Re: Names (was Re: Hello again)

[Stan Shebs <shebs at shebs dot cnchost dot com>]

Erik Sigra wrote:
> 
> torsdagen den 15 februari 2001 17:13 skrev Stan Shebs:
> > The fundamental purpose of all this is to build games, right?
> > So for every element you need to say "Is this entertaining?  Is this
> > fun for the player?"
> 
> A very addictive game is Age of Empires/Kings. They worked very hard on the
> historical accuracy, but I haven't found any humor at all in that game.

Indeed I was addicted to it too, and you're right, not much humor.
(Although the guy staggering along with the giant steak in his arms
was kind of funny.)  It was entertaining in the sense that I enjoyed
watching the little people do their activities, and at times it was
simply an annoyance to have the bucolic scene interrupted by an enemy
incursion.  So you just have to play another game but have better
defenses so your people are left alone, and so on...

I'd venture to say that the animations work together to produce a
sort of hypnotic state.  SimCity would do this, and then the budget
or news windows would pop up and startle you out of the reverie.

> > One way to entertain is to immerse, thus Civ's use of evocative names - the
> > use of "Rome" immediately brings up memories and context, even for players
> > who've only seen movies like "Spartacus" or "Gladiator".  By contrast,
> > "Sturni" is not at all evocative, even though there was believed to be such
> > a town in Italy in ancient times.  (The name is not made up, good luck
> > finding out exactly where it was, heh-heh.)
> 
> My best guess is 16°25' Eastern Length, 39°15' Nothern Height.

The place I was thinking of was supposed to have been near Brundisium.
My historical atlas places an "Ad Sabatum" at the site of the modern
Scigliano, but their web page claims they were originally called Sturni.
Quick, time for a posting to soc.history.ancient! :-)

Stan