| Author |
The Answer to Balance |
Lith Ragond
Cadet
Galactic Navy
Joined: November 25, 2001
Posts: 1854
|  Posted: 2003-08-17 17:56
Quote:
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ROFL!! that is hilarious
but i am not the type of person to rub somehting in someones face, so that doesnt work 
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g0ds s0ldier
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: October 24, 2002
Posts: 954
| Posted: 2003-08-17 18:01
Hmm, I guess that only works for Ragg. (haha)
I'll try my best to find you another reason to fight for your systems against the 20Active ICC who werent active 2weeks ago. Trust me.
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Pitch Black
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2003-08-17 19:00
Actually, my ideal wasn't about the drive to play, or the drive for new subscribers to stay with the game. If you read carefully, what I was talking about was the drive to play all aspects of the game. Even if you have 50 players at all times on any particular side, rebuilding a system may be faster, but it's still unrewarding.
Incentive to play the game, guys. Not incentive to subscribe...
-Dem
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Specterx
Fleet Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: December 09, 2001
Posts: 547
From: Virginia/California
| Posted: 2003-08-17 21:15
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On 2003-08-17 17:37, Lith "Forum Lawyer" Ragond wrote:
well, thanks for reiterating what every dev for every game has ever wanted to do for their game. unfortunatly the "give it to me now" attitude will only leave you disapointed. Faus has been updating all the low level features of this game, so that when he starts giving you your new content, not only will it cause less lag, fewer crashes, but it will look nicer, be easier to use and overall more than it could be otherwise. but hey, who cares about that. just give it to us now right?
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In addition to being incorrect, you've completely missed the point. The "low level features" haven't been given much (if any) attention prior to 1.481 (else 1.481 would not be needed in the first place). My point was that the game has been fundamentally changed in such a way, reducing/removing the incentive to play the game for many people. Changing the layout of buttons in the nav screen is a really, really low priority in my book. Will the US bring good things? Maybe. But being able to support 1000 players is no good if you only have 20 people playing at any given time. Aside from that, just about every other change pushes DS in the direction I don't like. What is the point of letting anyone jump at any speed? Will that increase the tension in the game and give it more longevity, or will it just make combat stale and pointless? Will insta-spawn shipyards make teamwork and fleet movements more important, or cater to the instant-action newbie with the attention span of five minutes? We both know the answer to these.
Demorian, those are the same... if I don't subscribe, I can't play, and if I don't want to play, why would I subscribe?
EDIT: Oh, BTW - prestiege is the incentive right up to the magic 40,960. After that it becomes mainly what I've described above and in my other post.
[ This Message was edited by: Specterx on 2003-08-17 21:18 ]
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2003-08-17 22:02
Good point. Unfortunately, I'm not talking entirely about prestige... I just think that recapping a system should be more rewarding. I don't see how you can't agree with that... so far you've simply argued with me.
-Dem
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Lith Ragond
Cadet
Galactic Navy
Joined: November 25, 2001
Posts: 1854
| Posted: 2003-08-17 22:29
Quote:
| We both know the answer to these. |
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i know your answer, and mine is this: everything will be balanced out in the LONG run, not patient enough for the long run, oh well, you're taking a few things, and applying them as if nothing is going to balance them. beta still hasnt been through extensive testing, and once that is done, faust will know what tweaks needs to be done.
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| just about every other change pushes DS in the direction I don't like |
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i know the answer to that little problem
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Specterx
Fleet Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: December 09, 2001
Posts: 547
From: Virginia/California
| Posted: 2003-08-17 23:40
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On 2003-08-17 22:02, Demorian wrote:
Good point. Unfortunately, I'm not talking entirely about prestige... I just think that recapping a system should be more rewarding. I don't see how you can't agree with that... so far you've simply argued with me.
-Dem
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Making capping more rewarding won't make the game more interesting. The people who play the game 24/7 and already have tens of thousands of prest will gain a little faster, so what? It's not a BAD suggestion, just one that won't do anything. Prestiege simply isn't enough of an incentive to 90% of the people in the MV. You have to make the game INTERESTING for these people (I've gone over that in the other posts) or, failing that, add some post-FA ranks and ships. Lack of depth combined with the ability to "win" the game in a mere 1-2 months is disasterous, though IMHO the first problem is much more critical to address.
And your initial post was entirely focused on prestiege as the incentive... so I in turn focused on it.
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i know your answer, and mine is this: everything will be balanced out in the LONG run, not patient enough for the long run, oh well, you're taking a few things, and applying them as if nothing is going to balance them. beta still hasnt been through extensive testing, and once that is done, faust will know what tweaks needs to be done.
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Er... I'm not talking about balance... don't know what you're getting at here. Balance is how many players there are on a side.
[ This Message was edited by: Specterx on 2003-08-17 23:42 ]
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II
Vice Admiral
Joined: December 19, 2001
Posts: 420
From: NJ, USA
| Posted: 2003-08-18 00:06
Hey there,
Quote:
| Players subscribe and participate in massively multiplayer world shattering campaigns, receive dynamic content updates of new ship types, new races, technology, and strategies that will make the game virtually replayable. |
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The above is taken from the About page, you can find it on the left sidebar. That bold part? The part about making the game replayable? Yeah, that doesn't exist, at all. It used to exist, for a short while, but the replayability of DarkSpace has long been gone.
The main reason for this? You just don't care. There is nothing to care about in darkspace, at all. You lose a system or 10 to the enemy? Who cares? You cap it back later. You self-destruct your ship in a firefight? Who cares, you spawn in a new one. You kill an enemy and find an ultra-cool component? Who cares? You have a planet producing them in your home system anyway.
This game needs something to CARE about. A reason to feel attached to your account. Something about your account needs character. Its a customized ship, its using the SAME cruiser for a month because the combat system is designed to let fighting happen, but not always result in death.
If a player is to CARE, there has to be something concrete, that lasts more than a single fight, or a single day. Something that isn't going ot disappear overnight.
The only thing i CARE about is the false advertising.
receive dynamic content updates of new ship types, new races, technology, and strategies that will make the game virtually replayable.
Yeah, my ass anything is dynamic.
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NoPants2win
Cadet
Joined: February 23, 2002
Posts: 1275
From: Poorly ventilated paint storage facility.
| Posted: 2003-08-18 00:52
Tandem builds 2 win. PS - defend your systems, then you won't have to build them up again.
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You sir, have an incurable case of rationality. I'm afraid the only thing you can do is develop a deep cynicism before the stress of searching for something you cannot find causes a stroke.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2003-08-18 01:32
II has a point you know, this game needs static cling to it.
Demorian also has a point, why bother spending over an hour rebuilding when its #1 not rewarding and #2Will be capped back in 2 hours.
ID love to see the day in which you can design your own ship with its own colors and insignia and be able to use it whenever.
I also missed the higher hull values, I liked long term combat, I loved the slower game play.
IF a single fight last 3 hours instead of 3 seconds, Id play DS until I have grey hair and have to take supplements than can make me move 2 feet.
This game definantly needs more depth, the more there is, the more there is to look for.and the more there is to look for the more time im going to spend to look for it.
Sure this approach will divert Darkspace toward the RPG side of things, but that would be a good thing in my opinion.
What you all have to understand is that Faustus is laying the groundwork to build up from. What good is it if you have all these cool ships and weapons, and gamplay if you cant get somewhere as quickly as possible, getting lagged to death, servers crashing, and a more in depth control system?
The fact is that once this patch is finnally done it will mean that the balenceing will come up, and then after that new ships, weapons, option, planets, et. etc. will come up, and then some.
Just sit back, wait it out. ITs what im doing and sitting here arguing about it is plain pointless, when we all just sit back and realize what is going on.
-Ent
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II
Vice Admiral
Joined: December 19, 2001
Posts: 420
From: NJ, USA
| Posted: 2003-08-18 07:39
I don't mean to scare any of you but Faustus is just using Darkspace to peddle his medusa game engine.
http://darkspace.net/medusa.htm
This game is just a showcase to help him license the engine to other companies (Who will create and support real games on it). You've done your job, funded his development of Medusa, and it seems very likely that he isn't really wanting to support DarkSpace. Notice how he's been spending all his time improving medusa and not darkspace?
Damn straight, prove me wrong.
(I came upon this revelation last night after my previous post.)
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Captain Caveman
Cadet
Joined: October 12, 2002
Posts: 668
| Posted: 2003-08-18 08:06
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On 2003-08-18 07:39, II wrote:
I don't mean to scare any of you but Faustus is just using Darkspace to peddle his medusa game engine.
http://darkspace.net/medusa.htm
This game is just a showcase to help him license the engine to other companies (Who will create and support real games on it). You've done your job, funded his development of Medusa, and it seems very likely that he isn't really wanting to support DarkSpace. Notice how he's been spending all his time improving medusa and not darkspace?
Damn straight, prove me wrong.
(I came upon this revelation last night after my previous post.)
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I was always under the impression that the uni-server was not actually part of the medusa game engine. Given that it is the uni-server code that has taken so long to finish, I can only come to the conclusion that you're talking complete crap.
But still, if I'm barking up the wrong tree, then hats off to you for an insightful and interesting piece of writing.
But I digress. My main beef with this topic is its title. I came looking for an answer and have found only more questions. You Dem, have deceived me. I read your post. I re-read your post and still I did not find an answer. Only a mild signpost. I KNOW WE NEED AN INCENTIVE (well, I don't because I enjoy the game as it is). I wanted specifics to rip apart goddammit!! Not some arty farty, half arsed, philisophical, don't try and bend the spoon crap!!!! Proper ideas dagnammit!! How can I flame someone if they don't give me the ammunition!!! grrrrrrrrr
In conclusion. My pen is blue.
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2003-08-18 08:09
You're funny, Tracker.
As are you, Specter. I have no intention of hostile argument with you, yet you continue to respond with one-sided retorts without so much of an acknowledgement of what I'm saying. I know my original post was focused somewhat on prestige, but it wasn't entirely prestige. It seems that several people have acknowledged my main idea.
Quote from my original post:
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I'm not saying it's all prestige, but it's DEFINITELY incentive...
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It's not all about "capping planets"... I mean capping, building, holding, and economizing. None of that, except holding off an enemy fleet successfully, is rewarding.
I agree with what some of you say about new content, hell, we all need the patch... but the new content (at some point in the future) needs to make the rebuilder (as in capping, building, holding, and economizing...) role somehow more fun to play. Do we agree?
-Dem
PS @Caveman... Sorry if I didn't actually offer the definitive "Answer". Like I said earlier on the thread, it was 2:00 AM and I was just rambling with the original post... hence the "just some cents" comment at the end.
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[ This Message was edited by: Demorian on 2003-08-18 08:10 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Demorian on 2003-08-18 08:12 ]
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Wyke {ThorsHammer}
Cadet
Joined: February 22, 2003
Posts: 416
| Posted: 2003-08-18 08:27
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On 2003-08-16 01:38, -Arch- {No Comment} wrote:
I thought for sure that you and everyone else on the "Balance" bandwagon would take into count the current events, and realize that there cant be a magical "Balance" patch that make everything all better.
If anything, it proves that no mater what you do, unless you have an active, coordinated and team based faction ..... absolutely nothing you do to the game will make it "Balanced"
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Agreed, the current situation has really highlighted that Balance is much more complex issue than many realise.
The balance of weapons systems ships to ship, which is highly contentious, however this is being addressed in the patch so I'll leave that there.
There is also the whole faction strength issue of role-call, player seniority and the new 'flash crowd style' fleets, which is currently being experienced. This has been only a marginal issue until the last few days.
There is an an interesting post elsewhere seeking to reward fleet loyalty.
Another possibility would be to consider a prestige reward bonus for players of under strength fleets and/or factions.
This has a good rational for prestige, since going 'against the odds' is clearly most prestigous that simple achieving what is expected.
Assume the lagest faction is the baseline of 100%, the other factions have 90% and 80% of the strength, reward the smaller factions with 10% and 20% bonus prestige bonous respectively.
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there is no "Answer to Balance" ....
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I agree there is not 'one' answer, but that doesn't mean we should not constantly seek it through a process of continued improvement and rational discussion.
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II
Vice Admiral
Joined: December 19, 2001
Posts: 420
From: NJ, USA
| Posted: 2003-08-18 09:33
Damn Dem, you're right! I am Tracker. I almost forgot. But you have to admit, even if it is a bit unlikely, it is still a possiblity that I'm correct. and the Big F is going to give us the BIG F.U.
Anyway, the Uniserver IS Medusa. Medusa is like the Matrix, its everywhere, it runs the lobby, it runs the metaverse, it runs EVERYTHING, including drawing the pretty little ships. But you can easily swap out ships for Orcs and Elves. That is the idea behind medusa.
Its the same thing as the half life engine. Ever played counter strike? Its a mod for half life. Just like Darkspace is a mod for medusa.
EDIT: Actually, i just reread my post, the only thing medusa DOES NOT run is the lobby 
The GameCQ is actually a seperate program, also up for licensing.
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[ This Message was edited by: II on 2003-08-18 09:34 ]
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