All Posts by paulscott

WurmOnline has a one of the better persistant terriotory control games on the wild server.   granted that doesn't say much with current games.

Um I pretty much can't watch any sport on TV...  It's kinda boring for me atleast.

I'll take the after game recap which shows the 15 mins of interesting athletic feets of amazinginess, instead of waiting for those over 2 or 3 hours.

Just two payment methods That I've been thinking about off and on for a very indy game.   Basically you have very little budget to start with and no budget for advertising and time for messing around with blogs(and other free forms of advertising).   So this puts you at a point where you have to have a free game if you want to attract a player base, which is the main reasons I've thought about these methods.  They also have the side effect of getting rid of real money trading, or rather the commercial farmer aspect.   I don't claim that they're anything new but they're worth starting a discussion over.

Method One:  basically a silver and gold type package.   one being free the other not.  Also instead of member ship being applied directly to your account you instead receive an item that can apply it to your account, the item can be traded ect.   This means that you're increasing your paying player base by a considerable amount, since a nice amount of the player base will end up joining just because it's free they'll eventually get to the point where they want to get further(either paying themselves or trading for an upgrade).

Various things are locked out on the silver plan, you can't level past a certain point and through that you can't get to certain areas or some are very difficult to be in or get to, while you can still lease housing you but you can't hire NPC's to act as shop keepers/traders/greeters, and you can't participate in politics(which gives you access to stuff along the lines of controlling the towns policies, if you're a citizen of it, which with enough votes you can reduce/increase taxes, barr entry, barr from areas(crafting areas, mining areas ect.), by person/guild/town).

Method Two: Monsters don't drop gold instead all is bought from the cash shop.

The gold is used for two things and only two things.  

The first thing is leasing a house/shop/guild hall in the persistant world(not instanced), you have full ability to hire NPC's manage their chat paths control their trading abilities(part of the lease).

gold is the only thing that the auction house like mechanic accepts in trading items.  There's also no fee for using the auction house so that means anyone can put something up and get gold even if they aren't the original buyers of it.

It also entirely possible to play the entire game without ever once having touched a piece of gold, you're just going to end up bartering(which is made possible because there are a few handful of items that are used in every crafting recipe and are light) and trading person to person.

You don't need to take the literal story,  in the background(you don't see much) you have a nice amount of politics and territory control.   For a nice MMO that a good sized number would want to play you don't need much more than character advancement, and territory control.   Which fits nicely with the 300 theme, even though it would just be cheaper to drop that licensing.

You know how when you hurt yourself; stubbing your thumb, ect. that that wound always ends up in your mouth before you think much about it.  It's also been a pretty common wives tale that salivia speeds up healling.

However scientists have discovered a second use for what was originally thought to only be an antibody, It pretty much speeds up a wounds healing rate in a noticable rate.  It can be produced just as easily and in as mass quantities as any other antiboitic that is commonly used.

Licking Your Wounds: Scientists Isolate Compound In Human Saliva That Speeds Wound Healing

ScienceDaily (July 24, 2008) — A report by scientists from The Netherlands identifies a compound in human saliva that greatly speeds wound healing. This research may offer hope to people suffering from chronic wounds related to diabetes and other disorders, as well as traumatic injuries and burns. In addition, because the compounds can be mass produced, they have the potential to become as common as antibiotic creams and rubbing alcohol.

LINK FOR MORE

Considering how fast stuff heals in the mouth, and it being fast enough for the body to willingly hurt itself(teeth growing in ect).   it would be very interesting if it would combine with various wound dressings that are in design (here) that speed up healling already.   I could easyily see any type of surface wound being a very small issue(aside from severe issues where you're producing poisions)

Originally posted by gath

Originally posted by Roin

Item Mall + PvP = Biggest Wallet Wins,  I think it is safe to say it will be P2P when/if it is released.

 

By that line of thinking, F2P would be the best choice to make money.

Dont underestimate the stupidity of people that need a "crutch" to play, and have fat wallets (and, have no sense of value...).

games also have people spending most of their day worrying about credit fraud reports, which is worse in F2P games.   Indy no-name company + credit fraud reports = company banned from accessing account processing servers.

Originally posted by RZetlin

Mabinogi doesn't have classes.

For example, you can be a magic wielding swordsman.

Go play Mabinogi.

Anyone glancing at it looking for a skill based game and is willing to pay a monthly fee will just shrug that game off.

Joy football...  Time to hide under the bed again...

It is such a boring sport to watch, granted I was born in the ADD generation so what can you expect.

Classes are not an issue in current games, they would actually suck more if they weren't class based.  (edit: from referance to the ops post).

It's going to be a bioware game there's no doubt about that.  

You're more likely to get a guildwars(PvE only) than another WoW.   will totally have battleground PvP though.

Sandboxes are comming, and I'll gladly finish up college while I wait.

edit: this is just a normal MMO with a harsh death system, and some politics.

edit changed signature...

500 people per server is the sites standards.

DarkFall isn't a pure FFAer game, the developers have it planned to be more along the lines of EvE NullSec game for nearly the entire map.  with a tiny bit of lowsec near the capitals since people can't claim the nearby area and that the fighting over the trade hubs of the capitals will be intense and often.

Other than that I'm going to be going deep wilderness setting up viaable camp while I wait to figure out what handfull of towns are going to form withing a few KM radius.   And obviously join one.   I'd actually end up very surprised if my camp does end up raided before I move on.   That's just how the game mechanics crumble.

Look at me having a unplanned plan for a game that's near vapor ware.   if it does come out I'd be in line though not near the first.

Originally posted by lkavadas

Besides group and guild all global chat channels need to be destroyed.

oh yes and you'll enforce this how? taking some linux distro and stripping down to nothing but your game? 

You do realize that in a good FFA PvP game you'll end up with a logrithmic leveling scale*, heavily crafting and resource based**, and maybe some Guilding tossed in+

Basically a pure FFA PvP game is not a world like EvE.   Sure they share and edge or two but they are not the same.  Though I really do need to digress with your idea of stealth mechanics they aren't something that was ever meant for PvP or makes even the remotest of sense for it(yes I appreciate your sarcasm, but I'll enjoy correcting what a sane 'pure FFA' game would have, rather than what teh hardcorzor basementers want).

*skill based system where at most you're only bringing a handfull of those skills into combat.   so to get to the maxium power tier(character statistics) it would just take you a couple of days maybe a week, but to unlock every option you'll be there for a long time even though you won't be able to use all of them in one battle.   While a world like EvE/Wurm does have some of this you'll literally be building up your character up over years and in a traditional MMO linear/exponetial power tier type style, This investment is also designed so you don't go pyscho insane like you can in a FFA PvP game.

**while wandering resource collecting and just generally keeping people moving about, also maximizing the value of targets at the same time.   Also provides ways to replace gear lost, or to recycle gear you can't sell and don't want to use.

+not really needed for a pure FFA PvP game, but provides a great way for the fraction of the remaining side to get loot from both allies and enemies.  and provide a reason for attacking someone not that it's needed

If you don't provide a global chat the players will make one.

yep the main story lines are very story driven with cutscenes and voice overs... granted the rest of the party just wants to skip them, and if you have a minion master in the group you're obligated to skip them since the minions still die during the cutscenes.

multi-guilding.  

Normally when you talk about guilds in an MMO you think along the lines of people who raid everyother day together and massive amounts of dedication to that guild.

But really it should be changed to something along the lines of just a social group with the ability to have the options that normal guilds would have(setting up raids, ect).  For instance fansites would end up having their own guild to have an ingame chat and to have another utility for anoucements.  After that players will form guilds for specific topics,  Some people really like talking about the games theory or help.  and of course just various social groups some with purposes(grouping for this dungeon, setting up duels, or whatever) some just for an extra chat room.

Lets be honest people aren't playing an MMO to log in and then for some reason not end up without anyone familar to them logged in.  If I go too long withough haveing a nice conversation in an MMO I unsub it, should really designers job to keep the player amused with other people even if it is just through chat.  

also social entrapment is one of the easiest ways to keep players in their game without them noticing(and being happy about it), it's just hard to set up developers side since it's something that is completely up to the players.   the only thing you can do is make it easy.

options

quite simply put the players should be able to log in everyday and out of all the days of the week if they really wanted to they'd be doing something different everyday.   Granted most MMO's aim for doing the same something only differently which is nice but something completely different is a lot better.

Finished project

just a finished project that doesn't have many game breaking bugs.  Something that's playable and can be fun.    This should be number one but since it's repeated so often it's not.

Originally posted by Enigma

call me crazy, but i would have a hard time eating a provolone sandwich next to a corpse....or even sunbathing.

Tongue sandwhiches... yum.

When I kid drowned while our family was out everyone left at the beach before it was officially closed an hour later.