During some time the Roman empire run trough emperors in an alarming rate, average lifespan was a couple of years.
After the empire fell lots of people called themselves the emperor of Rome, without having any connections, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire was commonly described as neither Roman, holly or an empire.

As you say, its an bragging right for the warlord who hold the capital that day. Later historians quietly ignored them.

That's such a stupid design decision.

Pretty sure the GI article said it's the equivalent of a title for being highest on the scoreboards in PvP.
It's not as if that person actually becomes the emperor.

Yeah, someone, somewhere REALLY dropped the ball with all this.

Which is kinda sad.

In the awesome MMO "A Tale in the Desert", one player - and only one player - can become the Pharao of the whole Egypt. And he then really is a ruler with wide-ranging powers. Among other things, he can permanently ban other players (well, until the next "cycle" at least, which last a real-time year or two). However, he can only do so a few times ... so the social pressures on how and when to utilise his powers are staggering. After all, what if a friend of the banned player manages to be the next Pharao?

that such a terribly designed abuse of power position.

For a "terribly designed abuse" it works very, very well - since 2003. http://www.atitd.com/, the first 24 hours are free, so you can use it to chat with other players about how well it works (or doesn't work) from their perspective.

Interesting side note: You seem to enjoy posting your ideas and assumptions as if they were true, without having any background knowledge of the topic in question and being quite often provably wrong.

Interesting main note: you seem to make assumptions based off of what I say with having no knowledge of my intent, or meaning, behind saying them, and often make clearly wrong assumptions based off that.

See that works both ways, and is a silly thing to say.

Also just because the game hasn't destroyed itself doesn't mean its good gameplay.

No, I just judge your MMO background by the lack of knowledge of how MMOs work you display in the threads. Which of the more innovative MMOs of their time - Lost Souls, Genesis, Threshold, Neverwinter Nights, Meridian 59, Ultima Online, A Tale in the Desert, Star Wars Galaxies, Lineage and so on - you played or not doesn't really matter.


The game mechanics do exactly what they are supposed to do: Simulate the power struggle and politics of the Ancient Egypt. In this sense, they are well-designed and work well. The game also makes a steady profit for the developers. In this sense, they fit and work in the context of the whole game. And here comes you, and claims it isn't "good gameplay" ... without giving any arguments or reasons whatsoever.

Well I actually do know how MMOs work, all the things I have ragged on, such as player housing, have failed in very obvious ways.

Which could be simulated without having the ability to ban people. Any game designer who thinks such an abuse of power is warranted has a screw loose. Might as well give him the console and allow him to turn on god mode.

EDIT for EDIT:


Did it fail? Ultima Online is still around. Star Wars Galaxies would be still around if their licence didn't run out. Minecraft (which is almost all about making your own constructions in a shared world, as far as the multiplayer goes) does great.

Where are those "failures" you're talking about?


Of course it could be implemented differently. But just because there's more than one way to do something doesn't make one of the ways to be "bad gameplay", so that's not an argument in favour of your original statement.

As for the "screw lose" comment: Are you seriously resorting to ad hominem attacks on someone who can't even defend themselves, not participating in this discussion?

It makes it bad gameplay when it allows people to abuse power.

But from what I gather from your other posts balance and fairness are not things you seem to care about in games, "those who get there first should be able to claim it forever as long as they can fight for it", or so was your stance on housing.

You mean like how Ultima online's housing situation failed miserably?

Also minescraft in a sandbox game, not a MMO, it is irrelevant. you might as well start bringing up Halo.

It allows people to abuse power if they are ready to face the consequences ... How is that "bad gameplay"?


Cite me where I claimed that, expecially the "forever" part.

People are also ready to face the bugginess and CTDs of Bethesda's games, does that make it good game design? no.

If you are going to totally ignore the entire conversation we had on housing then I see no reason to further this discussion.

The question I asked was "How are having meaningful choices and consequences bad game design?" That's not an answer to this question.


Hey, you are the one who misrepresented my position. Why are you getting mad when I called you out on your strawman building?

emporer 3lit3 R4Mbo will die by my hand. the throne shall be mine.

For the Emperor title, I hope that the Battle for the Imperial City PvP map takes a week to reset. It would seem silly if the Person holding the title had to give it up the next day or in an hour. Other than that, I think it's nice way of pointing out the best PvP player in a faction, by giving them a title which shows the effort they've put in.

good luck. The blades are sworn to protect him with their lives... Over an 11 year old apparently.

We of the Selective draw breath to put the Eyesore on the throne of the Red Diamond kingdom! TAM! RUGH!

You get assassinated by the DB. Thus giving someone else a turn to play emperor.

I won't be playing verses mode in this game so I doubt I'll ever be empress and frankly I would not want to be. I can't stand competitive people

Wow. That is pretty extraordinary.

Though I never said I didn't think TESO's emperor title thing wasn't a silly idea, I was just saying it didn't create a carved in stone leader of the country.

emperor N00BcrUsher shall rule them all

he wont have time to form any Blades.

Just call 47. He'll do the job.