Leet gear for great justice?

[Callan S.]

I notice alot of popular games usually involve the player collecting alot of resources.

In your observation what would you say the appeal of this is?

I've got this idea (sorry for all the posts with ideas) that the game could have a big moral question involved (like whether destroy the elven village for a military base or keep it, but risk the lives of humans in other settlements from a weak millitary position). What would happen is that players would have two weeks and those who have enough resources can enter a sort of lottery, the more resources you have the better a chance you have of winning. If you win, you alone decide which way things go with the big moral choice! And which way you decide is recorded in the games history/story - and as the games 'GM' effectively, I bounce of it with what next big moral question coming up. So generating more story with player influence on that (rather than just collecting stuff so as to get more stuff so as to have the most stuff for the sake of having the most stuff)

If you get what I mean, does that seem to work with the idea of collecting resources? Or does it miss the idea of collecting stuff entirely?

I have to admit, I don't really get raiding in world of warcraft, for example. But people seem to get into that alot. Is it just for showing off? If so, how do you code that into a browser game? Perhaps give other players an 'awed' option and if they press it they get a few coins and the other player sees it and feels good about collecting stuff?

Just wondering if the first idea seems at all interesting to anyone else - it's alot of coding to do if the end result is 'huh, wha?' and it's not really interesting to a stuff collecting person?

[fonoi]

I agree with you, I am really not sure what the point is.

Yes there is a certain kind of thrill in finding a certain item, but not like in WoW where every person your level will have nearly identical items.

What I find even more mind boggling is the amount of people who enjoy repetitive games click, click, click, click (Makes me want to scream) a prime example of this is the hit "Farmville". Why do people actually enjoy games like that? There is really no backstory, no endgame infact there is really no point.

While WoW is without a doubt the biggest MMO (subscribers), I really dont understand why. The graphics are not great, the story is kinda ok but the loot system is really uninspired. The quests are equally uninspired while a game like DDO has brilliant quests but is lacking in other parts.

My favorite game of all time has to be Asherons Call. It was unfortunatly altered over time and not all the changes were good but the loot system was amazing, there was a magic economy, you had to research your spells but it lacked in crafting (but the system they added was brilliant), the quests were ok with a few that were really good. Im my opinion this was a much better game then WoW (graphics aside) but WoW is hugely more popular, I just done understand it to be honest.

To me it seems that innovation is currently being punished, to be different is commerical suicide.

[Callan S.]

Farmville is awesome! Here's a commercial for it! FARMVILLE!

For myself, if there's a spectrum between doing what I love/want to do, and doing what is fiscally apt, I'm 75% toward what I want to do. But that means I'm also 25% for doing what's fiscally apt.

In terms of my 25%, I dunno why people keep clicking except a 'keep up with the joneses' thing? I was thinking of having some 'lord' system, where you could become a lord. But then everyone would be able to become one over time, surely devaluating the thing? But then I was thinking perhaps for clickers they could develop their lord score and at the end of each month X number of people with the highest scores become a lord for the next month (their score is also lowered by Y amount, so as to give others a chance and give them something to click on again, presumably)

Obviously I'm a little cynical when it comes to the fiscal side, but that's money for you.

In terms of doing what I want, I'm okay with having something like this 'on the side'.

[Jackolantern]

In terms of my 25%, I dunno why people keep clicking except a 'keep up with the joneses' thing?

Never write off the power of the "keeping up with the Jones'" effect lol. Half of my WoW career was spent hunting after Epic and Legendary gear that other people had, and I wanted because they had. If WoW had been a single player game, I would have quit probably 20 minutes after hitting the level cap, but there is just something definitely human that gets projected into the game where we measure ourselves based on our peers. And that keeps you squarely in front of your computer clicking lol.

[Callan S.]

I'll keep that in mind, Jackolantern, though I'm not sure how to code for it

[Jackolantern]

I'll keep that in mind, Jackolantern, though I'm not sure how to code for it

Let people show off almost every achievement they get

[Callan S.]

Will do!

[Callan S.]

I'm starting off simple with coding a highscore effect. The score gets shown when you first log in, and you can check it at any time. It's updated every 30 minutes.

What I'm thinking is that you can earn X amount of points, perhaps 5, for this score, per hour. After that you can keep playing/going through the story/fights I've made, but you don't get any more points (you can loop the story currently, so you never run out of opportunity to get these points).

The reason I'm doing it because
A: I think if you just want to play a bit then you don't want to be there for the whole hour clicking away. But some people will - meaning your out of play unless you do that too. Anyway, I don't enjoy games which let you gain from sitting there, clicking for ages. It feels like accomplishing nothing much over a long RT period. I like games where you can do alot in five minutes, but have to wait awhile before you can do it again (AND you can keep playing if you want after the five minutes, but only for small stuff).

B: In fiscal terms, I want them to run out of point making opportunity for the hour, just as they are facing an advert, thus setting the scene for an ad click.

Hoping that'll get that 'jone's' effect in there to some degree, as well as drawing on the multiplayer aspect.

I've got the highscore code done, just about to start work on the 5 points per hour (should be a straight foward timestamp thing)