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I've been kind of silent lately (busy), just a heads-up on what we're doing:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/news.html
http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/news.html
Sounds good! Hehe I remember wingbugs...
You mentioned a1k0n reworking bots? I wasn't sure exactly what you said is gonna change about them, but may I suggest their telepathic ability to dodge so well? This AI is much much nicer than what we had a few years ago, but the bots are still way better than 99.9% of players. Especially ones like seekers, which are way hard to hit without rockets.
You mentioned a1k0n reworking bots? I wasn't sure exactly what you said is gonna change about them, but may I suggest their telepathic ability to dodge so well? This AI is much much nicer than what we had a few years ago, but the bots are still way better than 99.9% of players. Especially ones like seekers, which are way hard to hit without rockets.
What he is talking about, is more stable control and hand off of just how bots behave and task operation in the background. Some older symptoms of this fundamental problem were sleeping pirates, convoys stuck at station exits, etc. I suspect much of the PCC problems with bots wandering off task, or getting bored when no PC's are around is to be covered in these fixes. It sounds like they are trying to do a significant bot control rework.
On the bots being "way better than 99.9% of players", are you crazy? I can plow through dozens of bots, and only take damage when I get to close to the death explosions. I am certain many players are much much better at it than I. If bots started to get close to a 1-1 kill ratio to players I would agree, but as it is now, not a chance. The only advantage they have is the psychic dodge, and really thats not much of one once you figure out how to keep them from doing it too often.
Back on topic, I am really looking forward to better bot control for the PCC mission development. It will really open up some great and creative mission options for us.
Keep up the good work.
On the bots being "way better than 99.9% of players", are you crazy? I can plow through dozens of bots, and only take damage when I get to close to the death explosions. I am certain many players are much much better at it than I. If bots started to get close to a 1-1 kill ratio to players I would agree, but as it is now, not a chance. The only advantage they have is the psychic dodge, and really thats not much of one once you figure out how to keep them from doing it too often.
Back on topic, I am really looking forward to better bot control for the PCC mission development. It will really open up some great and creative mission options for us.
Keep up the good work.
Yeah, the biggest point is to make bots function properly, like PsyRa says. However, there is also some interest in changing their behaviours a bit, or experimenting with it, but that'll be a secondary priority. For instance, we'd like bots to "react" and change combat tactics based on input parameters.. be they defensive situation changes, or maybe the Hive learning that a particular flight method doesn't work that well on a given player, and reacting as a whole. Anyway, these are more out-there options.. we do want to create a more gradual scale between the bot difficulties, though. My impression is that for most newbies, the Oruns are ok, the Denteks get a little hard, and then everything else wipes the floor with them, unless a vet helps them with specific tactics. It would be better to have a more gradual learning curve, with more types of bots and relative-difficulty behaviours. It'd also be good to have some "Ace" bots that pop up in grayspace now and then, in certain situations.
The Macroeconomy is still fundamentally imbalanced, a failing which has been highlighted almost monthly by new users writing in General sometimes as a review as to why they will or will not stay and pay. The Macroeconomy has many infinite-money-generating-springs; no scarcity of resources, no decoupling of real vs. nominal variables (needed to account for inflation) and no Supply() and Demand() dynamics.
When is the intention to dekiver that ?
I hear other MMORPGs have a dynamic economy with these realism features.
When is the intention to dekiver that ?
I hear other MMORPGs have a dynamic economy with these realism features.
The developers are very aware that the economy is flawed. The bots are an integral part of the economy and must function properly in order for the economy redux to work. I don't think they can put a specific date on when the economy will be fixed, but I think it's safe to say that they do regard it as a high priority.
On Oct 27, 2007 incarnate wrote:
"The economy is coming too. Like Whistler says, making sure Kourier is actually getting the bots to deliver their goods, and so on, is pretty damned important :). We're also still working out the build tree of items, plus I need to redistribute the ores and minerals of the universe, which goes back to the first paragraph of this reply, and how working with the universe is still kind of a pain in the ass."
On Oct 27, 2007 incarnate wrote:
"The economy is coming too. Like Whistler says, making sure Kourier is actually getting the bots to deliver their goods, and so on, is pretty damned important :). We're also still working out the build tree of items, plus I need to redistribute the ores and minerals of the universe, which goes back to the first paragraph of this reply, and how working with the universe is still kind of a pain in the ass."
Like Whistler says, bots going from place to place has been quite unreliable in some circumstances. Also, their inventories are not handled very well, and we have to "fake" a lot of constructs just to get things to appear normal. Bots don't even mine yet, or heat up asteroids, which is a problem on the "supply" end. This is basically what Andy is trying to redo. We have the trade convoys for the specific purpose of testing and balancing an NPC-driven supply line with which players may interact, but we aren't going to tie it back to manufacturing and goods availability until we're damned sure it's working properly.
On a side-note, very few MMOs actually have economies that are anything like what you describe. The most popular MMOs (World of Warcraft, Runescape, GuildWars, Lineage, Everquest, etc) have completely fake (or nonexistent) economies that have even less variability than our current one. EVE's is pretty dynamic, but even they "rig" it a bit, artificially channeling resources into less used geography to distribute user load, and other tweaks. Second Life is a different ball of wax, of course, since you trade real-world currency for in-game currency.
Long story short, we do plan to wade into this hornets nest of player exploitation and potential imbalance that will come with making everything dynamic, but very few games do, and we're going to make sure things are working as reliably as possible before we cross that particular rubicon. I may rebalance bits of the existing economy in the meantime, but for the most part we're trying to stay focused on moving forward and implementing what's needed for the next generation.
On a side-note, very few MMOs actually have economies that are anything like what you describe. The most popular MMOs (World of Warcraft, Runescape, GuildWars, Lineage, Everquest, etc) have completely fake (or nonexistent) economies that have even less variability than our current one. EVE's is pretty dynamic, but even they "rig" it a bit, artificially channeling resources into less used geography to distribute user load, and other tweaks. Second Life is a different ball of wax, of course, since you trade real-world currency for in-game currency.
Long story short, we do plan to wade into this hornets nest of player exploitation and potential imbalance that will come with making everything dynamic, but very few games do, and we're going to make sure things are working as reliably as possible before we cross that particular rubicon. I may rebalance bits of the existing economy in the meantime, but for the most part we're trying to stay focused on moving forward and implementing what's needed for the next generation.
If that comforts you, Inc, you cannot devise a perfectly working autonomous economic system. Unless you're planning to win the Nobel Prize in Economics for ten times in a row, I mean.
Bits are bits, and resources can be created out of thin air anyway. So, without their actual scarcity and needing to replace it with an artificial scarcity, you WILL find yourself tweaking, meddling, "rigging" the supply/demand coefficients more often than you'd like to do.
From direct experience, pulling the levers of the economic balance, accepting compromises, understanding that someone will ALWAYS be ultrarich and someone always on the brink of bankruptcy, and actually giving up to the notion that at times the only way out of a self-inflicted bad design assumption is a radical and unpopular decision, will become the dayjob of administering a multiplayer online game.
Take it easy. You can still advertise the game as Yarr Quake in Space, and nobody will complain about efficient auto-balancing, feedback-based, multivariable supply/demand systems. :)
Bits are bits, and resources can be created out of thin air anyway. So, without their actual scarcity and needing to replace it with an artificial scarcity, you WILL find yourself tweaking, meddling, "rigging" the supply/demand coefficients more often than you'd like to do.
From direct experience, pulling the levers of the economic balance, accepting compromises, understanding that someone will ALWAYS be ultrarich and someone always on the brink of bankruptcy, and actually giving up to the notion that at times the only way out of a self-inflicted bad design assumption is a radical and unpopular decision, will become the dayjob of administering a multiplayer online game.
Take it easy. You can still advertise the game as Yarr Quake in Space, and nobody will complain about efficient auto-balancing, feedback-based, multivariable supply/demand systems. :)
I think it would be kinda fun to have a limit to a station's supplies, as determined by "trading guild" missions, escort missions, and NPC deliveries. This way, someone could just shoot down all supplies coming to the station, and the station could just suffer (although they would have to shoot down the strike forces and station guard as well!). I just have two points to make on this strategy.
1) The bots couldn't all deliver to different systems, especially in gray space. That would undoubtedly make the pirates have a pretty fun time. ;)
2) There would have to be an unlimited supply of ships, at least EC-89s, at every station. No one wants to die and then find that the station they were homed at ran out of ships. That, well, let's just say it would be no fun at all.
I might as well add another one.
3) Seriously, don't expect too much of yourself. I don't really know much about your job, but I can imagine that redoing the economy like this is just about impossible. I hope that cheered you up a bit and maybe even motivated you, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing =)
Good luck, and good job with everything so far!
1) The bots couldn't all deliver to different systems, especially in gray space. That would undoubtedly make the pirates have a pretty fun time. ;)
2) There would have to be an unlimited supply of ships, at least EC-89s, at every station. No one wants to die and then find that the station they were homed at ran out of ships. That, well, let's just say it would be no fun at all.
I might as well add another one.
3) Seriously, don't expect too much of yourself. I don't really know much about your job, but I can imagine that redoing the economy like this is just about impossible. I hope that cheered you up a bit and maybe even motivated you, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing =)
Good luck, and good job with everything so far!
He worked "rubicon" into his post - what could stop him?
I can demonstrate how to wingbug the hac's shields whenever you need, also twice I've wing bugged the shields on a teredon.
Will the seperate hives ever fight each other and compete for territory?
Hi, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression with my last post, that I would be chasing some impossible dream of a "totally realistic" economic simulation. From my point of view, as a designer, the benefits of a "realistic" economy extend only as far as the impact on other aspects of the game: creating interesting new gameplay. Such as, the case mentioned above, where a station may be blockaded and have their demand / manufacturing abilities and even defenses impacted. Or where pirates attack convoys (a desired thing!) resulting in more heavily defended convoys, and the owning corporation or party putting bounties on the heads of the pirates, news announcements, and so on. Economics, in large part, provides motivation to the behaviour of gameplay in the galaxy. Motivation provides meaning to what's going on, whether it's cooperation between individuals, or wars between corporations.
Beyond a certain point, realism has diminishing returns. I'm not interested in creating an economy-simulation that appeals to economists. I'm interested in creating a cool space universe with a sufficiently reactive economy and contention for resources, that impacts have ripple affects into other areas of the game. Hopefully making users feel that they are a part of living whole rather than avatars wandering in a static, simulated wasteland. I expect that this will only be important to people at the upper levels of the game (the "endgame"), and invisible to the average newbie, but will still have relevance at all levels of play.
There will always be some aspects of our universe that will have infinite resources.. I'm not going to put newbies at the mercy of a powerful and well organized guild that assaults a major capitol. But there is a balance to be found here, and our economy can be made considerably more "realistic", without going overboard, and I think it will be for the betterment of the game as a whole. Realism for the sake of diverse and compelling gameplay can be worthwhile. Realism for its own sake.. is not. The question of "How Real?" is basically one of development & balancing time versus diminishing returns of gameplay impact. In games, Realism is only useful in the service of Fun.
The point of my previous post was more to defend our direction and actions by saying that this sort of thing is *not* that commonly found in MMOs, nor is it trivial to implement. We do plan to use certain mechanisms, like NPCs, to help create and balance this system (along with a whole lot of other aspects of new gameplay), so it is a necessity to make sure that the underlying functionality is.. working. This stuff doesn't happen overnight, nor is this economic redux our biggest immediate priority, nor should it be.. but it is something we are marching towards with foresight and intent.
Anyway, thanks for the words of support.
Professor Chaos: at the present time, we do not expect the different Hives to interact. They'll be buffered from one another, and have their expansion limited to keep them from accidentally overrunning the galaxy. We expect most of the conflict to be between the respective human factions and the Hives, over the resources that can be mined in the occupied sectors. This will also play into the reorganization of resources in the galaxy.
In the very-long-run we may have no normal "bots" anymore, just various Hives expanding in different ways, in which case they might even have conflicts with one another, but that's some distance off and not a priority right now.
Beyond a certain point, realism has diminishing returns. I'm not interested in creating an economy-simulation that appeals to economists. I'm interested in creating a cool space universe with a sufficiently reactive economy and contention for resources, that impacts have ripple affects into other areas of the game. Hopefully making users feel that they are a part of living whole rather than avatars wandering in a static, simulated wasteland. I expect that this will only be important to people at the upper levels of the game (the "endgame"), and invisible to the average newbie, but will still have relevance at all levels of play.
There will always be some aspects of our universe that will have infinite resources.. I'm not going to put newbies at the mercy of a powerful and well organized guild that assaults a major capitol. But there is a balance to be found here, and our economy can be made considerably more "realistic", without going overboard, and I think it will be for the betterment of the game as a whole. Realism for the sake of diverse and compelling gameplay can be worthwhile. Realism for its own sake.. is not. The question of "How Real?" is basically one of development & balancing time versus diminishing returns of gameplay impact. In games, Realism is only useful in the service of Fun.
The point of my previous post was more to defend our direction and actions by saying that this sort of thing is *not* that commonly found in MMOs, nor is it trivial to implement. We do plan to use certain mechanisms, like NPCs, to help create and balance this system (along with a whole lot of other aspects of new gameplay), so it is a necessity to make sure that the underlying functionality is.. working. This stuff doesn't happen overnight, nor is this economic redux our biggest immediate priority, nor should it be.. but it is something we are marching towards with foresight and intent.
Anyway, thanks for the words of support.
Professor Chaos: at the present time, we do not expect the different Hives to interact. They'll be buffered from one another, and have their expansion limited to keep them from accidentally overrunning the galaxy. We expect most of the conflict to be between the respective human factions and the Hives, over the resources that can be mined in the occupied sectors. This will also play into the reorganization of resources in the galaxy.
In the very-long-run we may have no normal "bots" anymore, just various Hives expanding in different ways, in which case they might even have conflicts with one another, but that's some distance off and not a priority right now.
---inc---
My impression is that for most newbies, the Oruns are ok, the Denteks get a little hard, and then everything else wipes the floor with them, unless a vet helps them with specific tactics.
---endinc---
when leveling up there seems to be a gap around combat lvl 3 where no better gear is availabel... in fact check which stations sell the normal neutron blasters... as a newbie you see gauss for lvl5 you see neutsmk III and you still need to hold on to your pahseblaster hx forit is the best you can get at your station.
2 things need to be done...
1. missions really explaining the world letting you know tht there is a black market in grey.
2. making sure there is even a lowlevel weapon with minimum good aiming available even if it may have its drawbacks like being heavier than the normal blasters that level. the neuts would be great, i just did not find a station selling them around newbie areas.
that is what i thought when twinking, whereTF is the stuff the wiki talks about? i needed loads of flights to figure where to go and i already knew what i was looking for, a newbie does not know that he could already get better gear...
the only hint is "Explore!" in one of the loading screens.
Yeah sure "explore for what" a newbie might think.
My impression is that for most newbies, the Oruns are ok, the Denteks get a little hard, and then everything else wipes the floor with them, unless a vet helps them with specific tactics.
---endinc---
when leveling up there seems to be a gap around combat lvl 3 where no better gear is availabel... in fact check which stations sell the normal neutron blasters... as a newbie you see gauss for lvl5 you see neutsmk III and you still need to hold on to your pahseblaster hx forit is the best you can get at your station.
2 things need to be done...
1. missions really explaining the world letting you know tht there is a black market in grey.
2. making sure there is even a lowlevel weapon with minimum good aiming available even if it may have its drawbacks like being heavier than the normal blasters that level. the neuts would be great, i just did not find a station selling them around newbie areas.
that is what i thought when twinking, whereTF is the stuff the wiki talks about? i needed loads of flights to figure where to go and i already knew what i was looking for, a newbie does not know that he could already get better gear...
the only hint is "Explore!" in one of the loading screens.
Yeah sure "explore for what" a newbie might think.
My hope for the new economy is that I'll have a motivation to protect NPC convoys from pirates. Right now, there is no motivation to do so. If a NPC convoy is pirated or destroyed, it doesn't affect anyone, other than the pirate. It would be nice if stopping those goods from reaching their intended destination would have a negative affect on the economy and therefore other players.
Incarnate, my 2 cents about hive overruning everything...
An event. If I remember correctly, you guys would love to have such things happen. If the hive is growing rapidly and is unchallenged, a couple of special missions should open up (Bountys for killing queen X which is threatening our trade routes, bonuses for clearing out hive sectors, perhaps a hive slayer medal for clearing X sectors?) and the bounty of the hive overall should increse. It would be a blast, and you could use that mailing list to announce things like that.
If you don't have the time to script something like that, your army of PCC could give you a hand :D
An event. If I remember correctly, you guys would love to have such things happen. If the hive is growing rapidly and is unchallenged, a couple of special missions should open up (Bountys for killing queen X which is threatening our trade routes, bonuses for clearing out hive sectors, perhaps a hive slayer medal for clearing X sectors?) and the bounty of the hive overall should increse. It would be a blast, and you could use that mailing list to announce things like that.
If you don't have the time to script something like that, your army of PCC could give you a hand :D
Shaded: I've noticed that too, from playing recently. I'm looking at creating some more interim addons and shiptypes for relative newbies in that license-range, and also some advanced tutorials that talk about how to play at a higher level.
Strat: That's my goal too. Without purpose, there isn't much meaning to anything in the universe. Repercussion gives meaning, economics is just one way of going about that, which gives a single mechanism to touch on a lot of different areas of the game.
Zamzx: The PCC currently doesn't have the tools to engineer an event like that, although we're planning to improve the tools they have. But, yes, I've thought of that kind of thing (a big PvE "OMG the Hive is coming!" event on a weekend with lots of people), and I agree that would be cool. Once we get the fundamental persistent hive working, then potentially we can develop some Kourier-based tools for creating that kind of event. Then a guide or whomever could run the thing. Mailing list for that is also desired :). Another long-unfinished project on my list.. <sigh>..
Strat: That's my goal too. Without purpose, there isn't much meaning to anything in the universe. Repercussion gives meaning, economics is just one way of going about that, which gives a single mechanism to touch on a lot of different areas of the game.
Zamzx: The PCC currently doesn't have the tools to engineer an event like that, although we're planning to improve the tools they have. But, yes, I've thought of that kind of thing (a big PvE "OMG the Hive is coming!" event on a weekend with lots of people), and I agree that would be cool. Once we get the fundamental persistent hive working, then potentially we can develop some Kourier-based tools for creating that kind of event. Then a guide or whomever could run the thing. Mailing list for that is also desired :). Another long-unfinished project on my list.. <sigh>..
Thanks for the updates on what's in the works. I'm looking forward all the cool nifty things you've mentioned.
For big events like that - could there be a VO twitter account or something that could alert people to when big things are happening? We can't be online all the time, after all.
That would be an interesting use of Twitter. Yeah, I'll think about that.
[EDIT]: http://twitter.com/VendettaOnline
Now I just have to get around to using it.
[EDIT]: http://twitter.com/VendettaOnline
Now I just have to get around to using it.