Topic: Some questions

Hey guys, I'm working on a Seed 2D MMO, and I've realized, I know almost nothing about how administrators worked! I don't know anything about bidding, how often elections were held, or much at all about how factories were added onto and shaped.

Could anyone help me? I'm working on sharepoints right now, so bidding for resources would be a good start. Thanks SO MUCH in advance!

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

I think votes were resolved once every week - but thats pretty much all i can contribute. I usually had my nose so deep in the graphics, that i missed out on other vitals wink

/Cheers

Re: Some questions

Yes, administration votes were resolved once per week, every account had 7 votes. If 2 candidates end vote with a draw the old administrator won, don't know what would happened if two new candidates end with a draw as highest votes.

Sharepoint bidding: The bidding cycle ended all 3 hours (8 cycles per day) at 0:00 GMT, 3:00 AM GMT and so on. Choosing the bid entry (or was it called administrating?) on the cycle menu of a sharepoint showed a list of the stuff Tau offered. The amount per item avaiable per voting cycle differed, blueprints were offered 1 piece/cycle, tools 5 and biomatter & Co 1000. If you bid you entered the number you want to 'buy' up to the max amount avaiable per cycle and your bid per piece from 1 AP to whatever amount you thought necessary or your admin stash could affort. The AP were subtracted from your admin stash immidiately after you placed the bid, that ensured there will be enough AP to pay the bid avaiable at the end of the bidding cycle. Once the cycle ended the highest bidder got the amount ordered, if some was left for auction the second highest bid got the wanted amount and so on. If you lost an auction the bid stayed up for the next cycle, don't know what happened if you got only partially of the entered amount, but I guess the left amount stayed up as well. If you cancelled a bid you got your prepayed AP back of course.

To build a factory or sharepoint you chose add factory from the cycle menu of a empty hardpoint. After that a (structure) repair job was spawned on that hardpoint and once finished a factory/sharepoint spawned there.
To add a function to a factory you chose the admin entry on the factory ringmenu and you got a list of all addons with the ones highlighted that could be installed (that means the addon is avaiable in the admin stack, the still avaiable amount of energy, CPU power and waste is sufficient for that function addon and it doesn't need a 5th function bit, a factory could only hold 4 different bits). While every function addon has to be bought and added independently to a factory 3 of them shared the same function bit, noticeable they had the same visible model showed on a factory and if 2 of them are added to the same factory still only one addon model is visible on the outside. If I remember right Micro Assembly, Sorting and Weaving belonged to that Anthill bit.

If someone bought something from a sharepoint the AP payed were added to the admin stash, if someone sold stuff the AP were subtracted from the admin stash until it hits the zero, people could still sell stuff then but the AP came from Tau (or nowhere).
With that part some admins wished a change, for example a saying what stuff and to what amount a sharepoint would accept stuff (there still were the for players non avaiable Tau sharepoints at garden and Canyon A to sell everything else if you want to) or a sharepoint only accepting stuff up to the amount of AP avaiable at the bit (or maybe some kind of debt to Tau).

Re: Some questions

Quanto Solo wrote:

The amount per item avaiable per voting cycle differed, blueprints were offered 1 piece/cycle, tools 5 and biomatter & Co 1000.

Base materials were 1500 per cycle.

In addition, the medications (lung shots, tranq chews, etc.) were available in quantities of 50 per cycle.

Re: Some questions

Awesome, thanks guys! I hope I get this right. I may ask for some clarification down the line. I also had some changes in mind to the system that was in place for Seed, tell me if anything doesn't seem right, or what you think.

I was thinking it might be nice to be able to form "Parties" for repairing. Sort of like most MMO's, except anyone can invite someone to join.

Second, what do you think about letting the Admin set the price for goods at their sharepoint? And then fixing the sell back value at half of the asking price, so if an admin charges a lot, they have to be prepared to pay a lot too.

Also, I'll probably put in that Admin setting maximum payout on donations, after which donators will be warned that all donations past that point will be for 0 AP.

What do you guys think?

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

Maybe you could set separate "buy" and "sell" prices for sharepoints, or blocking it from accepting certain items. That way, you can create specialized medical, repair or factory-management points. Though I'm not completely sure it will fit Seed's setting.

Parties are rather useless the way I see Seed. You get the full AP reward even if you repair 1 point of damage to a hatch, and get a chance of an infodrop (Were they present for anything but basic repair, anyway?) for every repair "shot".

If there is some experience system, why not just add XP for every damage point repaired divided by the percent amount of damage fixed.
Of course, I don't want anything Seed-based to have an XP system like that, but if it has, it better be good. On a sidenote, this system may work for chances of an infodrop or scavenged item (Those weren't implemented) appearing.

RP in MMOG's looks like this when trying to base it on in-game activities:
"Let's go <activity>!"
"Yay, <activity>!"
"<motivation>!"

Re: Some questions

What was needed in seed was a basic supply and demand system for materials. That would have been awesom imo.

Re: Some questions

Well, I'm not limited by this framework at all really, game mechanics wise. Let me tell you what I had in mind exactly concerning AP/Parties(Which I call Teams). Currently the system awards AP as AP=Total Points Repaired/2 and if gathered in a team, the team splits those AP, otherwise, the AP is awarded to the last person to repair the panel. Teams also could have other distribution models, such as giving all of the AP gained to one person in the team. Would people rather it just give all of that AP to each person who repaired it since it last broke down?

As for supply and demand, that is what I'm trying to flesh out right now. It sounds like you guys do like the idea of admins getting to set "prices" on goods in the sharepoint. I'll also see if I can do something about letting the admin block certain goods.

As for XP, I don't plan on having any kind of XP system. I thought the skill learning system in Seed was really good, and i plan to keep it.

Any other thoughts on what could have been better about sharepoints, factories, and administration?

EDIT: Now anyone who works on it gets AP, this would remove someone from running in at the last second and grabbing all the AP. In this system though, each Team that worked on it at some point will get a fair share of the AP. So I may just nix the Teams anyways. What do you think?

Last edited by NeoSkye (2006-10-26 08:19:33)

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

Mehken wrote:
Quanto Solo wrote:

The amount per item avaiable per voting cycle differed, blueprints were offered 1 piece/cycle, tools 5 and biomatter & Co 1000.

Base materials were 1500 per cycle.

In addition, the medications (lung shots, tranq chews, etc.) were available in quantities of 50 per cycle.

*lowers the head in shame* You're right, should spend more concentration on what I type while browsing through memories.

From an administrator viewpoint setting buy and sell prices would be a nice feature. From a 'Seed' viewpoint the thought spawns some feeling of 'wrong' about it I can't put the finger on it right now why. Well, if an administrator goes over the top it's easy to show it to him by vote at least.
Anyway, if prices stay fixed the difference between production costs and basis price may have to be rethought. I don't had much time to view the new prices with 'batch production' but the difference beore was a too large.

Re: Some questions

OK, the next question, How long did it take to learn a skill with difficulty 1? 2? If you don't know, what do you think would be fair?

I'm also looking for anyone who can draw good 32x32px sprites for the game. Anyone interested in helping?

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

If I remember correctly, Luu's wiki had a nice table and formula for training time, I will look for it and Edit it in this post if noone overtakes me in the meantime smile

Re: Some questions

I can't draw, but i'm looking forward to play with what you're doing big_smile
and if you need beta testers when you're finished...

Re: Some questions

Ah, I did download the dump of that, I'll have to spend some time getting it into a wiki so I can extract all that info.
I plan to run a public beta for it as soon as it's close to ready.

Currently, I'm approximately 40% done. I have repairs, sharepoints, and most of the skill system in place. Factories are my next piece. After that, we'll do a beta.

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

I tried to do a 32x32 sprite, and I think I'd almost rather shoot myself in the head. tongue It gets really frustrating trying to make a person in 1024 pixels.

Edit: I'm going to give it another whirl with my tablet later.

Last edited by Sandling (2006-11-16 20:25:11)

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/graffisigtransparent.png

Re: Some questions

Prepare for a very small image intensive post (which sounds really weird)

Started by making a small male model

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/NMaleSeedFrontScopy.png

Next was the medium, then the large

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/NMaleSeedFrontMcopy.png

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/NMaleSeedFrontLcopy.png

And now I started editing the Large model by clothing it in a dark grey workersuit

Pants! (Miho is excepted from these)

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/WPantsMaleSeedFrontLcopy.png

And the shirt

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/WShirtMaleSeedFrontLcopy.png

And all together now!

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/WFullMaleSeedFrontLcopy.png

And now for hair (wonder who Im making...)

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/SortOfSterlingcopy.png

Not amazing, but I didn't really spend that much time on it. The torso is probably just a little bit too long, and the large model doesn't give much space for hair, but I think they're okay. Tell me if you want to see more, or if I just completely messed up and you wanted something that filled the entire space (cartman as a da vincian?).

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/graffisigtransparent.png

Re: Some questions

Oh wow!!! Awesome!! this is exciting! It may be asking a lot, but can you do 4 directions too? I'm gonna pop this chick into the game tonight to see how it looks, I'll post a screenshot if I get a chance.

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

Sir, I am MASSIVELY offended by your implication that this character is a woman. Albeit I messed up his dreads, but thats because I didn't leave enough room. tongue

Anyways, I'll get right on the four directions once I wake up today/tomorrow, should be easy. For a while I was worried you were going to ask the spriter to do eight, which would've been a bit of a pain.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/graffisigtransparent.png

Re: Some questions

Ok, I put the girl image in, and took a snapshot for anyone who's interested in seeing what it looks like at the moment. Note that this is just an area of the map I use for testing stuff. There's a sharepoint in the upper right, a tau access point in the lower right, and I'm standing next to a damaged panel(the description of which is given in text on the far right).

What do you think? (The forums squished the image, click the link below it to see the fullsized)

http://lazzari.trekboy85.com/seedv0.4.PNG

http://lazzari.trekboy85.com/seedv0.4.PNG

(oh, and about the directions, I don't need 8 lol, the framework supports it, but it's really not neccessary, and the game looks decent without walking animations too, but if you want to do them, you are welcome to)

Last edited by NeoSkye (2006-11-18 07:42:09)

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

Seriously, Sterling =/= Chick.

Other than that though, looks pretty good. You should get on the IRC channel by the way. That's where it's at.

3rd, 4th AND 5th Edit:

1. I'll probably do a five or so frame walking animation for each direction, and I might possibly do eight directions depending on how the game uses the sprites. In the PSD files I have of the sprite I've made I had all of the clothing on different layers (as well as the hair) so they could be switched out quickly, but I have no idea if it's going to be as simple in the game. Reason I did that was if people wanted to switch their appearance around like we used to in Seed, but if there's no support then I'll make more generic looking sprites.

2. Those icons remind me of an old Win32 game I used to have, so I'm going to update them a bit for the heck of it. And, I mean no offense, cause it might just be me, but the more I look at it the more the sharepoint looks like a blue gandalf.

Again, not a chick:

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/sterlingfront2.jpg

Last edited by Sandling (2006-11-18 08:12:16)

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/graffisigtransparent.png

Re: Some questions

Oops, very very sorry about the chick thing. This is part of why I can't draw(or read apparently)...And feel free to draw sharepoints, or tiles, or anything. The stuff you see there I mostly just threw in to have something visual to represent stuff. I realize I have no talent when it comes to drawing, thus the cry for help.

As for the layers, surprisingly enough, the framework does support that sort of thing. And the coding for it would be relatively simple. So, whatever you feel like doing is fine with me, just finding someone to do graphics is like a dream come true.

I'll make sure to jump on IRC again this weekend, I'm in the US so usually almost no one is on when I get on. But I'll leave it running if i don't see anyone.

Last edited by NeoSkye (2006-11-18 11:41:42)

"All good things must come to an end." I like to believe that Seed will go to heaven, after all, it didn't have a chance to commit MMO sins...

Re: Some questions

Mh, Neoskye, there's always someone on, Sandling and me, if no one else. Sure you're looking the right place? Server irc.mkc.fr, channel #seed?

Re: Some questions

Well, I'm in Ontario, so I should be around about the same times you are Skye. Just speak up and I'll probably respond within an hour. I tend to wander away from the computer a lot. tongue

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q125/coarsesand/graffisigtransparent.png