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Author Topic: New Ideas for SO?  (Read 18669 times)
jessiedog
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« Reply #30 on: March 21, 2008, 12:46:47 PM »

great idea afb
i like the 'hold off thew waves' thing

theres a lot that could be done with those

and btw, good thread badguy
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« Reply #31 on: March 21, 2008, 05:21:40 PM »

I agree with all of the comments above by Seither.

It sounds like SO was even better in the days before my time, when there was no pouding away at missions and it was all strategy and battling. 

I certainly would like to try the original SO that Seither describes.


A classic SO has been brought up many times, even befre the Wars server was made. Maybe now with interest so high it will actually happen.
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jessiedog
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« Reply #32 on: March 21, 2008, 05:54:15 PM »

the way u describe it, id like to try it out as well.

maybe emi could set the test server like the old so for a week or so?
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« Reply #33 on: March 21, 2008, 07:51:02 PM »

Ok, another batch of thoughts are born 1

Storyline: in a summary, player is hired by the council to investigate a series of increased reaver attacks on the border stations. First he is tasked to bring supplies to some stations, then he picks up an SOS call from one. Player arrives in time for a rumble, and then follows their tracks. he comes to a large debris field, mostly reaver ships. then he discovers an alien object. he brings it to a council research facility. soon weird things happen. station becomes infected with a virus, so do nearby patrols. soon the nearby mining stations(as council informs) are under attack from unknown aliens . they are after materials, and they bring it all to the research facility. player participates in some heroic stand-offs, then it all stops. Still reading? good 1. instead aliens become defensive, and a probe captured an image of a construction site. guards are now a mix of alien and infected, and are too strong for anyone, as they use  weapons which are unknown. Then the player is tasked to oversee construction of a forward base, with materials from the mines.  and waves of attacks by infected have to be repelled, while constructed. each wave repelled gives +15% to completion, every infected that survives to next wave takes down 4%. the waves will increase in quantity, as building progresses.  now player gets a new mission- investigate an unknown ship. next it will be just like derelict mother ship in my other post. the away team brings back data and samples of alien material and tech. player now needs to try out the ensuing weapon/armour upgrades on live aliens. that is when he gets a call about aliens attacking  a planet. he comes in time, attract attention of aliens, so that they deal with him. first fleets r dead, but  now comes the heavy nexus command. attacking it will be like- instead of fleets, there will be names of systems, e.g.

plasma turret, numbers 1000 attack/hp whatever. well, u get the point. first will come armour systems, last ones will be guns. (contd.)
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« Reply #34 on: March 21, 2008, 08:21:42 PM »

contd. however, it attacks first like a station. affer all is "destroyed" like a large hull remains. player will tow it back, and attempt to restore it. this will involve some missions on raiding alien convoys for resources. then the player effectively gets a very big ship, which is sentinent and intelligent. (for campaign only,and only controlled in last mission)so then he is to rally more ships from other stations to help,and showdown begins 1. player must go and destroy the infected research facility. it turns out, that aliens were constructing a portal to our galaxy, and the station now acts as a beacon. player now has to destroy the station, while keeping  an eye out for alien waves. station also takes damage in %, and waves repair it. ok, its all done, and then player is being confronted mentally by alien leader. he sais stuff like, destroy portal and we  will find another way into ur galaxy. and that he still has billions human captives which will be mutated into more alien soldiers. so player decides to go into the portal and finish them off once and for all. alien leader is in fact, a biological size of a station, only so tough, that it can destroy a planet with its blast. it tries to destroy player, but sentinent ship sacrifices itself to save him. now player must take out the gun before it reloads. it will be alike fighting the nexus, only now there will also be enemy waves, and attacks can only be made when there are none left. for a bonus, player will also be called to destroy "purgatories" or mutators, ships that infect/mutate captives.they will only be out for a small period of time. so, once player takes out the gun (which will be fortified harder than scorpion's backide), it will cause an overload in leaders organism resulting in a massive blast, destroying all . player escapes through the portal which is destroyed seconds later by the blast. the end, he is a hero 1

so,what do you make of this? and btw, i was thinking that there should be a button with a quick explanation if player gets stuck.
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« Reply #35 on: March 21, 2008, 10:39:13 PM »

Since Sir Emi needs to get paid for his work, as I had mentioned before, I think that a way must be made to balance donations versus time so that those who can cannot afford the cash but can afford the time can pound away but those can afford to donate (maybe say $10 to $20 per month) can also do so and be pretty much be even with those that do not donate.

Another idea that has been mentioned to me that may be unpopular with a lot of the players is getting rid of alts, which I actually think has some merits.  Most other MMORPG games severely limit the use of alts (by identifying accounts from the same IP address) and I think that this must also be given serious consideration here as their use is often abused by some of the players who know how to do so.

Also, if Sir Emi does let us do a test server, it would be nice to have my ships there so that I don't have to start from scratch  1
« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 08:59:25 AM by BadGuy » Report to moderator   Logged
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« Reply #36 on: March 22, 2008, 12:12:57 PM »

ars i dont no when you last played but emi has severly cut the turns you get a few rds ago
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« Reply #37 on: March 22, 2008, 12:17:15 PM »

alts suck major, i know a certian someone who used 14 alts to vote and extend to boost one of his accounts in start of round, he stopped when he told me he did it because i said i would report him if he didnt, but that was a few rounds ago and who knows if he or others do it now. but then again, i have three brothers, 2 of them played this game with me for a round, so if you went to limiting accounts by ip then there would have to be exceptions for cases like that where family's play together. the time the game takes to contend with the top ten sucks, reason why i play pve server now i only play on it for 30 min a day and im in second atm,
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« Reply #38 on: March 22, 2008, 01:00:05 PM »

I also share an IP address sometime which is why I didn't advocate an outright ban, but some games limit the ability to assist others on the same IP address, which would be one alternative. Anyway, the example that you used could easily be used to abuse other players or protect your main to help it grow.
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« Reply #39 on: March 22, 2008, 01:48:39 PM »

---alts:
account is tied to IP address
-not allowed to attack, board, or otherwise directly influence another account with same IP address

problem solved


---storyline:
-setup special systems throughout the galaxy that can only be found either if your E lvl is high enough, or you advance far enough in story.  when you travel to these places the AI (yes, same one for tutorial) can pop up giving you what's going on, with the different options presented to you through the mission encounters

example:
jump to storyline  system, AI comes up saying that a station is under attack by reavers
-in system there is a station, and a reaver encounter or 3.  you win by finishing off the reaver encounters and possibly delivering x credits and resources to station.
-reavers in system X destroyed,  it brings up system Y in galaxy map, with a tip and/or message with coordinates (or perhaps the station tells you to check on the next one...)



-----edit:
btw, before  going on about how to improve SO, perhaps 1st you should see what's good about it?
my favorite part is the fact that you get to completely design your own ships, and would like to see it go further with able to do graphical things with them (kinda like the pic of the ships in view/edit room)
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« Reply #40 on: March 22, 2008, 02:11:48 PM »

I believe that I've posted my likes in other threads but the two main things was the thrill of battling and the challenge of mastering ship designing, although for a nubie, the standard stuff given out to make a ship with is very misleading, although I can't say that what I liked may not be what attacts other maybe more casual gamers.  I think that ship designing is difficult enough even if you know what you're doing, that certain equipment (such as shields and computers)  should be pre-made and the formula given to make the other equipment and then your main challenge will be putting the equipment together to make the best ships instead of spinning your wheels trying to figure out what to do.

Unfortunately, I spent a small fortune donating to battle, which wasn't sustainable. After that, tried to spend the time to earn creds to support the battling, but that wasn't sustainable either. Eventually had to just cut back on the battling, which left me with only the final reason left to keep coming back, the friends that I had made in the game, but I find that every day there are less of them and when they are gone, I will probably be too.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 02:25:09 PM by BadGuy » Report to moderator   Logged
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« Reply #41 on: March 22, 2008, 06:00:27 PM »

The thoughts of someone who wants to remain anonymous.
===========================================================

There have been several "improvements" lately that actually give the advantage to those that save up their turns and use them to buy tech and then use very few turns to take away in minutes what the pounders spend weeks accumulating.

The second cardinal rule this game violates is that you can lose everything if you miss a day or two playing.

The next biggest problem, which is somewhat unusual, is that Sir Emi keeps introducing changes mid round without making the users aware of them (at least the ones that don't care to read the forums every day) and the few who find out about them first have a overwhelming advantage. And a lot of the changes are unbalanced to begin with. (Exploration last round, warp disruptors this round.) Any change that forces players to play in a specific fashion, will alienate those who don't want to play in that fashion. In the case of warp disruptors, the only way to stay alive is to convert to using 90% of your turns on an endless arms race to match your stablizers to the attacker's disruptors. I had my entire fleet one shooted by guys 10x - 20x times my power in a week because their disruptor tech was so high they had a 100% chance of hitting even with huge multiples of the target FP. That totally flew in the face of the obvious intention of the always in place limits to the range of people you could attack.

The voting system has issues too. Nobody wastes time voting after the first couple of weeks. And that is the one thing any game has that gets the users to help attract new users. I'm to the point I won't click the mouse once on anything that makes less than $1b. And Sir Emi wants us to click 30 - 40 times to make $250m? The voting should pay the same as the reward for the max size mission the player can fly.

And there are tons of minor irritations. Like needing to mouse over the mission bonuses to see what it is. While a great improvement over actually needing to click it, it's still a PITA to even have to mouseover. It should just say what the reward is and let them mouse over for the popup if they want details (like what the market value is). Some of the mission descriptions are novel length, so it's not like putting two or three extra words in them would do any harm.

Then there are things like selling items taking hours. Every category should have a control that let's you sell everything below a specified level.

Same with rebuilding bases/mines. I have three blown bases right now that I haven't bothered to rebuild because with five or six things at level 10+, it takes 100+ mouse clicks to rebuild one.

What it all comes down to is poorly thought out ergonomics. Nothing wrong with most of the features conceptually, just the interfaces to them being poorly designed. Most gamers game to relieve tedium, not increase it.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 10:59:59 PM by BadGuy » Report to moderator   Logged
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« Reply #42 on: March 23, 2008, 04:58:19 AM »

---alts:
account is tied to IP address
-not allowed to attack, board, or otherwise directly influence another account with same IP address

problem solved
Nope, you can change your IP easy.
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« Reply #43 on: March 23, 2008, 05:49:23 AM »

I've spent awhile thinking about this, and here's some of my thoughts:

Improve Alliances to make the game more social,(if the players choose to be.)
        Create an alliance 'Bank' where the leader can set a tax that is subtracted from all members.  for example, 2% of creds and workers won from missions/encounters are placed into an alliance account and can be distributed by the leader.  Modify the ship cloning so you can set ships to private, public, or alliance.  create an alliance title system that would allow the leader to designate players as ranking members.  create a set of special missions that could be "team play" for a group of players to take part in together. 

Make starting out easier for new players.
        Create a 'catalogue' of sorts with premade ships for new players to purchase rather than the misleading components that they get now.  The catalogue could have basic designs for ships for the entire round.  I like the idea of a tutorial to guide you through your first mission and also have an faq for beginners perhaps even a printable version.

Find a balance between grinding missions to stay competitive and using all your turns in 30 minutes.
         This is probably the most difficult.  The die hards want to play the game 24/7 and the casual gamer wants to play 15 mins-1hr but how to keep them competitive?  This would take extensive testing but if you reduce the turns drastically, say 1-5 turns per HOUR.  Eliminate turn costs from research and mining, keep the turn costs for building stations and planets and just have encounters cost turns.  Keep the missions but their rewards would be experience and if you are a Gold Member you get special items (eliminate the ability to sell them but they make doing encounters easier)  This would obviously require tweaking but provides a balance between those that can spend HOURS each and every day online and those that can't. (Hopefully)

Create more incentives to having a Gold Membership.
         Cloning ships, Royalties, Discounts.  Keep everything that Gold members get, and add some more.  Not to be too overpowering but to add an extra incentive.  Perhaps some special missions or secret ship components.  In most cases these are your players that have more time to spend online, they need stuff to do.  It dosn't have to have huge rewards, just fun.

Create more graphics and eliminate the mind-numbing text.
          This is the complaint i get from most new players.  They want to SEE their ships, not just the mathematical vomit that their ships are made of.  It dosn't have to be animated in full 3D with textures and explosions and trillions of marines floating through open space during each and every combat, maybe just a "Fleet view" of the armada.  Make the missions more interactive and add some strategy.  Allow players to choose a formation.  Attack Flank, right/left, focus on largest/smallest, all-out attack, defensive attack.  Each formation would have certain bonuses/penalties versus specific formations.  make missions 3-5 steps.  1/Long range sensors indicate enemies appoaching, do you attack, retreat or scan the ships?  scans tell you the number of ships and their FP.  attack or retreat?  choose formation and attack.  You have 3 tries or whatever.  I dunno, just throwing ideas out now!

Just a few ideas.  I've got tons more but no time.
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« Reply #44 on: March 23, 2008, 08:27:34 AM »

proph the alliance idea is great, not sure on the others tho
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