Monopoly Uses Google Maps To Go Live Online 81
CWmike writes "Think you're a Monopoly whiz? Remember running the board and shaming your property-less competitors when playing board games on the living room floor? Well, the age-old game of buying property and making your rivals pay big for landing on your Railroad is now going global. The new, free web game will use Google Maps and Street View to make the whole planet the game board. The online version of Monopoly is set to launch on Wednesday."
Monopoly? (Score:4, Funny)
I bet Microsoft is the most expensive square.
Do not pass go (Score:2, Funny)
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The boardwalk must be in DC then.
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I vote for Shanghai. Much bigger downtown than ANY american city.
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Way to triple score the headline! (Score:3, Funny)
"Google", "Live", and "Monopoly" all together in the same sentence, even though the story has nothing to do with any actual monopoly, nor is it about the business practices of Microsoft or Google. Weird stuff.
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Re:not a fan (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! Thanks for sharing that- one of the most insightful slashdot posts I've ever read!
Do you have any more incredibly interesting stories from your childhood to tell us? Something about the way your dog barked differently from all the other kids dogs? Or that hilarious story about kiss chasey?
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No the *real* trick in Monopoly was buying Park Lane and Mayfair as quickly as possible. You'd get them every time right before "Go", and if not, they'd land on the most expensive tax square instead.
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Um... aren't they Park Place and Boardwalk?
Re:not a fan (Score:5, Funny)
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No mod points, but I'd be torn between "Funny" and "Insightful" on that one. Only because there's no option for "Sad because it's true".
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Re:not a fan (Score:4, Informative)
It seems to me that that would speed up the game and greatly increase the amount of strategy available to a player (Do you think you can let it go for auction and get the property at a lower price, do you think you can drive up the bidding to increase the amount of money your opponents use, do you want to bid on that property someone else let slip).
Quite frankly I didn't find out that that rule even existed until a couple of years ago, and I haven't played monopoly in about 6 or 7 years.
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Re:not a fan (Score:4, Informative)
You never learned to play properly. First, it is about business, i.e., anything you can cheat without getting caught is legal. I must say, the sweetest $6 to be made in the game is when a person lands on a property he/she already owns, and I convince them to pay __me__ the rental value. That is pure joy but very hard. First, you have to be dead serious and matter-of-fact when asking for the money, and secondly, you have to hold your laughter till the game ends when the owner of the property pays rent. Part two is actually the more difficult part. To be really successful, you must not even reveal your dastardly deed at all because then that person is forever on guard against your tactics. That is the hardest part of all.
... er, boring as goodness. Sin is way fun.
So you see, Monopoly game play can be quite nuanced. Unless you play a digital version and are forced to play fair. Then it is boring as sin
Brilliant! (Score:2)
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I haven't played Monopoly since my whole family refused to play it with me. I seem to remember the term "ruthless bastard" was involved in the explanation.
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You never learned to play properly. First, it is about business, i.e., anything you can cheat without getting caught is legal.
And chess is about war, but people are still surprised when I bury an axe in my opponent's skull.
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To be fair, it's a lot less restricting than some other board games. "Life" for instance. Or the embarrassment of "sorry." There is a strategy element. Also, games take a lot less time if you play by the official rules. The popular "free parking" free-money deal has been examined in simulations and the games aren't even guaranteed to end if you do that.
But all the "good" board games take even longer to play than monopoly. Up to the "ultimate" (notwithistanding the classics like chess, go, mahjong, etc.
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By "good" game, take a look at classics like Catan, Carcassonne and Puerto Rico (which are all about the same complexity as Monopoly yet have a lot more strategy involved than luck) or less well known ones like Power Grid, and Ticket to Ride.
If you want a light little party game with l
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Monopoly should only take about a half an hour if you play by the rules. It's "house rules" that bring it up to two or more hours. People make up extra rules to make the game last longer and then complain that it takes too long?
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A good boardgame to me is a game like Risk. The cheating, dealing, and backstabbing involved in that game make Monopoly look like "Go Fish".
You know a game is good when 5 hours through, like clockwork, someone always flips the board into the air and swears it off forever. ;)
War (Score:1)
Crowd sourcing (Score:1)
This appears to be an excellent use of crowd sourcing by Google to get the whole world modeled in 3d.
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This appears to be an excellent use of crowd sourcing by Google to get the whole world modeled in 3d.
Cue penis-monster buildings in 3..2...1...
But where's go? ...and my $200? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Actually this looks like a nifty way to get people into Sketchup design and such. I hope it is a success.
I dunno, the whole sketchup thing seems a bit dodgy. From what I can see, they get people to donate models to them, but seem to be trying hard to keep the model format proprietary (by "they" I guess it's the company who originally made it, which google bought). I couldn't find any freely available (non-NDA) documentation on the format, and while they make an SDK available, it's not FOSS [and is written in Ruby, which is probably not what most people want to use].
Personally, while I love the idea of an ac
Better yet... (Score:1)
Use Atlantic City, which is what the game is based on. You can use real crack houses and casinos for hotels.
Does that mean I get to own my entire block? (Score:2)
I'm not sure my neighbors will be very happy. It seems like a nice way to piss of some real life property owners.
One Of The World's Dullest Games (Score:1)
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Monopoly was not cut from whole cloth, you know. It may be a dull game, but it was popular for more than twenty years before it was popular [typepad.com].
DAMN! (Score:2)
I had this idea yesterday. Bastards.
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User-agent: *
Disallow:
Now keep imaging it if you don't want this to happen again.
First Psych (Score:2)
Not necessarily boring with the right rules (Score:4, Interesting)
Risk on Google Maps instead (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Troops that travel (of course)
2. Ships that can attack by sea (new)
3. Topographic component (altitude matters in a battle)
4. Instant Messaging (language translation?)
5. Allies (allies are important... maybe they can give me stuff?)
It would have to be all AJAX. Flash slows everything down. Plus, Google Maps API is a great AJAX implementation anyhow. The graphics would have to be decent. It can't look like a web page... should look like a console instead... something like Starcraft. That would work.
Ballistic Missiles could make things interesting too. That would be a new concept. But, it would have to be something similar to Scorched Earth that requires players to refine their projectile settings. Maybe make things interesting depending on the warhead used?
Then, one guy can conquer the whole planet... I wonder how that would compare to Monopoly...
Re:Risk on Google Maps instead (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't know what game you are pitching but it doesn't sound like risk.
Pull my finger and find out.
...then 42 countries just won't do. So you'd need to break the world into smaller units... say, 1 minute by 1 minute cells.
If you're going to have the whole world playing... (well, a few million players, anyway)
Likewise, you can't really do a turn-based system... You'd have to use a time-based troop-earning mechanism instead. But, earning money in time makes a bit more sense than earning troops... so each "cell" can earn some currency every-so-often, and then you can buy
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Sounds like Axis and Allies http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aa/welcome [wizards.com] with nukes to me.
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Let's play Global Thermonuclear War...
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Empire (Score:2)
That is a bit closer to what you are describing instead of Risk. Of course any of the good board games from years gone by, like Axis and Allies, could be placed on Google Maps. All we are doing is adding a "dynamic" map.
Now of course I am sure there are people who would take great offense with a war game using Google Maps... like Google, but its just fluff. If the game was good before the use of the Google Maps then it will be good afterward...
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Re:Monopoly is a horrible game (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is a game where the main strategy is "pray I get the roll I need" considering such a great game by American?
Because people (gasp!) enjoy it.
People buy a new edition, play it once, remember how much it sucks and put it on the shelf for the cycle to repeat in 5-10 years.
Or not. I play games of Monopoly with friends and family reasonably often, and we always have fun. Remember, just because you think it sucks, doesn't mean everyone else does.
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Not only do some people enjoy the game, but some people also modify the game a bit to be more fun. For instance, my family plays using two boards joined at "Go". Twice the monopolies. We add a rule where the utilities are counted as transports ("Railroad Tycoon"), so a person with the entirety of transports on one board gets $800 instead of a measly $200. There's all kinds of other rules we add, like larger/more dice, which works very well on the double-board game.
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Not only do some people enjoy the game, but some people also modify the game a bit to be more fun.
Speaking of modifying the game. I got really really bored one day and started thinking about creating a monopoly themed game for my place of work.
Among other websites, one of the more interesting ones I came across was:
http://www.boardgamedesign.com/pages/games/custom-opoly.htm [boardgamedesign.com]
While things don't get resellably cheap until you make bulk orders, they do have a prototype service for low (even single) orders, which just costs a bit more. I believe the individual blanks can be ordered under the shopping page t
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That is not how to win, there is a time in every game where you have to take a chance and bargain with other players for property to get some sort of monopoly going and also mortgage everything to build on it.
If you survive a few rounds, and if it is early in the game you probably will, you are flying!
If you conservatively play, you just slowly loose your money to the guy with all the buildings!
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Why not have everyone roll the dice, whoever rolls highest wins the came. There's an equal amount of strategy and luck in that "variant". (And fwiw, I usually win because I'm more stubborn and people get bored and make stupid trades just to move things along -- what a great game mechanic).
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I've found that the cheapest 3 sets of properties gives a huge advantage to the owner. The most expensive properties, not so much. The theory goes that because they're the cheap ones, you can get hotels up and early and st
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Not to mention, how do you get the first 3 color groups? luck, luck, luck.
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Actaully...wow that is insightful. Ford "played" conservatively and so had a much smaller but more stable position. GM "played" agressively, was much larger and more powerful -- and unstable. And then when the economy hit a little bump, Ford won -- well actually the "bank" slapped Ford in the face and emptied the coffers in front of GM.
It may mirror real life, but as a game, it's just a horrible design.
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You don't win by mortgaging unless it's to complete the high priced set of properties or put houses on them just before your opponent(s) get to that part of the board.
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MMORPG? (Score:2)
So do we need a new acronym for this?
Massively Multiplayer Online Monopoly ? MMOM?
Er, not just Google Maps (Score:4, Informative)
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Are you sure you don't mean dividing by 100 and then rounding? Or are you really taking 40 drinks to buy Boardwalk?
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You need to look at the weird math they used to make up what a drink is. I.e. 1 drink = 0.5 oz. He even gives you 1 beer = 24 drinks. So, 40 drinks would be about 2 (12 oz.) beers. This seems reasonable if you use if for every money transaction.
Game Reset (Score:2)
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Millions of people played, cheaters took over, they reset the game, and it still sucks. The rents were increasing more than exponentialy, now they dropped the rents and pissed everyone off. It will be quite interesting to see what happens.
The blog [monopolycitystreets.com] is loaded with complaints.