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What do you think of this mining feature?
Konfess
Member RarePosts: 1,667
I don't want to implement surface mining nodes. I also wanted to stay away from auto -harvesting equipment. New players should go out into the world and find a job. I'm a fan of resource harvesting, so the first jobs could be farmers, fishermen, lumberjacks, and miners.
Let's focus on miners. So a miner could set off in search of surface minerals. They could find a high concentration location, and start prospecting. They would have to fill an individual's material transport vehicle (cart, wagon, or wheelbarrow ). The ore would then be taken to a processing station. This form of surface harvesting would produce a lot of waste and little (ug) of the desired material.
If the miner sought employment at a commercial NPC mine. Then they could learn to use industrial tools, and produce more. The material would still be loaded onto an NPC material vehicle (truck or train ). The material would still be taken to a processing plant. Vastly more waste would be produced, but so would more crafting material.
When the job is taken, the player decides how they will be paid. All credits and no resources, or some resources and some credits. When employed the players don't have direct access to the resources. They either get paid in crude and under refined material. Or they buy the higher grade NPC resources off NPC vendors. They could also buy the possibly highest quality from other players on the Auction House.
Harvesting would be slow and labor intensive. Only those dedicated to the process will be involved. I glossed over this before, harvesting and refining will take place far apart. This will require transport and security. The threat could come from NPCs, players, or a mix of the two.
Players that want combat jobs would sign up for escort / protection jobs. So that if and when combat broke out, they would be there for it.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Comments
It sounds interesting, but yes. I also think people forget that games are played for a combination of fun and escapism, not to replicate a boring day job.
Sure it's tedious. I want it to feel indie and old school, but also modern and alive. I read so many requests for a sandbox where players can forge their own paths. Thats what I hope to do.
When I play an MMORPG I craft mainly to meet my needs. I don’t craft to get rich or make a name for myself. But I don’t want to see every player with a combat class and a crafting class or two.
If the player goes crafting they give up the equivalent in combatBoy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Forced grind always ends up being a breeding ground for bots and RMT. I don't say that because I want to pee on your cornflakes. 90% of my online game time is spent gathering and crafting when the games allows me. Even in cases where I don't need to and in the age of no decay, that's all of them and that's always the go to excuse for making crafting back burner.
The only two games to effectively incorporate a system like this are EVE Online and SWG PreCU. EVE Online has a manufacturing system that has you replicating identical versions of templates and the bot problem has always been an issue. It's an ISBoxer heaven there, even with the new policy restricting ISBoxer use. 'Mudflation' is also an issue in EVE but that's tied to PvP decay and a culture developing where loss is discouraged even though it's the only form of resource decay.
SWG had a dynamic stat resource system and decay that gave people a reason to want to replace gear but it had bot and RMT through the roof. It also had perceived balance issues because of the possible quality of gear through a large stat variable. The gear was balanced on an average of 50% stat but as people gathered more and more higher stuff, they were creating more and more powerful gear. This could have been balanced as time went on but it after CU and NGE it was the least of their worries. In their WoW envy, they killed the game on grander levels.
Another game to play gathering similar to what you describe is Runescape. I'm not sure how Runescape would have done as a full client 3D MMO but it was a curious game to play and it succeeded as an Online game.
Mines. Actual mines
This is what i think mining should be!
You look around and find a cave. Or you make one yourself somewhere.
Maybe the cave has monsters? You kill those monsters, and do probes. At the end you find something, and build a mine there that belongs to you. Little by little you expand and dig, untill all is gone, or untill some other player comes and takes it over, or untill monsters destroy it. or you destroy a wall and surface to ancient ruins full of breath taking loot and lot lot of treasures.
And while your mine works you can keep exploring and looking for other mines. That way you can fully optimise the mining profesion. - Find, mine, sell.
Hi, I’m Konfess of the Tarquinas server, M-Carbineer M-Creature Handler M-Elder Jedi (M-TKA M-Commando M-Dancer M-Musician). My play time in all the games that I have played are influencing me in my overall design.
Design Goals
- Item Decay
- Static Decay : general over time, finite life span
- Dynamic Decay : Use, wear and tear. Speeds up static decay.
- Repair : non absolute, Never to 100%. Decay is absolute
- Gear / Loot : NPC (starting gear) < Loot < Player Made < Player Made(Enhanced / Researched)
- Alignment : Multi-faction, Both NPC and Player made, a faction that isn’t dealt with will grow. Dynamic factions, territorial and positional.
I haven’t included all my goals, just what I thought would add meaning. I’m aware of ISBoxer. But I am also a fan of macros. I leveled M-Carbineer M-Creature Handler M-Elder Jedi over months by hand, but I macroed M-TKA M-Commando M-Dancer M-Musician in days. In a decaying destructible world that is running 24 / 7 (except when the servers are down). Stuff shouldn’t be vulnerable. And the world shouldn’t feel empty because it’s not prime time. So when the player is not logged in and active, the Player Character (PC) becomes an NPC or Bot. The PC will go to work, tend to its needs, and defend itself, property, friends, and allies. Besides keeping the world looking lived in the system will also deal with skill and attribute decay. If you don’t use it you lose it. The system is still in development.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The design goal of this crafting system is to support or encourage open world PvP / PvE. The alignment system also supports the crafting and PvP / PvE. The lawful supply chain could look like this :
- Harvest
- Transport
- Process / Refine
- Transport
- Manufacture Components
- Transport
- Assemble Finished Goods
- Transport
- Vendor
Any of these steps could be attacked and looted for items, subject to dynamic decay. For an evil supply chain this would be the fun and easy way I suppose.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I don’t want mining to be a game of who can hollow out the world the fastest. This is not Minecraft. The systems I am experimenting with :
A miner will not stumble upon diamonds. They will harvest a quality of ore (generic rock) that will be stored then eventually transported to another facility for further processing and refinement. At this level can minerals be discovered and extracted.
I want mining to be best left to NPCs or very wealthy and powerful players. I want the game to play like an RTS that the players are RPing in.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
"The fun way" is subjective, the "easy way" is for those that shouldn't be playing MMORPG's.
Not done yet. I was only half satisfied with it.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Konfess,
You should look into Face of Mankind. This will give you some idea of the issues that arise trying to create a resource > product > combat loop. Once you introduce the human element, you may find that no matter how well designed your system is for the game, people tend to have their own ideas of how to make it work. You have to design for the human element, rather than the game system.
I’m glad you found it interesting. In an RTS the player assigns units to tasks. These tasks benefit the player faction. The other factions can either defend or assault. This leads to conflict. I plan to split the world into three games, each a different time period : past (fantasy), present (steampunk 1800s-1950s), and future (multi world sci-fi). By logistic, I assume you mean buying low and selling high and not transport of goods and materials.
I don’t want players to induce inflation into my game worlds, but I will allow it with an alignment hit. When their alignment change is too great, they will have to change factions.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but MO allows the player to mine anywhere? My system requires and installation for mining. Lawful mining in an NPC mining facility (mix of Pve / PvP). Neutral mining in unclaimed land at a Player made mining facility (PvP). Chaotic mining involves no structures or mining, relies solely on PvP of lawfull and neutral claims.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I’m not familiar with FoM, what should I be looking for? I understand the game had been in development for a long time. It changed owners and operational state several times. What issues did FoM have with its production combat loop? From videos I watched it looked like a strategy / diplomacy game that devolved into a FFA PvP game.
I do expect that once I see or have data of how the human element react with the system I can make changes. I will share how I am “design for the human element.” In most games the player selects a class and then starts developing that class through it roll. This is typically through combat. If a new player in my system wants to be a melee combat roll. This takes two attributes Strength and Melee Combat Technique (MCT a wisdom like attribute, the how of melee combat). Strenght is trained by doing labour. Either mining or loading and unloading a truck. MCT is trained by doing combat.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Landmark has underground mining and it was really boring for me. The reward for the amount of time spent doing it wasn't great.
I personally feel that the days of 'spending huge amounts of time crafting' era started to die the second Twitter was created and then completely KO'd when the iPhone came out. That's just my opinion though.
A lot of detail of ideas but you don't even explain what the mining experience would be:
Do you still click on a node and watch a progress bar?
Is the harvesting some kind of mini game or card game system to make it appealing?
You can add more and more complications to make it more and more world sim like but are you still just watching progress bars?
Right these are the sorts of questions which actually get to the heart of whether this mining would be fun or not.
Although some assumptions built into the OP's post is a lot of tedious hauling and travel, and right away we all know that's excessively tedious and should be automated by NPC haulers. Simulating manual labor in a MMORPG isn't enjoyable, but put the player in a mangerial role and you start to have a lot more potential for interesting decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Very good points Axe.
I was going to say, why would anyone want the trouble of complex mining if they could simply attack and steal the stuff? Adding in the points you mention, would make it mentally challenging and also more rewarding by making the right choices.
And players who attack and steal should get minimal resource awards. In other words you cause a minor disturbance to the operation and are given a minor reward. The reward for the attacking player should be a successful mission. You should not be able to disrupt the entire operation and cause the miner to give up in futility.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
The idea is good. Particularly if the above ground hints a bit what is under it (iron deposits tend to color sand red, copper deposits sometimes have small green gemstones near the surface and the coolest metal, meteorite iron sometimes have rather none discreet signs above it...).
There are however other ways to get metals but mine them, recycling in one way. Panning works for certain heavier metals like gold and there are methods to collect bog iron and turnit into weapons. In fact a lot of ancient iron came from bogs and not mines.
A mine if of course the most effective way to get most minerals and metals but you could have alternative ways of getting it or certain stuff you need to do something else to get. And if you do regular crafting then Bog iron could be in between bronze and steel.
Good point, but just attacking a mine wouldn't give you metals to work with, you still need a blast furnace to make the metal useful to make weapons and armors from. And someone with no metallurgy skill themselves would just see a bunch of useless rocks so giving thieves and robbers a rather minimal yield do makes sense.
The blast furnace would be close to a crafting stations and hopefully in a relatively safe area.
For a thief it would be easier to steal objects that is already metal and either use them as they are to to melt them again to make something else out of the metal.
Wait .. are we talking about a game here?
If I want repetitive grunt work, i will do it in real life.
FoM has a player based economy loop. Players extract the minerals, use them to make the items, use the items to fight with each other over territory control for the minerals (and crafting/sales) locations. Unlike most games, this is all player run, which results in a Lord of the Flies type environment.
I admit that I had a bit more than a casual influence on how the game originally played (many, many changes since then). However, I simply exacerbated existing imbalance issues. For example, players who liked to fight (pvp) didnt really enjoy standing watch while others who liked to craft did so. This typically meant that miners/crafters were unprotected, and just killed when found by pvpers. It also meant that miners/crafters avoided the areas of conflict, as they were likely to be killed.
When you end up with tasks that end up separating the players, based on the types of actions that they take, it causes a rift that often widened by competition/dependancy. This makes it extremely difficult to balance. Either the Miners/Crafters become rich due to the demand for their goods (and their ability to extort high prices) or the PvP's become bored, as the miners/crafters leave because they feel unappreciated, and the PvP's have to supply their own goods.
It is often not the mining/economic system that is important, but rather the social interaction that it drives that is key.