MMORPG gaming experience

[Browolf]

we're discussing the pa gaming experience in the suggestions forum, found these links which are most interesting:

Strong Words, Article about MMORPGs
http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/...re/strong.html

Current and future developments in online games
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/futuredev.html

The Laws of Online World Design << fascinating
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/laws.html



in the latter I found:
[i]Ownership is key
You have to give players a sense of ownership in the game. This is what will make them stay--it is a "barrier to departure." Social bonds are not enough, because good social bonds extend outside the game. Instead, it is context. If they can build their own buildings, build a character, own possessions, hold down a job, feel a sense of responsibility to something that cannot be removed from the game--then you have ownership.
[/]

this is :

Pleasing your Players
Despite your best intentions, any change will be looked upon as a bad change to a large percentage of your players. Even those who forgot they asked for it to begin with.



Anonymity and in-game admins
The in-game admin faces a bizarre problem. He is exercising power that the ordinary virtual citizen cannot. And he is looked to in many ways to provide a certain atmosphere and level of civility in the environment. Yet the fact remains that no matter how scrupulously honest he is, no matter how just he shows himself to be, no matter how committed to the welfare of the virtual space he may prove himself, people will hate his guts. They will mistrust him precisely because he has power, and they can never know him. There will be false accusations galore, many insinuations of nefarious motives, and former friends will turn against him. It may be that the old saying about power and absolute power is just too ingrained in the psyche of most people; whatever the reasons, there has never been an online game whose admins could say with a straight face that all their players really trusted them (and by the way, it gets worse once you take money!).

this one is highly relevant on the subject of people leaving:
Hanarra's Laws

--Over time, your playerbase will come to be the group of people who most enjoy the style of play that your world offers. The others will eventually move to another game.
--It is very hard to attract players of different gaming styles after the playerbase has been established. Any changes to promote different styles of play almost always conflict with the established desires of the current playerbase.
--The ultimate goal of a virtual world is to create a place where people of all styles of play can contribute to the world in a manner that makes the game more satisfying for everyone.
--The new players who enter the world for the first time are the best critics of it.
--The opinions of those who leave are the hardest to obtain, but give the best indication of what changes need to be made to reach that ultimate goal.

enjoy

[Zeus]

wow! a very good interesting thread for once a VERY enjoyible read!

[ParraCida]

Planetarion isn't a MMORPG though, it isn't a role playing game, it resets far to often and doesn't have the depth needed to qualify.

A MMORPG is in an entirely different league, some of the community aspects are ofcourse relevant but you can't really compare them. Just a quick example, people who play MMORPG's can be divided into 4 categories. 1) Explorers 2) Achievers 3) Community players 4) Killers.
You cannot do this for planetarion, there is nothing to explore in planetarion and essentially we all belong to the killer (pk) group. We have community players you say? No we don't, the community people are the ones that don't play PA anymore but hang out here. Killers and Community players don't mix, the more you have of the one, the less you will have of the other, its a fact. And since we are all killers to begin with.

Point is, planetarion isn't a MMORPG, it could have the numbers of a MMORPG, but it will never be one in the game type, hence I don't think the majority of these issues are relevant, except for maybe the community management ideas.

[Idler]

Hello Zeus

[wakey]

Originally Posted by ParraCida

Planetarion isn't a MMORPG though, it isn't a role playing game, it resets far to often and doesn't have the depth needed to qualify.

A MMORPG is in an entirely different league, some of the community aspects are ofcourse relevant but you can't really compare them. Just a quick example, people who play MMORPG's can be divided into 4 categories. 1) Explorers 2) Achievers 3) Community players 4) Killers.
You cannot do this for planetarion, there is nothing to explore in planetarion and essentially we all belong to the killer (pk) group. We have community players you say? No we don't, the community people are the ones that don't play PA anymore but hang out here. Killers and Community players don't mix, the more you have of the one, the less you will have of the other, its a fact. And since we are all killers to begin with.

Point is, planetarion isn't a MMORPG, it could have the numbers of a MMORPG, but it will never be one in the game type, hence I don't think the majority of these issues are relevant, except for maybe the community management ideas.

Just because PA isnt a MMORPG doesnt make any of the points raised in these documents Irreverent. Yes some of the areas might not be as important for PA as a MMORPG but you can still learn alot about the design of the game, community management, testing, change management ect from looking at how MMORPG's do it. Any business that dismisses looking into how someone else in the same marketplace does things because the product isnt exactly the same is just being short sighted and really deserves to fail.

I mean how do you think most of the major companies became successful, certainly wasnt by focusing just on what their direct compitition was doing but by looking at how other business were successful and seeing how the business practices of these could be of benifit to themselves

Oh and excuse me but are you really sure theres not community players in PA, strange cos I'm sure most smaller alliances would argue thats not the case. They know they arent going to win the round and that their members arent going to be top 100 so they have to provide a round for their members where they have fun. So the players in these alliances arent playing to win, they are playing to have fun themselves and bring fun for their alliance mates and if you manage to get some success then great but its not all thats important. Now these people sound like community players to me

[Scoot951]

There are some community players, ie scan planets, those officers/techies who help run their alliances but have crappy planets, etc. But you're right that 95%+ of the players are killers.

The one flaw with PA is that it's entirely possible to lose everything. You can spend months getting to #1, go to bed one night, and wake up with your planet in ruins and no way to recover. In some MMORPGs (most? I don't play any) while you might be able to be killed, you won't be faced with having to start from scratch.

The only way to fix this in PA would be to give the players a computer-controlled enemy to focus on rather than each other. If you made it possible for players to quickly recover as PA is currently, attacking would be pointless as the damage you could do would be minimal. If you had an AI-controlled 5th race, and the game ended when the players or the AI controlled, say, 80% of the universe, then you'd have a new focus, and could implement some way of keeping fleets intact.


Of course, the problem is, is PA capable of programming an AI able to beat/fend off the players?

[Andy_r]

Actually, the score system as it was in early betas fixed this too. If your planet was reduced to rubble you kept your score, and were well placed to take advantage of the score bonuses for small planets hitting big ones.

there is another way too... a few rounds ago I made a very long suggestion where the universe could be kept in a steady state by declaring the largest planets each week 'winners' and resetting them, with a running total of past 'winners' giving the alliance score.

I've also posted a a thing or two about using PA-controlled roid-initiating bot planets to keep the number of roids in the universe at a 'nice' level, preventing stagnation in the endgame.

[Browolf]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

I've also posted a a thing or two about using PA-controlled roid-initiating bot planets to keep the number of roids in the universe at a 'nice' level, preventing stagnation in the endgame.

If we ever get 'missions' again, stealing roids off bot planets would be a good one.

[Parthos]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

The one flaw with PA is that it's entirely possible to lose everything. You can spend months getting to #1, go to bed one night, and wake up with your planet in ruins and no way to recover.

You haven't played Pax have you? The main thing making r10 different from all previous rounds (save r4 which had similar, if more poorly implemented, types of protections) is that you CAN'T kill a planet anymore.

For one thing, mil scans were taken out which has made defense even easier than the 'spider spider, hmm think I'll send spiders' defense of r4. If you can land on someone at all most you could cap about 20% for one tick, assuming your ships don't get too 'disturbed.' 30k value players can steal 500k resources from bigger players using 5 agents, and the larger player can't do anything about it. Covert ops were supposed to be designed so that small people could 'get back' at larger ones...however, I'd like to know just what I did or could possibly do to that tiny planet, as I cannot attack him or touch him in any way yet he can rob me blind.

[Scoot951]

Step 1. Work hard, stay active
Step 2. Get to #1
Step 3. Get hit by a hurricane, lose power for a few days
Step 4. Come back, be stuck at sub-t1000 ranks for rest of round
Step 5. ?????
Step 6. Profit \o/



That's me, this round.

And lack of mil scans makes defense harder, not easier.

[Parthos]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

And lack of mil scans makes defense harder, not easier.

Depends on your perspective. I've seen all angles. And in the end, lack of mil scans makes defense 1000% easier. And no, I won't explain why. Sorry.

[Scoot951]

Well, I've taken advantage of the weaker mil scans to make my raids more successful. Just send fighters or whatever made to look like frigates or bs or whatever, and they don't have a clue cause no one seems to consider fleet analysis scans a good investment.


But we're getting off topic here.