NationStates Jolt Archive


Branching, Record and Idle

Diezhoffen
28-06-2008, 03:06
It'd be cool to have branching issue paths. These would be like narratives or choose-your-own adventure. A player would still get stand-alone issues but could also get an issue that's the first out of a possible set of 10 (the # of successive issues varies on player decisions; some issue-strains are shorter than others). Dismissing a branching issue would put players on the Dismiss limb.

There should be a record of player-decisions on issues so we can see the whole history of one-another's choices: from start to finish. Such a record could then be used in coding to minimize repetition. The issue-delivery script would have 'if' checks for each issue so an issue wouldn't be repeated, if the record showed it'd been had, until every other issue's went through. Issue could be based on items nations are ranked on like crime. Players could be shown the percent breakup of other players decisions after making their own.

What if...
When a player has been given every issue appropriate for his country his state becomes idle. Until new issues are made he doesn't get any issues. Instead he gets various idle statements like "you have peace on all sides. Rabi Jostein says Yahweh has surely blessed [nation's name]. Your minister of war, Nookum Till Aglo'indadark assures you imperial expansion's the cause of this calm. 'See, that's what war's good for'. 'Oh, no! Not war! It was our compromise and compassion that has so brought us together' corrects Heather Lovegood, President of Women for Change." Other idle messages may say the lack of reports is disturbing: it seems some secret danger is building.
Pythagosaurus
28-06-2008, 05:29
> issue strains

Interesting but not going to happen.

> full backlog

Been requested dozens of times. The answer is no. You see, some people have answered thousands of issues. It just doesn't make sense on that scale.

> force idle

Riots have been started for less.
Flibbleites
28-06-2008, 05:29
There should be a record of player-decisions on issues so we can see the whole history of one-another's choices: from start to finish. Such a record could then be used in coding to minimize repetition. The issue-delivery script would have 'if' checks for each issue so an issue wouldn't be repeated, if the record showed it'd been had, until every other issue's went through. Issue could be based on items nations are ranked on like crime. Players could be shown the percent breakup of other players decisions after making their own.

That's been suggested numerous times and always been rejected due to the amount of hard drive space required to store the entire issue history for thousands of nations.