Topic
Thoughts on Street Creation
really very good! a collaborative activity with a friendly dash of competition.
i do have the following suggestions:
1] less arbitrary street "ingredients"
street building should feel like building, not cooking. more chopping and hauling planks, mining dullite, and digging would help change the feeling of street building from being too much like the recipe cooking quests.
that said, if a non arbitrary use for an interesting component can be established, not everything has to be "industrial". someone suggested that maybe the nature of street could be reflected in the "spice" [of life] used to make the street .. like old[er] spice could lead to an old, respectable neighbourhood.
i think that's a great idea. the components just have to make sense, and not feel like a random assemblage of items obviously selected for game balance purposes.
2] progress should feel like you're actually building something
instead of just a generic progress bar, use the street's mini-map. as the street is built, the mini-map slowly reveals the level. the unfinished part of of the level could be white, black or a landscape of undeveloped land.
again, this would differentiate building from all the other processes in the game that use progress bars.
also, if using the hoe animation could look more like grading earth, or other animations for building are a bit more specific to street creation, that would also help the overall feel.
3] materials staging first, construction last
this one i'm less sure about, but it sprang to mind but i will share it.
so there are really two kinds of contribution to street creation. one is material components and the other is labour. it feels weird to contribute material components after all the labour has been completed, because normally labour is required to use material components. from a gaming standpoint this is also out of whack given the current balance.
this is because the labour is easier to contribute than material components, faster, and grants a higher contribution percentage. so what can happen, and happened today, is someone swoops in, quickly does ALL the labour, generates 30% contribution, and then kicks back and waits for the material gatherers to do the difficult, time consuming work.
if the labour had to wait on the material components, then the material gatherers could get first crack at the labour as a reward.
also, this could allow for an even better "feel" of construction. there could first be a graphic of all the street building components being staged, illustrations of steadily growing piles of planks and minerals. then, when all the materials are staged, have the progress animation of the street being built/revealed [as above] - with the staged material piles slowly depleting.
not sure that last idea is worth the development time, but something to consider.
Replies
- ^Wow, yeah, that sums it up. I love the idea of seeing streets half done on the map, as a way to illustrate their progress.
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I agree with striatic and have a few things to add.
It would be great if the components of street-building would reflect the actual level you are working on. It would be even better if the team working on the project could decide on maybe one or two components to alter the outcome of that level. Let's say you choose spinach instead of planks and you get levitating houses.
The project on Grand Mile allowed players to choose between two slightly different levels. I liked that a lot but the way it was presented confused me a little. Did I only vote for one option when adding items or did I already start working on the upgrade? What happens to your items when you add to the less popular choice? Shouldn't the team make up its mind first and then start working on the project?
The upgrade on Grand Mile was a little buggy at first, so maybe that was part of my confusion.
When working on a project we kept losing track of what was still needed. It would be very convenient to have The Rock remember this for you. A log entry with the project name, the place of the street spirit and the current items/work still needed would be very helpful. -
*For people who missed the test and wanna see the Street Creation, I recorded the interface and stuff.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOe...
(The YouTube video is unlisted, please don't share the link.) -
Striatic: all your suggestions are excellent - thank you. (We're actually talking about how to implement them right now.)
Mina: you vote with your contribution to the project (more resources contributed, the bigger your say in how it turns out) but everything that is contributed counts towards completion of the project. We'll work on making this clearer (and also get rid of the bugs!).
Finally, we have talked about listing active projects to which you've already contributed in your quest log. This'll probably happen. -
I hesitate when considering the active quest log, because having a logistics person checking in and sharing inventory remaining counts with the work party spurred communication.
on the other hand, that *was* a bit annoying and communication will still be needed for "who gets what?" even if it wouldn't be needed for "how much to get?" anymore.
btw, street creation was the first time party chat came in handy. it really helped prevent redundant work. -
also, makes sense to really get this particular bit of gameplay and interface exactly right, since I imagine much of it can be repurposed for house construction... unless that will be handled a ver different way.
and also, also... construction like this should have API hooks so players can monitor multiple day progress from afar, and maybe dispatch robots from 3rd party interfaces to help in the construction. or something. it just seems like a target rich environment, API wise, that's all. -
I wasn't so sure about the quest log myself, striatic, because checking back did result in social interaction/chatting. But as you said one needs a logistic person and atm that would mean staying put and not being able to contribute and earn rewards.
I'm sure there are other ways besides the quest log to deal with this.
Maybe some sort of project manager? -
"But as you said one needs a logistic person and atm that would mean staying put and not being able to contribute and earn rewards."
i imagined that if the labour/material balance was better, the "logistics" person would stay at the site doing logistics while also digging ditches and doing carpentry and stuff until the available materials were consumed.
but like i said .. i think the quest log is probably for the best. still plenty of opportunity for logistics needed for the "who is getting what?" question, even if the quest log answers the "how much to get?" question. - I've no idea how working code gets written, but wouldn't the use of bots undermine the whole point of social collaboration?
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"I've no idea how working code gets written, but wouldn't the use of bots undermine the whole point of social collaboration?"
no : ]
well, yes and no.
so let us say there are in game robots which respond to commands from the API. maybe a remote controlled robot version of each player, like the "Good Robot Usses" from the courageous but fundamentally flawed 1991 sequel and Keanu Reeves vehicle "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey". www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCp...
anyway, say we could control our Good Robot Usses in a limited way via the API, in one way this would be anti-social because you wouldn't be in the game interface, and thus possibly less likely to be communicating with people inside the game.
but in another way it would be MORE social because it would allow you to do social things in real life without having to be in game all the time to get things done.
.. and in addition to that, you'd still have to make plans with your friends as to what tasks your
Good Robot You would do, and which tasks they and their Good Robot Thems would do .. so the core of the collaborative communication would remain. - I don't see it how you see it.
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merely having players simultaneously using the primary game UI does not automatically lead to social collaboration.
we've had months of alpha, and not until street creation have we really seen it.
people socialize and collaborate for purposes, not because of proximity .. and proximity is a dubious concept in an online game. am i really 'closer' or more prone to talk to someone on the same street as me than i am to talk over IM or email with someone i have a reason to talk to?
our in game avatars *are* bots. they're simply bots that we have a high degree of discrete control over. that degree of control can be very useful, but it has very little to do with why people communicate or collaborate in game.
again - what spurs social collaboration is purpose, not proximity. forcing people to only play from inside the game interface won't engender communication, it'll only promote continuing to zip past one another at warp speed with nary a word on the way to complete whatever quest, solo or collaborative, is currently active. it's similar to why social people with dozens of friends might not even know their neighbour's names.
shifting from primary game UI to API based UI doesn't remove the purpose or need to collaborate. it might move some or all of that communication to other venues .. group forums, IM, facebook, email, twitter .. but it doesn't remove the need for it.
indeed, i could see why glitch might want a fair amount of game related social communication to move to other venues. particularly public ones. -
Are there plans afoot to allow for the creation of other things besides streets? Specifically, teleportation machines, street spirits, shrines, etc?
Teleportation devices in particular: I like the idea of streets going up all over like synaptic connections, but I still find getting from one place to another in G to sort of be the drears and I would love to work on creating things that would make getting around easier.
I also like the idea of a group meditating and donating to conjure a street spirit--and then getting to decide what it sells. - Yes! Projects will eventually be available for many different kinds of building/unlocks, including building shrines, larger buildings (like group halls) and, almost certainly, nodes in a public transportation system (as distinct from teleportation).
- excellent, thanks. I think you actually announced this before, but thanks for posting it again.