Balancing
How can I ensure that a level 4 and a level 45 in my game both have fun, feel challenged, see obvious growth in their characters but not become so powerful and rich that it makes the game almost meaningless for weaker players?
This is something that all games can suffer from, even those that have been well thoughts out. Even some of the biggest names in MMO’s at the moment suffer from this (WoW, GW). Balancing is something that needs to be flexible and on a system that won’t break when there are only 1000 players or when your game explodes and you have your game population jump to 11000 players.
This, I think, can be achieved by putting a lot of the power into the players hands. This may mean that players have more power and control over the game, but it also means that others will be striving to achieve the same status. If it’s designed so that the balance of control is limited to a few players and not everyone and those players can be toppled, players will be able to adapt to change.
The same applies to the market places. Allow players to set prices, and it will balance out in the end.
Now here’s something I’ve been playing with but almost no game’s I’ve seen have been taking advantage of it. Dynamic payouts for quests, drops, and jobs. Say there are 100 people that work the day mining stone. Everyone get’s 5 gold, or the first 50 get 8 gold and the next 50 get 6. The next days 600 people work the mine, and the average payout becomes 3 gold.
Or if there are a lot of people farming a particular creature, the percent on his chance of good drops will decrease making it harder for players to amass gold and items.
This style of system I think would mimic reality a little more closely. The more people wanting a job, the chances are I can find someone for less pay than you’re willing to take to do it. The more people attacking monsters, the less likely you are to find a monster that carries 10 gold in his pocket.
These type’s of things, the little pieces of script that change the game without the player really noticing, the scripts that make the game feel alive.
Sorry for the long delay. I normally write my articles at work but it has been busy the last week or so. I hope to write a new one concerning ticks and crons. Gonna do a little research and get back to ya’s with that one ^^
Joblisting
Every time I add a job, I will simply make a little post as such and link to the jobs page.
A new joblisting has been added:
OpenDisccussion
You may have already noticed the new page up there (^). It’s is what it sounds like and the page describes it as. Want to talk about things that haven’t been mentioned, ask for help etc, go post in the comments on that page. The idea is to not just have me guide the topics of talk, but to give the readers here some control and input on what topics are raised.
Questing
I have been playing with a idea for RPGs to technically to not have quests in the traditional sense of the word. Instead of a player going up to a NPC and that NPC giving them a quest with a solid goal, I want to it to be more life like.
Players could walk into a bar and a drunken NPC could mention great fortunes to be found in a cave to the north and how as a child his best friend was lost in the caves. You can then save that convo or ignore it. There may be nothing in the cave at all, or there may actually be great treasure.
So instead of given direct quests (which you may get from time to time) the game questing system would be more focused around you following leads or stories instead of being always told exactly what it is you are looking for.
Also, I am thinking of not including any more of level cap to these quests. In the description, it will likely hint at the difficulty of the quest. This way the players actually need to think some way to quest and play the game.
Thoughts?
