Echoes

[The Beatles]

Mine is quite correct, (f77, right) you'll find.

[bjornredtail]

I know... I'll rewrite FAF... Using Nothing but Assembly language and BASH scripts!!!! And I'll be too lazy to learn how to comment it...
Then, NO ONE could ever maintain it!!!!11one
</evil laugh>

Before we go off working on any major project involving FAF, we need to do some housekeeping. For one, we need something like SVN. I think we have enough folks involved to warrant its use now. I suppose we COULD use Sourceforge's SVN repos if we wanted to. Also, what we have written now could do with some much better documentation. Perhaps something like Doxygen could come in handy for that. This would make our work that much easier for all the other improvements and bugfixes that are planned.

[Nuclear Raunch]

Thought: What about a welfare-esque system? Top player(s) have X percentage of the fruits of their turns automagically deducted from their empire and divyed up amongst the rest of the playerbase. I'm not entirely of sound mind atm so I have by no means though of the unintended consequences, but it's something original to ponder. An example to throw out would be 10% from #1, 9% from #2, 8% from #3, etc.

[Freenhult]

Maybe Beatles. We're using Fortran 77 for the most part so yeah. Never used Stop. Or read about it in our book. Just has end.

As for anything like that Nuke. Not totally sure. Though I'm not a big fan of punish to strong, support the weak.

[The Beatles]

It's lucky Kraken can't see this. He'd be all "SOCIALISM EVIL COMMIE EUROPEANS".

Seriously, we *might* have a progressive tax system, but it could never go to just weak players in the form of handouts. It'd have to be on projects that benefit everyone by reducing the costs of running their empire.

I think we're not really at that stage in the game.

[The Beatles]

Also, how about this sort of thing?
http://www.librarium-online.com/exchange/

[windhound]

Fine by me.
I think I made -

for it a long while back. I noticed it when transferring my website stuff to MiG

[Ruddertail]

I don't really see the point in doing stuff in game that benefits everybody. It just means everybody can produce more, without changing the balance of anything.

Now, a system with a clan tax and clan projects might be useful. It encourages clans to work together and provides a benefit from being in a clan. It also gives the game a little more continuity - the longer you play as a team, the more advantage you have.

I think whoever said promi gets repetitive hit the nail on the head. I also think it's right to assign a lot of the blame to the basic mold everything falls into: Not the same basic strats over and over, but the basic model. The entire game is a net fest that consists of "landgrab-run turns-buy/make troops/repeat." Some people store up cash until the end of set, but that still leaves the run basically the same. There are occasional clan wars, but there's no real point to them - even if one clan can kill off another, the effort of the kills allows third parties to pass the victorious clan. And if there's no victor, it really doesn't go anywhere.
What we need is something beyond landgrabbing and simple netting. I say simple netting, because net - or some similar comprehensive assessment of imperial power - will inherently be the end goal.

The first thing that needs to go is landgrabbing. Perhaps it works well in other promis, and perhaps they can succeed with it. That's great. If we can copy them in such a way as to grow and sustain a player base, that's great. Do it. But if whatever they use only works for them, or can't be duplicated here, or won't work for us for whatever reason - I think the first place to start is eliminating landgrabbing. Make a system so land (either in its current form or in some new form) switches hands only in formally declared wars. (Not only is landgrabbing repetitive, it's counterintuitive and probably not very newbie friendly. I recall a time when I couldn't keep an account more than two or thee days without deleting because I felt like I had been irreparably damaged by landgrabbing. I was determined enough that I kept coming back and finally learned how to survive - but it's quite possible many newbies don't even last that long. They may well quit after the first time they logged on to see their empire ravaged.)

Second, we need to get rid of the repetitiveness in the rest of the run. Just eliminating landgrabbing won't suffice if all we do is knock "landgrab" off the "landgrab-run turns-buy/make troops/repeat" formula.

I would suggest a combination of day - to - day empire management/decision making and long-term empire and clan goals. For day-to-day management, it could be certain circumstances that they need to respond to in order to keep the empire in top shape. It would probably be the lesser part of the equation, both in terms of importance in reducing repetitiveness, and in terms of gameplay. Perhaps something of an economic system could eventually play a role in this.

Longer term goals should be stuff like projects (for example, a trade route/hub system that would increase the economic strength of a clan, or "ports" and/or "shipyards" that could allow and ease the costs of cross - regional trade or warfare) or things such as opening up new land for development, building up an army and the industrial capacities necessary to allow one to win a war (at a detriment to one's overall economic growth, of course.) We could also have varying events (for example, seasons, hostile computer controlled accounts/simulated "barbarian" attacks) that present an ever changing game environment.

WOA would be our great strength in this regard. Its persistent nature would favor this sort of thing, more so than would the resetting nature of BFR. You could have clans that had lasted for months, have built a significant number of projects, both clan wide and in their members, and be a really formidable force in the game. Such clans would not be only a bastion of oldbie power - a new account joining one of the clan would receive all the benefits of the clan projects, in addition to the aid of clan members. In fact, a system could be devised that favors a number of members to encourage clans to continue recruiting people into the game.

Of course, this sort of thing would be a fairly major project - something nobody really seems to have the time for. Even in a stripped down, basic version, it would probably take a major effort. We certainly need to focus on more immediately achievable goals. I would suggest starting with a nice summary of the game on the front page; perhaps some formatting changes would be in order to fit this in or make the page look nicer. A theme change might be a good idea, but the real question is, "to what?" What has a big fan base that will be interested in online strategy games?

Those are my thoughts on the issue.

[Devari]

Banner Exchange: Yes, that's a great idea - gets our name out there.

Windy: Nice banner. Too bad you didn't show it to us before.

[edit] Getting to Rudder's post in a sec.

[Devari]

I don't really see the point in doing stuff in game that benefits everybody. It just means everybody can produce more, without changing the balance of anything.

Yeah... The welfare system is an interesting idea as part of, say, a Special Round, but I'm not sure it functions well for regular play. It's a good example of out-of-the-box thinking, though, and I'd like to encourage that.

Now, a system with a clan tax and clan projects might be useful. It encourages clans to work together and provides a benefit from being in a clan. It also gives the game a little more continuity - the longer you play as a team, the more advantage you have.

Rudder, did we ever discuss Clan Tax? I think we might have - I know it's an idea I've come across before, but maybe that was way back in my Ragnarok days. Clan Projects - that's an interesting concept.

In the original incarnation, I believe the "Clan Tax" I'd encountered was one on goods sold. How did you envision your particular Clan Tax? Is this something that skims off of every turn? Does it go straight into the Clan Treasury, or is it auto-distributed in a strange form of automatic pseudo-aid?

I think whoever said promi gets repetitive hit the nail on the head. I also think it's right to assign a lot of the blame to the basic mold everything falls into: Not the same basic strats over and over, but the basic model. The entire game is a net fest that consists of "landgrab-run turns-buy/make troops/repeat." Some people store up cash until the end of set, but that still leaves the run basically the same. There are occasional clan wars, but there's no real point to them - even if one clan can kill off another, the effort of the kills allows third parties to pass the victorious clan. And if there's no victor, it really doesn't go anywhere.

Exactly - for whatever reason, the Promisance model that can work so well in other games manages to completely die here. Perhaps it's because of our code, or perhaps it's simply because of our playing environment.

When I first started playing Promisance at RWL, the bit I liked was all the diplomatic back-and-forth as leader of the second incarnation of Loren; but it seems like I only caught the tail end of that server's golden age, because the fun seemed to die out after a while. We've similarly had some great eras at FAF - I have fond memories of Beatles and myself (I can't remember who our allies were...) dominating Round 1 of old FAF 1.0 as POLICE.

Here's just a funny observation: all my most fun Promi games have been on COMPLETELY unbalanced code. FAF 1.0 had that horrific food sell price problem and ridiculous sacking, RWL suffered from Marten Gold Mine brokenness (seriously, I didn't even know what Indy was until I got here, let alone traditional farming or cashing), and Ragnarok was just a mess of crazy numbers.

What we need is something beyond landgrabbing and simple netting. I say simple netting, because net - or some similar comprehensive assessment of imperial power - will inherently be the end goal.

It raises an interesting point - do we want to break free of the regular Promisance model of a simple, net-based game? Is there a way to keep the game simple (i.e. playable during your lunch-break), but still be FUN?

QMT: Epicurus is an example of a game that tried to break the mold a bit but ended up just being completely unfriendly to a new player - I remember going there to try it out and just being confused because I couldn't get my account created due to some sort of building construction form I kept screwing up on.

The first thing that needs to go is landgrabbing. Perhaps it works well in other promis, and perhaps they can succeed with it. That's great. If we can copy them in such a way as to grow and sustain a player base, that's great. Do it. But if whatever they use only works for them, or can't be duplicated here, or won't work for us for whatever reason - I think the first place to start is eliminating landgrabbing. Make a system so land (either in its current form or in some new form) switches hands only in formally declared wars.

Hm... I'm really intrigued by this idea. We'd need to bring back solo war declarations to some extent - otherwise, the unclanned player ends up effectively missing out on a big part of the game. A skirmish system certainly needs to be in place - you can engage in what are effectively "border skirmishes", making, say, up to three attacks. There must be SOME way to get influx of land aside from peaceful means (this IS a wargame), and there's gotta be some basis point for a war to start. I think three is a reasonable number - not enough that you get that total "oh bugger, I'm screwed" feeling when you log in for the day, but enough to get that "how DARE he attack me? It's ON." kinda of vibe.

Issue: Even with a skirmish system, does this reduce player interaction too much? Are there ways to make up for it?

Issue: Can't the person sitting at the top simply not engage in any war? How can this system work in a way that does not allow the top person to hold on forever, but also doesn't lead to war declarations on the newbies to return to endless landgrabbing.

Issue: We need to make it a little easier to grow without attacking. Perhaps greater amounts of scouting, or perhaps buildings can "improve" over time to be more productive.
Subissue: How do we make something like "improving" buildings to be non-complex?

  (Not only is landgrabbing repetitive, it's counterintuitive and probably not very newbie friendly. I recall a time when I couldn't keep an account more than two or thee days without deleting because I felt like I had been irreparably damaged by landgrabbing. I was determined enough that I kept coming back and finally learned how to survive - but it's quite possible many newbies don't even last that long. They may well quit after the first time they logged on to see their empire ravaged.)

This is probably the single biggest reason we never keep players. Logging in to see 21 attacks and your land at half of what it originally was is simply brutal.

Second, we need to get rid of the repetitiveness in the rest of the run. Just eliminating landgrabbing won't suffice if all we do is knock "landgrab" off the "landgrab-run turns-buy/make troops/repeat" formula.

Very good point - more ideas on this, anyone?

I would suggest a combination of day - to - day empire management/decision making and long-term empire and clan goals. For day-to-day management, it could be certain circumstances that they need to respond to in order to keep the empire in top shape. It would probably be the lesser part of the equation, both in terms of importance in reducing repetitiveness, and in terms of gameplay. Perhaps something of an economic system could eventually play a role in this.

Hmm... This sounds like NationStates, which leads to the problem of having a regrettably limited number of "circumstances" to respond to. Unless we find a way around this, it can get kinda gimmicky after a while; I know that's why I quit playing NationStates, since telling the exact same environmental group that "yes, I do support you" for the fifteenth time just gets OLD.

Of course, I may be completely "jumping the gun" here; I'm not sure what you had planned.

Longer term goals should be stuff like projects (for example, a trade route/hub system that would increase the economic strength of a clan, or "ports" and/or "shipyards" that could allow and ease the costs of cross - regional trade or warfare) or things such as opening up new land for development, building up an army and the industrial capacities necessary to allow one to win a war (at a detriment to one's overall economic growth, of course.) We could also have varying events (for example, seasons, hostile computer controlled accounts/simulated "barbarian" attacks) that present an ever changing game environment.

I like these ideas, certainly. I think we just need to keep that KISS principle in mind - not simplicity in the sense of "click mouse in box repeatedly please have fun yes?", but more simplicity in presentation. We can't have the new player looking at the screen with a dumbfounded expression on their face, trying to figure out what the hell all these things mean. The challenge, the frustrating part, but also the fun of designing new features is going to be that - figuring out how to get your concept into the game without overcomplicating things.

I constantly failed to do this with my City idea, which is part of the reason why I never really managed to make a proper design document for it.

WOA would be our great strength in this regard. Its persistent nature would favor this sort of thing, more so than would the resetting nature of BFR. You could have clans that had lasted for months, have built a significant number of projects, both clan wide and in their members, and be a really formidable force in the game. Such clans would not be only a bastion of oldbie power - a new account joining one of the clan would receive all the benefits of the clan projects, in addition to the aid of clan members. In fact, a system could be devised that favors a number of members to encourage clans to continue recruiting people into the game.

I was reading that and thinking, "Sounds nice, but they're just gonna become an exclusive club...", and then you acknowledged that. Not much to say here - I'm mostly in agreement - but we certainly do need to expand on anti-oldbie-"lock" measures. It feels bad to be so cynical about experienced players, but it really is true that mechanics need to prevent abuse - the landgrab-happy game is partly a playerbase issue.

Of course, this sort of thing would be a fairly major project - something nobody really seems to have the time for. Even in a stripped down, basic version, it would probably take a major effort. We certainly need to focus on more immediately achievable goals. I would suggest starting with a nice summary of the game on the front page; perhaps some formatting changes would be in order to fit this in or make the page look nicer. A theme change might be a good idea, but the real question is, "to what?" What has a big fan base that will be interested in online strategy games?

Yes, it is a major project, true. This is something we can work on slowly, I think - we're not dead YET, just sort of hovering in Limbo. The new ideas are FAF 4.0, if you will. Meanwhile, we can certainly improve FAF 3.x; friendlier page, possible theme switch, minor tweaks, special rounds, and so on. Special rounds, at the very least, have the possibility of bringing back some of our old standbys; that is, if we can address the issues that made the old ones occasionally fall apart.

Those are my thoughts on the issue.

And good ones they are! Good to see you around here.

[Freenhult]

We need to take our game and just hit it with Civ 4. Or something to that regard. Really need a game overhaul.

[Devari]

It might be time to think about that seriously. Too many ideas in the past have been dismissed as just "not Promisance", but perhaps it is time to slowly modify our Promisance code into something new. We certainly are not going to abandon our old code, of course, given that we've (well, Beatles) finally made a relatively solid and secure game. But certain things can be tweaked over time into something new...

[Freenhult]

Yeah. The basic premise here would be to make the game more diplomatic. Add in allainces, Mutual protection pacts, Stuff like that. Get war going but also make it so you just gotta talk to people. You can play teh whole set without saying a word to anyone.

[Devari]

Exactly. I think the main areas of long-term focus need to be KISS economy improvement (thereby making an account fun to play without constantly grinding people to a pulp) and a focus on diplomacy and player interaction.

[Freenhult]

Its a shame we couldnt' code computers so to speak. That would surely make it very...different.