Profile: lowrads
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• • What are your Top 10 Musts for an MMO?

  • 1) No extensive NPC interaction beyond the tutorial, or introductory phase for the new player.  No bearing on the economy, not a signficant source of employment, not a significant source of security, etc.

    2) Constant risk, although virtually no possible reward for creating risk in novice introduction zones.  LIttle feasible reward in safe-ish zones.  Entrepreneurial efforts tend to involve permanent, vulnerable structures.  Safety involves planning.   Planning against risk is not optional, but player networking tools are exemplary.  Lower taxes, and better manufacturing  and marketing opportunities and conditions in low security zones.

    3) Bourgeois economy.  All sources of income are derived from other players, whether through attacking their assets, or any number of broad player-defined mercenary type of arrangement.  Growth in economic infrastructure should be predicated on the savings rate.  Any form of unlimited growth should be checked by profitability limits. e.g., no corps or guilds expanding to 5000 members without a proven profit model. 

    4) Sound currency.  Only the most parsimonious faucets or sinks.  No artificial price ceilings or floors on any products.  NPCs produce nothing accessible to the player, and are highly restrictive on services they offer based on losable standing.  Environmental scarcity is agreeable if salvage is a significant feature.

    5) Don't unduly waste GM resources on RMT.  Let the RMT market seek balance by limiting barriers to entry.  Ban players that advertize outside of condoned venues, or are otherwise obnoxious or disruptive to the competitive game experience.   Allow "gameplay" that is not regarded as useful by the playerbase as a whole to fall by the wayside, and its adherents endure penury.  If players automate parts of your game, then it wasn't interesting enough for them not to seek a smarter way to get it done. 

    6) Curtail play that the hardware cannot handle mostly by economic means.  If groups are blobbing into server killing masses, then develop the game in the direction of offensive assets being dependent upon the performance of assets that can in turn be attacked by guerilla forces.  Make all assets of members require constant upkeep, thus forcing employing corporations or guilds to have a solid and proven business model as well as the leadership structure to pursue it aggressively.

    7) Favor complexity.  Don't simplify aspects of the game like production, or asset management.  These are opportunities for exteriorities to arise.  This yeilds two consequences.  The first include more occasions for opportunistic conflict.  The second encompasses the possibility of player created entrepreneurship models to meet the irregularities in conducting profit seeking enterprise.  Profit should be the difference between earnings and expenses.

    8) Cater to nerds.  MMOs are designed by very smart people, but seem to be intended for young children, or retards.  Advanced knowledge in any science, whether an existing one or one invented for a fictitious game world, should not be necessary to participate, but it could easily become necessary to be more competitive.  There is no limit to the amount of geek content that can be imported to a game on a procedurally generated basis.  This beats the hell out of equipping a pickaxe and clicking the left mouse button..  Examples: Chemistry, geology, physics, electronics, programming, mathematics, economics (not an actual science), agriculture, engineering, biology, pretty much any other ology.  Players will supply the social engineering no matter what.

    9) Persistent world.  Nothing logs off.  Ever.

    10) Single shard environment.  It's a good thing.

     

  • Posted: 8/25/08 1:14 AM
    Developers Corner
• • I miss EVE

  • I am in the same boat.  However, I remember many of the negative things that make attempting to play frustrating.

     NPC Corps.  The only thing that can touch them are suicide tactics or elaborate misrepresentations and social engineering.  The fact that they can be involved in the market and shipping makes it rather difficult to identify and fight the real competition.  Occasionally one can connect the dots, but not usually.  Empire war would actually be my favorite arena otherwise.  Starting a war over underpricing would be immeasurably more satisfying than underbidding an opponent every x hours/days.

    Local chat.  The result is that you have very very brief windows to sneak up on the few individuals willing to put themselves at risk.

    Strait up fights are fun and all, and it's great that they are expensive.  However, grinding is a truly unendurable experience for some individuals.  Surviving on just on predating enemy organizations and the unwary would be fine if only grinding didn't pay out so much better, and require so much less organization.  Lowsec may have targets in it somewhere, but most evenings I can wander through a couple regions without seeing even one undocked mission runner.  Small gangs are rarer than lag inducing gangs.

    I've been in exactly one awesome pirate corp, which was just a dozen people that played all the time with no money, and no competent skills or ships, but enthusiasm in spades.  I wasn't able to stick with it due to RL, and it folded within a month with some members going on to more traditional corps.  I've been in countless corps since then, and they were all uniformly horrible, disorganized, and attracted very irritating personalities once they got big.  More than a few had directors that would throw a tantrum if you tried to organize your fellow members. 

  • Posted: 8/02/08 10:39 PM
    EVE Online