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I like that too.
The devs would probably feel more comfortable in hiring a larger team when they could afford to do so. This would require charging more, or getting more subscribers. I'm pretty sure they would not be comfortable in charging more for the game in its current state, nor would they feel it wise to advertise for more players with the game in its current state. They have brought in a few interns, which is a start. They've also been busy making more and more dev-friendly interfaces which allow for faster changes (and presumably less-skilled labor, so somebody other than the four devs could make the changes).
I'm half expecting incarnate to write in that he's already initiated the ideas mention above.
The devs would probably feel more comfortable in hiring a larger team when they could afford to do so. This would require charging more, or getting more subscribers. I'm pretty sure they would not be comfortable in charging more for the game in its current state, nor would they feel it wise to advertise for more players with the game in its current state. They have brought in a few interns, which is a start. They've also been busy making more and more dev-friendly interfaces which allow for faster changes (and presumably less-skilled labor, so somebody other than the four devs could make the changes).
I'm half expecting incarnate to write in that he's already initiated the ideas mention above.
Hi, I'm going to try to make this a short reply for the following reason: I need to get some work done on our Trac ticket/wiki database, defining exactly how things will be implemented.. and then just post that so you all can see.
Generally speaking, some of the posts here are correct. We are working towards a multi-dimensional "rewards" system, which includes rewarding people through progressive mission trees (trees which open up trees which open up trees).. wherein the user is granted additional access as their rise in the esteem of the given faction (something that would not exclusively be defined through standing, but inclusive of mission progression and other factors.. as someone may like you a lot, but they don't know how you handle pressure under fire until they see you in that circumstance, and the like). This is one method of reward out of many.. recent advances in bots dropping things, and dropping with certain probability opens up more options for me, with creating "crafting" type content, and rare items that factor in with other areas of gameplay and eventually result in additional equipment. I know the few things I've done in that direction haven't been entirely impressive so far, but I think there's a lot that can be done.
Anyway, how to give rewards is all moot without a discussion of what sort of rewards to make available, as people have also pointed out. I cannot simply make stuff "better", the way a normal MMO does, since our game is not a static level-climb. As people suggest, things can be created based on some fixed variables (DPS, mass, energy usage) on an increasing scale where as DPS rises, so do mass, energy requirements and port scale. But, I would also like to add some other factors into that before we do so.. namely changing "powercells" to have more function than simply immediate energy.. namely a hardpoint system help determine what configurations could be used where. That would let me release, for instance, a devestating Small Port weapon that could not be quad-applied on a Hornet, assuming the largest powercell configurable on that ship did not have sufficient "points" (voltage? heh) to support four of the addon. That would make balancing weapons for the game a lot simpler process, and make many more interesting variants possible.
In the long run, though, I think it's more important to expand the game and broaden the number of potentially useful upgrades. We could definitely stand a lot more fixed-combat upgrades than we have now, but returns will diminish before long. If my earlier example of a normal level-driven RPG (WoW, EQ) expands "vertically", ours needs to expand "horizontally". The intent being that new gameplay options make new upgrades worthwhile. Case in point, the recently added fog. There's a lot of cool gameplay we can do with this, and a lot of potential options for upgrades to serve special cases related to the fog, storms, etc. You can find this in any gameplay modification.. adding capships (and making them relevant to the game, something not yet achieved) brings back the need for larger weapons to attack them, shield-specific weapons to nullify their defenses, specialty equipment to disable their engines and allow.. boarding/conquest? Expanding the Hive to a universe-wide enemy with significant economic impact on the universe, adds in potential for Hive-specific equipment to attack, defend against, investigate, hide from, and otherwise fool that PvE faction.
Right now, I'm trying to get the core of the game straightened out. That's the economy, the faction system, the basics of PvP and fix existing problems like friendly fire and so on. In-line, we're also trying to add new content as we can, and as it makes sense to allow us greater task parallelism in forward development. But basically, it has been my intention to fix a lot of the game fundamentals and then add a lot more Stuff. So, yeah, for now.. faction system, friendly fire, blah blah.. but soon after, powercell hardpoint changes, more elegant development of new upgrades, and so on.
The problem used to be that.. I couldn't make missions to do anything meaningful. Now I can make the missions, but I don't have enough Stuff to reward people once they accomplish them. We're working to solve all of this, but some tasks block other tasks and result in an interesting flow chart of dependencies.
So yeah, I hope that helps. This has ended up a lot longer than I meant it to be. Hopefully I can crank out a lot of stuff on the Trac system over the next week or so, and then just post it publicly for everyone to read. It will not be fully complete (will it ever be?) but it'll hopefully give better answers to WTF we're doing, when, and why.
Generally speaking, some of the posts here are correct. We are working towards a multi-dimensional "rewards" system, which includes rewarding people through progressive mission trees (trees which open up trees which open up trees).. wherein the user is granted additional access as their rise in the esteem of the given faction (something that would not exclusively be defined through standing, but inclusive of mission progression and other factors.. as someone may like you a lot, but they don't know how you handle pressure under fire until they see you in that circumstance, and the like). This is one method of reward out of many.. recent advances in bots dropping things, and dropping with certain probability opens up more options for me, with creating "crafting" type content, and rare items that factor in with other areas of gameplay and eventually result in additional equipment. I know the few things I've done in that direction haven't been entirely impressive so far, but I think there's a lot that can be done.
Anyway, how to give rewards is all moot without a discussion of what sort of rewards to make available, as people have also pointed out. I cannot simply make stuff "better", the way a normal MMO does, since our game is not a static level-climb. As people suggest, things can be created based on some fixed variables (DPS, mass, energy usage) on an increasing scale where as DPS rises, so do mass, energy requirements and port scale. But, I would also like to add some other factors into that before we do so.. namely changing "powercells" to have more function than simply immediate energy.. namely a hardpoint system help determine what configurations could be used where. That would let me release, for instance, a devestating Small Port weapon that could not be quad-applied on a Hornet, assuming the largest powercell configurable on that ship did not have sufficient "points" (voltage? heh) to support four of the addon. That would make balancing weapons for the game a lot simpler process, and make many more interesting variants possible.
In the long run, though, I think it's more important to expand the game and broaden the number of potentially useful upgrades. We could definitely stand a lot more fixed-combat upgrades than we have now, but returns will diminish before long. If my earlier example of a normal level-driven RPG (WoW, EQ) expands "vertically", ours needs to expand "horizontally". The intent being that new gameplay options make new upgrades worthwhile. Case in point, the recently added fog. There's a lot of cool gameplay we can do with this, and a lot of potential options for upgrades to serve special cases related to the fog, storms, etc. You can find this in any gameplay modification.. adding capships (and making them relevant to the game, something not yet achieved) brings back the need for larger weapons to attack them, shield-specific weapons to nullify their defenses, specialty equipment to disable their engines and allow.. boarding/conquest? Expanding the Hive to a universe-wide enemy with significant economic impact on the universe, adds in potential for Hive-specific equipment to attack, defend against, investigate, hide from, and otherwise fool that PvE faction.
Right now, I'm trying to get the core of the game straightened out. That's the economy, the faction system, the basics of PvP and fix existing problems like friendly fire and so on. In-line, we're also trying to add new content as we can, and as it makes sense to allow us greater task parallelism in forward development. But basically, it has been my intention to fix a lot of the game fundamentals and then add a lot more Stuff. So, yeah, for now.. faction system, friendly fire, blah blah.. but soon after, powercell hardpoint changes, more elegant development of new upgrades, and so on.
The problem used to be that.. I couldn't make missions to do anything meaningful. Now I can make the missions, but I don't have enough Stuff to reward people once they accomplish them. We're working to solve all of this, but some tasks block other tasks and result in an interesting flow chart of dependencies.
So yeah, I hope that helps. This has ended up a lot longer than I meant it to be. Hopefully I can crank out a lot of stuff on the Trac system over the next week or so, and then just post it publicly for everyone to read. It will not be fully complete (will it ever be?) but it'll hopefully give better answers to WTF we're doing, when, and why.
Thanks for the post, incarnate. You've got our support. I get the warm fuzzies every time I see an honest description of what's going where, why it's taking time, etc.
I look forward to the opening of the Trac system to public viewing, if a little worried that this'll put an extra load you chaps that you don't need. :)
I look forward to the opening of the Trac system to public viewing, if a little worried that this'll put an extra load you chaps that you don't need. :)
Great post inc., gives me some suggestion thread ideas...