"Seed" - Possible time dump for bored people.

[jinxer]

Ok, so there's a new MMO coming out.  Free download, going into beta Feb 1st.  I'm going to sign up for the beta and see what it's all about.  If anyone wants to check it out go here http://www.seedthegame.com.  It looks pretty cool, comic book graphics and all, but, here's the but - no combat.  Not sure how I feel about that yet.  I like to whack things on occasion, so we'll see.

[HaemishM]

I signed up for the beta, but I was sick so I didn't post it here. I'm not sure what kind of game it'll be, but I'll check it out.

[Samwise]

Emotapults!

[Soln]

Be nice.

[schild]

I already have a handful of . Yea, there will be some people from f13 in .

[Alkiera]

Sounds like A Second Life...  In Space!

Alkiera

[jinxer]

Nice, I hope I get in then.  I haven't played an MMO since SWG.  No way I'm going to join the WoW wagon.

[Nebu]

Being the ATitD whore that I am, I'm looking forward to this title.  The whole sci-fi/space thing isn't really my thing, but I do enjoy the social and building concept.

[Samwise]

Be nice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm curious as hell to see this thing.  It just sounds like they're promising the moon here.

[TheTijuanaBrass]

It just sounds like they're promising the moon here.

I wouldn't go quite so far. Much of what they promise actually sounds quite doable (though I wouldn't bet on them pulling it all off. Some of those systems sound awfully iffy). I'd say (hope) it's well within the realm of possibility.

Though I must say that their character models look like ass. The enviroments are nice, but the models are really ugly, and that thick black outline sure isn't helping them.

It seems that the game has some potential, but a lot of room for failure as well. I'll be curious to how it turns out.

[Raguel]

I've been following the game for awhile now. Activity on the site has picked up considerably since the beta announcement.

As much as I hope they succeed (at this point, it's the only mmog that could possibly lure me back) I'm as skeptical as anyone else.

I'm really looking forward to the AI but the cynic in me is wondering what sort of concessions did (or will) you make in order to have such advanced AI? Everyone else seems to agree that you can't have everything, especially in a mmorpg.

Nothing

That's the simple answer anyway, because we are making the gameplay we want to make, so we don't really think about the choices we've made as concessions.

Having said that, we've naturally made decissions that allow us to invest our time in AI. First and foremost we use third party software for our graphics engine, network system and other things, and thereby save us the development time needed for these facilities.

Secondly creating a 'simple' AI system with dialogue trees and the like, may require less effort to code, but it requires a huge effort to flesh it out with content. Of course our system requires content as well, but hopefully the investment we have put in creating a more autonomous AI framework will allow our content providers to focus on creating interesting stories, and not on thinking up hundreds of inane dialogue trees.

Thirdly by creating this extended AI system, we create gameplay. We create a system that our users have to get to know and a system they can use to accomplish tasks in the game. Our AIs don't beat the Turing Test, so you can't just type any old thing and have them understand you - a Language Engine is in play, and the player has to learn to use that, just like they would have to learn to use the skill system in another game. This means that fx we don't need to launch with quite as extensive a skill system as might otherwise be needed to provide an interesting game experience.

Finally we've simply focused on another type of gameplay, namely conversations and other social interactions. We are not making a system with 20 classes and 10 races that have to be both diverse and balanced over 100 vastly different levels, for both PvP and PvE and who knows what - So we avoid (or at least postpone) the massive design and balancing work that is required for that sort of game. But that was a conscious design decision and not a concession.

I hope this clears up some of your concerns.

mvh

Nis Haller Baggesen
Lead Programmer - Runestone Game Development

[Raguel]

(I decided to cut this in two so it's easier to read)

Here's a couple of threads I started/participated in concerning the story/AI:


http://208.64.64.65/forums/showthread.php?t=33

Originally Posted by Raguel

Suppose though I decide to foil a blackmail attempt. Can that potentially affect the bigger picture (e.g. terraforming, contacting Earth)?[Basically I was asking if the "micro-level" quests, like the generic fedex quests, would affect the "macro-level" quests]

Yes, indirectly. The progress in the large scale storylines depends on the number of people working on them. If you foil a blackmail attempt made by an advocate for terraforming, the exposure will probably cause damage to the advocates own terraforming projects, and it might cause his collaborators and other colonists to rethink their position on the subject.

Kind regards,

Morten

http://www.seedthegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118

Hey all,

I'm an active lurker here (good to see the activity!) and I thought I'd say my piece on stories, quests, roleplaying, tasks and whatnot. Beware of long post

The quick confession: We use quests like every other game out there. The quest structure is so basic and useful that it's hard to avoid. But I like to think we use them in a different way. How? Glad you asked

A bit of ranting first: IMO, an important and fundamental concept of roleplaying is the choice, what you DO as a character. When I can express my character through actual gameplay - how I do stuff, if I do stuff, who I do it for - AND my choices have consequences, THAT'S where I think roleplaying gets interesting. Applying this to Seed, stories have to offer interesting choices, respect my choices and throw me interesting consequences, no matter what I choose. At least that is the vision

Back to stories and quests. As Raguel mentioned, we do have a "micro" and a "macro" story level, and it's the micro one we're working on right now. We're going about this by working our way up from when a PC meets an NPC: What can happen, what can come of it, how we can turn it into a longer lasting thing. When we're done with the "micro" level, we'll turn our attention to the "macro" ones such as large-scale projects resulting in new locations.

Seed is a game heavy on social networking, influences, politics, who owes who what and when. We expect a very active "favor economy", and that's what the "micro" stories are based on.

Under the hood, the small Seed stories shift NPC friendships and alliances back and forth. You do somebody a favor, they like you more and owe you one and their enemies like you less, and vice versa - basically like every other faction-oriented quest out there. We use fed-ex quest types as well as more difficult ones such as "I haven't seen Borm for a while and he's not answering my 'links. Could you look him up and see what's up?" or "Could you please make sure Zoe looses that admin bit in 10 days?". The interesting difference here is that a Seed quest often only cares about the result - how you solve it will often be more or less entirely in your hands.

An interesting point about quests is how and why they're offered. In Seed, the small stories trigger when something happens in-game, something that the players have started or are responsible for. It's all about actions and consequences again.

The NPCs are the story carriers in this scheme. So, right now we're building a library of AI personalities. At the basic level, this ensures that NPCs respond in an interesting and individual way to for example emotes - you threaten, they react, you smile, they might smile back and so on.

Tied into this librabry is a more complex set of reactions to a long range of dynamic events in the game, for example sudden disasters, being burned in a deal, being asked to team up for a round of repairs, that somebody got an admin bit, that a ring is growing too powerful, that the local cluster is experiencing a drought in raw resources, that you made an NPC very happy.

Example of player-triggered story:

You heard that Borm, an NPC administrator in ringlab alpha, is a bit of a pushover. It's late, your ring is waiting for those grid test results, so you decide to try threatening him into giving you quick priority access. It seems to work, and you make it to the ring meeting with test results in hand. You left Borm in a really bad mood, however, and his personality profile calls for revenge. Borm 'links around until he finds a PC friend willing and able to help out. The week after your ring is assaulted by a barrage of PC poll attacks. You also discover that all priority access with another admin has been mysteriously revoked - she suddenly doesn't seem to like you. Seems Borm had a larger network than you thought. Now what to do?

An example of a story triggering on an in-game event or situation:

For some time, damages have been spreading in the loading bays. Seems nobody has the time or energy to handle the repair jobs. Ruger, an NPC with a specific interest in how well his environment works, launches one or more templates based on the amount of damage. He starts 'linking his PC friends and bugging them about it. He tours the location urging people to get their hands out of their pockets. He tries to get repair crews to handle it. He makes sour comments about how everything's going to pieces. He won't shut up or leave it alone until something is done, and if you burn him favor-wise, he'll make sure to send trouble your way.

In both examples, the story runs on favors (quests). Something one or more players did (or didn't do) triggered it. And both stories actively tried to involve more players. An AI will have a hard time delivering better roleplay than a human, so ideally we want the stories and NPCs as firestarters and "matchmakers".

In closing, I think the most interesting (and scariest) point about Seed stories is the thin line between pre-scripting and emergence: Of course we have to script content like every other game out there, but it will be triggered by player-driven in-game events and happenings we have little or no control over.

This is a very open, chaotic and fragile system, and it places a great deal of responsibility on you, the player's, shoulders. The control over story has switched hands. What you get in return is freedom, impact and hopefully a sense of ownership - that this is YOUR game, rather than ours.

/Alex
__________________
Alex K. Uth
Lead writer
Runestone Game Development

[Samwise]

Spent some more time poking through the site.

My main question at this point is: what does the gameplay actually consist of?  To repair a structure, for example, do I just walk over to the structure, make sure I have the appropriate skill and equipment, and push the button?  Is the equipment sufficiently hard to come by that first I have to run around for an hour looking for it, and then do FedEx quests to earn the money to buy it?  What do I spend the bulk of my time in this game doing?

[Raguel]

Heh. I asked a similar question back in June and got this reply:

On day-to-day basis you’ll be presented for several story options. A NPC will ask you to repair a wall section, to vote for him, to get him a mono-wrapper, to examine a spore sample, etc.

These stories are indeed based on templates, which come into play according to where your character is at the exact moment. They could be based upon who you know, who your friends are, what items are currently in your inventory, who you recently voted for, etc.

It is up to you which stories you want to go for and which you turn down. Making these choices you’re defining your character and personality, and thereby determining how fellow player characters or NPCs think of you. It is not necessarily more rewarding accepting a task than declining one, e.g. if you do favours for the unpopular damage controller you might risk getting unpopular yourself. Some stories will carry rewards in themselves, though; in form of items, friendships, votes, etc.

Now I still don't know how exactly one will repair a wall or create a widget, or how skills will increase, but since it looks like most of the dev work is going into the AI and story I'm basically assuming it's on par with EQ1. I hope I'm wrong tho.

After rereading his response, a thought occurs to me: all of those "dynamic" quests are dependent on some previous action. What quests are you going to get on your first hr/day/week playing the game? I'm going to bring this up again.

[Samwise]

I'd expect that you start the game at a "neutral" state and are presented with a fairly wide array of options that starts to narrow or specialize itself as you make choices.

I'm more interested what the actual "create a widget" or "repair a wall" mechanics are, as well as how one acquires widget components and experience.  If it bears any resemblance whatsoever to SWG (grind millions of meaningless widgets in order to gain the experience needed to produce meaningful widgets; sink-and-faucet economy where the faucet is foozle-whacking mission terminals; resources acquired by obsessively checking resource drifts and madly scrambling to grab a spot before the guy with twenty alts takes them all), I'm not interested.

[Trippy]

Oh great, why did they have to make this game PvP? There goes my interest in the game.

[Samwise]

I just now actually read that giant post above.  The idea of NPCs having their own agendas and using PCs to further them is VERY interesting.  Sufficiently interesting to make up for the quests being glorified FedEx stuff at its core.  Maybe.

[Yoru]

It sounds somewhat interesting, but a quest system based on parsing dialogue (presumably for keywords)... that brings back bad memories of old adventure games (and some MUDs) that eventually turned into 'guess the word' puzzles. Or worse yet, a combination of the two, where guessing the right words moved you along an internal dialogue/action graph.

Still, it's worth beta'ing.

[HaemishM]

That quest system sounds very interesting, but I'm like Samwise. What is the mechanic for doing the things I'm asked to do? If it's boring as EQ1 crafting, the game will suck and tank.

[Paelos]

Haemish logs into game.

NPC104543 says "Hello Haemish, today I need you to fix my toilet."
Haemish says "Unclog your own shitter you sheep-raper!"

Haemish logs out of the game.

/cancel sub

[Raguel]

I just now actually read that giant post above.

Sorry about that. :( I was going to make it three posts in a row, but I wasn't sure if it was against the rules or not. I did some more searching and I'll try to do better this time around when I get around to posting what I found. 

edit: lol@Paelos

ediit2: gameplay notes from devs:

http://www.seedthegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59&highlight=offline

Originally Posted by Veren
Another question: one of the things that made ATITD a nifty game was that the crafting tasks weren't exclusively "watch a bar go from empty to full"-- they actually had you do things, and sometimes, how well do did them defined your success. For instance, blacksmithing actually required you to take a metal die and, using various tools, mould your starting shape to as close as you could get to the goal shape. How close you get determines the quality of the object you made. Any thoughts on doing something similar in Seed?

Sort of, yes. Seed repair gameplay, for example, is very interactive. You need to use your skills actively, choose between trade-offs like "Jury-rig" or "Thorough fix", use the right tools for the right thing, make sure your tools don't overheat, pay attention to various forms of damage spreading and interacting and so on. The item and machine crafting, on the other hand, is basically fiddling to get the right tool for the right occasion, so involves a lot of interesting decisions on your part. Both examples might sound complicated by the way, but it sounds way worse than it looks and plays. :)

Cheers,

Alex

[Raguel]

http://www.seedthegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=331&page=2

A little step by step run-through of the mechanics of the repair gameplay might be in order:

Anything that can break, can basically do so in five ways (In seed that is. ):

Structural damage: broken pipes, tears, rents etc.
Mechanical: moving parts that are malfunctioning somehow
Electrical: Which in seed is pretty much always high power electrical systems
Electronic: computer circuitry and the like
Contamination: Bio hazardous waste, radiation leaks, rust and plain old dirt

Similarily, different types of tool functions can be used to fix different types of damage. A crowbar can be usefull for structural and mechanical, but is useless for electronic etc. Some tools might be extremely usefull for e.g. structural, but create a mess, thus having negative impact on contamination damage.

Broken stuff registers as "repair jobs" in the environment. Sometimes it is something that has broken down, as haller describes above, sometimes it is a repair job commisioned by an admin that wants extra stuff added to his factory machine, sometimes it can be something else.

For now, broken service hatches spread damage as described above, but doesn't e.g. cause elevators to malfunction. We may quite likely add stuff like that at a later stage.

When you target a repair job, you get a GUI view of which kinds and which magnitudes of damage the job consists of. You then choose the tools you have that you believe are best suited for the job, and activate them on the repair job, until it is fixed, or until you give up. If you manage to fix it, you receive an access point reward, and possibly an "inspiration drop". The inspiration job you can use to train your skills, or give to someone else, so *they* can train their skill. You can use your own abilities to e.g. improve your odds for getting an inspiration drop, at the expense of repair speed, or choose to trade off between quality of repair job (affecting AP reward and the longevity of your repair) and some other parameters.

With better repair skills, you get access to better tools, and better tradeof abilities.

As Haller mentioned, we are planning on hazardous repairjobs as well: Repair jobs of e.g. a broken steam pipe, scalding anyone close, unless they are suitably protected. Some of these may be so close to each other that they overlap, creating really bad places, with radioactive steam rushing out, and showers of electrical sparks igniting the noxious fumes.

This is where the real tool heroes goes to work !
__________________
--------------------------------------------------
Lars Kroll Kristensen
CEO
Runestone Game Development

[Raguel]

I've never played either game, but from what I've read Seed's advancement system works the same as Eve's:


http://www.seedthegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117&highlight=time+training

Originally Posted by Nith
1) The game is skill driven, and you need certain skills at a certain rank to get other skills, but how do the skills advance. Do they advance over time (EVE)? Do they advance when you level (everyone)? Do they advance when you use them (UO)?

I think this is answered elsewhere, but still:
Players can obtain new skills, when they meet the requirements of the skill. E.g, when Foodge has learned engineering to level 4, he is eligible for learning advanced engineering. In order to learn it, he needs to find a suitable trainer to start him off. This will give him advanced engineering level 0. Foodge can now assign adv engineering as his "training skill", and it will progress with time, whether or not he is online. Whenever Foodge uses a repair skill (adv engineering is a repair skill), he can get an "inspiration drop" which will reduce the time he needs to train to get to the next level. So: it is a combination of train over time, and train on use.

[Samwise]

Oh dear, they're anti-grinding.  That tears it, now I have to check this thing out.  There's all sorts of room for them to fuck up the implementation, of course, but everything they've said so far leads me to think that at the very least they have good priorities.

[Alkiera]

Oh dear, they're anti-grinding.  That tears it, now I have to check this thing out.  There's all sorts of room for them to fuck up the implementation, of course, but everything they've said so far leads me to think that at the very least they have good priorities.

The repair things sounds quite a bit like the original EQ2 crafting system.  Seriously.

Alkiera

[Samwise]

I never tried EQ2.  What was it about the crafting system that was so grim?  Having some sort of vaguely twitchy mini-game didn't sound to me like a terrible thing.  And the specific complaints I heard about it (most of which seemed to involve taking damage if you fuck up) wouldn't apply in this case since they don't have a combat system.

[DevilsAdvocate]

This sounds kind of like "Bob the Builder the MMO".

It also sounds a bit like a job. Come home from work, log in, get an assignment, go back to work...

[Samwise]

It also sounds a bit like a job. Come home from work, log in, get an assignment, go back to work...

Every MMOG resembles a job.  As do many single player games.  Really, any game where you have an objective to accomplish is a job.

[Trippy]

I never tried EQ2.  What was it about the crafting system that was so grim?  Having some sort of vaguely twitchy mini-game didn't sound to me like a terrible thing.  And the specific complaints I heard about it (most of which seemed to involve taking damage if you fuck up) wouldn't apply in this case since they don't have a combat system.

Well if you ignore the dying and experience debt parts of it, the problems I had with the crafting was that the "mini-game" was incredibly simplistic (the kind of thing you could teach your preschooler to do) and it was paced in the worst possible way. The mini-game was basically a whack-a-mole type game where something would "pop up" and you would have to press a particular key to whack it back down and for any given production job there were only like 3 or 4 keys you had to be able to press (though it varied depending on the station you were using) assuming you had your hot key bars setup properly. The other huge problem was the moles would pop up slowly enough that you were bored out of your mind if you watched the screen the whole time and fast enough that you couldn't just go AFK and take the damage to finish the crafting cause you might die. If it was a twitchy style mini-game that required some thinking and you had to be focused all of the time -- a la Puzzle Pirates -- that would've been a huge improvement in my opinion.

[Samwise]

I agree, Puzzle Pirates generally did that sort of thing well.  EQ2's system sounds like it was designed to be an unmacroable artificial timesink rather than something fun.  GG SOE.

Based on the description of the skill system it doesn't sound like Seed is big on artificial timesinks.  We'll have to wait and see.

[Paelos]

I did like Puzzle Pirates, and things like making rum or building ships. That was cool. Of course, I was best at sailing, so I spent a lot of time jobbing around.

[Sky]

Haemish logs into game.

NPC104543 says "Hello Haemish, today I need you to fix my toilet."
Haemish says "Unclog your own shitter you sheep-raper!"

Haemish logs out of the game.

/cancel sub

Based on an early Gothic II task, my girlfriend calls it "Turnip Farming". A farmer asks you to go pull some turnips in exchange for a set of clothes you need to enter a city. She saw me harvesting in EQ2 and asked "Are you farming turnips again?" It's a decent catchall for boring shit tasks games ask of you.

The mini-game was basically a whack-a-mole type game where something would "pop up" and you would have to press a particular key to whack it back down and for any given production job there were only like 3 or 4 keys you had to be able to press (though it varied depending on the station you were using) assuming you had your hot key bars setup properly. The other huge problem was the moles would pop up slowly enough that you were bored out of your mind if you watched the screen the whole time and fast enough that you couldn't just go AFK and take the damage to finish the crafting cause you might die. If it was a twitchy style mini-game that required some thinking and you had to be focused all of the time -- a la Puzzle Pirates -- that would've been a huge improvement in my opinion.

Actually, this isn't the whole mini-game. If you read the tradeskill descriptions, each has an effect, some positive, some negative. For example, one skill might be +6 progress but -6 durability. As you level up tradeskills, you get more effects. You can then use these to balance negative events and react to the random dice-roll progress. Once I figured that mini-game out, I make pristine stuff much more often. It's actually not a bad mini-game.

[HaemishM]

It's actually not a bad mini-game.

But you wouldn't say it's a good mini-game either, now would you?

[schild]

Based on an early Gothic II task

<derail> Having never played the game, I've been searching for it nonstop (and obviously at all the wrong places). It would same I will have to breakdown and for the first time in my life, order a PC game online. I NEVER order stuff online, I always get it and a corner is bent, or the box is ripped or punctured or there's harm to the product of unknown origin. Basically, I fucking hate online ordering. And no i have to do it for Gothic II. This game better wet my fucking whistle.</derail>

[|3o3dha]

Based on an early Gothic II task

<derail> Having never played the game, I've been searching for it nonstop (and obviously at all the wrong places). It would same I will have to breakdown and for the first time in my life, order a PC game online. I NEVER order stuff online, I always get it and a corner is bent, or the box is ripped or punctured or there's harm to the product of unknown origin. Basically, I fucking hate online ordering. And no i have to do it for Gothic II. This game better wet my fucking whistle.</derail>

I heard there's a gold version floating around somewhere. Night of the Raven, the previously German only expansion is included (in English). Might be worth it.