it is very diffrent Game

[kon]

I call it kon which is playing mangbnad with the Japanese lagged server. Although arms strong against a town are placed and enjoyed and it is ‚é, what do you think to putting an item on a town in a lagged server? Although occasionally carried out to the server of USA, since one did not have an item in a town, I considered so.
:-/

[Ashi]

We want to make the game harder. Few players should be able to reach high levels. Free town items would only make it easy.

As Crimson says, players should not get items they can't easily find by themselves.
As Domino says, players who get too much gear from others play more carelessly.

[kon]

Thank you for an answer. Is it saying that it is not easily easy to take the strong item of a town? Redo from the beginning once again and a dungeon is searched carefully, without taking the item of a town. If surely the item of a town is taken and it becomes strong, attentiveness will fall. Is it saying whether how to enjoy original of this game is careful only of which, and searches a dungeon? I have carried out English?

[Volrak]

Hehe.. to be honest, your English is hard to understand, but it is much better than my Japanese.  ::)

I'm not sure what your original question was, but on the topic of leaving {good} items in town for use by others, i disagree with Ashi that they make the game any easier, in practice.  The reason is that if somebody of low level is going to die carelessly without {good} gear, then they will surely feel capable of diving a little lower with it, and die carelessly with it too.

At low levels, attitudes and tactics are all that determine if you live.. i think that usually, how much danger someone is prepared to face will stay (roughly) constant.  So if they get hold of better gear, they'll be prepared to bump up the risks a little, since they can handle them a little better.  That could be what Domino meant in your quote.

So.. my argument is that {good} gear for newbies makes no difference in the long run.. this doesn't support a view that such gear should be dropped in town.  It just argues the point that it's unimportant whether it is or not.

Any differences of opinion?  :)

[Crimson]

Absolutely a difference of opinoin here.

The assumption this makes no real difference is incorrect.  It horribly screws the most important stage of the game, the humble beginnings.  This is where a lot of your characters "flavor" develops for later in the game, and a well placed {good} item will put a wise character well ahead of schedule, without him having to have faced the original peril he should have to face.

90% of characters die prior to level 10.  This is an important game balance issue.

[Volrak]

Hehe, i thought you might disagree.. i still hold to my point of view, although i recognize that i don't have the experience in mangband that you have, so it's possible some of my views will change as i play more.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by character flavor, and why the early levels are important to it.. maybe i'll be able to look back and understand what you mean later on.

I think that for a cautious player, there is not actually much peril at all at lower levels (going by the experience of only 2 characters though).  I suppose it is possible to be "wise", and not cautious, i.e. taking additional calculated risks in order to level at a faster rate.  Being granted {good} items would enable players to level faster in the early levels without being required to face those additional risks to the same extent, but i don't see that as necessarily screwing anything, because they could have removed those risks simply by taking it slower, and being cautious.  Bonus {good} gear would let them get to a more interesting part of the game sooner (although "interesting" is subjective).  And "unwise" players would die with or without basic gear donations, as i said above.

> 90% of characters die prior to level 10.  This is an important game balance issue.

I'd be curious to know what proportion of those deaths happen at level 1, in town.. i don't think that newbie town deaths are balance-related.  Perhaps there's a positive effect of reinforcing the fact of the players' mortality, but i think that being killed within seconds or minutes of creating a character, before actually going out and exploring, would drive some players away.

[Ashi]

Hehe, to be honest, I think kon used an online translator site.

The town items are not just {good} stuff, there's speed rings, rare books, 'Westies', and elvenkinds...and all kinds of stuff high level people find. When I used to play on the Japanese server, I would drop the rare items in town and not ever buy a house. If I died, I would regear in town.
This would cause many problems for us. People could stop buying houses, and deaths would not be as serious. Newcomers often pick up all the items and log off or sell them. The most challenging part of the game is almost completely eliminated.

[Volrak]

If we're talking about all gear, including very rare and valuable stuff, and not just {good}, then yeah, mangband would be a very different game.  Hey.. that's the title of this thread  :D

Communist mangband, as opposed to capitalist mangband?