EVE's free market grind.

When I first started playing EVE, the experience that got me interested in trading, was when discovered an item being sold for half what a prospective buyer was offering. Enough was available from both seller and buyer, that I was able to double my money twice.

Now, having played EVE for a few years, I've started looking back at my experiences in the hopes of gleaning some insight into what motivates me, and drives me forward.

The first lesson: When I joined EVE, I did so because I saw two of my friends playing and was intrigued by what I saw. Now, I find much of it to be boring and uninteresting. My friends have mostly left, and nothing I do seems to have much significance anymore.

Second lesson: The market, is actually very similar to the experience grind of standard MMO play. It's a process of continual advancement, with increased cash supply leading to greater profits. In this instance though, the "level limit" is determined by the cleverness and resourcefulness of the player. When I started out, it was fairly easy to continually increase my income. After several changes in business model, I eventually reached a point where my return on investment became very small, and continuing to grow seemed almost pointless.

Unfortunately, my experiences in EVE are somewhat tainted by the windfall of the Invulnerability II BPO I was lucky enough to acquire. Initially, the income received from it was no greater than what I earned from trade. It was a nice bonus, but not a huge deal. This bonus eventually grew to completely overwhelm my trade profits, and became a large part of my enjoyment of the game. I could throw money around with little concern, and did so. Even when the beneficiaries were complete strangers, the sheer size of the contribution I could make was enough to bring me great joy.

When this windfall eventually shrank back to about what it was near the beginning, it became difficult to maintain any interest in the game. I had enough money to buy anything I wanted, but not enough to really make a difference for the people I was with.

Now, looking at the game again, it seems difficult to shake the feeling that I've hit my "level limit". It seems much like I've reached the end, and there just isn't much for me to do anymore. Yet, for some reason, I find myself looking for ways to be interested again. Things that might hook me once more, and allow me to relive the joys of the past.

Idea one: Extend the "level limit". The game could use more methods of automating systems. Ways to reduce labor, while contributing to the economy. One idea I'd like to see, is a form of automated Loan. The basic idea, is to have a loan, that stays available until accepted, and upon being paid back, is immediately put back up. This would make it easier to keep loans available to others, enabling me to make money on less effort, while also making more money available for use by other members of my corp or alliance.
I'm not sure how to structure the payment to have a contract stay up that isn't used, however, for the replacement of the loan after it is paid back, the fee could be taken from the initial interest payment.

Human improvements

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html

Wow, it seems keeping cool is a major part of human endurance. Can't wait to see what eventually comes out of all those DARPA projects.

So many buttons.

Why do so many games demand players to be proficient in using half a dozen (or more) different buttons? Why don't they design games to use fewer buttons?

One trick I'd like to see used more in games, is allowing a single button to have a small list of abilities attached to it. Each time the button is pressed, it cycles to the next power. An example of this type of trick, is the Combo Button in GodHand. This sort of design can add an element of "deck building" in setting up the power list, which is part of the reason I like it.

The Pursuit of Games: Designing Happiness

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3675/the_pursuit_of_games_designing_.php

Despair

Might of sorrow,
Might of pain.
Might of having nothing to gain.

It's hard to fight,
Without a light.
Nothing to hope for, nothing to gain,
Just a lingering sorrow, and pain.

[dead-link]A real powersuit.

http://www.physorg.com/news130078697.html

Wow.

Difficulty

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3660/the_designers_notebook_.php?page=1

Personally, I think it's best to mix dynamic difficulty adjustment with player set difficulty. Basically, just let the players adjust the minimum and maximum difficulty.

An important thing to include with dynamic difficulty adjustment, is some form of reward or encouragement for doing well and reaching the higher difficulties. An example might be Godhand which announces difficulty increases with applause providing a warning (enemies will be harder now) and a reward (you're doing awesome!). Unfortunately though, Godhand doesn't offer a truly easy "easy" mode.

Webcomics

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/hammock/estancia/series.php?view=archive&chapter=6545

I guess I like weird stories.

Thank you to whomever...

http://doublebuffered.com/2008/05/09/ea-does-something-right/

I'm very glad to hear that EA is switching to a one-time authentication instead of that every 10 days horror they proposed originally. I can actually accept the new policy, yay!.

A reason to boycott EA

http://doublebuffered.com/2008/05/07/eas-new-copy-protection/

If they really put that kind of copy protection on Spore, then I guess I'll just have to not buy it. I'd been looking forward to Spore, but that kind of copy protection just offends me.

Some interesting posts on game design.

http://doublebuffered.com/2008/02/28/18/

This guy impresses me. The quality of his posts and insights on game design are better than I'm accustomed to seeing by quite a lot.

More stuff:
http://doublebuffered.com/2006/12/31/integrating-talk-and-game/

Classes vs skills

http://doublebuffered.com/2008/03/13/character-classes-and-skills-why-they-suck/

I can definitely agree that more games need a way to separate role and style in character creation. I often end up going against type in class based systems, because my preferred style/role combination doesn't get much (if any) support.

The obvious answer to the issue of having to choose between solo or group character design, is to allow easy respecing. If a person can easily switch between a group or solo setup, then they are no longer constrained to just one or the other.

I believe the primary issue with having characters that only work in group play, is the issue of being able to make a character that is dependent upon the presence of other characters to work right. The two examples I can think of right away, is the tank who needs others to deal damage for them, and the blaster who needs a tank (or really good healer) to protect them. A part of this issue is the fact that two specialists is almost always better than two generalists.

The most straight-forward fix I can see to the dependency issue, is to give each character a minimum level of damage and defense. One way to do this, is to make offense and defense no longer a trade off, making choices more a matter of style (I would consider any power that reduces damage taken, such as knockdown or knockback in CoH to be defensive).

One way to make solo characters more capable in groups, is to ensure that all characters have a way to contribute their defensive abilities to the aid of others. If their defense only protects them, it becomes useless any time they are not attacked. It would also be useful to give solo characters or powers, advantages that only appear while grouped. Normally, a power that raises the characters damage is less effective in a group than one that lowers enemy resistance (due to the other party members benefiting from the latter) but if the damage raising power provides a larger boost when allies are around, then it no longer suffers that weakness.

Making group characters more capable solo runs into issues with flavor. If someone wants to play a character whose concept is ally buffer that has little real power themselves, trying to make them capable alone doesn't make much sense. One solution to the issue, is to offer NPC allies for people who want a party, but either can't find one, or just don't wish to deal with real people.

Limiting focus fire in EVE

An idea occurred to me regarding the restriction of focusing fire. One way to limit the effectiveness of focused fire, is to limit how fast ships can die. My favorite idea for this was to limit how fast structure could be lost. This could provide a minimum survival time for ships, as well as differentiating structure from armor and shields, by adding a significant difference in function. (An example of how it could work: a ship that gets shot for 5k damage to structure, might lose it's structure at a rate of 1k/second instead of having the 5k taken off immediately.) I'd recommend having structure repair then reduce the damage queue before providing any increase in structure.

If one wishes to require that the ship remain under fire while the structure goes down, the a simple way to enforce that, is to make ships not die as long as shield or armor is above a certain threshold (thus forcing people to not let their opponent rebuild their shields or armor).

Other ideas I had included various forms of invulnerability time (10 seconds after first taking damage; a module that triggers limited invulnerability each time a damage taken threshold was reached; etc...), but I greatly dislike invulnerability time in general.

Random Thoughts: Hellgate

While playing Hellgate: London, I've come to realize that a large part of the enjoyment for me, is finding neat effects that I like. An example is the Surge Caster (later, the Storm Caller) which basically creates a field of electrical mayhem around me. Meanwhile, the Shockshell grenade launcher was horribly boring to me, though I found it effective.
I wonder how much the strategies Casino slot machines use to keep players entertained and playing, might work in other video games. Essentially, big visual stimuli, and positive sounds can encourage continued playing. If the view itself is entertaining, players may demand less depth.

I actually wish I could automate many of the powers in Hellgate: London. I always find it awkward to try and manually activate more than one or two powers in games.

My general enjoyment in games tends to come from two separate parts: Planning a strategy, and watching the outcome. In Hellgate, the planning is often early in character development, then the gameplay is largely the watching part, seeing how well the idea works. For me, making this entertaining, is more about two key things: clearly offering information (so I can figure out how well/poorly the plan works, and why), and having easy, enjoyable visuals and sounds. I'm more interested in watching and learning, than focusing on skill (such as: practicing my speed and coordination).

I believe that my tendency to lose interest in a character after finishing the main plot, is due to my lack of interest in the gameplay itself. By the time I've finished the main game, I've figured out how effective the strategy is, and need no more time to learn. All that's left, is to try something different from the beginning again.

Impossible Ideal

The image of the ideal forever haunts.
An impossible thing that doesn't let go.
Forever hating what is, for what isn't.
It can be a creative drive, or an unending misery.

Random Writings

Silly thoughts permeate the mind.
One's views, twisted by time.
The future of truth, lost in rhyme.
'till the seekers discover, there's nothing to find.

The mind...

http://www.thelocal.de/11295/

I don't see why free will cannot exist within the subconscious.

CoH: Offenders

I feel like Sonic/Sonic is the easiest way to add a lot of damage to a team as a defender. Shriek, Scream, and Sonic Siphon make bosses go down quick, while Disruption Field and Howl allow ally AoE to tear entire groups apart. Sonic Dispersion is also a handy little buff though it doesn't add damage, except by preventing people from being held or stunned.

Disruption Field is a very expensive toggle, and should be slotted with Endurance reduction enhancements as soon as possible.

Note: I personally believe all Defenders should get Assault and Tactics from the leadership pool, which is why I didn't bother mentioning it as part of the Sonic/Sonic offender build. Just make sure you remember to put 3 endurance reductions in each, and to hit buff enhancements in Tactics.

A chaotic mess.

Breaking time. What exactly can it handle?
Lets find out, pick a time already high in temporal activity.
21st century Earth? Interesting.
Identify the characters of interest, and we'll have a chat.

Hmmm... a mad scientist unintentionally creating heroes.
Let's see if we can speed this up. I'm sure she'd be interested in my proposal.
How many times will she travel back in time?
I'd estimate about 10 times before someone catches on and stops her.
Need to find more.

A link

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_84/474-A-Play-within-a-Play

More evidence that character matters.