Messages

1

Precursors / Money

« on: June 17, 2005, 02:40:41 pm »

Money sinks are a necessity. Otherwise players will eventually all become horribly rich and nothing will have a practical value anymore, everyone can have everything. Player to player trade will get horribly inflated, think of the diffrence of $5 for a gallon of milk....but if we were all rich why not charge $50? Which is fine unless your a new player and you need that milk. (random example but you get the idea)  It happens in MMORPGs all the time. One of the biggest problems with MMORPGS after running for awhile(hell usually only takes a few months) is the economy, to date I have not heard of a single MMORPG's economy that has not been wrecked. Hell i've helped to inflate prices before in World of Warcraft. (amazing how much you could drive ammo prices up)

But I do agree it would be better if they could actually be seen to have some effect on the game, that way players don't regard it as simply a money sink. Quick examples, lets say you pick the higher docking fee, it provides more security for where you ship is berthed, or maybe a bribe since you might not be liked in that city. If you pay a certain property tax (depending on where you are in the univese) you get police coverage. Get something for your money while insuring a stable economy. Helps with the realism factor.

2

Precursors / Money

« on: June 17, 2005, 11:40:51 am »

An automated system is probably the best, but since it sounds like Finances can become a mildly important part of the game I suggest adding a Finance screen to the interface, it would show what you totally owe and the breakdown, it would also give you the option to pay now if you have the spare cash at the moment and to pay certain bills only (whatever reason you may have). With these sort of options it covers those who don't really care that much and just pay what they owe whenever they owe it and for those who would like a little more control of what they pay and when.

3

Precursors / Money

« on: June 17, 2005, 10:58:33 am »

A very important thing in MMORPGs is a stable economy. Most of the time the economies end up getting horribly inflated. Easiest solution to this is create enough money sinks just from day to day playing, all the ideas mentioned sounded good. Probably could include docking fees for ships,  upkeep costs on your ship and real estate, maybe protection fees in certain places ran by the more villainous types of people, etc...

Just don't make the system to figure out what you owe too complicated, or so ridiculous that even the cautious money saving player has to scramble to make enough for there "monthly"(or whatever it ends up being) payments.

4

Precursors / Player Creation

« on: June 16, 2005, 09:48:12 pm »

Just as a player, from my personal viewpoint, I would feel very uncomfortable making a character who is going to have completeley random stats that I can't see. (aside from the priorities) Concept just bothers me.

On the note of what the actual stats should be...well most commonly stats in RPGs reflect the physical aspects of the character,  personality is often left up to the player, since that is the realm of roleplaying. Sadly in most MMORPGs the actual "roleplaying" group is a minority.

Showing the stats won't be a problem if you can eliminate the ability to simply make a powerful character, for those familiar with DnD we used to have a rule that only 2 stats could be above 14, and 2 stats had to be under 10. This eliminated the problem of every player having the "perfect" stats for there characters.

Ultimately it depends on what stats player's get to choose from and what they effect,  and if the system is designed to stop exploits.

5

Precursors / Player Creation

« on: June 16, 2005, 10:46:13 am »

Except for the random generation part it sounds good. By having the points randomized you could potentially run into two problems. One of them being that  someone could get a really good random draw or a really horrible random draw.  Both obviously cause some unfair factor on either the creator or other players. The easy solution to a bad draw is to simply remake your character. This brings up problem number two, remaking characters till you get the best "stats". This will obviously create a problem, the system will cause player customization to become just the priority you give each "stat". So why bother with the random numbers at all? Now of course anyone who knows anything about randomization knows that the chances of getting the perfect stats aren't very good. But it is possible, and players will use this to gain an advantage.. (I've spent a lot of time with D&D Character Creation programs, it can be done)

Best solution I think would be to stick with the point distribution and the priorities, but make three changes.

1.) Depending on priority the point cost from your starting point pool changes. Sorta sticks to what morgul said. (Somthing like: A slot 1-1 exchange, B slot 2-1 exchange, etc...)

2.) Put a cap on each priority, doesn't have to be very low, but it insures no one is "perfect" in something and has nothing else at all. (while this could be argued as nerfing yourself I guarantee someone will think of a way to exploit it, its just one of those things you know can cause problems, just don't know exactly what yet.)

3.) Since you want this to be close to realistic, you should probably account for natural talent. This is a possible use for a quick random number to be added to your "stat" scores. Range for each possible increase would be determined by the priority slot. This would be a hidden number anyways so players would not be able to exploit it, also it should only be enough to help but not enough to horribly overpower a character.

6

Precursors / Law Enforcement in the Galaxy

« on: June 16, 2005, 09:01:15 am »

The reputation idea would work very well, requiring that players truly think about there actions. Of course if a player has managed to acquire the resources and power to challenge law enforcement personel they may have an actual fighting chance, of course to acquire all that they probably have a healthy respect for the system already and may not be thinking indiscrimanent slaughter.

7

Precursors / Gameplay... and Death

« on: June 15, 2005, 04:47:09 pm »

The general problem with Death in any MMORPG is how much you lose by dying. The question that needs to be answered is "how easily can i die?". Going with a semi-realistic game means that you can probably die relatviely easily most of the time.  If you want to work perma-death into the game there must be at least some part of the game where you do not need to worry about some random person stitting in town sniping people cause he enjoys killing players off.

     The Law Enforcement suggestion is probably the best way to keep perma-death and offer some protection to new or weaker players, by giving a strong incentive NOT to kill other players in certain areas. Actual punishments aren't horribly important right now, but as long they are harsh enough to dissuade random player-killings it'll work. To take this idea one step farther, lets say someone has the ability to at least get away with an attempt on another player in a law-abiding city. Since its a city odds are good there is some sort of hospital, this could provide a chance for a player not to die from what would usually be fatal injury. Thus making it harder to actually kill a player in a city.

     Of course this would mostly be only in major organized cities, but major cities makes the most sense for starting player locations anyways, so until the player has the skills and resources to strike out into the rest of the game they are mostly safe.

Concerning weapons skills I've seen two systems:
1.) Flat skill lvl that increases with character lvl. Considering the thoughts of the devs I would discard this idea.
2.) The next most common is that you need to increase the skill from zero by successful use of the said weapon. Usually there is a skill cap for each character lvl, so then its not possible to max the skill to perfection by simple use on mundane targets (of course diminishing returns are usually included).  Since any hard lvls are going to be hidden anyways from what I've read, this system is probably the best choice. The skill lvls would affect the accuracy radius. The ability to increase precision would not necessarily be a character trait.  I would imagine this as a modification to the actual weapon, how this would affect actual in-game use would simply mean the weapon has a tendency to group shots in one area more then just anywhere in the accuracy radius. Think of the difference between a smooth-bore firearm and a rifled one.