scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3kdfkt.md

Eco- multilayer survival game with exposed data for players to create laws

• Author: u/darkkaos505 *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3kdfkt/eco_multilayer_survival_game_with_exposed_data/

• Score: 9

• Created: 2015-09-10T08:49:37

Post:

I am not sure if games quite fit in this subreddit but this game just finished its Kickstarter.

It is basically minecfraft but the world has a eco system. There is a impending natural disaster unless the players get to a point in technology to stop it. This requires using world resources which can kill off the eco system or be used up

This is part where it fits in /r/rational the players can view data of the world to propose laws to prevent this.

I think this would be fun way to teach/encourage data driven discussions.

What to people think ?

Comments:

u/Anderkent [+6] (5 hours later)

Reminds me of wakfu, which tried something like that (shared, global economy that was influenced by player actions), but had to decrease its importance because griefers would just kill all sheep / cut all trees without replanting etc, preventing any other players from gathering the resources.

The law setting is going to be crucial, and whether this is actually playable depends on how sophisticated the law system is. Can you express a concept of ownership? Can you have laws selectively apply to some players but not others?

(edit: oh, actually both land ownership and criminal justice are stretch goals)

I think as a social experiment this looks quite cool. As a game... well, I'd be up for trying it, but I'm not too hopeful ;P

u/darkkaos505 [+5] (7 hours later)

Indeed the law system needs to work if there are ways to work around it then it will just fall to trolls.

I am thinking the player size will be small for each world I cant see it being that great with loads of people coming and going.

u/Anakiri [+5] (10 hours later)

The video makes it look like things go bad too fast and too obviously to be interesting. Cutting down one tree instantly kills the Earth for five meters in every direction and improper mining sends a wave of death across the land. Then you can look at a graph and see exactly how many deer were killed by hunting versus starvation versus predation.

The "laws" thing seems like it's supposed to explore an interesting friction regarding how conservative we should be, when exactly we should switch from seeking short-term gains to avoiding long-term losses, which of a dozen factors in a problem should be limited, and generally how to interact with a complex interconnected global ecosystem. But it looks like it's actually exploring friction between sensible players and Captain Planet villains.

u/darkkaos505 [+3] (10 hours later)

Yeah I feeling the Developers are not aware the extent trolls will go or how just many people will want to do it.

I wouldn't take the speeds of effects shown to be the actual speed I would think they have been speeded up to show the effect

u/Anakiri [+2] (10 hours later)

I'm not even talking about trolls. The blurb says that tragedy of the commons is the main conflict between players, but that's not really a problem when players can get so much information. Are fish disappearing due to overfishing or pollution or habitat disruption by ocean shipping? Well, here's a graph that shows disease as the primary cause of recent die-offs. Also, the water is black. Everyone agrees that fish disappearing is bad, and everyone agrees that pollution is responsible, and even selfish parties will vote in favor of obvious long-term benefits, or else get easily outvoted by the sane majority. Without trolls, I'm not sure if there can be any meaningful conflict in the system as it is described.

u/ContessaPlots [+4] (14 hours later)

I'm not sure if there can be any meaningful conflict in the system as it is described.

I think you're greatly underestimating how irrational people can be.

u/darkkaos505 [+1] (11 hours later)

hmm I see your point if the data is too exposed then it's very clear what the issue is and what do to stop it. Do you think there should be less data shown, in your example if we just had the number of deaths and the amount of disease we would have a correlation but that's not proof its the cause.

One of the examples they gave was that if you were a lumberjack and had leveled up into that skill and had the right buildings. Would you not be biased against ay laws stopping form doing your chosen specialisation ?

u/Anakiri [+3] (11 hours later)

Of course I'd be biased, but I don't think I'd be biased enough. If every forest animal is starving to death, then before long I will starve to death. And I think that only lumberjacks will be biased against such laws, and there shouldn't be enough lumberjacks to block those laws when every sane person can see the truth.

I think the concept could work well if there were almost no feedback at all. Pollution is invisible until well after everything is dead, and your only data are population estimates plus or minus 20% whenever you went out and checked. Which you didn't do before the problem because there was no reason to, so you don't know if anything has changed. That way, people can argue over whether problems even exist, or they can invent problems to spite industries they don't like, and different industries can credibly point fingers at each other with no super-detailed graph to solve the matter instantly. We don't know what killed the fish, but there are a lot less now than there used to be. The miners blame the fishermen and the fishermen blame the miners, and the shipping industry is whistling innocently while shredding the scorecards for how many shoals they plowed through for sport.

u/Shadawn [+1] (15 hours later)

I suppose there would be some selfish incentives. Leaderboards based on personal wealth could be easily implemented. People will go to great lengths (including dooming their world) to reach the place at the top.

u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (18 hours later)

I'd guess that the devs are banking on how much of a funding drive something like goonswarm deciding to burn a server might be. I'll have to look at the kickstarter but I wonder how many shards it'll start out with.

u/Lugnut1206 [+1] (16 hours later)

This looks really snazzy, but I'm hesitant to get extremely hyped for the same reasons already mentioned here.
Also...

 It will not be possible for one player to specialize in all the skills necessary to build in Eco, collaboration is required.

Players will be able to host their own servers, and the game can be played single player if so desired.

I'm sure they'll have a solution for this.

u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (9 days later)

They said that the rate of skill learning will be increased in single-player mode.

u/Running_Ostrich [+1] (22 hours later)

I think it'll be hard for them to implement laws without trolls taking advantage.

Eg.

• What if trolls spam law proposals?
• What if they vote against (or for) all new laws?

Especially since servers only support "several dozen players simultaneously", it seems like it'd be easy for trolls to rove between servers implementing unfair laws.

u/darkkaos505 [+1] (22 hours later)

Yea perhaps you should require spending time on a sever before you can vote. I mean if there is more trolls than normal players then I think it would be hard to get to work

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