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Post by nyrlicious on Dec 23, 2014 15:12:24 GMT -5
If you've ever played a MUSH, then you know that by comparison it is pure, raw storytelling. I dont care for them much, but there's something to be learned from a game world where emote is practically the only coded element there is. If you create a character who's concept is that of a rich person, then he's rich. And you play him that way and he has oodles oodles of money from day one. If you create a character who's concept is that of a poor person, then he's poor. And even though you can decide he's suddenly rich because money is virtual, you often don't want to because you made a poor character concept for a reason.
And this is a point often overlooked by Arm's players. If you know how to come up with 100,000 coins, does that mean you should? We can argue it any way we want. I can even see myself defending the reasoning behind it. "Oh, but all I did was hunt and sell hides! I didn't abuse the game world and because my character believes in being 'green' he was very careful not to overhunt the land!" So what? You're still not likely playing according to the concept you've created if you have more money than nobles and merchants.
There are ways to duplicate items in game. Any item. The game world can yield all sorts of things to the veteran player. And in many cases it's not even a loop hole, or a bug.. it's entirely legit. A responsible player will know when enough is enough and back down. Indies are by far the most fun, hands down. They have freedom! And invariably I almost always opt for an indie role. But whether it's supported by the code or not, clannies are meant to be above us, they're the cream of the crop, the elite. They're the yuppies of Zalanthas and our indie characters hate them because deep down inside they're jealous. When I made insides, I would often incorporate a background quality that precluded him from joining a clan. It wasn't that he was "too good" for clans, but rather he couldn't join one if he wanted to. As a responsible player and a veteran you need to come up with ways to play your indie that fits with the game world. You can't junk coins, but you can get rid of them in a way which makes them gone from the game entirely. RP that you need some of your vast wealth to pay off virtual mobsters, buy expensive medicines for your ailing relative, or you lost it gambling to vNPCs.
Yes, indies are richer than anyone. And no matter how you tweak the game's economy, an indie can still make a fortune by buying low and selling high, amassing an obscene fortune in a very short time. If you want to be a responsible player you work around the code (even against it in some cases) so that you can play the character you created. Blaming it on the game mechanics is for beginners.
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Post by sirra on Dec 23, 2014 15:54:23 GMT -5
If you've ever played a MUSH, then you know that by comparison it is pure, raw storytelling. I dont care for them much, but there's something to be learned from a game world where emote is practically the only coded element there is. If you create a character who's concept is that of a rich person, then he's rich. And you play him that way and he has oodles oodles of money from day one. If you create a character who's concept is that of a poor person, then he's poor. And even though you can decide he's suddenly rich because money is virtual, you often don't want to because you made a poor character concept for a reason. Well. That should probably be qualified that most MUSHes (at least the popular, non-sex ones), are virtually always based on some RPG sourcebook. World of Darkness being the most common. So there are rules and such, but they're not coded into the game beyond a kind of dice feature, xp tracker, a chargen and a +sheet. Some get a little fancier, but it would be prohibitively complicated to code an automated fight under WoD rules. There are so many variables, that you essentially require a third party with knowledge of the RPG rulebook to arbitrate the 'timestop'. In such games, you typically have player storytellers, who tell stories and create events for their faction. Then one notch above them, you have sphere staff, who perform storytelling/admin roles for a certain subset of the playerbase (vampires, werewolves, mages, ghosts, whatever)However, the nature of WoD in particular and similar genres, means that the rules and lore are so complicated that a staffer in one sphere will be almost entirely ignorant about the most basic mechanisms of another sphere, and so have nothing to do with it. When two spheres go at it, you have to find someone with knowledge of two equally byzantine sourcebooks (WoD alone would have dozens of different rulebooks published for each race) to have any chance at resolution. Timestops might stretch over several days. But it could be as vicious, playerkillery, and non-consent as anything you've seen on Arm. Although, it's been years since I had the time for that kind of bullshit, let alone Arm's comparatively breezy experience. The best thing Arm has over MUSHes is the lack of any kind of ooc paging functionality. Or universal whisper, or tell. It's actually quite refreshing to have all communication in game restricted to IC channels. |
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Post by gloryhound on Dec 23, 2014 16:36:31 GMT -5
If we wanted to play on a MUSH, we'd play on a MUSH.
I'd rather the game mechanics be fixed to give actual incentives than being reduced to inventing rainbows and unicorns to chase after.
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Post by nyrlicious on Dec 23, 2014 17:31:56 GMT -5
I'm very glad Arm isn't a MUSH too. I'm saying there are things that can be learned from the role playing style found in one.
No matter how much we tweak and improve the code, there will always be unrealistic elements or aspects of it which require somehow getting around or ignoring in order to help create a more realistic world. Now that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and say there's nothing we can do, no sense in trying. I'd like to see the game economy worked on too. But there's still a certain level of accountability that a responsible player will hold themself to despite what the code allows.
If you can restrain yourself from letting your OOC knowledge slip IC, you can (and should) restrain yourself from amassing unrealistic fortunes and then blaming it on the code.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2014 18:11:10 GMT -5
It'd help if there was something so small available as junking coins. I'm not sure why it's not possible. You could junk 'sid and roleplay handing them off to vNPCs for a variety of reasons, handily reducing the amount of coin you have available.
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Post by sirra on Dec 23, 2014 18:16:06 GMT -5
I'm very glad Arm isn't a MUSH too. I'm saying there are things that can be learned from the role playing style found in one. No matter how much we tweak and improve the code, there will always be unrealistic elements or aspects of it which require somehow getting around or ignoring in order to help create a more realistic world. Now that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and say there's nothing we can do, no sense in trying. I'd like to see the game economy worked on too. But there's still a certain level of accountability that a responsible player will hold themself to despite what the code allows. If you can restrain yourself from letting your OOC knowledge slip IC, you can (and should) restrain yourself from amassing unrealistic fortunes and then blaming it on the code. You make a good point. In fact, under the current Armageddon landscape, it a deeply admirable one. I think the game would be better served in the long run though, if the economy, which really is wonky, was fixed. Sids should be harder to come by. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2014 18:45:20 GMT -5
Problem with hiring a coder is that it isn't just something every programmer can do. You have to actually know the game, and know it very well, to be able to code anything significant. You would need to know precisely what to aim for and what your code will result in. Simple familiarity with the coding language is not at all enough. People who don't play Armageddon would have absolutely no idea what they were doing.
As for the Byn no longer hiring indies, it's yet another example of how staff deals with broken game design: ignore it and tell players to change the way they play, even if it's starkly for the worse and with no gain at all. The fact that the flawed economy means indies can pay more than nobles should not lead staff to decide that indies can no longer hire people, it should lead them to fix the economy. Lazy, incompetent fucktards.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Dec 23, 2014 19:18:42 GMT -5
I've been thinking of how to post about 3 times throughout the day when I peeked back at this thread. I am a professional daytrader in real life, I've played MUDs for years and years, I've staffed for only years  ... In my opinion creating a 'balanced' economy based on your game design goals is not impossible and is not an insurmountable task. It does not take a gaming genius to make a bow or spear and sell it in Luirs for 100s of sid and just do that regularly and save up. Asking your players to restrict the most common sense use of their crafting skills isn't good game design or good for the game. Simple Solution - Reducing the buyout value of items by 50% or even 75%. The majority of player gear that is desirable is clan locked, so there you go... Mass produced (or simply produced) merchant goods provide a livable wage but not more than a GMH could make with regular player sales. Is this foolproof? Fuck no. Is it easily tweakable and reversible? Fuck yes. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2014 0:32:10 GMT -5
I've been thinking of how to post about 3 times throughout the day when I peeked back at this thread. I am a professional daytrader in real life, I've played MUDs for years and years, I've staffed for only years ... In my opinion creating a 'balanced' economy based on your game design goals is not impossible and is not an insurmountable task. It does not take a gaming genius to make a bow or spear and sell it in Luirs for 100s of sid and just do that regularly and save up. Asking your players to restrict the most common sense use of their crafting skills isn't good game design or good for the game. Simple Solution - Reducing the buyout value of items by 50% or even 75%. The majority of player gear that is desirable is clan locked, so there you go... Mass produced (or simply produced) merchant goods provide a livable wage but not more than a GMH could make with regular player sales. Is this foolproof? Fuck no. Is it easily tweakable and reversible? Fuck yes. While in some cases, this is viable, in others you already HAVE crafted items that sell for less than the materials cost to make them, sometimes a 1/10th as much, so it would need to be done on an item by item basis imo or make the economy worse than it already is just in the other direction. For ever pair of silk braies, you have 10 hunks of shells that were made into something awesome but the something awesome is already only worth 1/4 of the raw good, and that is very, very broken. |
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... In my opinion creating a 'balanced' economy based on your game design goals is not impossible and is not an insurmountable task. It does not take a gaming genius to make a bow or spear and sell it in Luirs for 100s of sid and just do that regularly and save up. Asking your players to restrict the most common sense use of their crafting skills isn't good game design or good for the game.