame Design

[aka_tom_w]

You may have missed it in the large and rowdy " 1:1 Representation" thread so I thought I would post the links here:

Part 1 New Wargamer Paradigm

AND

Part II Wargamer new Paradigm

There are interesting snips of what may be news or "wisdom" in these two articles.

I found the second more interesting than the first:

From Part II

"One striking statistic that every wargame publisher eventually becomes aware of should it conduct a customer survey is that the largest portion of military wargame consumers play their games solitaire much of the time, if not exclusively. This characteristic begs several questions. Perhaps the most important among them is whether or not the games are played solitaire because of a lack of opponents, or because of something else? Unfortunately, I’m unaware of any empirical research that has occurred attempting to answer that question, but I can take a few anecdotal guesses.

The most obvious, and perhaps most often assumed answer is lack of opponents, but it doesn’t hold up well under a certain type of scrutiny. With the preponderance of Play by (E)Mail (PBM or PBEM) tools available these days, even the most rural denizen of our hobby should be able to play wargames against an opponent. Further, there are many opponent services available through user groups and the like on the Internet. Granted, many people still don’t have computers or Internet access, but I think if they really wanted to find an opponent, they could by putting up a notice at a local hobby store. The answer lies elsewhere. 

The players themselves in various wargame forums have offered another solution to this mystery. Many say that they do not view the products as games at all, but rather tools with which they can further analyze and garner greater understanding of the historical situation. This act is done through reading and analysis of the rules and components, and play, if you will, of the game in a non-competitive way to examine how the situation unfolds on the map.

Given that so many wargame customers play their games this way, it is critical that we as designers and publishers pay close attention to this issue."

What do you think?

comments?

-tom w

[Treeburst155]

I enjoy playing CM against myself more than playing the game against the AI. I don't do it often because I usually have more PBEMs than I can handle; but playing against myself is way more fun than playing the AI. In my board gaming days in the '70s I usually found an opponent to play; but solitaire play was not uncommon for me. Thankfully, there was no AI involved in my '70s wargaming experience.

Treeburst155 out.

[Stalin's Organ]

I've been playing toy soldiers made of metal, wood, plazstic, fibreglass, electrons and various other things for 33 years now, and I know few people who play a lot of anything solitaire - except those things that can only be played solitaire!!

I play RTW solitaire because I play the campaign, which is single player only.

I am playing 4 PBEM games of DBAOL and 3 of CMAK at he moment. I play all my figure games against opponents. That't pretty much the norm for these parts at least.

I suspect the article is more about the author's predjudices than anything factual.

[76mm]

OK, I'd like to post as someone that plays exclusively solo.

First, I suspect (but have no more data than the other posters on this issue--ie, none) that the author of the article is right that most games are played in solo mode.

I play solo because I want to play when I want to play. I don't want to take weeks to finish a PBM game-I would just lose interest. I have been meaning to try some TCP/IP games but haven't gotten around to finding an opponent, etc. Also, sometimes I'll start a game and find that for whatever reason I don't want to finish, and I can just abort the scenario without a lot of angst from the other player.

While the quality of games against the AI is not consistently good, on occassion it can really give me a run for my money; one of the chief reasons I terminate games early is if the AI blunders too much too early and makes the game uninteresting.

tmr

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

"One striking statistic that every wargame publisher eventually becomes aware of should it conduct a customer survey is that the largest portion of military wargame consumers play their games solitaire much of the time, if not exclusively.

One striking statistic is that anyone sad and lonely enough to take out the time to fill out a wargaming customer survey probably doesn't have the social skills necessary to arrange a face to face game, hence the results are rather skewed...

[Stavka_lite]

I like to play both PBEM and solitaire. I don't care much for head-to-head play right now due to time constraints and when I do play HTH I like to play over a map on a table. I like solitaire to learn "how" to play the game and for entertainment purposes. However, I am a competitive person and need to play another person to get the full enjoyment out of a game. The forums are a great way to find opponents for competetitive play. I just wish I had more time.

[Redwolf]

Does anyone else think this:

the non-wargames, lets say FPSs and RPGs, have so much superior support for multiplayer gaming that it is not surprising they get more multiplayer.

With CM and TacOps, there is no automated game finding system.

There is no cooperative play against the AI in CM (and too limited in TacOps). There is no more-than two multiplayer in CM. TacOps' is sufferings from a very oversimplified network programming model which slows down gameplay a lot and pushes TacOps multiplayer into the zone of full-day committments. Chatting is underdeveloped in both. Most other wargames are at CM level.

Any FPS or RPG (not counting multiplayer-only) has support for lots of players, set up for teams, automated in-game support to find opponents, reliable, non-connection oriented fault-tolerant and simultaneous UDP for the networking itself.

I think if you have a true multiplayer military game where a bunch of guys could hang out on a server waiting for other players, then get a quick co-op going to roll over some AI defense, if they wouldn't get connection trouble there would be a lot more out there.

Personally I think the reason why most wargames are played against the AI and not multiplayer is that the AI is better than in other games and multiplayer is worse.

Disclaimer: I really love TacOps multiplayer but it is only for those with extreme attention spans.

[GSX]

Most of CM maybe is played solitaire. I wonder what the ratio of games sold to guys who play PBEM or other on line is. Pretty small maybe, I dont know. Has BFC done a survey, they should know how many games they have sold and there are only about 4 places to get games online. It shouldnt be that hard to calculate.