OT MOO3 reconsidered

[Saxon]

It has been quite a few years since I last posted here, but I had some thoughts that I suspect only the SE crowd might find of any interest. Even that might be stretching it, but I thought I would float it anyway.

MOO:3 has been much maligned and I was one of those who was not taken by it. However, recent events have led me to reconsider.

I have been promoted and now manage a much larger staff than before. I crossed the line from being able to handle almost everything personally to having to delegate entire functions to other managers. It has been disconcerting and very unlike the way I did things before. However, it is the reality of management. As a system grows, you have to begin passing more and more control over to other managers, as there simply is not enough time in the day.

What it most reminds me of is MOO:3! The efforts in that game to make you a high level manager of an empire and to take away your ability to micromanage. You have to set policies and targets, then let other managers do the actual work of getting you there.

I must say that I am not as happy with my new job as I was with my old one. One of the big things is that I don’t get my hands dirty with the details. Another is that I don’t seem to have as much direct control, even if I have much more power. Again, it reminded me of the differences between the early MOO and SE games and MOO:3.

It is not that MOO:3 was a good game. It is that it is actually quite a good upper level management simulator. I think the design team did a good job, but they managed to miss out the fun factor. That said, I am trying to hunt down a copy of the game, as I want to fire it up again with a new perspective.