Heh, things are getting pretty silly in here with all the talk of riding Musk Ox and Possums, I think I better go back to the first unanswered post a page or two back and start talking again... I owe a bunch of responses to you all! I think I last left off on Page 34: Isilel and N. Cabot - I really want the game to be popular and successful, but I don't want to place limits that prevent those (like yourselves) who play the game offline from finding "epic" gear. Maybe I can place some less strict limits: Let's say that anyone can randomly find something pretty crazy-cool, but you will be UNABLE to trade it unless you'd found the item while connected to the internet. To be clear- * If that "epic" item is found while online, my server could confirm the find as genuine and give it a unique serial number from the database. That serial number will be part of authenticity checks for trading. * If found while offline, the item cannot be guaranteed authentic, and does not have an assigned serial number in my database. An item like that will not be able to be listed for trade, or given to another person in trade for something. Does that sound a bit more reasonable? This is still in the formative stages, and I might come up with an even better solution down the road, but for now it is pretty close to the best of both worlds. Oh, and thanks yankjenets for suggesting Mineko should be on the TOP of everyone's wait lists! The features I have in progress and the changes to parts of roguelikes and dungeon crawlers that annoy some will combine to make a pretty damn fun end result. Elimination of food and reducing the pain of permadeath are just small pieces of the puzzle More replies coming shortly!
It seems that you've just thought of the perfect solution CommanderData! Can't wait to hear responses on the other posts.
I think that's a great system! As long as it stays [relatively] invisible to the user (as people might get confused). One potential problem I see is that iPod Touch users who legitimately obtain rare items and want to share them with their friends might complain that they can't. It should explicitly say when you launch the game that items obtained offline cannot be traded, and it should explain why. (This screen should be un-skippable but only appear the first time the app is launched.)
Well, it seems that no matter what way we go, it's going to be tough to please everyone: * If I try to limit cheaters and item-spammers by making authentic items issed from my server only, then you need to play while connected to the internet in order to find random "epic" items (with my current ideas, hopefully we can change that with further discussion, see below). This will make some people angry * If I try to give players who cannot play online the ability to find "epic" items that only be used in their game but cannot be traded later, it will upset a group of these people who played offline and who want to trade these items but don't understand why it won't work * If I open it up to "anybody trades anything at any time anywhere" (with no online certification of the item), it pleases everybody, but only on the short term. Because someone will break my data file encryption within the first week and there will be an explosion of fake and clone items... you'll practically be finding epic stuff in boxes of breakfast cereal Essentially I need to find a way to limit the total quantity of and types of epic/rare items that appear, and do it in a way that makes things transparent for the player. Otherwise the online item trading economy will be crap. If an ultra-rare dragonslayer sword is as common as a potion of healing, it will affect gameplay and online trading negatively. Something I absolutely want to avoid. I will be addressing all other posts in between later, but I feel that this item trading system needs a bit more open debate and ideas to make it better for everyone with or without an internet connection A couple of starter ideas from me: 1) Allow "any item, found anytime, with or without an internet connection" to be traded. No serial numbers, no authenticity check on the item. BUT: Limit the amount of items that can be traded online by any one person to say, 1 item per day. This way, even if you're an evil hacker who can generate 9000 epics with the push of a button, you can only make *one* trade every 24 hours. A simple solution, and only a minor irritation to normal players. Benefits: everyone can trade items found on and offline. Drawbacks: if you have 3 items you want to trade, it will take you 3 days to do so. 2) Try to create authentic, serialized items in advance and store a "cache" of 10 potential rare/epic items on every person's device whenever they happen to go online for submitting scores or other trades. Then if you are offline you can still potentially find a cool item, and be authorized to trade it. Benefits: all items found are tradable and appear authentic. Drawbacks are way too obvious here: A determined hacker will come up with a way to copy the "cache" of authentic epics into their inventory, and the system spirals out of control again #1 seems like the best, low tech solution to the problem, making most people happy with only minor inconvenience... Does anyone have other clever suggestions on how I could make everyone happy and preserve the integrity of the rare and epic item trade system? Please share your thoughts here!
What if your "world" could only sustain so many epic items? (Others gained/hacked would simply become normal items.) Or maybe the concentration of power is too much for one individual to sustain and they start taking damage until they rid the world of the excess items via trade or some sort of permanent in-game disposal (dropping/storage is not good enough.) This would certainly give players an incentive to trade. I think the one trade a day is very reasonable - especially if epic items are rare. If there's no limit, as long as all trades are done through your server, it should be pretty obvious which UDIDs are hackers and the 'courier guild' might refuse to service them. Regarding a safe number of epic items, there's an interesting mechanic in the game Ursuppe where there is a varying Ozone Level and your extra skills are lost if your skill points add up to over the ozone level for the turn. In this game, I'd could see the level to change daily/weekly so sometimes you might get hurt if you have too much stuff - others you might be OK. Totally overkill for a game like this I think, but interesting...
I like the 1 trade per day yet anyone can trade idea. Maybe this has been outlined before, but how will the trading system work? Will it just be a "Gift [item name] to [textbox to type username]? Or is there a whole Pokemon GTS-like place where you put an item up and ask for a trade?
How about being able to trade as many serial-number-certified items as you want, but only one non-serial-certified item a day?
You're a fountain of interesting game lore! Definitely stuff worth mulling over, but I agree that it could get too complicated and move into the realm of overkill. I want to come up with a solution that is simple for players to understand, and able to withstand the effects that are sure to come when (not if) someone breaks various encryption and serialization schemes. Tracking a person's UDID is probably not enough (due to jailbreak methods of spoofing UDIDs). I may need to combine that with a Gamecenter profile to trace where item trades are coming from with more certainty. But yes, if I can come up with a reliable means of identification for a player, I can refuse trade to anyone suspected of pushing fake items Trying to give something directly to another user is ripe for abuse, so it will be more like Pokemon, going through my server where you post an item you'd like to trade, or search through lists of other people's items posted to trade, and make them offers. Only a successful trade would count towards your 1 per day quota. This certainly is possible! As I said, I'm leaning towards extreme simplicity now. The less time I waste on something that will be cracked in days, if not hours, the better off I'll be. ---- To wrap up my current plan and view on rare/epic item handling: 1) Anyone will have a chance of finding a rare or epic item, and will not have to be connected to the internet to do so. That means anyone with an iPod Touch on the bus, or using an iPhone in airplane mode flying across country will still potentially find awesome stuff! 2) All items are allowed to be traded online through my server, no matter where or when it was found or received. Probably Gamecenter ID and UDID will be used to confirm the authenticity of the trader. No personal information will be accessed or asked for (no e-mail, facebook account, etc). 3) Number of trades will be limited in order to slow any cheaters attempting to flood the market with cloned gear. You'll be allowed only a single active item listing, and only allowed to complete one trade every 24 hours. You can make offers on other people's trade listings as much as you like, but only a completed trade transaction (the other party accepted your item in exchange for their listed item) will be counted as your 1 trade per day. 4) You will be able to play special game challenges (custom dungeon, every player starts with the same gear and same rules) where the top winners receive an semi-unique epic item. Receiving an item from a server challenge does not count towards your daily trade allowance. Please keep in mind this can be subject to further enhancement as we go, but I think it's a pretty fair and solid foundation. Also don't forget that item trading and challenge server are only a small portion of the experience. The real meat is in the dungeons and gameplay! If you think I missed something here, or want additional detail let me know. In the meantime I'm going to try to switch back to answering previous posts
How limited will storage be? Like will it be similar to Shirin? Or simply an infinite list? I am hoping for something similar to Shirin in design, but smaller. Since it's a roguelike, I don't want to ever feel too attached to any weapons, like where I just store them away and not use them. What I am saying is I don't feel like it should turn into an item collecting game, a system with only 1 item trade a day, and a max of 9 items stored in game at a time would be ideal to me(that's 9 items spread out over 3 storage houses in the game). Your challenge system, where a unique item is gifted players that compete and win challanges, would obviously lead to people hoarding these rare items, and I think a good work around would be when a challange is won, instead of simply being given the item, the players game is given the ability to find that item in game randomly. It takes away the fear of actually using the rare items in a roguelike where you expect to probably die.
I agree with your currently outlined approach. It prevents abuse of the trading system which would dilute the worth of rare items, and it avoids making the online component central to gameplay. And I look forward to seeing ingame contests. They can add a lot of replay value for the competitive-minded. Also, I agree with the above post. I'd be reluctant to use a rare item in a run if they can be permanently lost. What kind of system are you planning on for use of rare items obtained? Will they be selectable at the start of a run? And are they permanently lost on death? If so, it would be nice to have some sort of gallery of previously obtained items. If not, is there a cap on total rare items in a playthrough? If there was this kind of cap, I'd prefer a user-selected one, maybe reflected by different leaderboards or something similar. Personally I find the rare item cap more attractive. I don't like the idea of permanently losing items. Sorry if I'm repeating something that's been posted, I haven't had the chance to read through the whole thread.
When he comes back, he shall smite down you unbelievers! Until then, I'm betting he is going to put his inferior officer Lt. Action in charge.
He hasn't fled, trust me. He's been a little busy with his other job and some family matters, but he'll be back when there's some useful new info to post, and I'll keep plugging away at the tunes as I'm able. (Working on the title music right now; coming along nicely. )
