G33X Nexus Entertainment > Precursors

What do Characters do when Players go offline?

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Morgul:
Ok, there's some really good ideas being generated here. I like parts of them, and I think that in some form, most might find their way in. Here's what I'm currently thinking:

First, I think we're all agreed that characters should stick around, even after their players log off. Now, scripting their behaviour, I think, is a really good idea; however, I don't think that we should letting any player do it. We could stay open to any scripts the users want to write, but we're not going to officially take submissions or let them write their own scripts. Instead, we'll allow some sort of interface (the day planner idea sounds really neat) for them to script their behaviour while they're away. (Note on the day planner: I think that we should allow planning of a week to two weeks. We need to do more than one day, but not 2 months either. I think two weeks would cover most vacations... :-p)

Now, there should be places of refuge, but I don't think they should be *garenteed* places where you won't die. Most likely you're not going to die if you're hanging out in New York... but if you happened to have been there during a riot/bombing... well, you get my idea. So, there's some element of doubt in the players mind as to how their characters are faring. (The longer the person is offline, the higher the chances are something has happened to their character... We could even make it so that their character went out, got drunk, and has been sitting in jail for a week... or something similar if the player is gone too long.

I do like the idea of uploading new 'planners' for the characters. That is definitely something that will be nice. Sure, someone could easily write a bot on their computer that uploads new planners, but that's ok. (Might even be useful if they're taking a month long vacation, and won't be able to play) If they don't want to play, that's fine... they're still paying us per month, even if they don't log on. Plus, they game is going to be so fun that I would hope the number of people abusing this will be rather small.

Now, about sleep. I think that with medical technology, etc, it would be possible for a character to take a certain amount of 'stims' or something like that to keep them going.... However it will do damage, and it will run out. (Plus addiction might come into play) So, we need to make offline time important. The most a person will be playing the game is about ten hours a day. They should be able to do that without risk to their characters. So we need to work the game time around that... Also, I would love to see, "Ok, now everyone get offline. Our characters need sleep before the battle with the other clan tomarrow! Get offline now!"

Ok, that's about all I can think of... my mind is elsewhere.

--Chris

topher:
That would be quite cool.  Corp is getting ready for a major offensive so they rest up to get every bit of an edge they can.  

One thing we have to balance is game time vs real time.  I think in everquest 1 it was 90 minutes real life was one day Norathian time.  Eve online only had a 1 to 1 for a clock, no concept of days or weeks.

Dewbacca:
The article Here Addresses several questions brought up in this thread. Such as Cheating... Raph addresses that topic with this observation:

--- Quote ---It is only cheating if it violates the assumptions of other players *and* provides an advantage.

--- End quote ---


It also says that reguardless of it being a feature, it will be percieved as a "Cheat" if it allows others to gain in a percieved unfair manner. Perception of the player is something you will have to anticipate. Do not expect them to be logical. So you will have to limit the AFK functionality, or others will feel cheated. It IS a community designed around an online presense, and AFK gains are percieved as ill gotten.

Now the flip side of this, as long as there is risk proportionate to reward, it should have its place... but implementing it server side would monsterous. The Uo community put together a great number of AFK programs that automated simple tasks. The UO Staff expend a great deal of effort to thwart this community. As long as it doesn't unbalance gameplay... you should encourge it. You should encourge almost ANYWAY people want to play your game.

But I am in agreeance with Brother Topher who correctly points out until we have a game vs real time comparison, we are prodding into the unknown. We cannot hope to decide how players will spend their offline time (or time performing automated tasks) until we know how time progresses.

Will a player be in route between systems for minutes, hours, weeks?

contingencyplan:

--- Quote from: "Dewbacca" ---Will a player be in route between systems for minutes, hours, weeks?
--- End quote ---


I vote minutes. We can still call it real-time, depending on what technology morgul cooks up for us ;-). But having to wait hours or (MUCH worse) weeks to travel will result in bored players. Players who are bored are players who quit (or become in-game social liabilities). We could have training or minigames or something like that if we really wanted, but that will get uber-insane-old after a very short while.

During that time, players may come under attack or something, so they should keep an eye out. But requiring them to keep an eye out for more than 5 minutes is just foolish.


--- Quote from: "Dewbacca" ---The article Here Addresses several questions brought up in this thread.
--- End quote ---


Thanks, will read when I have time... Hopefully going to have more of it here in a few weeks.

Morgul:
Ok, how long it takes to get somewhere is based on the speed you're traveling in subspace. While I have come up with some tech that allows for (near) instantaneous travel, it's uber complicated, and only exists in rumors, and on a  *SMALL* handful of ships. The normal way to go between systems is going to take some time. How much? Well, I did some calculations a while back, and I figure that it will take a week (in game time) to travel from the rim of the galaxy to the core (aka halfway across the game universe). So, how long should that take in real time? I want to say like 40 minutes, to an hour. (I know this is a long time. I *don't* want players zipping across the universe willy nilly for shits and giggles. Sure, they can, but it take time. Unless there's some good reasons for it to not be.) Even an hour feels short to me, so it may be longer. Someone open a new thread on this topic, and we'll continue this discussion. (I would, but I've only got 5 minutes to finish this before I gotta go do some more work.)

--Chris

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