My reasoning for this is as long as you can log off & you and your inventory dissappears from the world, eventually there will be nothing left because its all in the inventories of people who are no longer playing the game (or safely horded on mules of players who currently do but are completely safe)
I saw your post. One of the paramount rules is to never take away from the player something that he feels he has worked to gain or earned. Your 'solution' would quickly reinforce that there is a cap to one's efforts and they would either see that mechanic as a contrived system working against the free market or just game the softcap you create. Don't be so quick to tell others what they need to learn.
Don't be so quick? You mentioning this paramount rule is new and was not mentioned the first time you replied. If you did not want other people to think you had not read the thread, you should have mentioned this paramount rule the first time.
As it stands, your paramount rule is something that is used as a standard, but is not the final word. Games like Darkfall or Lineage 2 take away what people have earned all the time, and people still play it. Besides, what game does not have a cap to our efforts? Pretty much every game has a cap, and very few games break that rule.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
I don't think it is valid to ask if it *would* work, because it already has....
Every resource in SWG was randomly generated off of master types. We defined “iron,” and gave it statistical ranges. Different kinds of iron would spawn with different names, but they would all work as iron in any recipe that called for such. This meant that you might find a high-quality vein of iron, or a low quality one.
Even more, it might be high quality only for specific purposes.
Resource types were finite. You could literally mine out all the high quality iron there was. It would just be gone. A new iron might be spawned eventually (sometimes, very eventually!) but of course, it would be rolled up with different characteristics.
And in a different place. Resources were placed using freshly generated Perlin noise maps.
Crafters gambled with their resources, generating items of varying quality that were partially dependent on the resources and the recipe.
Crafters could lock in specific results as blueprints, but that forced a dependency on the specific finite resource that was used, meaning that blueprints naturally obsolesced.
All of this meant that a merchant could never rely having the best item, or the most desirable item (indeed, “most desirable” could exist on several axes, meaning that there were varying customer preferences in terms of what they liked in a blaster). Word spread through informal means as to the locations of rare ore deposits. People fought PvP battles over them. People hoarded minerals just to sell them on the market once they had become rare. And of course, they organized sites like the now defunct SWGCraft.com, which monitored all of this fluctuating data and fed it back out in tidy feeds for other sites and even apps to consume, such as this one, which was widely used by hardcore business players much like a Bloomberg terminal is by someone who plays the market.
Agreed ...... the system used by SWG was truly a thing of beauty. Resource gathering and crafting both ...
I have yet to find something even close to the complexity and still have a decent fighting side to the game. For years I lived in the game by moving/buying/selling resources. Many alts each with 10 spots for extractors and just relocate when the resource was out. Sigh, the good ol' days.
I saw your post. One of the paramount rules is to never take away from the player something that he feels he has worked to gain or earned. Your 'solution' would quickly reinforce that there is a cap to one's efforts and they would either see that mechanic as a contrived system working against the free market or just game the softcap you create. Don't be so quick to tell others what they need to learn.
Don't be so quick? You mentioning this paramount rule is new and was not mentioned the first time you replied. If you did not want other people to think you had not read the thread, you should have mentioned this paramount rule the first time.
As it stands, your paramount rule is something that is used as a standard, but is not the final word. Games like Darkfall or Lineage 2 take away what people have earned all the time, and people still play it. Besides, what game does not have a cap to our efforts? Pretty much every game has a cap, and very few games break that rule.
- Are you saying you did understand that's a basic rule of thumb and, knowing that, you still posted that 'solution' of taking gathered materials away from certain players if the server cap is hit?
- I'm not familiar with many instances where Darkfall was ever held up as a shining example of how to properly run a game.
- AFAIK, outside of cleaning up vestigial event items and addressing ToS violations, I am not aware of any design or game mechanic in the NCSoft titles, defunct or currently running, that takes away a player's items. Can you link to an incident or event where this was done in one of their games?
- Yes, lifesbrink, there's a cap to everything. The issue isn't the cap. The issue is a player doing tasks within the understood mechanics and having his efforts diminished, negated or removed due to some arbitrary band-aid created to compensate for poor design.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Middle class slowy disappears while the rich become super wealthy and the poor become more and more poor as those who have will hoard.
would rather say that not even in the real world can people accept that our ressources is finite....how can you expect kids playing a game to understand it..... ;P
Depends...are we talking about short-term finite like carrier pidgeons, or long-term finite like arabian oil reserves?
An economy of scarcity and artificial prices could be fun, actually. I'd certainly gouge the U.S. for more cash.
The question is, is your game also robust enough to research alternatives? If an oil shortage eventually leads to workable fusion (or something), you've just created a game that regularly and dramatically overhauls its own economy entirely.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
There are also ways to design a game to fix flaws in an otherwise interesting system.
For example, many people would state that others would hoard finite resources and eventually there wouldn't be any. Those without much thought into the design would even say that people would gather resources and unsubscribe, destroying said resources forever.
Fortunately for game designers, there is always a solution: the use of our brains.
There are many ways you could fix the flaws of finite resources. Just off the top of my head, I can think of several.
Permadeath, Full Loot, FFA PvP, Sieges + Characters or their Castles/Banks/Houses not being able to go Offline
Community Ownership + Some of the Above
Time Based Taxation- Easiest and best solution. Every day, week, month, [time] the "king" taxes everyone. If you hoard forever, you will eventually have nothing. You can hoard forever only if you work forever to regain what you lose. Taxation causes hoarding to instantly be eliminating, giving 100% insurance that the finite resources circulate. Players do not benefit from hoarding unless the strategy is immediate (a short amount of time hoarding to profit more than taxation).
Item Decay, Upkeep Cost, etc- Similar to taxation, but requires resources to prevent decay.
Originally posted by Loktofeit- Are you saying you did understand that's a basic rule of thumb and, knowing that, you still posted that 'solution' of taking gathered materials away from certain players if the server cap is hit?
- I'm not familiar with many instances where Darkfall was ever held up as a shining example of how to properly run a game.
- AFAIK, outside of cleaning up vestigial event items and addressing ToS violations, I am not aware of any design or game mechanic in the NCSoft titles, defunct or currently running, that takes away a player's items. Can you link to an incident or event where this was done in one of their games?
- Yes, lifesbrink, there's a cap to everything. The issue isn't the cap. The issue is a player doing tasks within the understood mechanics and having his efforts diminished, negated or removed due to some arbitrary band-aid created to compensate for poor design.
Lineage 2 is currently running, and when your character dies, you have a small chance of dropping your weapon or armor. The chance is high enough that death is something to be feared, especially as it is open-PVP, so anyone can come by and kill you again and again in an attempt to get you to drop your stuff. It makes the game dangerous, but fun.
Darkfall may not be a shining example, but it draws people in that like the risk of losing everything along with the risk of gaining everything.
As for poor design, that is just it, poor design is poor. Using finite resources with poor design would of course fail, so naturally you would want to do it with excellent gameplay that would complement a finite system.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Originally posted by Loktofeit- Are you saying you did understand that's a basic rule of thumb and, knowing that, you still posted that 'solution' of taking gathered materials away from certain players if the server cap is hit?
- I'm not familiar with many instances where Darkfall was ever held up as a shining example of how to properly run a game.
- AFAIK, outside of cleaning up vestigial event items and addressing ToS violations, I am not aware of any design or game mechanic in the NCSoft titles, defunct or currently running, that takes away a player's items. Can you link to an incident or event where this was done in one of their games?
- Yes, lifesbrink, there's a cap to everything. The issue isn't the cap. The issue is a player doing tasks within the understood mechanics and having his efforts diminished, negated or removed due to some arbitrary band-aid created to compensate for poor design.
Lineage 2 is currently running, and when your character dies, you have a small chance of dropping your weapon or armor. The chance is high enough that death is something to be feared, especially as it is open-PVP, so anyone can come by and kill you again and again in an attempt to get you to drop your stuff. It makes the game dangerous, but fun.
There is a difference between loss due to player actions and having items taken from your inventory just because there's none left for other people. But to directly address your tangetial example, that mechanic was removed years ago and only exists for reds as the playerbase found it frustrating and annoying.
Darkfall may not be a shining example, but it draws people in that like the risk of losing everything along with the risk of gaining everything.
Again, we're not talking about loss on death. The issue I was replying to was one of devs taking items from players simply because they had them and others didn't.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think a partially limitation would work. but at the end of the day there'd always need to be more stocks of resources. so no it wouldnt work, but maybe a compromise could work
so why not have deposits of resources that are huge and would take a thousand players six months to completely deplete [or whatever numbers are balanced] while the devs work on adding a new continent with new deposits. though that
Though it would still have to be based around gameplay. so lets say the game has territory control. if mines were very rare controlling a mine would be a huge thing, but if the mine runs out its gone. so either you'd have to be careful not to waste the resources or trade for it if you need it. If the devs time adding new continents to when the old mines run out it would keep a decent balance.
that said even this system has its problems. mainly the fact that the starter continents would become barren wastelands after a while. I guess another idea could be adding new abilities to the game allowing mining in deeper mines,which I think would work slightly better, but the placement of those mines would have to be very carfully thought out.
Lineage 2 is currently running, and when your character dies, you have a small chance of dropping your weapon or armor. The chance is high enough that death is something to be feared, especially as it is open-PVP, so anyone can come by and kill you again and again in an attempt to get you to drop your stuff. It makes the game dangerous, but fun.
There is a difference between loss due to player actions and having items taken from your inventory just because there's none left for other people. But to directly address your tangetial example, that mechanic was removed years ago and only exists for reds as the playerbase found it frustrating and annoying.
Darkfall may not be a shining example, but it draws people in that like the risk of losing everything along with the risk of gaining everything.
Again, we're not talking about loss on death. The issue I was replying to was one of devs taking items from players simply because they had them and others didn't.
I would say again, this would never be an issue, because players who have not played for some lengthy period would have resources removed from them, and not their inventory, but whatever real world location they had it stored in. Which of course also means that they would have to not have a giant inventory like many games provide today.
Furthermore, though, finite resources would never really have a severe impact on the economy because they are running out, but rather, they would remind players of what they are working with and provide more real-world dynamics in games. I can't count the number of games where my stock of metal bars disappear because I failed to make some item. It is silly, and it makes me lose immersion. I know I am not the only one, either.
So resources would always be in circulation, and new mines would always be opening to find more supply. If you set a finite amount that was similar to Earth, some resources would likely never get used up. Iron is a good example, as our world is filled with iron, and it is not running out anytime soon.
As for others, they would have to be managed. Trees, for instance. They are finite, however, they can be renewed and regrown. So forests would have to be replanted or left alone until they regrow, lest the playerbase rips them out entirely. But again, conversion of resources to items should not be ridiculous, like 30 logs = 5 boards.
Once more, active players would not lose their stuff. Besides even that, you could always have the resources replaced in the world if a player becomes inactive instead.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Lineage 2 is currently running, and when your character dies, you have a small chance of dropping your weapon or armor. The chance is high enough that death is something to be feared, especially as it is open-PVP, so anyone can come by and kill you again and again in an attempt to get you to drop your stuff. It makes the game dangerous, but fun.
There is a difference between loss due to player actions and having items taken from your inventory just because there's none left for other people. But to directly address your tangetial example, that mechanic was removed years ago and only exists for reds as the playerbase found it frustrating and annoying.
Darkfall may not be a shining example, but it draws people in that like the risk of losing everything along with the risk of gaining everything.
Again, we're not talking about loss on death. The issue I was replying to was one of devs taking items from players simply because they had them and others didn't.
I would say again, this would never be an issue, because players who have not played for some lengthy period would have resources removed from them, and not their inventory, but whatever real world location they had it stored in. Which of course also means that they would have to not have a giant inventory like many games provide today.
Furthermore, though, finite resources would never really have a severe impact on the economy because they are running out, but rather, they would remind players of what they are working with and provide more real-world dynamics in games. I can't count the number of games where my stock of metal bars disappear because I failed to make some item. It is silly, and it makes me lose immersion. I know I am not the only one, either.
So resources would always be in circulation, and new mines would always be opening to find more supply. If you set a finite amount that was similar to Earth, some resources would likely never get used up. Iron is a good example, as our world is filled with iron, and it is not running out anytime soon.
As for others, they would have to be managed. Trees, for instance. They are finite, however, they can be renewed and regrown. So forests would have to be replanted or left alone until they regrow, lest the playerbase rips them out entirely. But again, conversion of resources to items should not be ridiculous, like 30 logs = 5 boards.
Once more, active players would not lose their stuff. Besides even that, you could always have the resources replaced in the world if a player becomes inactive instead.
Your customer support and retention teams will love you.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
No need, in the future, all this stuff will be autonomous. Every year, more things become controlled by programs, and more programming becomes procedural, enabling all kinds of interesting interactions.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Comments
IMHO it can never work.
My reasoning for this is as long as you can log off & you and your inventory dissappears from the world, eventually there will be nothing left because its all in the inventories of people who are no longer playing the game (or safely horded on mules of players who currently do but are completely safe)
Oberan, that very question has been brought up many times, and solutions have been made that would effectively remove.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Don't be so quick? You mentioning this paramount rule is new and was not mentioned the first time you replied. If you did not want other people to think you had not read the thread, you should have mentioned this paramount rule the first time.
As it stands, your paramount rule is something that is used as a standard, but is not the final word. Games like Darkfall or Lineage 2 take away what people have earned all the time, and people still play it. Besides, what game does not have a cap to our efforts? Pretty much every game has a cap, and very few games break that rule.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Agreed ...... the system used by SWG was truly a thing of beauty. Resource gathering and crafting both ...
I have yet to find something even close to the complexity and still have a decent fighting side to the game. For years I lived in the game by moving/buying/selling resources. Many alts each with 10 spots for extractors and just relocate when the resource was out. Sigh, the good ol' days.
~Hairysun
http://www.straightdope.com/
- Are you saying you did understand that's a basic rule of thumb and, knowing that, you still posted that 'solution' of taking gathered materials away from certain players if the server cap is hit?
- I'm not familiar with many instances where Darkfall was ever held up as a shining example of how to properly run a game.
- AFAIK, outside of cleaning up vestigial event items and addressing ToS violations, I am not aware of any design or game mechanic in the NCSoft titles, defunct or currently running, that takes away a player's items. Can you link to an incident or event where this was done in one of their games?
- Yes, lifesbrink, there's a cap to everything. The issue isn't the cap. The issue is a player doing tasks within the understood mechanics and having his efforts diminished, negated or removed due to some arbitrary band-aid created to compensate for poor design.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
would rather say that not even in the real world can people accept that our ressources is finite....how can you expect kids playing a game to understand it..... ;P
Depends...are we talking about short-term finite like carrier pidgeons, or long-term finite like arabian oil reserves?
An economy of scarcity and artificial prices could be fun, actually. I'd certainly gouge the U.S. for more cash.
The question is, is your game also robust enough to research alternatives? If an oil shortage eventually leads to workable fusion (or something), you've just created a game that regularly and dramatically overhauls its own economy entirely.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
There are also ways to design a game to fix flaws in an otherwise interesting system.
For example, many people would state that others would hoard finite resources and eventually there wouldn't be any. Those without much thought into the design would even say that people would gather resources and unsubscribe, destroying said resources forever.
Fortunately for game designers, there is always a solution: the use of our brains.
There are many ways you could fix the flaws of finite resources. Just off the top of my head, I can think of several.
Permadeath, Full Loot, FFA PvP, Sieges + Characters or their Castles/Banks/Houses not being able to go Offline
Community Ownership + Some of the Above
Time Based Taxation- Easiest and best solution. Every day, week, month, [time] the "king" taxes everyone. If you hoard forever, you will eventually have nothing. You can hoard forever only if you work forever to regain what you lose. Taxation causes hoarding to instantly be eliminating, giving 100% insurance that the finite resources circulate. Players do not benefit from hoarding unless the strategy is immediate (a short amount of time hoarding to profit more than taxation).
Item Decay, Upkeep Cost, etc- Similar to taxation, but requires resources to prevent decay.
This doesn't address the issue that this limited resource will eventually run out.
Only way would be to somehow inject new resource into the system but then it isn't finite' anymore.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Lineage 2 is currently running, and when your character dies, you have a small chance of dropping your weapon or armor. The chance is high enough that death is something to be feared, especially as it is open-PVP, so anyone can come by and kill you again and again in an attempt to get you to drop your stuff. It makes the game dangerous, but fun.
Darkfall may not be a shining example, but it draws people in that like the risk of losing everything along with the risk of gaining everything.
As for poor design, that is just it, poor design is poor. Using finite resources with poor design would of course fail, so naturally you would want to do it with excellent gameplay that would complement a finite system.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think a partially limitation would work. but at the end of the day there'd always need to be more stocks of resources. so no it wouldnt work, but maybe a compromise could work
so why not have deposits of resources that are huge and would take a thousand players six months to completely deplete [or whatever numbers are balanced] while the devs work on adding a new continent with new deposits. though that
Though it would still have to be based around gameplay. so lets say the game has territory control. if mines were very rare controlling a mine would be a huge thing, but if the mine runs out its gone. so either you'd have to be careful not to waste the resources or trade for it if you need it. If the devs time adding new continents to when the old mines run out it would keep a decent balance.
that said even this system has its problems. mainly the fact that the starter continents would become barren wastelands after a while. I guess another idea could be adding new abilities to the game allowing mining in deeper mines,which I think would work slightly better, but the placement of those mines would have to be very carfully thought out.
I would say again, this would never be an issue, because players who have not played for some lengthy period would have resources removed from them, and not their inventory, but whatever real world location they had it stored in. Which of course also means that they would have to not have a giant inventory like many games provide today.
Furthermore, though, finite resources would never really have a severe impact on the economy because they are running out, but rather, they would remind players of what they are working with and provide more real-world dynamics in games. I can't count the number of games where my stock of metal bars disappear because I failed to make some item. It is silly, and it makes me lose immersion. I know I am not the only one, either.
So resources would always be in circulation, and new mines would always be opening to find more supply. If you set a finite amount that was similar to Earth, some resources would likely never get used up. Iron is a good example, as our world is filled with iron, and it is not running out anytime soon.
As for others, they would have to be managed. Trees, for instance. They are finite, however, they can be renewed and regrown. So forests would have to be replanted or left alone until they regrow, lest the playerbase rips them out entirely. But again, conversion of resources to items should not be ridiculous, like 30 logs = 5 boards.
Once more, active players would not lose their stuff. Besides even that, you could always have the resources replaced in the world if a player becomes inactive instead.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Your customer support and retention teams will love you.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
No need, in the future, all this stuff will be autonomous. Every year, more things become controlled by programs, and more programming becomes procedural, enabling all kinds of interesting interactions.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Nominated: Best post of the thread. I lol'd at this. I really wish you would have said strange instead of wierd though.