f13.net

Aaron will most likely be joining in a lot of this conversation. Don't make me tell you all how to act....again.

Interview here (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1084695801&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&).

He may be mixing metaphors here a bit, but for some reason this line keeps echoing around my skull.

Other than that he seems like a genuinely talanted, driven individual.  The best to him in his future endeavors.

Reminds me of Planets Edge.

I like that StarPort has a goal. Giving players goals is a positive trend.

Most current MMOGs are turning to territory control in order to give players goals. The biweekly competition for status is different. I imagine that most developers avoid resetting their worlds because every game reset is a potential exit point for their players. Players are much less likely to leave your game if they feel as if they have an investment in it. Every two weeks StarPort players will be faced with the decision of starting another round or trying something else.

I don't like the idea of being able to purchase game advantages with real world money. Being able to buy advantages with real world money is fundamentally the same as cheating. I think that almost any other business model would have been a better choice.

My first impression of StarPort is that it is a text mud with an arcade interface. This reminds me that the marketing term MMORPG is becoming obsolete. We need a better way to describe niche games.

Good luck with your endeavor.

Starport now offers "Subscriber" games in which you can't buy game items with real money. The flipside is it costs 5 dollars to create a character in one of these worlds. They're not as popular as the free games with optional spending, but I wish more players would move to the Subscriber games because as a designer I think it should make a better all-around game experience.

Cryptic Entertainment is an obscure comic book publisher.

Cryptic Studios, on the other hand, made City of Heroes.

Bruce

Interesting concept of making a two week cycle. I think I might prefer a month as the ultimate time frame in my view, but that's just me. Still, the idea of a goal that is constantly moving is a nice one. I wouldn't like the idea of doing that if I had to catass for 40 hours in that two week period just to get to the point of being competative. That would make the idea of resetting useless because I wouldn't get to the endgame fast enough.

Also, I too am very against the idea of exchanges for items. I think that kind of thing ruins any game. Take poker for example. With unlimited rebuys in a tournament, I know the guy with the biggest bankroll can win since he never has to walk away from the table. Regardless of skill level he's going to be there until he gets lucky. Buying advantages in a game is no different, it's a battle of the bankrolls. That's when it stops being a game and starts becoming a different kind of treadmill. Only instead of catassing in my free time, I'm grinding $$$ at my job.

Bad example.  At some point in poker you are spending more money to win than you will earn by winning.  That's cool if you like to pay other people to let you play poker but thats generally not the goal of the game.

Since in a MMO the goal is just to play (at least for now...) buying in is just a way to enhance your enjoyment.  If you get enough extra enjoyment from the time spent in game to justify the extra expenditure than more power to you.  I don't think enjoyment from an MMO is a zero sum game.   I.E. because Joe Bob buys a star ship with cash doesn't reduce the amount of overall fun left for you or anyone else in the game.

No, you're actually just whining because Stacy's doll has eyes that roll up in her head when she sleeps but we're poor and you have to get by with a doll made from an old sock and a couple of buttons off of daddy's pants.

This game looks really, really hard to get started in... especailly with my new found casual gaming airs.  I pretty much suck at strategy oriented games anyway... although that doesn't stop me from wanting to play them.  I wonder how much of the Starpedia I'll have to read before I can manage to do anything other than move?  By the look of the population so far, I could be #1 just by virture of being there... I LIKE THAT!  :-D  Of course, if it gets popular I'll have to spend real money to hire someone to tell me what buttons to push.  I think the art is purdee, by the way.

Good luck to you, Toonces!

PS  Anyone notice schild has a new mod job over there?  When does this boy find time to pee?

I don't have a mod job over there anymore. I don't have time... too busy cleaning up the pee here.

Perhaps it was a bad example, and I in fact questioned that while writing it. However, yours is worse. The point isn't that it spawns jealousy, the point was that it breaks the fun. This isn't a game like WoW PvE where Johnny E-peen's newest sword of asskicking just serves to make him look cooler. This is a PvP game we are talking about. The ability to buy items in a pvp game to "enhance your enjoyment" serves only to make you more powerful. That power becomes an arms race because it directly affects the ability for non-buying players to compete. Eventually buying things becomes the standard, and with each higher priced release, the game becomes more unbalanced. That's the endgame of that scenario. Instead of time invested in the game it's money invested in the game. Frankly, I have more money than time at this point in my life, but it still doesn't appeal to me. I play games for fun, I don't play them as a money sink.

I don't care enough about the topic to argue it with you any more but you are not on an unlevel playing field.  Everyone has the same advatages, they just choose to excerise thier option to buy goodies while you are purposefully limiting yourself.  Thats fine, anything you acomplish in the game will be that much more rewarding, you may even be able to win!  Wouldn't that be nice?  Knowing you beat the pants off of everyone else without paying as much as they did?

Of course you probably won't be able to if any of the other people are competent, but thats really besides the point.  The point is, is the game fun for you?  If so play on, if not, quit, if you get enough more fun out of the game when you buy an item to make the purchase of the item worthwhile, buy the item, if not don't.

In the end you are still just whining about someone else having more fun than you because they can afford nicer things.

In a competitive game, it's a football analogy. One team plays with full pads, and the other team has no shoulder pads because their budget doesn't allow them to buy the shoulder pads. In that case, the team who cannot afford to pay for the shoulder pads shouldn't be playing, because the cost of competition is buying the extra items. But if the option to buy items is there, and those items add to power, there's no reason to play if you aren't going to buy the items. They are technically optional, but they truly are mandatory.

In an MMOG, if it goes to 11, 10 will not do.

Yes, Haemish makes my point better than I did.