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[Melly]

As far as I'm aware:

• Number of employees don't do jack, yet.
• You click it, then you type it, then you press Enter.
• You have to make sure all the issues are taken care of. You can't have servers overloading and kicking people out of it, you need to have a lot of roads connecting your starting points, towns and respawn points. You need to have a lot of respawn points so people aren't kicked out when they die and have nowhere to respawn, you need to be sure no one is trying to swim through the sea to get anywhere or they drown, you need to make sure there are towns in each zone type, etc, etc
• Not too sure about this myself.

[aparrish]

Crashes on launch on my machine (OS X 10.4.11, Intel MacBook Pro).  From the crash log:

Exception:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes:      KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000

Thread 0 Crashed:
0   libSystem.B.dylib              0x9010c802 _malloc_initialize + 992
1   libSystem.B.dylib              0x900028d7 malloc + 29
2   com.yourcompany.VectorStorm    0x00207a40 main + 97
3   MMORPGTycoon                   0x00001f76 start + 54

[msdss]

As far as I'm aware:

• Number of employees don't do jack, yet.
• You click it, then you type it, then you press Enter.
• You have to make sure all the issues are taken care of. You can't have servers overloading and kicking people out of it, you need to have a lot of roads connecting your starting points, towns and respawn points. You need to have a lot of respawn points so people aren't kicked out when they die and have nowhere to respawn, you need to be sure no one is trying to swim through the sea to get anywhere or they drown, you need to make sure there are towns in each zone type, etc, etc
• Not too sure about this myself.

For naming the MMO .. Clicking then typing... nothing happens... =(

Oddly enough I just made a total BS mmo layout and they love it.. something like 2k+ and only 300- buzz... Unfortunately now every time i hit 6k users the game crashes... CRAP!

[mewse]

Crashes on launch on my machine (OS X 10.4.11, Intel MacBook Pro).  From the crash log:

Exception:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes:      KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000

Thread 0 Crashed:
0   libSystem.B.dylib              0x9010c802 _malloc_initialize + 992
1   libSystem.B.dylib              0x900028d7 malloc + 29
2   com.yourcompany.VectorStorm    0x00207a40 main + 97
3   MMORPGTycoon                   0x00001f76 start + 54

I've had this report a couple times, always with OX 10.4.  I don't have a 10.4 machine to test with any more. 

I wonder if I accidentally made one of my development libs require 10.5;  thought I'd been careful about that!  I'll check tonight and update, if so.  If anybody has actually had MMORPG Tycoon work correctly on an OS X 10.4 machine, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know!


Anyhow.  Yes, Number of Employees isn't wired up to anything at the moment.  It's kind of a remnant of an older design which had you making changes to a "development" server, and then taking your changes to the live server.  The number of employees changed how quickly your instructions were carried out on the dev server and became ready to be moved over to the live server.  But in the end, switching between two servers became really annoying, and so I ended up dropping that from the game, and the "Number of Employees" option was forgotten.  I'll eventually wire it back up to something.  Something awesome.  Something awesome which will be in version 1.1.0, which I'm hoping to finish up within a week or so.   

In terms of users liking your MMORPG, here are a small selection of the things you probably want to be thinking about:

• Users like progression (gaining XP/levels, exploring new places, etc)
• Users like defeating monsters.
• Users like completing quests.
• Users dislike being unable to login.
• Users dislike high subscription prices.
• Users dislike being killed by monsters.
• Users dislike being at the maximum level (and therefore unable to advance further)
• Users dislike fighting monsters that are low enough level that they won't receive any XP when they win.  (Check the combat level range)
• Users especially dislike fighting monsters that are so tough that the player didn't even have a chance.  (Check the combat level range)
• Users especially dislike being knocked offline due to a full or crashed server.
• Users especially, especially dislike if there is no town available which is appropriate for their level, which basically means that they can't get any quests, and just need to levelgrind.

..and there's a bunch more.  But it's mostly the sort of things that common sense would suggest.

But at the same time that you're thinking about these things, be aware that users won't become addicted to your game if nothing bad ever happens to them.  And that's fine for as long as they continue to like your game, but if a long string of unpleasant events happen to them through some bad luck, then only addiction will keep them playing.  So having an occasional death or mismatched foe or suchlike isn't necessarily bad, as long as your newbie players don't become frusterated because they're dying dozens of times in a row while they're trying to get out of the respawn point that you placed in a level 50 zone.   :D

Users keep "home" towns which are of approximately their own level.  Towns give out quests in their surrounding regions (generally no more than one region away), so you probably don't want to put a low-level town in a region that's bordered by a high-level region.  When users out-level their home town, they'll travel to a new one;  you want to make sure that they don't have to travel through dangerous zones in order to get there. 

Blank regions are unzoned;  quest destinations aren't generated there, there are no monsters in them, and they're totally safe to travel through.  But they're also dead boring.

The key thing for "too hard"/"too easy" is putting players into regions where they'll find monsters near their own level.  The easy way to solve this is to increase the combat level range (under Design/General) so that players are effective against much higher and lower levelled monsters.  The down-side to doing this is that this way, users won't move to new regions as frequently, which means that your population is going to build up just in a single spot, which will probably quickly begin to overload that region server...


And finally.. yes, the game is too easy right now, and definitely needs some balancing.  But I was intentionally trying to keep it from becoming very difficult;  it's much more of a software toy than a game with a "win" condition.  Which I think is appropriate for a Tycoon game. 

[mewse]

I wonder if I accidentally made one of my development libs require 10.5;  thought I'd been careful about that!

Sure enough, this is exactly what I had done;  the previous OS X builds all required OS X version 10.5 or later.  I believe that I've now fixed it such that any OS X version 10.4 or later will work.  Can someone who still has Tiger installed verify that for me?  I don't have anything to test it on. 

(Download link is in the top post;  it's version 1.0.7)

[andre-yu]

Code:

andre-yu ( Wolf Blitzer ) - Male
Level 4 Enthusiast (7 XP)
Playing MMOTycoon - Giving feedback
Satisfaction:-53875 Addiction:WAAAAGHH!

Awesome game! Seriously I had an idea of an MMORPG management/creator simulator once. This is the game I wanted.. but am not satisfied wiiiith (See suggestions p. 2) D:

By the way I was able to bypass all of the games difficulties through a very cheap method. I set both the combat level range and max level to 5, and the XP per level rate to any ludicrously high number. Then I filled the world with zones leveled 1-5, and through this I achieved full subscriptions within the first week. Hahaha..

Okay, demands suggestions:

• I have encountered enemies in blank zones. My players fight level 0 creatures when traveling through void. Hahaha, void creatures then. Fix this.
• I'd prefer it if players couldn't enter blank zones. I am rather OC so I don't like my players taking a shortcut to their next home through void instead of following the world's path and encounter new areas. I prevent this by creating worlds shaped like, uninteresting solid masses. Being OC, I too dislike this.
• Oh, and the ability to turn zones back into blanks again.
• I can't elaborate on this suggestion, but it would be really cool if there were quests that involved traveling to farther regions.
• Networked roads. I've noticed that players only use roads if it directly takes them to their desired location. Meaning that if there is a series of roads from one town to another, the players would just travel in a straight line through the wilderness/void because there is not a single road that directly connects this town to that town. It would be better if they would recognize the roads as a full network. [OC] This would prevent players from traveling through void! D:< [/OC]
• Making the act of stalking players more manageable. I love to stalk these little @ adventurers but then once they go offline, or I make a mistake and move the screen, it's all over. Gone, forever ;_;. Perhaps a list of favorites players would make me a happier stalker.
• Also a menu/window where you can view the highest level of a player. Useful for me because I build my mmo world slowly, and I continue building when someone levels  beyond my world's capacity.
• An optional longer term goal would be to add player relationships, like friends and all. Or at least parties and guilds. This would make stalking my little @s more fun. So fun that I wouldn't need to stalk in real life anymore! :D

I have moar suggestions but I'll leave at that. You'd probably be exhausted after reading my angry demands. I at least hope you are entertained by a fan! >:D

[Caelitar]

I wonder if I accidentally made one of my development libs require 10.5;  thought I'd been careful about that!

Sure enough, this is exactly what I had done;  the previous OS X builds all required OS X version 10.5 or later.  I believe that I've now fixed it such that any OS X version 10.4 or later will work.  Can someone who still has Tiger installed verify that for me?  I don't have anything to test it on. 

(Download link is in the top post;  it's version 1.0.7)

I didn't have time to play, but I can confirm that it now loads and games start on 10.4. Thanks!

[mewse]

I didn't have time to play, but I can confirm that it now loads and games start on 10.4. Thanks!

Hooray!  Thanks very much, Caelitar! 

By the way I was able to bypass all of the games difficulties through a very cheap method. I set both the combat level range and max level to 5, and the XP per level rate to any ludicrously high number. Then I filled the world with zones leveled 1-5, and through this I achieved full subscriptions within the first week. Hahaha..

Oo, nice exploit.  Sounds like I need to modify the user AI to become unhappy if they spend too long without gaining a level (perhaps generate a 'too much grinding' complaint).  Or something like that.  I'll figure out a way to close that exploit, and include it in v1.1.

I have encountered enemies in blank zones. My players fight level 0 creatures when traveling through void. Hahaha, void creatures then. Fix this.

Going onto my list of bugs to fix. 

Oh, and the ability to turn zones back into blanks again.

You can actually already do this;  the blank, dark blue button above the usual zoning button will activate the unzoning tool (the button looks like an unzoned region.  Or at least, I thought it did).  I guess I need to label that button, as everyone seems to miss it.

I can't elaborate on this suggestion, but it would be really cool if there were quests that involved traveling to farther regions.

These were initially part of the game design (I called them "Key quests");  they would be manually placed by the player, much as roads are currently placed, but were removed from the design when I had to simplify it in order to finish in time.  I'm sure they'll be coming back at some point, but am not sure if they'll make it into v1.1;  there's a bunch of more urgent stuff to finish first.

I'd prefer it if players couldn't enter blank zones.
Networked roads.
Perhaps a list of favorites players would make me a happier stalker.
Add player relationships, like friends and all. Or at least parties and guilds.

Each of these are already planned for v1.1 (including friends, parties, and guilds). 

Also a menu/window where you can view the highest level of a player.

Good idea.  I'll add this to the Players report, right under the 'Average level' display.

[andre-yu]

Oo, nice exploit.  Sounds like I need to modify the user AI to become unhappy if they spend too long without gaining a level (perhaps generate a 'too much grinding' complaint).  Or something like that.  I'll figure out a way to close that exploit, and include it in v1.1.

They should also be pissed off by the fact that there is a complete absence of danger, all the zones are the same level, and they can kill anything. 

[cyber95]

They should also be pissed off by the fact that there is a complete absence of danger, all the zones are the same level, and they can kill anything. 

What, like when they complain the game is too easy?

Once you start building up the game, I think you should actually be able to "browse" the forums. Like, have some procedurally generated thread titles, and the percentage of what topic is about what depends on the statistical complaints. So there'd be one topic called "Killed some monsters in one hit again..." or "HALP G3TTING RAP3D" or if a percentage of people like the game (bah) then something like "(MMO name): new fave! " or just plain "(X RIVAL MMO) SUCKS!"
Y'know, just something to think about once you have the essentials done.

[andre-yu]

They should also be pissed off by the fact that there is a complete absence of danger, all the zones are the same level, and they can kill anything. 

What, like when they complain the game is too easy?

No. They don't complain when the monsters they kill are within the combat level range. And when you set the combat level range really high, it gets easy, like if you were to make the combat level range cover starting level to max level. Which is what I did.

[mewse]

So bearing in mind that I'm trying to keep user behaviour believable and rational, here's the question we need to figure out;  if someone made an MMORPG where you started at level 1 and there was extraordinarily slow level progression, but where you could successfully fight every monster everywhere in the game even from level 1, then would that actually be a bad thing from a player's perspective?  And if so, why?


I imagine that you'd end up seeing high turnover if you did this in real life;  people would join, explore the world, see everything, and then leave again.  If any complaint was made, it would probably be that there wasn't enough content, just because the leaving player had seen everything and there was nothing new left to discover. 

Do you guys see a different, plausible user reaction to the situation?

[andre-yu]

Yeah I'm not sure how to counter that exploit.

If they would leave at the lack of content, then you could counter it by just making more zones. Maybe players would be displeased at the lack of danger, no near death experiences or deaths. However some players are careful and in normal games they might complain of this. Perhaps if players could solo max level creatures, they can detect that they don't need to progress anymore and will be displeased that their game is over. You could make their complaints stronger if they reach this point earlier. Like say, if they reach this point the moment they start the game. A problem with this is that the amount of time it takes to reach the max level differs in each MMO. It may negatively affect normal games.

Darn?

[idolminds]

Suggestions (sorry if these have been suggested before or are already in-game. Been kinda busy):

User personality traits: People play MMOs for different reasons. Explorers like to explore and fill in maps, so having a large world with lots to see keeps them playing. There are players interested more in PvP. There are players that love collecting things (loot, skills and abilities, ranks/titles). Perhaps these can be added to the simulation so your MMO might cater to one kind or you can try strike a balance to keep more people around.

Ability to set drop rates: Everyone loves loot. What if certain zones could have their loot drop percentage set? You could have Common, Rare, and Magic (or whatever) loot qualities. 80% chance to drop Common, 15% Rare, and 5% Magic for a typical zone. If you let the high end item drops too frequently they become worthless and not worth seeking out for Users. If they don't drop at all Users get frustrated and quit. Maybe you can create a high level area near some low level ones that has a better chance at dropping Magic items to lure players into a challenge?

Keep up the great work! This is a really cool concept.

[Chrissketch]

  Congrats on getting BoingBoinged!

[Entar]

This is a pretty fun game, particularly for those who like tycoon games.  Just a few suggestions - make the escape button open a menu, not end the game.  Also, there should be definitely a save button.  Other than that, maybe consider some of the suggestions others have posted, but the game definitely has a lot of potential 

[mewse]

I've just uploaded version 1.0.8, which adds save/load functionality to MMORPG Tycoon.  Links are in the top post, as always.

There are also a few cosmetic adjustments, mostly to do with making various fields fit into their containing windows more nicely (classes in the class design window, the various buttons on the left toolbar, etc).  But the gameplay is still completely unchanged from the original version 1.0.4 competition entry;  the new gameplay features will be in 1.1, which I won't be releasing until after the compo voting finishes. 

[GreatFox]

Oh god this is good. But it runs kinda laggy on my computer. :(
If you need to know specs:

Pentium 4 3,0GHz
1Gb RAM
Club3D Radeon x1950 GT
Realtek High Definition Audio

Disabling bloom didn't help anything. :(
Menu and instructions runs extremely smoothly but ingame is far to laggy to be enjoyable.

In case you want some suggestions:

• Ability to define areas where high-level monsters appear.
• Expansion creation. :D
• Renaming of classes, monsters and towns. Maybe zones too.
• Item, armor and weapon creation, modifying drop rates and such. Micromanaging for the victory!
• Advertising?
• Special-event creation? You know, Easter-events ans such?
• Creating bosses!

Generally I hate MMORPG's but I fell love in creating those. :)

[Entar]

In version 1.0.8, the game crashes when I attempt to load a saved game (tried it on a XP computer and a Vista computer, same result). 

Here's some (I think) relevant info from stdout.txt:

Code:

Failed assertion:  Error in serialisation!
Failed condition: (value == actualValue)
at .\Memory\MEM_Serialiser.cpp:73
Error:  Asserted while handling assertion!
Error:  Asserted while handling assertion!
Error:  Asserted while handling assertion!
Error:  Asserted while handling assertion!

And a whole bunch more of those Error: lines.

[mewse]

Grr, you're right..  loading games seems to be broken in Win32, but working in OS X, even though the actual save files should be bit-for-bit identical between the two. 

Trying to figure it out now.