General Category > Suggestions & Ideas
Game Design
Kvetch:
Molly suggested that maybe this deserves a topic of its own, so here it is along with her original post on whatever board it was under:
One of our main problems is, that the gap between new players and oldbies already is too big. It makes new players despair about ever catching up, and it also makes the game harder to balance.
And any additional 'remorting rewards' will just increase that gap.
We'll have to figure out something else, to keep oldbies interested enough to leave Recall.
Let's just all take a deep breath, take a step back and consider the subjects of Game Design and Balance, instead of constantly asking for new patches that, although they sound cool one by one, potentially might cause more problems than they solve.
Let's start out by asking ourself the following questions:
1. What kind of the game do we have presently?
2. What are the things that we specifically like and specifically dislike with our current game?
3. What kind of game is it that we want?
4. How do we get from step 1 to step 3 without disrupting any of the things that we like in the process?
So far I haven't seen anyone draw up the goals and frames for the design we should aim for. And by design I mean the total package, because everything hangs together - balance, races, classes, equipment, skills and spells, fight code, zones, quests, trading, code features...
And because everything is so convoluted, every change we do affects a lot of other things - usually a lot more than was expected from the start.
Understand me right;
- I'm not against changes, as long as they are not so totally fundamental that we lose our 12 year old identity.
- I think it's wonderful that we actually for the first time in 4D history have more than one competent coder.
- I think that changes usually are positive, because development in a mud is one of the things that keeps the player interest up.
- I think many of the ideas that are being tossed around or already implemented are promising.
I just want someone to present the full picture of what we are aiming for, before we start running in one direction or another.
Once we have defined the long term goals that we are striving for, all changes - even the small ones - should work together towards those goals.
And that means both Coders, Builders and Players.
Jaros:
Pin this.
Calypso:
It seems to me, this game has a few different aspects to consider when thinking about its overall design and purpose. And all of us players are fortunate enough right now to not only have a lot of interest in coming up with great ideas, but also have a number of coders willing to work on it.
So far, as I see it
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1. Newbies- Goal : Get them the help they need when they need it, and create a game that will allow them to advance quickly as to encourage their returning and becoming part of the 4D family, so to speak.
a. -There is talk of creating a toggle of some sort to allow older players/helpers to see when a newbie signs on.
b. -Suggestions have been made to create a list of easy leveling zones, good eq that is easy to get and where to find it, etc
c. -Updating the hint channel so that newbies get the information they need efficiently.
2. Oldbies- Goal: Keep the game interesting for those who have maxed out their character and have done the quests the want to do
a. Challenge system: Xeriuth and others are talking about creating a challenge system that would be mostly for the oldbies who have seen and experienced just about everything else.
b. -Revamping artifacts: By creating artifacts that re useful and interesting to olbies, Oldbies would be encouraged to continue roaming the realms and play the game. This is good for newbies because this provides the oldbies with continuing education about the set up of the Realms and the different quests, especially since things change from time to time. They can impart their knowledge onto the newbies as appropriate.
3. In-betweenies- Goal: Have a mud that provides the players with control over what happens to their character as it fits within the theme of time travel, so they can enjoy all that the Realms have to offer regardless of their specific interests
a. -The game already provides interesting zones and quests. Builders are constantly creating new zones and building upon the ones already created. We have a very unique mud that, imo, is the most fun to play out of all the other muds.
b. - Along with other ideas given by other players, Jaros has come up with an idea to allow players to switch around their eq slots and create a whole new Cyborg race. This can be as complicated or as simple as each player would like it. It give the player more control over what s/he wants for her character and, as Molly points out, fits within the theme of time travel.
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This is the way I see it now. There have been so many great ideas lately. I like how this mud provides a little something for each kind of player. We have a lot of different players, coders, builders and imms to thank for the success of our mud! And because of the teamwork, our mud seems to have a close-knit-community feel to it. I think as long as we keep this structure in mind, this is bound to create an atmosphere where newbies feel welcomed and encouraged to come back, oldbies hold interest in the game and enjoy helping newbies, and those in between find the adventures they are looking for.
Once:
Hey guys,
Glad Molly got this topic rolling, and Kvetch thanks for giving it the attention it deserves. I think it's important as we build this system out that we do think about the Game Design as a whole, how things are architectured, and what the general purpose of each system is and how it works into a grand goal. These are all very good endeavors.
I think we also need to bring some planning and calculation into the picture for large scale changes like combat, and player skills such as the skilltree system that people have been talking about for a couple years. We had a skilltree system on my previous mud, and I can say although it's pretty nominal to change from Percents to Ranks in terms of the practice structure, the real difficulty is in coming up with ways to give each skill values based on rank when currently values are based on a percentage success rate. This is usually accomplished by having increasing power to the skill as your rank goes up, but leads us to the touchy topic of game balance as a whole.
Horus, I believe you had/have a lot of insight and research into this when you were working on the previous system. Would you be willing to post it here in another thread for us?
This sort of centralized planning is a worthy endeavor, and I support the idea. That said, my personal take on this is that 4d's central folly is that it's fallen into a state of persistent "Analysis Paralysis" throughout the years. There's a real resistance to change, and you need to have a very good balance between planning and implementation. What I mean by that is it's easy for things to get stalled in planning, for people not to be clear when it's time to act on a plan, etc. It's always safer to wait. That feeling of resting on the safety leads to a situation where things don't get done because there's always a little bit more planning you can do. I've seen this in my day job many many times, and I'd honestly say that analysis paralysis is often what causes a lot of once successful businesses to fail.
Another topic to bring up here is that I've never seen a planned system actually work out to be the best solution. Often times it may be what makes the stakeholders involved the happiest, but it's usually got some level of inferiority in some areas but someone's ego is invested by that point and it'd require a massive conversation and "new plan" to change things, which with analysis paralysis and the lag in creating a plan you're back to square one and the path of least resistance is to do nothing. I've seen this particular one happen time and time again as well. We need to be diligent in avoiding this, doubly so as this is actually entertainment/recreation for the coders involved and I don't think any of us want to actually work this as a day job. If that happens I wouldn't be surprised if the other programmers interests disappear, I'm sure mine would.
The way I've solved this in my own personal business, is to move with a more "agile" development model. Agile is a rather recent invention in software development methodology which essentially boils down to: Have a rough plan. Implement it quickly. Test it. Change it based on testing. Continue testing it. Continue changing it. Once you love it, it's done.
This is the model that I personally think we should adopt. Centralized planning is going to work about as well as it works for governments. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have an idea of how a piece fits into the bigger picture. We should. We also need to put our heads together on the real mathematical pieces like mob vs player balance and exp growth curves as that should just be an issue of math and more heads are better than one to identify any problems in the model. What we need to avoid though is detailed planning of every single feature because we will almost certainly miss something, something will sound better in writing, and we're going to create a slow moving development culture which is going to be onerous. We must find a happy medium in order to make this work.
That's my take on the issue. Would love to hear others. Let's work together towards improving this place, and let's make sure all that we're doing to improve it is adding value to the picture as a whole. At the other end let's avoid over-planning and excessive bureaucracy. I'm sure we'll find some way to make it work. ;)
-Once
Riley:
1. What kind of the game do we have presently?
Honestly, IMHO, one that isn't newbie friendly. Either xp from mobs need to be increased for the lower levels, or the first 5 remorts need to be reduced some. I know I have a GM, but also have alts which I tend to shy away from because of the xp tnl. And trying to find places to level and actually get gear to be able to go to harder mobs is lacking to. I try to help out newbies with a few decent pieces of gear, but it's like those few pieces for a newbie trying to get themselves would take so long or they'd get one shotted.
I think newbies need to be better educated about how to quest. Even with perhaps adding to the questing pamphlet 2 aliases that would help them out greatly in questing. At least they would have to read the pamphlet.
2. What are the things that we specifically like and specifically dislike with our current game?
I like the fact that the game never ends... ie you can remort forever. Love the Grand Master aspect. Love the quests though I despise them dearly.
What I dislike about the game? I don't like all the currencies that we have, gold and only 1 other type of currency for all the extra special stuff is needed. We already have gold, tokens, Trade Points, RP award Points. And if I had to chose 2 from all that I'd go with the Trade Points. Because if we still see people roleplaying we can still award them Trade Points instead of the RP Award Points. And it might actually encourage more people to RP, knowing that there is a chance that they will be able to get something more useful to them to use. Or they could just use the TP to purchase the login/logout message feature, or the other features currently with the RP rewards. But would still be nice to be able to trade the points like the tokens.
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