Immobile Factors of Production are things like weather/climate, natural resources, soil conditions, etc. In actual free trade theory, nations trade their excess products that they can manufacture at better quality and less cost, but that is NOT what todays so-called Free Trade is doing as there is no natural obstacle to the moving of jobs to overseas nations that have free schooling, free medical care, strong extended family networks, little to no worker safety/environmental protection, etc.
Also the cost of labor is a small factor in al this. Nike for example is paying Vietnamese workers pennies per pair of shoes and would end up paying American workers probably a few dollars per pair instead. But when Nike charges US$60+ for those shoes, it is plainly not going to increase their costs appreciably to emply Americans instead of Vietneamese, or to start paying a competitive salary to its Vietnamese work force.
The way to even the playing field is to also move our political leaders to:
1) compel plants overseas to meet US labor and environmental laws,
2) compel foreign exporters to America to allow for an equal import of American goods which is not the case across the globe except for Europe.
3) end the tax subsidies to American businesses that reloacate overseas. There is no reason to continue to provide the tax breaks these manufactures get for abandoning American labor.
is when the people realize that they can vote to confiscate the wealth of some in order to enrich themselves.
Hence Fabian Socialism; use taxation to ease the burden of paverty on the most vulnerable of society in order to maintain a stable democracy that respects property rights.
Now that communism has supposedly 'fallen', (yeah, right, tell it to the North Koreans, Chicoms and Vietnamese) the corporate mogules are dismantling the middle class one job/indujstry at a time and auctioning it off to enrich themslves.
Design the game so that you can play it, not in some simple mode, but without micro-managing the detail by allowing the player to leave a lot to the game AI, like Civ III does with city management. If you want to micro-manage, then fine do so, but dont design the game so you have to to win.
RPGs can do something similar by having a mix of complexity among the classes played. A warrior might be simple enough to just pick up and play well the first time, while a Wizard would require more studying the books, practice and min-maxing to be really effective.
But design the game with multiple levels of complexity and let the player pick it.
I agree with your observations, and would like to add that the MMORPG industry is apparently in need of some good market research tools/services that will enable them to get to the real issues and concerns of not just their current players, but of potential players as well.
Seems odd that an industry in such a data-gathering-friendly environment is not better served in this area.
There are so many competing concerns in the design of any game that I doubt that any MMORPG can ever be perfectly balanced.
Casual players who maybe play 10 to 15 hours a week, versus hard-core gamers that play 60 hours a week is hard to balance out. Even at the same levels, the hard-core gamers has huge advantages in experience and helping friends, typically. A class could be perfectly balanced in theory but if more popular among hard-core players it may seem to be unbalanced.
Also, with all the skills, classes, abilities, etc that games have to keep it interesting for hard-core players, the different possible combinations become neraly astronomical. Beta testing just cannot review all these combos and when the hard-core players (who probably know the game better than the developers do after 6 months) find all the little min-maxing tweaks that makes their avatars over-whelming, there is no way you can blame it on the developer for not realizing this ahead of time.
I think the answer might be to have hidden variables in the game that can adjust things ever so slightly (+-5%, say) and let the success/failure rate of those playing the class automatically adjust this hiden nerf variable down or up without a visible patch.
The hardcore players will burn through all the newest games and move on; there is no point in trying to balance a game for that 2% of gamers. The design should be for the casual plaeyrs who will stick with the game far longer while the hard-core have moved on long ago.
But MMORPGS are fun whether totally balanced or not if you just want an immersive escape instead of an alternate ego to justify your miserey in real life, lol.
Good one!
But where is the part where the owner fires the architect and hires another in the middle of construction of his house and wants to keep the completion date the same?
Slashdot Mirror
Engineers made good money in most fields, from civic engineers to electrical engineers. And yes this was way before the 'tech bubble', duh.
Dont know about your family, but maybe you santitation engineers just dont compare.
Immobile Factors of Production are things like weather/climate, natural resources, soil conditions, etc. In actual free trade theory, nations trade their excess products that they can manufacture at better quality and less cost, but that is NOT what todays so-called Free Trade is doing as there is no natural obstacle to the moving of jobs to overseas nations that have free schooling, free medical care, strong extended family networks, little to no worker safety/environmental protection, etc. Also the cost of labor is a small factor in al this. Nike for example is paying Vietnamese workers pennies per pair of shoes and would end up paying American workers probably a few dollars per pair instead. But when Nike charges US$60+ for those shoes, it is plainly not going to increase their costs appreciably to emply Americans instead of Vietneamese, or to start paying a competitive salary to its Vietnamese work force. The way to even the playing field is to also move our political leaders to: 1) compel plants overseas to meet US labor and environmental laws, 2) compel foreign exporters to America to allow for an equal import of American goods which is not the case across the globe except for Europe. 3) end the tax subsidies to American businesses that reloacate overseas. There is no reason to continue to provide the tax breaks these manufactures get for abandoning American labor.
the rich will always be rich
is when the people realize that they can vote to confiscate the wealth of some in order to enrich themselves. Hence Fabian Socialism; use taxation to ease the burden of paverty on the most vulnerable of society in order to maintain a stable democracy that respects property rights. Now that communism has supposedly 'fallen', (yeah, right, tell it to the North Koreans, Chicoms and Vietnamese) the corporate mogules are dismantling the middle class one job/indujstry at a time and auctioning it off to enrich themslves.
Design the game so that you can play it, not in some simple mode, but without micro-managing the detail by allowing the player to leave a lot to the game AI, like Civ III does with city management. If you want to micro-manage, then fine do so, but dont design the game so you have to to win. RPGs can do something similar by having a mix of complexity among the classes played. A warrior might be simple enough to just pick up and play well the first time, while a Wizard would require more studying the books, practice and min-maxing to be really effective. But design the game with multiple levels of complexity and let the player pick it.
I agree with your observations, and would like to add that the MMORPG industry is apparently in need of some good market research tools/services that will enable them to get to the real issues and concerns of not just their current players, but of potential players as well.
Seems odd that an industry in such a data-gathering-friendly environment is not better served in this area.
There are so many competing concerns in the design of any game that I doubt that any MMORPG can ever be perfectly balanced.
Casual players who maybe play 10 to 15 hours a week, versus hard-core gamers that play 60 hours a week is hard to balance out. Even at the same levels, the hard-core gamers has huge advantages in experience and helping friends, typically. A class could be perfectly balanced in theory but if more popular among hard-core players it may seem to be unbalanced.
Also, with all the skills, classes, abilities, etc that games have to keep it interesting for hard-core players, the different possible combinations become neraly astronomical. Beta testing just cannot review all these combos and when the hard-core players (who probably know the game better than the developers do after 6 months) find all the little min-maxing tweaks that makes their avatars over-whelming, there is no way you can blame it on the developer for not realizing this ahead of time.
I think the answer might be to have hidden variables in the game that can adjust things ever so slightly (+-5%, say) and let the success/failure rate of those playing the class automatically adjust this hiden nerf variable down or up without a visible patch.
The hardcore players will burn through all the newest games and move on; there is no point in trying to balance a game for that 2% of gamers. The design should be for the casual plaeyrs who will stick with the game far longer while the hard-core have moved on long ago.
But MMORPGS are fun whether totally balanced or not if you just want an immersive escape instead of an alternate ego to justify your miserey in real life, lol.
Good one! But where is the part where the owner fires the architect and hires another in the middle of construction of his house and wants to keep the completion date the same?