That was kind of my point, you don't see what it is so it is unquestionable. As such if it's wrong it stays wrong.
That's true at times. On the other hand, in boardgames like ASL, if it's wrong players will simply trot out arguments like "design for effect," even if everyone knows it's wrong and it's obvious. They just don't want to see anything changed as it will require learning new rules.
The end result is that both systems have serious design problems that go uncorrected, but for differing reasons.
To play my get out of jail card, much of this view is from playing early computer rules...
There are advantages and disadvantages in both types. It's hard to argue that designers haven't taken tabletop wargaming about as far as it can go. In contrast, up till now the primary limitation on computer wargames has been hardware limitations due to available memory and processing power. It just wasn't practical to do a lot of the things that designers would have liked to do. That, coupled with the fact that most wargame developers aren't anywhere close to being elite programmers with the skills required to code cutting edge designs that harness the latest APIs. But as time goes on, hardware limitations have largely become a thing of the past. The limitation now is that there simply aren't very many really advanced programmers out there working on computer wargame designs. Even when you do get a decent one, they're usually working alone and it's very difficult to create truly great software with a team of one.
Sadly, the truth is there's no money in it. If there were, and considering what modern PCs are capable of, one can only wonder what kind of wargames a company with the resources of, say, EA Games could produce. The capability is there to create games with insanely detailed combat algorithms, incredible terrain fidelity, accurate FOW for both friendly and enemy forces, logistics, and much more. But it's not going to happen because there's no money in it. So we get designs cobbled together by guys with -- let's be honest -- mediocre coding skills who do it as a part-time hobby.
The average computer game in 2009 has a budget of roughly 20 million dollars and the average video game about 30 million. Top flight productions like GTA sport budgets of well over 100 million dollars and have 100-150 full time programmers, producers, AI specialists, GUI designers, audio specialists and more. What kind of wargame could we produce with that kind of money and that kind of talent? The best thing is that the game could be designed with LAN and face-to-face multiplayer options right from the outset, so it would have the fidelity of a true computer simulation and the pure joy of face-to-face social interaction. Companies like CCP have proven that it's even possible to do this kind of thing and put it into a persistent game world. Imagine being able to re-fight all of WWII with incredibly accurate weapons systems, a working chain of command, and have the result of every battle affect every other battle -- a true persistent wargame.
Not gonna' happen because there's too few wargamers, they're far too hard to please, and they tend to be cheap bastards who buy one game and play it for a decade or two. Exactly the kind of market any sane publisher would pay to
avoid. So we get the crumbs.
But maybe 30 years from now, when computers have evolved to the point where even non-programmers can design quality software...
