It might take awhile to put together an integrated TWA library, but something I can do right now is provide a way for TWA authors to lock and sign their TWAs.

I'd like to provide a way for any licensed TWGS owner to request a key with which to sign their edits. When exporting a TWA, you'll have the option to give it a name, a small description, and sign it. When a game is run that uses an unmodified, signed TWA, it will provide the name, author and description for the player. If a gameop changes settings during a bigbang, or changes any TEDIT settings, this will invalidate the TWA and it will no longer be reported to players as that TWA.

I like that idea. I know that those who have spent the time to develop a good game edit realize just how much effort it really takes. I am learning that right now with my first attempt in creating a completely thought out and tested edit. Being able to sign it so people know where it came from (good or bad) is a plus in my book.

Definitely. But I think a big problem is just the fact that gameops like to tweak the edits. I don't think anyone is being malicious, it's just easy to tweak a few settings and then run a SubZero that's not exactly what SubZero was meant to be. Ops will still be able to run their own custom brews, but players will know that it's not the authentic edit as originally designed.

It's funny that you should mention the Sub Zero edit. There actually is no single author to that edit. As far as I can track this edit would be back to G.O.P. and I believe he originally created this edit. His edit wasn't balanced at all. He asked me to tweak the edit, and I did to try to make it playable. I sent it to Res Judicata who further tweaked the edit and added a couple of planets and ships. After that, I believe the sysop at Campus Party TWGS, (Seven I think was his handle), used that edit in a series of week end unlimited turn games. He may or may not have changed that edit to fit the bill for that. For the last 5 to 10 years the edit has remained pretty much the same as what it was after Campus Party.

It might be a lot more work, but maybe a signed TWA could specify a range for some settings. If the banged settings are within those ranges, it would still report itself as an "official" edit.

No, I disagree. It's either the way the author made it or it's not.

I agree with this.

As long as it is up to the edit designer to allow or disallow.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

That's the idea. I'm thinking of things like turns and sectors. A TWA designer could specify, say, 5000-10000 sectors and 750-1500 turns, or something like that.

I really don't have any issue with some of the settings changed to create a type game they enjoy. What makes me made is when they started creating super ships and super planets that throw off the the balance of the game completely. If I'd have wanted Dungeons & Dragons to be like Sub Zero, I would have created an Red Rum or an Ascian Boat in that edit too.

I will consider allowing an op to specify a range. That could be tricky. Lots of new functionality there.

Perhaps a simpler approach would be to identify a group of settings as typically modifiable without changing the balance of the edit. Though even something like turn count and time limits seem to be important to game balance. However, what I could do is, if these settings are modified, I can flag it is a minor adjustment to the edit, while other changes would flag it as a modified TWA. So when you play the game, it either shows as the true edit, tweaked edit, or modified edit. Maybe with a description of what that means.

As for the point about having a long list of modifications to an edit, I think it would be important to keep a history of authors in the description, so if you save out your version of an edit, credit prior authors. I suppose I could maintain such a list internally.

Or just say what the differences are:



Kind of thing.