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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enaknomolos" data-source="post: 9790445" data-attributes="member: 7047434">I wasn't that jazzed about Pioneer; but looking at the preview and what we know so far, I think that it is a strong contender for a version of contemporary simulationist as a style. By that, I mean rather than trying to tie 'contemporary' to some ultimately arbitrary time period, 'contemporary' is about the content of the game: reflecting wider shifts in the hobby while still being sim.Here are some things that about Pioneer that might count as contemporary simulationist in this way:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Made by experts in the relevant domain: it wouldn't be fair to say that this never happened in older games, but a lot was done by amateurs trying their best in a pre-internet era. This led to a lot of questionable choices. Armour and arms in TSR D&D, for instance, aimed at some sort of historical verisimilitude, but missed it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Putting the sim under the hood: Mongoose Matt has said that one of the aims with Pioneer is that the maths for space travel is right without forcing the players to actually do the maths. That way those that know and care can be happy that the simulation is right, and others can just enjoy the in-game consequences of the simulation. To me, this is a big shift from 1980's sim.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Combat is de-emphasised: often the emphasis of older sim games was wound location tables, coolness under fire, and so on. In contrast, combat looks to be a marginal part of Pioneer. From a sim point of view, this is interesting. The expectation in older RPG's for frequent dramatic and interesting combats (outside of mass battles) is, after all, usually pretty unrealistic even when looking at much more violent periods than the present.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">A sim approach to narrative: this uses a lot of older tools, but I think in a slightly more conscious ways. Using events in character creation, rumour tables, and so on to let provocative situations arise fairly naturally.</li> </ol>Obviously, I don't really know if Pioneer will live up to all that; but I think it's an interesting picture of what contemporary sim could be.</blockquote>

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