Topic
about those trees...
I don't have any clear cut (hah) ideas yet about how to get the trees to work well, but here's some things I've noticed:
1. There's a tension between the rate of tree growth at home and in public places.
2. There's a tension between the amount of tending needed at home and in public places.
3. The tangible reward for going to the trouble of making and planting seeds in public places, to keep the word sustained, is slight.
4. The placement of different types of trees in the world, when players are responsible for this, is erratic.
I would think the rate of growth will work itself out as the game is open for longer times. It would be good if the trees don't die too quickly. I suspect they've been set to die quickly for the brief bits of game play. If it takes a long time to finish the quest of growing them in your own home, I'm not sure that's a big deal. Some of the quests and some of the projects can reasonably take a long time and one hopes that when the game is open for longer stretches that people will be more patient than they are right now.
The amount of tending needed in the different places seems to be an issue. Public trees should need and get lots of tending. Private trees should be able to survive without lots of tending. Possibly tree tenders are called for to address this issue.
I find making seasoned beans a bit of a chore, though I have done so to fill in blank spots a few times. Probably there should be more reward attached to this sort of necessary maintenance. (Part of what is a chore for me is that some of the ingredients I'm not going to be carrying around -- beer and hooch. I think the other ingredients are from trees or can be made from the products of trees. Possibly, all of the ingredients should have that path.)
I think there is a goal right now with the interchangeable trees thing to let players design the world a bit. And I do think that that notion is unfortunately absent from the game right now. But I don't think choosing which tree to plant is actually much of a creative act. Meanwhile, it's confusing as a player to try to guess which area has which type of trees Right Now, since it's possibly all changed since the last time one was playing. I tend to think it would be better if it all worked more like the eggplants. I know where to go to find eggs, or to try to plant an eggplant seed.
One more thing: Why can't I chop down a tree before it's "dead"? I suspect this should be allowed. One of the dynamics that is increasingly apparent in the game is the tension between different uses for the tree-spot resource. (And I suspect there will be more.) When people need dirt, they recklessly dig instead of plant, which can lead to a dearth of trees. I have been cursed for planting when someone impatiently wanted the dirt to complete a project. (Again, I think some players should take a pill, but I digress...) So if I want my dirt, dammit, maybe I should be able to just chop that tree down and take my dirt.
Players as rooks, destroying public things to grab resources, should possibly be one of the dynamics of the game.
Replies
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"One more thing: Why can't I chop down a tree before it's "dead"? I suspect this should be allowed. One of the dynamics that is increasingly apparent in the game is the tension between different uses for the tree-spot resource."
In public places this could also be used as a griefing tactic. it takes a little time for trees to get resources, so if i want to screw with the world (or work on one of my badges) I can just walk from street to street cutting down every egg plant and making sure the world has none.
In homes though I agree, it might be ok to be able to have that additional control of cutting trees (or maybe some arborist skill would allow you to dig up a tree and replant it, like a baited pig mechanic, so you can rearrange)
That and I too think tree cycles in homes needs another dev eye. -
I likey. Especially the idea of players as rooks, or aligning with entropy. I have posted some ideas for more antagonistic entropic forces, but the idea of PROTAGONISTIC entropy seems awesome. Alternate reward structures, different skills devoted to tearing down rather than building.
The danger is in creating inter-player anger, but if both are ultimately required for growth (pruning as opposed to clear-cutting), it could create the tension and teamwork characteristics that Glitch is so-far lacking. - I also think using a feng shui type concept to determine what trees to plant where could aid in making those artless choices more important, like an orchard of similar trees grants harvest bonuses to each individual, or lessens the energy tax. Of course, this makes planning more important, and also creates a greater need to remove things that go against "The Plan".
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Yea, the trees at your homes really require too much maintenance right now - they'll die off within a few hours if left untended, which isn't reasonable if you want to say sleep or you have a day job or are not in the game every hour of the day. And reviving them with fertilidust every time you log in gets expensive. I thought maybe the private trees should have a different maintenance cycle than the public trees (since public trees get more traffic) but maybe instead you should be able to install a watering system in your yard instead (as you can do with pig feeders).
I wouldn't like the ability to cut down a live tree (or perhaps that should be an advanced skill for an arborist). Yea, maybe a very advanced skill - it may be less likely that a very leveled-up advanced player to grief the game than for newbies to be able to do so (or not, but I think you reduce the chances if someone is very invested).
The public aspect of trees does have a lovely tension to it, no? It's all so very random, and you can see the potential there for groups of people to coordinate what gets planted on the streets. If that doesn't happen organically, perhaps there could be neighborhood boards or homeowner associations for those streets that have attached quarters (and only the tenants can plant on those streets?), while leaving the un-quartered streets random, for anyone to plant or dig whatever. If there are 'bureaucratic' skills, perhaps that is in the works. My only concern with the rise of bureaucracy is the limits that could place on organic creativity (so, letting the crowd define its own processes vs. in-game structure). -
" I have been cursed for planting when someone impatiently wanted the dirt to complete a project. (Again, I think some players should take a pill, but I digress...) "
Actually I think you said "You suck" to me once because I planted a seed where you wanted to wait and hoe repeatedly, (lol)
I agree however that we should be able to cut down an unloved tree. One in its prime, petted and watered, should never be culled prematurely. -
No homeowner associations EVAR!
Aside from that, I really like all these ideas. I just moved into a new neighborhood and the trees on my street are pathetic and sad, and I keep wondering if anyone else besides me tends to them. I also hope that my part of Groddle Heights will get some of its own kind of trees--like something gnarly and twisted with flaky bark that you could harvest, that has special cooking properties (like mesquite trees where I live).
I really like the idea of rook players too, it kind of goes towards the idea (that I like personally) about a character creating his/her own longterm story. I would think this would be a next stage or advanced phase for a player though--I mean, if you don't understand the solution first, how can you expect become part of the problem?
Oh and also--I really hope that the tree sitch in homes is just something that hasn't been addressed yet because it's a low priority. I think trees should grow more easily in homes, just like homes should convey energy to the user (and maybe the more trees/livestock/gardening you have or do, the more energy your home replenishes in you when you are there). - On the topic of not knowing what trees are where, perhaps different types of trees could grow better in certain areas? This could be randomized each month and it would be upto the players to discover which trees grow better where and communicate that to other players.
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Apples and oranges, bluto. At least, to my mind. You knew I was tending that spot and zipped in to plant there, which (even though I like you now) still seems an assholish move to me.
What I was talking about above was a declaration on global chat that no planting should happen (anywhere) so that digging could happen, and I disagree with that idea. -
"I have been cursed for planting when someone impatiently wanted the dirt to complete a project. (Again, I think some players should take a pill, but I digress...)"
why is it that people who want to keep dirt sources around, temporarily, are "impatient", but people who immediately want to plant seemingly random trees once a new street opens up are not "impatient"?
"Actually I think you said "You suck" to me once because I planted a seed where you wanted to wait and hoe repeatedly, (lol)"
ouch.
"I really like the idea of rook players too, it kind of goes towards the idea (that I like personally) about a character creating his/her own longterm story."
i think this already exists. when people plant trees in a particular location, for example, without taking into account the enormous amount of work, or enormous delay they may be forcing on other players - that is a force of entropy. it's a random, destabilizing act. i think that anyone solo questing in a way that abuses the game world is rook like. what is the difference between a rook killing all the trees on a level, and a player randomly dropping un-needed trees in a location to satisfy a quest? in either case the street is equally unproductive and unhelpful to other players.
letting individual people randomly chop down trees in public areas is risky proposition. in increases the capacity to grief, and it reduces the amount of planning and forethought inherent in the game.
players should be thinking ahead, and when they do not think ahead there should be consequences. providing a "chop chop undo button" for poor planning makes planning less relevant to begin with.
now if 10 different people chopping at a healthy tree would cause it to drop, that would require time and planning to reverse a poor decision, encourage collaboration and deter solo acts of wanton destruction. - Um. Not all players, well, me for example, understand the apparently subtle issues about planting or not planting trees in a particular place. If you want social pressures to deal with such situations, that's fine, but everyone has to understand (at least!) that it's a good thing or a bad thing for that to work. This point generalizes.
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"If you want social pressures to deal with such situations, that's fine, but everyone has to understand (at least!) that it's a good thing or a bad thing for that to work."
well, yes. you're right of course that people don't understand [at first] how merely planting a tree that other people can harvest from could possibly be bad.
i don't know why most people think that production is always beneficial no matter what kind of production it is, and why it isn't default human behaviour to consider the communal consequences when operating in a shared environment...
but still the problem isn't really the inexperienced players, but the quests that encourage them to do game unbalancing acts en masse.
quests encourage players not to think of the game world as being a shared space. the quests offer directives to screw up and randomize the game world, since they don't take into account the ecosystem of the game at all. you've got quests encouraging people to litter the world with bean trees, even though massive numbers of bean trees are next to useless in the context of the game. you only need a handful of bean trees to produce the beans necessary to plant every patch in the game, yet bean trees are everywhere. instead of fostering tree growth, they prevent it. they're virtual weeds.
i think that once the world is larger and older, players' initial missteps won't have quite so debilitating effects, but there will still be players - powerful ones at high level capable of impacting significant portions of the game - who will continue the quest/grind mentality into later levels and ignore the effects of their actions on other people. these players are like the rooks, and instead of being activated by quests, they'll be activated by trying to complete achievements in the easiest way possible for them, even if their actions make it more difficult for other players to complete ahievements. -
i mean.. like consider this achievement:
alpha.glitch.com/achievemen...
"Whiz-Bang Plantifier
Planted 13 trees or plants"
seems totally innocuous, right?
okay so if i'm a quest/grind or achievement/grind player, how do i think about this quest?
figure out the easiest tree for me to make a seasoned bean for, make 13 of those, plant em.
now multiply this behaviour by every single achievement/grind player, and you get an instant overabundance of the easiest tree to make. or the cheapest bean to buy. one achievement leads to ecological carnage, or at the very least profound disorganization. -
"i think this already exists. when people plant trees in a particular location, for example, without taking into account the enormous amount of work, or enormous delay they may be forcing on other players - that is a force of entropy. it's a random, destabilizing act."
I understand what you are saying, but it is not what I was saying.
"Um. Not all players, well, me for example, understand the apparently subtle issues about planting or not planting trees in a particular place"
What he said, I don't get it, maybe if someone could shoot me a copy of the 5-Year-Plan to review? Actually, never mind. I think I might be way too dumb to play this game. If I do the bean tree planting quest, I am harming the Glitchian ecosystem and creating a big mess that I can't actually even see. If I eschew the bean tree planting quest, I am no longer, you know, actually playing the game. How do you teach players about tree planting without letting them plant trees? -
"How do you teach players about tree planting without letting them plant trees?"
planting the trees isn't the problem, it is where and which trees are planted.
so, like, there's a quest where you have to plant one of each tree. thing is, the game gets bogged down if you have an even number of each tree, sprinkled all over the map. coz if someone wants to harvest any particular crop, they have to visit every single street on the map. if the various crops are divided into groves, it becomes easier for everyone to do what they want.. but the quest not only discourages this, it makes a concerted effort to plant a grove difficult coz all the patches end up full before people can start hatching plans.
there's no consensus or collaboration or politics in that aspect of the game [yet] .. so we end up with everyone making more work for themselves and everyone else and yeah of course there's no 5 year plan to sort it out. can't blame anyone for doing that but it would be nice to have the tools to start building some kind of consensus about where trees ought to be planted so that things are easier for everyone as the game goes on.
still, certain things should make sense even without a consensus plan. like if a new street is upgraded and requires a lot of gas to upgrade it, it makes no sense for someone to swoop in and flood it with spice trees before the upgrade is complete. checking what a project on a street requires before planting there isn't a crazy, unguessable act. it just requires some attentiveness to what people around you are trying to do and some awareness that the game world is a shared space, not a solo playground.
but i'm not worried about THAT so much, coz as the game increases in size new streets and regions will make it so that there will be ares where new players can harmlessly play at planting, no big deal.
what i am worried about is some kind of achievement that says "plant 1000 bean trees", and a high level solo power gamer going into overdrive and trying to grind it in a week, disrupting entire regions of the game. collectives of players can probably gather resources to combat this assault .. which is very similar to dealing with the rook... and so a player taking achievement grinding to its fullest conclusion would be demonstrating rook-like tendencies. -
"planting the trees isn't the problem, it is where and which trees are planted."
With so many quests geared towards planting and nurturing trees, and no way of knowing how many trees of which sort have been planted across the world, that will always be a problem for players. The game designers however could restrict where trees are grown, how many each player can plant in a day, and make the bean tree bean much harder to season. -
"what i am worried about is some kind of achievement that says "plant 1000 bean trees", and a high level solo power gamer going into overdrive and trying to grind it in a week,"
I understand the importance of defining these kinds of game imperiling behaviours, but I really don't want to call them rook-like; the rook should be a different concept. Some other animal-- let's call them platypuslike behaviours, in honor of the creature that demands a million ingots.
Solo players who are motivated by xp, badges and achievements in volume will go at that like you said, starting with 13 trees and then proceeding to 1000. But what value does that confer aside from bragging rights and a mention on your profile page? I don't remember that you get any kind of points for those kinds of achievements, so there's no "material" value in it. You can't really dilute the value from achievements much more than they are, aside from deleting the Achievements list page altogether (and that wouldn't last long anyway). But I like them, they make me feel good. I don't play for them exactly, but they do keep me playing.
Those volume-related achievements are clearly meant for less advanced players, and maybe they just need to stop after a certain number (say 100). After that your achievements need to come for different things. - As a real life gardener. I like the idea of different kinds of trees growing in different landscapes (and climates if we ever get weather). For example cherries could grow best in mountainous regions and if you plant one elsewhere it will require much more maintenance and die more easily (and give less fruit). Your home back yard should be an exception though, perhaps you could purchase special expensive fertilizer for your backyard that would allow you to grow anything in any climate. Technically you could use that fertilizer in public plots but because of it's expense, it would not be worth it for most people.
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+1 for FrankenPaula's idea.
Also, it's true that bean trees seem to have less value than the other kinds of trees, and I wonder if that should be tweaked, or certainly balanced with quests that favor bean trees in particular.
And yeah, I don't think achievements have any reward system; for me, they're just something to work on when I want something different to do.
As for the other thing that keep getting hackles up, who defines what's best for the world? Trees are needed for resources. Dirt is needed for building roads. Different players can reasonably have different visions for the world.
(And to clarify, I don't believe I was planting new trees in new active projects. I was replacing dead trees. If that matters.) - Things have changed.
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"Trees are needed for resources. Dirt is needed for building roads. Different players can reasonably have different visions for the world."
streets are needed to plant trees. building streets = the only possible way to create more slots for trees.
those aren't different visions for the world .. one is a pre-requisite for the other. - I don't like the idea that a well-tended tree would die quickly in a particular area, or at all, for that matter. Real trees can live for hundreds of years; why shouldn't Glitch trees? They could grow larger, provide homes for interesting animals (or humans?), bear more fruit, etc.
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As this is my first time reading this thread all the way through I was thinking exactly what FrankenPaula said. Just have trees grow better in ideal climates/landscapes.
So far all the egg trees I've seen have been underground (in caves), so sure you could plant one in the open forest but it's obviously going to get too much daylight and probably too much water. It won't survive very long at all and it might be lucky if it sees one harvest. Plant something in its appropriate location and it will thrive.
I like the idea of proper fertilizers (or even just remote crop keeping skills for different types of trees).
Also then the 'Plant 1000 Bean Trees' could be reworded to 'Raise 1000 Bean Trees' then the grinder player would have to raise 1000 bean trees to maturity and through to death to get the achievement.
The gods need to have a karma system. We have favour. But if you start pissing off the animals you should lose favour with Humbaba or if you cut down trees that arent dead you should lose favour with [who's the tree god?] and if you get -1000 favour you get a bad emblem or something. Once you get to that negative milestone it becomes that much harder to regain the favour. Rival gods would grant favour to those who gain these emblems.
It would allow more dynamic to the gods and religions thing. And also allow the chaos and entropy and rivalry that people want in a game.
ohh this all came to me as i was typing it. Now we need a new thread to discuss this karma system ;)
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in summary
+1 for trees growing better in appropriate environments
+1 for hacking down live trees
^ but only if: +1 for karma system - For discussion on the above mentioned karma system, I'm posting a new thread in the Ideas forum.