Long-term economy. Quite the nut to crack, that. With the advent of online RPGs, many games have tried to pull it off, and many have failed. Eve Online was the latest high profile casualty of trying to fix up problems after the fact, leading to the whole thing crashing down on top of itself.
However, before you can ever try and refine or balance a community model, you need to first make sure people aren't SPACKERING THE GAME with clumsy intervention. Imperial looked like it had potential. While everyone was still playing it like a deathmatch and public trade routes were non-existing, there was at least the potential of a community that could, over time, sustain itself. But none of this means anything if an admin isn't going to resist the urge to spawn endless amounts of material the instant there's any kind of shortage.
Yesterday: Wood trade flourishing, resource in high demand.
Today: 20,000 wood spilling out of an admin's shop, at the same price as the legitimate businesses. Wood is now, of course, utterly worthless. A business strategy that was viable yesterday, is now not.
If you want people to really think about the game instead of existing in their own little bubble and stamping their feet when nobody's around to buy their produce, things like this really need to not happen.
BUG REPORT: Daft people in charge
why not just complain to the island owner for running his island like he wants instead of blaming any and all admins in a topic that makes it sound like you think its the games fault? it ain't the games fault, nor mits, nor anybody elses. an island owner decides how to run his island. if unliked by a player, thier are other islands to play.
Yes, an island owner is fully responsible. I'm not placing the blame anywhere else. But without any kind of clear doctrine towards what's good for an economy island and what isn't, this is going to happen over and over and over again, like it has every time I've given Tractor a whirl.
By all means bin the topic if you think it's redundant, and let's get back to the infinitely more worthy subjects of random people's installations exploding and account resets.
By all means bin the topic if you think it's redundant, and let's get back to the infinitely more worthy subjects of random people's installations exploding and account resets.
Tis a fair point, Egg (and good to see you still checkin out the game afta all this time :] )....
One of the main ideas to counter this, without limiting the availability of worlds/islands to anyone who wants to run one, is to use the galaxy exchange rates and limits to highlight and emphasise those islands that are run well - i.e further re-enforcing zaroba's point that if an island aint 'proper' it won't be played on.
I don't believe specifically in enforcing strict 'doctrines' on how a world is run coz half the point is having a free-scope for creating worlds that do whateva you like. When ya start using the galaxy you'll expect and want a large number and variety of worlds.
But ultimately the idea is that for a player to make money with their world, they would link the world's treasury to their galactic cash - meaning that economies would have to be run 'cleanly' unless the world owner was willing to risk using or losing (at least some of) their galactic cash. (i.e If an owner decided to add 20,000 wood to an island they'd have to pay for it out of their galactic character's wealth)
Additionally, we need (and continue to add) more and more options to control and get information on the island's economy to make it easier to run and maintain.
It still aint (and probably never will be) particularly easy to run what is a very complicated economic live system (As you said, other titles, some with commercial backing and fulltime staff, have tried and failed b4). For us, its not just a matter of having the right ppl running the main worlds, its also finding those ppl, giving them a chance to learn, giving them the tools they need to run a good island and encouraging them to spend all the time required to run a good game. With a free, voluntary-run game like this, the testing & learning process is sometimes going to interfere with the game (as Tom has experienced so brutally on Zion :]) - but hopefully thats not so common as to completely ruin the gameplay. (And hopefully it will continue to lessen as we enter a more stable period over the next few months).
re: the specific point of "none of this means anything if an admin isn't going to resist the urge to spawn endless amounts of material the instant there's any kind of shortage" - i agree totally
oh and thanks for the post. Tis true we dont seem to be getting much good stuff on the forums lately.. :/
One of the main ideas to counter this, without limiting the availability of worlds/islands to anyone who wants to run one, is to use the galaxy exchange rates and limits to highlight and emphasise those islands that are run well - i.e further re-enforcing zaroba's point that if an island aint 'proper' it won't be played on.
I don't believe specifically in enforcing strict 'doctrines' on how a world is run coz half the point is having a free-scope for creating worlds that do whateva you like. When ya start using the galaxy you'll expect and want a large number and variety of worlds.
But ultimately the idea is that for a player to make money with their world, they would link the world's treasury to their galactic cash - meaning that economies would have to be run 'cleanly' unless the world owner was willing to risk using or losing (at least some of) their galactic cash. (i.e If an owner decided to add 20,000 wood to an island they'd have to pay for it out of their galactic character's wealth)
Additionally, we need (and continue to add) more and more options to control and get information on the island's economy to make it easier to run and maintain.
It still aint (and probably never will be) particularly easy to run what is a very complicated economic live system (As you said, other titles, some with commercial backing and fulltime staff, have tried and failed b4). For us, its not just a matter of having the right ppl running the main worlds, its also finding those ppl, giving them a chance to learn, giving them the tools they need to run a good island and encouraging them to spend all the time required to run a good game. With a free, voluntary-run game like this, the testing & learning process is sometimes going to interfere with the game (as Tom has experienced so brutally on Zion :]) - but hopefully thats not so common as to completely ruin the gameplay. (And hopefully it will continue to lessen as we enter a more stable period over the next few months).
re: the specific point of "none of this means anything if an admin isn't going to resist the urge to spawn endless amounts of material the instant there's any kind of shortage" - i agree totally
oh and thanks for the post. Tis true we dont seem to be getting much good stuff on the forums lately.. :/
I think there needs to be a clear line drawn between the roles of the island owners and the players, since both are equally important. It seems at the moment there's a lot of emphasis on making sure the island owners have the full range of modifications available to them, but not enough thought towards what this is going to mean to the players populating them.
I absolutely agree that owners should be able to achieve the kind of diverse world creation on display at the moment. If someone wants to make a racing island, war game, economy island, or something even more diverse, nothing should get in the way of that. But there has to be some internal consistency within those guidelines (ESPECIALLY regarding the economy) or the end users of these islands are going to end up utterly confused as nothing is guaranteed to stay familiar from island to island. At the very least there has to be a balanced, proven template for an economic island shipped with a server so that island owners don't feel like they're having a pile of Lego dumped in their laps and told it will, if built correctly, make the best thing ever.
To me, the whole point of an economy island is that players use teamwork and their brains to develop a community in a way that also nets them a tasty profit. So a proven model would be one that is as free of development-halting "Oh no we're out of Material X and have no way to get any more" moments as possible. The material building is a step towards this, and if combined with the ability to manually gather building materials when necessary (at a shitty efficiency rate, but enough to prevent those times when there's nothing you can do but sit and wait for divine intervention) there'll be an isolated model that no longer needs the Mystical Porsche From On High to pop down and tweak the numbers.
(Of course, there's nothing that says economy islands need to stay economy islands. With a steady and stable development it can evolve into anything: Corporations, rival towns, and even the possibility of full blown island war on a server with appropriately hard to develop weapons.)
A good start would be to encourage the owners to come down from their overseer positions and play along with the rest of the people, because most of the tinkering I've see is from people who've finished their world creation and have nothing left to do but twiddle their thumbs and resist the temptation to misuse their powers.
I absolutely agree that owners should be able to achieve the kind of diverse world creation on display at the moment. If someone wants to make a racing island, war game, economy island, or something even more diverse, nothing should get in the way of that. But there has to be some internal consistency within those guidelines (ESPECIALLY regarding the economy) or the end users of these islands are going to end up utterly confused as nothing is guaranteed to stay familiar from island to island. At the very least there has to be a balanced, proven template for an economic island shipped with a server so that island owners don't feel like they're having a pile of Lego dumped in their laps and told it will, if built correctly, make the best thing ever.
To me, the whole point of an economy island is that players use teamwork and their brains to develop a community in a way that also nets them a tasty profit. So a proven model would be one that is as free of development-halting "Oh no we're out of Material X and have no way to get any more" moments as possible. The material building is a step towards this, and if combined with the ability to manually gather building materials when necessary (at a shitty efficiency rate, but enough to prevent those times when there's nothing you can do but sit and wait for divine intervention) there'll be an isolated model that no longer needs the Mystical Porsche From On High to pop down and tweak the numbers.
(Of course, there's nothing that says economy islands need to stay economy islands. With a steady and stable development it can evolve into anything: Corporations, rival towns, and even the possibility of full blown island war on a server with appropriately hard to develop weapons.)
A good start would be to encourage the owners to come down from their overseer positions and play along with the rest of the people, because most of the tinkering I've see is from people who've finished their world creation and have nothing left to do but twiddle their thumbs and resist the temptation to misuse their powers.
Yes to "At the very least there has to be a balanced, proven template for an economic island shipped with a server". When Zion has worked thru its lifecycle, and ive had chance to balance all the settings there (from the economy to crows & vehicles) ill be giving out the complete export for it with the world pack + plus any others from owners who have well-setup islands and don't mind giving them away. We'll have spots on the island design page for ppl to share .isl packs etc.
This does lead back to the point that we do need time to develop those templates, and the only way we can do that fully is to get ppl to play on them first to find the problems and give the island owners chance to learn from their mistakes.
The galaxy i think does go some way to answering your other issues : 1) that theres a common identifiable thread between islands. (I do also take that into account in other aspects of the game.. for instance, someone recently asked for the skill names to be configurable per island, but i have decided against doing that for exactly the reasons u mention) and 2) that the owners of worlds should be encouraged to participate in the game instead of jus lording it over their island. (Personally, unfortunately I rarely get enuf time to write this thing, let alone run an island and play on others - which is why i rely so much on feedback like this to move the game on).
re the emphasis between owners and players.. yeh, tis true that sometimes it'll go more to one than the other, but again the requirement for world owners to master the systems before we can provide stable gameplay for all players does lead to a chicken and egg situation meaning we sometimes have to address the owner side of thing before the gameplay side of things. Again, the galaxy hopefully will lead to a more balanced approach to this as world owners realise that only islands with good gameplay return rewards and attention, and as i concentrate my coding time more on gameplay fixes rather than world features.
The game's ultimate layout of world running becoming an integral part of the game does blur the distinction between designers and players, but thats a key part of the design to encourage a self-perpetuating growth and improvement that benefits everyone and which could not otherwise be acheived without a full-time development team.
This does lead back to the point that we do need time to develop those templates, and the only way we can do that fully is to get ppl to play on them first to find the problems and give the island owners chance to learn from their mistakes.
The galaxy i think does go some way to answering your other issues : 1) that theres a common identifiable thread between islands. (I do also take that into account in other aspects of the game.. for instance, someone recently asked for the skill names to be configurable per island, but i have decided against doing that for exactly the reasons u mention) and 2) that the owners of worlds should be encouraged to participate in the game instead of jus lording it over their island. (Personally, unfortunately I rarely get enuf time to write this thing, let alone run an island and play on others - which is why i rely so much on feedback like this to move the game on).
re the emphasis between owners and players.. yeh, tis true that sometimes it'll go more to one than the other, but again the requirement for world owners to master the systems before we can provide stable gameplay for all players does lead to a chicken and egg situation meaning we sometimes have to address the owner side of thing before the gameplay side of things. Again, the galaxy hopefully will lead to a more balanced approach to this as world owners realise that only islands with good gameplay return rewards and attention, and as i concentrate my coding time more on gameplay fixes rather than world features.
The game's ultimate layout of world running becoming an integral part of the game does blur the distinction between designers and players, but thats a key part of the design to encourage a self-perpetuating growth and improvement that benefits everyone and which could not otherwise be acheived without a full-time development team.
an owner playing on an island is something i've always seen as a good idea. its also something i did on the earlier zorics. its a very good way to find out the economic strengths and weaknesses and fix them early on if they need to be fixed. might have time to do it on the next zoric island, no clue, haven't had a chance to since zoric 3 due to lack of time.
i agree with you fully on the teamwork part and also believe that owners shoulden't fiddle with the island after its started. heck, thats why god powers are only givin to those that are trusted. because they can easily mess up an island by doing stuff like tossing tons of stuff in a building at a low price.
sure, it is bad for an owner to fill a building with stuff instead of letting players make it, but when running an island, you often see how few times this actually happens. thiers tons of times when players will do nothing but sit on thier butts complaining about not having something instead of actually makeing it. thiers tons of times i can remember long ago on islands i was a god on where a player was complaining about something being in a shortage and i said to them "then why not make it and get rich?" and then they'd just stop complaining or would complain to other people and never actually do it.
"Of course, there's nothing that says economy islands need to stay economy islands. With a steady and stable development it can evolve into anything: Corporations, rival towns, and even the possibility of full blown island war on a server with appropriately hard to develop weapons."
something that i hope to do with the next zoric island.
hard to make weapons that can be used against your rivils buildings.
thiers also building decay and destroyed building removal to take care of buildings owned by inactive players to help reduce dead spots of the island.
i agree with you fully on the teamwork part and also believe that owners shoulden't fiddle with the island after its started. heck, thats why god powers are only givin to those that are trusted. because they can easily mess up an island by doing stuff like tossing tons of stuff in a building at a low price.
sure, it is bad for an owner to fill a building with stuff instead of letting players make it, but when running an island, you often see how few times this actually happens. thiers tons of times when players will do nothing but sit on thier butts complaining about not having something instead of actually makeing it. thiers tons of times i can remember long ago on islands i was a god on where a player was complaining about something being in a shortage and i said to them "then why not make it and get rich?" and then they'd just stop complaining or would complain to other people and never actually do it.
"Of course, there's nothing that says economy islands need to stay economy islands. With a steady and stable development it can evolve into anything: Corporations, rival towns, and even the possibility of full blown island war on a server with appropriately hard to develop weapons."
something that i hope to do with the next zoric island.
hard to make weapons that can be used against your rivils buildings.
thiers also building decay and destroyed building removal to take care of buildings owned by inactive players to help reduce dead spots of the island.