The Certainty Principle

[niche]

So, I suppose I should let everyone know a little about the project I'm working on right now. This is a very brief overview of what I've planned, and is obviously not complete. I don't want to take hours of your time showing you my precise plans for every aspect of the game, though if you'd like to know something specific, please do ask.

It's big, yes. It's big because I feel I've done enough coding of smaller things to take on a project like this. I'll be implementing it bit by bit, of course, too, which will make it a lot more achievable.

So, without further ado, I present:

The Certainty Principle

A dark shape skitters out from the cover of a deep forest towards the rocky edge of a drop into a crater over a mile deep. The woman, clad in a jet black jumpsuit, noiselessly picks her way through the rubble to the edge of the cliff, and without a seconds hesitation throws herself off. As she falls faster and faster the outline of a series of buildings becomes clear on the ground below, and the woman's concentration increases. The ground races closer and closer, until suddenly, with a mere thought, the operative's descent slows massively and she comfortably lands at a run, kicking up no dust from the sandy ground at the bottom of the crater.

Her target lies only a few hundred feet away now, and she covers the distance in what seems like a heartbeat. A guard on the rim of the facility spots her approach, but she will not be stopped so easily. Before he can raise the alarm, the woman has drawn a blade and swiftly dispatched her adversary. She heads into the compound's west entrance, and pulling out a small detonator, heads for the area defence command room.

---

On the Bridge of the Wakiantai, in high orbit above the planet, the Fleet Admiral stood, patiently waiting for any news to return from the strike team assembled to sabotage key objectives on the ground. He heard footfalls behind him, and turned around to face his smartly dressed second-in-command, who spoke immediately.

"Our operative assigned to the Defence Compound has reported her target destroyed, Sir."

Admiral Scriebner smiled savagely, his scarred face a visage of power and determination.

"Commence the attack." 

Overview of the game
The Certainty Principle is a Multiplayer Sci-Fi Strategy game, in which you control a single faction in a divided universe, seeking to unite it under your own banner. Harvest and Mine resources from planets, asteroid fields and nebulae to build your fleet and manufacture your troops equipment. Dispatch operatives to sabotage key enemy buildings, assassinate key enemy personnel or convert the population of a planet to your cause via diplomatic methods. Build hidden space stations in asteroid fields and set ambushes for enemy transports to capture more resources, and set your scientists to work on advanced technologies that your adversaries cannot begin to fathom.

More Detail
The universe will be a large grid (of undecided size, it will probably be expanded with more areas gradually) with various objects dotted around. Planets, Stars, asteroids, nebulae, black holes, etc will all be present. Players start with ownership of a single planet/space station from which they can start to build their forces, such as Ships and ground troops. These can of course be ordered to move to anywhere in the universe.

On signup, you choose a House from which your faction hails (similar to a race). These grant bonuses in certain areas, obviously depending on which house you choose. For example, if you choose to base your faction on a force of House Morados, you will find your Technology is rather more advanced than that of other players.

Rough Exterior Interface Design
A work in progress, this is the design for the public's view of the website, before they log in (the game itself will be layed out very differently to this). The big empty box will be for the login/registration forms, when I get around to putting them in. I'll probably put some subtle starry background or something in too, to add some more interest to the plain black that's there right now. Also you can  ignore all the description of the game at the bottom - it's roughly what I have planned but pretty much is just there as dummy text.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/niche_scorpius/designv11.png


As I say, it's very early days, and I have no delusions that I'll have all of this done within the week. However, I'm making slow progress with the time that I have, and might have something vaguely playable before too long. I'm not hurrying though, I want to do things right rather than fast.

Opinions? Criticism? I'm open to any good ideas people might have.

[Chris]

Questions:
- how long a round will last?
- what is the goal of the game?
- how are you going to deal with runaway leader problem (aka farming)?
- how combat works?
- how many planets/station an average player will have at the end of the game?
- what is the key asset for winning (number of planets, size of fleet or accumulated resources)?

"Dispatch operatives to sabotage key enemy buildings, assassinate key enemy personnel " - this won't work, if there are hundreds of players it is pointless to destroy a single opponent. On the other hand, if several players gang on anyone they can kill everyone (and they will use multi accounts for this purpose). At the very best you will have nasty KingMaker effect. Also don't forget that around 7% of players (IIRC) according to statistics play games solely to destroy other players rather than winning.

"On signup, you choose a House from which your faction hails (similar to a race)." - I know plenty of games has this, but is still is a bad idea. Player do not know what to chose at the beginning and the choice is crucial. It is OK for standalone game where you play a mission or campaing in a day or two, but for BBG that drags for months...

[niche]

Thanks for the response.

- First question, and the one with the least confident answer. It'd be great if it could just run until someone won and then reset, but that would essentially mean running indefinitely and therefore it would stagnate and people would stop playing. Alternatively, I could adopt the Ogame/travian/tribalwars model and go for opening a new server every 30 seconds and leaving them open forever. I don't think I'd have enough players to do this, though. At the moment my thought is 1 year long rounds, but as I get more solid figures to go on in terms of travel times, etc this may drop. I wouldn't have thought I'd make it any longer, though.

- Ultimately, the goal is to take over the whole universe though obviously this is unlikely to ever occur before a reset. They'll be a points system (calculated based on all the stuff owned) for both individual players and alliances, which will rank players but really the goal is very open ended. If you want to get a little empire going in a quiet corner of the universe and sit there, great. Do that. If you'd prefer to covertly usurp power without directly challenging anyone, fantastic. If you're the type just to go and bomb everything and try to take over the universe, sure. In a lot of ways, it's just a sandbox. Most people, I'd imagine, would be playing to "win", ie control the universe and have the most points, though.

- I've been flirting with one or two ideas here. At the moment one of my favourites is some sort of "honour" based system, where you gain or lose honour based on who you attack. You lose honour proportional to how far below you a weaker player is, and gain it proportional to how far above you a stronger player is. Honour will provide big bonuses in combat. This system would have to be balanced carefully, and I plan on implementing it to also take into account the proportion of your total forces that were involved in a battle. This will prevent low ranked players sending tiny fleets against the top players to gain huge honour bonuses. In this way, the system will reward players sending large fleets against higher ranked players, and punish those who farm the weak.
There are kinks in this system to be worked out, though. I'll be the first to admit that.

- Combat is really quite simple in terms of explanation. Since the game "world" is a grid, ships and stations and planets can just interact with each other through a coordinate system. So, you can move your ship within two squares of an enemy, and fire your weapon systems at them. Due to the nature of a browser based game, there will probably be hour-long reload times, or so. They'll also be simpler planetary invasions - ie when a ship with troops aboard is above a planet they can launch an invasion with the troops. That won't get implemented for a while though, the main method of taking over planets to begin with will be diplomacy with personnel.

- That's a tough question to answer this early, seeing as I have no idea how many players will play the game. Perhaps around 30? It really is a stab in the dark, as I say, and I haven't yet worked out how long it's likely to take to manage all your planets/stations per day. Obviously the longer it takes, the fewer people will own. (This also helps out with the farming situation - if people literally don't have enough time to manage more than 50 planets, it imposes a "cap" on player growth which restricts the advantage established players will have).

- The key asset is planets owned. It doesn't matter how many ships you've got, if you own more planets/stations than everyone else you will win. Of course, in the points score a number of other things will be factored in, but primarily planets are the important things.

I disagree that destroying a single opponent is pointless. What alternative is there but to systematically move from one opponent to another defeating each in turn? Surely you cannot hope to fight a war against more than one at once? That aside, Operatives will have many uses. Assassination I agree has fairly limited use, but suppose one of your enemies has a very skilled operative that's decimating planet after planet - you'd want rid of it. I don't see assassination being used hugely often, but I feel it's important to include it. Sabotage is also useful in my opinion, as I see players organising their planets well - some for mining, some for production etc. If a sabotage mission could cripple the facilities on a mining planet, you've struck a major blow to your enemy. Perhaps the most crucial uses of operatives are espionage and diplomacy, though - espionage to see what opponents are up to, and diplomacy to convert a planet to your control right under the enemies noses, without having to fight. As for several players ganging up, well, I really don't see how it's the responsibility of me as the designer to stop people forming groups and attacking each other, in fact I plan to encourage it with alliances. If 10 people are attacking a player, and the player is on their own, maybe the player should go find some friends to back him up? Multi accounts of course are an ever present problem, and I will have an awful lot of tools coded in to seek out them, as well as operating some kind of community scheme to turn them in. If some get through, as they probably will, then yes, it could cause balance issues. But since when has cheating not caused balance issues? All that I can do to stop Multis will be done.

The point you make about houses is an interesting one, and in part I agree with you on it, so thank you for bringing it up. I can't really think of any good argument against what you said, however I will say that the differences as I've written them out are very, very small, and I always planned to give a full explanation of them before sign up. But I'll take your point on board and consider it, I might well remove the house system altogether.

Whew, long post. Thanks for the feedback

[Chris]

Numbers first.

I have no idea how many players will play the game. Perhaps around 30

Well, if you design for 30 players then it obviously changes everything. But are you sure?
30 players at the beginning is very reasonable assumption, but in a long run... And don't forget about inactives, in one year round you will have 95% inactives if your game is very appealing (but I doubt you will have budget for cute gfx so the ratios will be most likely worse). This adds plenty of abandoned planets to conquer. Also, the game dynamics will change if it grows.
For example my biggest game has like 20k accounts at the end of each round (and it is 3 month round not 1 year), what is the point of damaging one enemy there? Maybe if you are in top 10 and you want to crush the remaining 9 that are above you. But for majority of players? Or conquering all planets by one player? I could imagine one maniac managing like 200 planets, but more?

I really don't see how it's the responsibility of me as the designer to stop people forming groups and attacking each other

Everything is designer's responsibility If players don't have fun or don't like colours of the interface it is still designer's fault

Another example form my game. There was at a time a faction with 600 players. Tell me, how anyone (with "mere" 100 friends, let's ignore those who form 10 or less players alliances) could survive their wrath if there was heavy damaging others option? They could be shaping the game at their whim



Generally, everything you wrote would work with 30 players game. But I would reconsider for what volume you design. 30 players is definitely not a massive multiplayer game.

[niche]

Clearly I'm too asleep to be posting on here. When I said 30, I was meaning the number of planets that a single player might own at the end of a round, not the number of players. I'd hope to get a fair few more than 30 of those

Also, when I was talking about designers responsibility I wasn't trying to say that I shouldn't take responsibility for every decision I make, merely that since ganging up is meant to happen in the game, it isn't for me to stop players being ganged up on.

Your point about huge factions is a good one, though, and one that I've come across myself in one or two games I've played. In some ways there are advantages to imposing size restrictions, but these are easily worked around by the players anyway.

[Chris]

Also, when I was talking about designers responsibility I wasn't trying to say that I shouldn't take responsibility for every decision I make, merely that since ganging up is meant to happen in the game, it isn't for me to stop players being ganged up on.

Fighting alongside alliance members is one thing, massive ganging up on someone who has 0% chance of survival is another.

So, you can move your ship within two squares of an enemy, and fire your weapon systems at them. Due to the nature of a browser based game, there will probably be hour-long reload times, or so.

So, you have to use bots/scripts to play the game, or use password sharing among alliance members.

What alternative is there but to systematically move from one opponent to another defeating each in turn?

Most (or almost all?) BBGs use a system where you focus on your own development instead of destroying others. Player with the most networth/score wins.
Another thing, early elimination is considered a bad trait for a game and it will cost you a lot of money wasted on promotion for sure (you paid for advertising, you got a player, he plays, he is destroyed, he leaves, not a nice perspective I would say ).


Anyway, take a look here: http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatMakesaGame.shtml

[Nox]

I must say Chris make's a lot of great points here
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My feedback:

Ultimately, the goal is to take over the whole universe though obviously this is unlikely to ever occur before a reset.

That is imho a bad idea, because

1)
it's here we go with the principle - the side who has more area can more easily defeat the rest and have even more area thus even bigger chance to conquer the rest etc. etc....
so it will be that when one side reaches some point when they have enought of power the other sides will have a frustrating game throught the rest of the time. I see it in another game - if one fraction rules, then when you come out of protection you're immediately taken down and you're in protection again...not that much fun...

KingMaker effect which Chris mentioned

2) if the sides are balanced, the game goal will have almost 0% chance to occur, so there is not really a point of having such a goal (KingMaker again - why take the effort when I know I can't win)

Example from different game: turn based strategy, 4 months between resets, there are 8 Gates and City per faction and to win each player has to defeat all gates (guarded by NPC armies, increasing difficulty) and conquer the City, when he does, he finished and can create a new account... but to conquer the city only a few out of thousands will achieve and that at the end of the round... I never did, almost managed to get 6th gate but I got attacked. Army at the gate or city is reset after every attack so other players can defeat them too. Yes, it's per one player, not goal for a whole faction together, but players can help each other so it's a team effort

Different example: turn based strategy, 1 monts b.r., each round has one of predefined goal chosen before it starts, like capture the flag (many flags, points for holding, attacker can steal it), all factions have to shoot the meteor or everyone loses, a sun is dying and each faction has to gather enought energy, the one with most wins etc...

So, you can move your ship within two squares of an enemy, and fire your weapon systems at them. Due to the nature of a browser based game, there will probably be hour-long reload times, or so.

I agree with Chris, it's a bit weird. And be able to fire once per hour is a bit... unsatisfying

At the moment one of my favourites is some sort of "honour" based system

I really like this one

If 10 people are attacking a player, and the player is on their own, maybe the player should go find some friends to back him up?

Well...often it's too late I mean... if 10 players attack one...the defender is often set back so far he might not be able to truly come back...

I see this in most of your design - it's easy to be set back, in fact it's a goal, pretty low chance of comeback player-wise AND faction-wise

What alternative is there but to systematically move from one opponent to another defeating each in turn?

In every game I played it was rather the style that a player attack many other's, not causing them a significant losses but since there were many the total gain was noticeable, one wouldn't come across the same players often, and throughout the time meet many different players in combat.
Imagine you're the defeated player, you play for some time, then you're totally annihilated by a number of consecutive attacks and totally loose any chance of competing with players on your level again (before reset), so you create new account, get destroyed again...and again.... it's imho better just to get a number of smaller hits and be able to regenerate and return to fight and be still competitive

[Chris]

At the moment one of my favourites is some sort of "honour" based system

I really like this one

I'm happy to find one point I strongly disagree with

Honour systems have one fatal flaw. If attacking weakers is damaging to you a real player will never do it. At the same time it won't bother at all various kinds of psychopats, multis, mass revenge raids and other things you don't really want in your game. On one side you effectively blocked reasonable tactical strikes on weaker opponent, which are part of the game, on the other you have not stopped crazy damaging strikes. You design goal should be exactly opposite
Even primitive hard limit on allowed score range attack is much better than honour system.

[Nox]

I'm glad I made you happy

That depends on the implementation and various connected mechanics, if the reward from attacking certain weaker player would outweight damage done to you, then a player can choose to do so, of course it shouldn't be significant, otherwise it would lost it's meaning.

I surely would not rely on it as the only balancing feature, rather exactly the opposite, having it only as a support tool, so the hard limit power range could also be there.

[niche]

Wow, so many great points to respond to, I'm not sure I have time for all this typing

Fighting alongside alliance members is one thing, massive ganging up on someone who has 0% chance of survival is another.

In many ways I agree with what you're saying. It's never fun to get crushed by ten players. However, players will all know that they are going into a war game, and whilst I do want to keep the game balanced, I don't want to impose too many restrictions. I'm already saying attacking smaller players is bad, and penalising those that do it. I'll be imposing timed reloads to prevent players from having a fleet wiped out whilst they're offline. All these restrictions get in the way of good, honest warfare, and in my opinion some algorithm to stop more than  5 players attacking one player at any time would annoy users as much as it would help them. Not to mention the potential for abuse.

War is cruel. If someone gets caught without enough friends, that's their bad play. Just like if someone is caught with their fleet out. Making friends and staying protected from being destroyed is as much a part of a strategy game like this as the fighting itself is, IMO.

So, you have to use bots/scripts to play the game, or use password sharing among alliance members.

(Hrm, this next bit of text reads a bit aggressive to me - I've tried to calm it a bit, but sorry in advance. I don't mean to sound harsh or ungrateful )

I don't see your point. This is true of a vast amount of features. Should I just not write a game because a hacker could come along and delete everything? No, and neither, IMO, should I alter a feature because someone could write a script to automate their clicking through it. I will have anti-scripting measures in place to prevent this happening as much as I can.

Most (or almost all?) BBGs use a system where you focus on your own development instead of destroying others. Player with the most networth/score wins.

More of a PvE thing? My game is most definitely PvP, and whilst ultimately controlling the universe is the aim, taking down others is an important step on the way to achieving this.

Another thing, early elimination is considered a bad trait for a game and it will cost you a lot of money wasted on promotion for sure (you paid for advertising, you got a player, he plays, he is destroyed, he leaves, not a nice perspective I would say ).

That's what the honour system is for. If big players can't attack new players, and small players don't have the means nor any reason to, they will not be destroyed, at least until they've had chance enough to have a decent go at defending themselves from enemies.


Right, Nox next.

KingMaker, as everyone seems to be saying with this game, actually. It's a fair point, and one that doesn't really have many obvious solutions, after all, it's quite realistic in the context. However, I do have a few ideas going around my head for positive feedback loops for larger players.

The first requires no coding at all - players naturally reach a point where logging on every day takes hours, and they don't have the time to continually play. Enemies can exploit this by simultaneously attacking many targets and preventing the big player from being able to organise a good defence of every planet/station.

The other ideas are more involved, and are fairly related. Ideas such as an ever-increasing cost for fleet production are in this bracket - ie the first ship you build costs n amount of money, the second costs n+1, the third n+2 etc. If a more advanced function were used to determine price, it would be easy to make purchasing more ships prohibitively expensive once a player reaches a certain size. Another more fixed idea is that of maintenance. Perhaps a single force only has so many maintenance points, and this can only support a fleet of a certain size. This imposes a size cap on the player. Or, to tie it in with my next (recently thought up answer)...

How about the aim of the game is not to control the universe, but to own a single "capital planet" at the end of the round? This would allow an arbritary restriction of, say, 30 planets per player to be introduced and would level the playing field hugely. New players can catch up easily if the restriction is there.

The obvious drawback is, what happens when the 30 planet limit is reached? While players can still fight for the capital, they can no longer increase their empire's size and may bore of the game and leave. Perhaps if the limit applied to planets and not stations...I'm really thinking aloud here as I've not decided what would stop this "stagnation point" yet.

I agree with Chris, it's a bit weird. And be able to fire once per hour is a bit... unsatisfying

Unsatisfying, yes, but far less unsatisfying than coming home from a busy shift at work to find that some player has appeared in your system with one tiny ship, and fired 700,000 shots to slowly decimate your huge, uber-fleet of doom and then captured your planet, all in the 5 minutes you were offline.

Ok, that example is extreme, but something very similar could happen without timers on reloads.

Well...often it's too late

I see this in most of your design

Sort-of covered within the "ganging up" bit above. If people get hit around a little bit, their friends can provide support to get them back up again fast. Rebuilding takes time, that's life. (Hrm, I'm coming across as slightly uncaring of my beloved future players here... )

In every game I played it was rather the style that a player attack many other's, not causing them a significant losses but since there were many the total gain was noticeable, one wouldn't come across the same players often, and throughout the time meet many different players in combat.
Imagine you're the defeated player, you play for some time, then you're totally annihilated by a number of consecutive attacks and totally loose any chance of competing with players on your level again (before reset), so you create new account, get destroyed again...and again.... it's imho better just to get a number of smaller hits and be able to regenerate and return to fight and be still competitive

Again, I've covered the whole "Players getting defeated fast" thing up there, if that's what you're discussing. I think this particular "point" actually began with me mentioning operatives and their roles. Meh

Nox answered Chris' last point fairly well. I'm confident with the right amount of tinkering upon the basic idea I can produce a workable solution to the problem. I'm not saying it'll be easy, though.

Thanks again for all the feedback, it's fantastic to get some other less personally-attached-to-my-work minds to look at what I've put together so far.

[raestlyn]

Let of get this straight; You are making a PvP game where players can have loads of planets that they probably won't have time to manage, cannot compete without friends because gang attacking is encouraged, everything have progressive prices so recovering is very slow and where a single battle can last for several hours so you have to be online all the time?
Where you are going to find players who have time to play 24/7?
Oh, and before I forget, are you going to make premium account system so few players can buy their victory?

[Chris]

So, you have to use bots/scripts to play the game, or use password sharing among alliance members.

(Hrm, this next bit of text reads a bit aggressive to me - I've tried to calm it a bit, but sorry in advance. I don't mean to sound harsh or ungrateful Smiley )

I don't see your point. This is true of a vast amount of features. Should I just not write a game because a hacker could come along and delete everything? No, and neither, IMO, should I alter a feature because someone could write a script to automate their clicking through it. I will have anti-scripting measures in place to prevent this happening as much as I can.

You don't have to make anti-bot scripts. You can get rid of like 99% of scripts by proper design.

In your case, instead of one attack per hour make 24 attacks per day. Now players can sleep and bots are not required to play.

Most (or almost all?) BBGs use a system where you focus on your own development instead of destroying others. Player with the most networth/score wins.
More of a PvE thing? My game is most definitely PvP, and whilst ultimately controlling the universe is the aim, taking down others is an important step on the way to achieving this.

No, not PvE. A different purpose of attacking, you attack others to gain something not to destroy something. You are still heavily thinking in 1 vs 1 terms. Multiplayer has different best strategies. Let's say you can either destroy 2 planets or conquer 1. Which is better? In 1vs1 the answer is destroy 2, because it is zero sum game, enemy loss=your gain. What if it is 1v1v1v... in short 100 non allianced players. You want to take 1 planet then, your gain is far more important, single enemy loss will not help you in any significant way (exceptions for very top players).

Rebuilding takes time, that's life.

Life is not playable. Real warfare is boring, random and the outcome does not comes from your skills but from external factors. Rich gets richer, poor gets poorer, stronger eats weaker. The thing is that all books about war are not representative, these are written from the perspective of survivors (even if their side lost). If a regiment has 90% casualities then you will have a book written from the perspective of the 10% survivors only. In a game it is otherwise, you will have dead speaking The nature of realistic warfare is that majority is eliminated from the game early (on both soldier and on country level). If you want a really realistic warfare simulator, put players in trenches doing nothing and randomly eliminate some each turn from artillery fire, those who survived are winners

Players might say they want realism, they lie


+ copy/paste here 80% of what raestlyn said.

[jannesiera]

There has been said a lot here. I'm jumping a bit too late in the conversation to start quoting everybody but I'll offer my global view on the game and on what is said about it.

The general idea seems a lot like that of Tribal Wars, which is good. It is a proven design with it's strong points and it's weaknesses. The fact that it has a whole different theme and a total shift in some game elements (like moving units over the grid) makes it really stand out. You should play "Space Empires IV" because it looks a lot like your idea (or maybe it is even where you got your inspiration from?). On the other hand you can see that Tribal Wars is not an easy game to manage and your game has even more complexity, so you have to be very carefull!

Many of the points made by Nox and Chris are valid but should not be too much of a problem if you have thought it through. The fact that Tribal Wars works shows that a few of the views they offer can be different in reality when done properly. You should still listen very carefully to what they say though, since it is the basics of almost every strategy game.

Review your design regularly. Otherwise it will get messy and you won't remember where the fun is anymore. Try to review your design from different angels (newcomer, veteran, business, hardcore player, casual player). It might help to define a clear target audience. Review your design with every change you make!

Now, I'll go more in detail regarding features, game mechanics and structure.

First of all I agree with Chris that it is a totally meaningless act to add "races". It will not only provide more unnecessary complexity that doesn't add any more fun to the game, it will also scare of beginning players in the early stage of play (too much complexity is confusing) and while registering.

More fun ideas will come along regarding specialization and differentiation (which is a good features, since it adds more surprise and replayability to your game). For example it's fun to play with ideas of research and technology or earning medals rewarding good player skills on a certain field with bonusses (for example "good trader") etc The sky is the limit! (that's what I like about game design)

About the 1vs1 fights, alliances, ... I see the concerns Chris and Nox have. I recognize parts of the problem in TW or understand where they are coming from. It shouldn't be too much of a problem though.

I clearly see what sort of gameplay you try to encourage since I'm trying to do the same with a design of mine (you can read all about "General's Map on my blog). You really try to encourage the strategy and everything that comes with it. You need to be careful not to forget your role as game designer and you need to recognize it's not going to be as easy as you think it will be. You need to trust me on this one. I suggest you start of with a really simplified version of your game and make sure it has no design flaws, think through every little aspect. Good strategy is very hard to make (unlike average strategy, which is easy to create but boring).

My solution to have smaller scaled battles and tactics instead of big alliances etc is too make the distances between players very large and to add various other elements. You were already talking about blackholes and astreoids. I'll ilustrate:

An astroid field could have much resources too make you stronger but there aren't that much fields. Players will come from far but the ones with planets closer will have a clear advantage. It's a key point in the universe. Black holes have a pretty big range of influence damaging ships that go through it. Since plaeyrs have to travel far they will try to conquer key planets on the edge of the blackhole's influence etc. "Key" really is the keyword here! Instead of having random fights attacking weaker players or gathering alliances. (alliances would be a pain in the ass since players wil lay much to far from each other to easily cooperate). Space travel would become an important aspect.

This idea will off course be flawed too but you can modify it to your needs.

About early elimination etc. Players should have an opportunity to start again, or in another world. The idea that they would have to create an other account is silly because it speaks for itself that you don't ever should have to create another account when you don't have anything left :S.

Regarding that and the game goal. In the design for General's Map I decided to create multiple small worlds where players could participate. at a certain point these worlds would be full off course. Worlds with +- 200 planets would be much smaller scaled and players could have a global overview about what is happening in the world (with much more personal involvement than in bigger worlds) and even when taken out they could still follow what is happening in that world. Medals are given to the top players which they would show of in other worlds. (winning condition could be anything really, in my game it will probably be capture all the capitals, 10 or so)

There are just so many advantages to that system... There would be a lot of worlds if you have much players but that isn't a problem, is it?

When having a huge world (like TW) where the player with much points wins is also a good option. It is proven and it works. You are totally right that it would be some sort of sandbox. There are off course always some sort of drawbacks but there is no need to criticize one option when another option isn't much better. A reset isn't neccecary in my opinion, multiple worlds are though.

Don't underestimate how you need to balance battle and make it fun. It is never simple. Even when you are aiming for a very simple battle system, it's very hard to really make it fun enough.

---

There is a lot I'm trying to say at the same time. I'll be happy to reply others with criticism since that's a lot easier way to make my point clear . Try to read my post twice before replying though. Because of the fact I'm trying to explain a lot at once you might need to read between the lines  to really understand what I'm trying to say. Like I said I will be happy to explain better when I have the opportunity though.

---

One last thing: what's up with the name "the certainty principle"?

[Chris]

The general idea seems a lot like that of Tribal Wars, which is good. It is a proven design with it's strong points and it's weaknesses. The fact that it has a whole different theme and a total shift in some game elements (like moving units over the grid) makes it really stand out. You should play "Space Empires IV" because it looks a lot like your idea (or maybe it is even where you got your inspiration from?). On the other hand you can see that Tribal Wars is not an easy game to manage and your game has even more complexity, so you have to be very carefull!

Finally, a high casuality/farming games lover! 

I have to say I completely do not understand games like Travian/Tribal Wars/Ogame. I was wondering if these are popular only because huge advertising or maybe I'm missing something crucial in their gameplay appeal? Is there anyone who likes any of these games? If so, could you try to explain why these are fun?

I was playing them for a while and from my perspective the gameplay looked like that: I build some structures, then these force me to wait longer and longer to build, but let's say I can manage it when I have a lot of time and I'm bored. Next I build fleet/army and raid inactives to get resources. I could say everything is still fun and interesting. Then one day I forget to send my fleet/army out from home as I usually do, when I return my whole forces are destroyed, the resources from them are collected by enemy harvesters. I click logout and never login back.

Is your gameplay experience different from my? Or maybe you have similar experience and you find it fun?

A reset isn't neccecary in my opinion, multiple worlds are though.

I like resets better, anyway, just read this, it has balanced opinions listed for both solutions:
http://community.bbgamezone.net/index.php/topic,834.0.html

[jannesiera]

The general idea seems a lot like that of Tribal Wars, which is good. It is a proven design with it's strong points and it's weaknesses. The fact that it has a whole different theme and a total shift in some game elements (like moving units over the grid) makes it really stand out. You should play "Space Empires IV" because it looks a lot like your idea (or maybe it is even where you got your inspiration from?). On the other hand you can see that Tribal Wars is not an easy game to manage and your game has even more complexity, so you have to be very carefull!

Finally, a high casuality/farming games lover! 

I have to say I completely do not understand games like Travian/Tribal Wars/Ogame. I was wondering if these are popular only because huge advertising or maybe I'm missing something crucial in their gameplay appeal? Is there anyone who likes any of these games? If so, could you try to explain why these are fun?

I was playing them for a while and from my perspective the gameplay looked like that: I build some structures, then these force me to wait longer and longer to build, but let's say I can manage it when I have a lot of time and I'm bored. Next I build fleet/army and raid inactives to get resources. I could say everything is still fun and interesting. Then one day I forget to send my fleet/army out from home as I usually do, when I return my whole forces are destroyed, the resources from them are collected by enemy harvesters. I click logout and never login back.

Is your gameplay experience different from my? Or maybe you have similar experience and you find it fun?

First of all, I don't love farming at all. Second, my playing experience is totally different from yours. Structures indeed take longer and longer to build but at a certain point your city is full and building is just a side activity. You are busy in your alliance and seeking targets / protecting your villages. You need to keep an eye open for other growing alliances in your area, which players may form a threath later, who you could become your friend to back you up, ... Messaging people is also a main activity. You want to know your enemy, since there are really lots of people playing with different motives and playing styles. Revenge can be a strong motive etc. Playing with friends is what makes it really fun though. The alliances wars are interesting to follow to.

About the farming. In the beginning it can indeed be a good source of income but many players don't even take the time to farm after a few villages (since you don't really need it). It really won't hurt if you don't do anything for a few days on TW...

I really liked playing TW (most of the time) but like every game it also had flaws. I find it boring after conquering a few villages, i could never manage over 100 villages :O. Though I liked starting again a few times. I played it a while ago but don't anymore.

The reason I got into it was because of friends. I don't think it would be as much fun without playing with friends. Friends is what got me into it, contact with other players is what kept me there.

A reset isn't neccecary in my opinion, multiple worlds are though.

I like resets better, anyway, just read this, it has balanced opinions listed for both solutions:
http://community.bbgamezone.net/index.php/topic,834.0.html

I'm not saying I think multiple worlds are better in general but I think they are for this particular case. That is because of many reasons. When you have smaller worlds you could set an end goal, when the game is finnished it is just done. Players can always startv again fresh in a new world when they are whiped out, instead of haaving to start again in a world they know they can't win. When having huge worlds people also like to start again in another world where they have more chance of "winning" although that is almost impossible. It's just the feeling they have. When you reset one gameworld they big players who have achieved something or the players who are busy achieving things (batteling a big target in wars, ... ) would be upset.

[niche]

Let of get this straight; You are making a PvP game where players can have loads of planets that they probably won't have time to manage, cannot compete without friends because gang attacking is encouraged, everything have progressive prices so recovering is very slow and where a single battle can last for several hours so you have to be online all the time?
Where you are going to find players who have time to play 24/7?
Oh, and before I forget, are you going to make premium account system so few players can buy their victory?

As I said, I'm currently working on a limit to the number of planets players can have. Gang attacking is not encouraged, no, merely allowed.  Evidently most people in the gang will find it quite easy to compete with friends, to slightly twist a good joke, statistically 9 out of 10 players are quite happy with gang attacking.

I don't think I mentioned how the prices will work yet. That system will be the result of a lot of balancing, and to be quite frank I doubt it will be entirely "progressive" as you put it. Sure, bigger ships will cost more, but combat will not simply be "whoever has the most big ships wins". You'll need a combination, and that means that higher level players will still require large numbers of cheaper ships. I suppose the system will still essentially be progressive, though, yes.

With the battle system I'm pondering working on a take of what Chris suggested, ie 24 attacks per day rather than one an hour. It seems like a better way of working the system to me.

I've met a lot of sad people in my life that are on browser games far more than is healthy - this is my target audience
(Only kidding, hopefully my game will not require 24/7 attention...)

I've not even mentioned premium accounts yet. No, they will not be able to buy victory. Premium accounts might have small benefits such as customisable themes, identification ingame with a special image or something, no ads, customisable planet/ship names etc. They may gain very minor benefits with the game itself, like an inflexible script that produces a set number of a particular ship each day, or something. Nothing game-winning, I'm not *totally* thick.

You don't have to make anti-bot scripts. You can get rid of like 99% of scripts by proper design.

In your case, instead of one attack per hour make 24 attacks per day. Now players can sleep and bots are not required to play.

As I said above - this is a good point, I'll probably do something along these lines, though it may be 12 every 12 hours, since I want to give a benefit to people who can get online a bit more than others. Again, this will be a case of balancing, though.

No, not PvE. A different purpose of attacking, you attack others to gain something not to destroy something. You are still heavily thinking in 1 vs 1 terms. Multiplayer has different best strategies. Let's say you can either destroy 2 planets or conquer 1. Which is better? In 1vs1 the answer is destroy 2, because it is zero sum game, enemy loss=your gain. What if it is 1v1v1v... in short 100 non allianced players. You want to take 1 planet then, your gain is far more important, single enemy loss will not help you in any significant way (exceptions for very top players).

Planets will not be destructible (though space stations will). This means that every time someone takes a single planet, they are not only depriving their enemies of one, they are also gaining it themselves, like you said. When I say taking down others, I don't mean destroying all they own, I mean taking over all they own - thus giving you control of more of the universe. Although with a planet limit of around 30, like I am pondering adding, this is kind of a moot point anyway, since players won't be able to take whatever planets they wish.

Life is not playable. Real warfare is boring, random and the outcome does not comes from your skills but from external factors. Rich gets richer, poor gets poorer, stronger eats weaker. The thing is that all books about war are not representative, these are written from the perspective of survivors (even if their side lost). If a regiment has 90% casualities then you will have a book written from the perspective of the 10% survivors only. In a game it is otherwise, you will have dead speaking  The nature of realistic warfare is that majority is eliminated from the game early (on both soldier and on country level). If you want a really realistic warfare simulator, put players in trenches doing nothing and randomly eliminate some each turn from artillery fire, those who survived are winners

Players might say they want realism, they lie

A very good point and one I hadn't really thought about. I would say, however, that "realism" is not bad by definition, merely bad when taken too far, and I have no plans on taking it too far.

I might stop using it as an argument for my design being ok, though 

Jannesiera, I'll start with the easy question

One last thing: what's up with the name "the certainty principle"?

In some ways, it's not very important to the game itself, but still. In the little intro I wrote, you may have noticed that the operative managed to slow down her fall without any kind of clever technology, and also run very fast. This kind of "magic" in my game gets explained by the certainty principle - ie if someone can convince themselves 100% that something is going to happen, it will. The idea is only a small amount have the type of brain able to do this, though, so only some can use the principle.

I've done quite a lot of work figuring out all the kinks in the "power" if you will, but I won't go through it all unless you particularly want me to. When I write something up explaining it in full for the game I'll post it somewhere on the forums.

You should play "Space Empires IV" because it looks a lot like your idea (or maybe it is even where you got your inspiration from?).

Never seen it in my life. I'll give it a try, looking at the screenshots it looks worryingly similar to what I have in mind :S. We'll see.

First of all I agree with Chris that it is a totally meaningless act to add "races". It will not only provide more unnecessary complexity that doesn't add any more fun to the game, it will also scare of beginning players in the early stage of play (too much complexity is confusing) and while registering.

Yeah, most people seem to be saying this. I'll drop the "races" idea, methinks. Thanks.

I suggest you start of with a really simplified version of your game and make sure it has no design flaws, think through every little aspect. Good strategy is very hard to make (unlike average strategy, which is easy to create but boring).

I think this is how things will start out anyway, since I'm making it a very modular game the simple stuff will come first. This'll mean a very barebones game with no bells+whistles to start with to allow me to get the basics working well before I add new stuff in.

My solution to have smaller scaled battles and tactics instead of big alliances etc is too make the distances between players very large and to add various other elements. You were already talking about blackholes and astreoids. I'll ilustrate:

An astroid field could have much resources too make you stronger but there aren't that much fields. Players will come from far but the ones with planets closer will have a clear advantage. It's a key point in the universe. Black holes have a pretty big range of influence damaging ships that go through it. Since plaeyrs have to travel far they will try to conquer key planets on the edge of the blackhole's influence etc. "Key" really is the keyword here! Instead of having random fights attacking weaker players or gathering alliances. (alliances would be a pain in the ass since players wil lay much to far from each other to easily cooperate). Space travel would become an important aspect.

This idea will off course be flawed too but you can modify it to your needs.

I love the idea of making space itself a dangerous place, and may well "borrow" this idea in some form or another. Certainly black holes were always going to be dangerous, but if they affected a large region of space and forced players to plot routes around them, it could add a large amount more strategy. Of course, this isn't something I'd implement straight off, but I still love the idea.

About early elimination etc. Players should have an opportunity to start again, or in another world. The idea that they would have to create an other account is silly because it speaks for itself that you don't ever should have to create another account when you don't have anything left :S.

Regarding that and the game goal. In the design for General's Map I decided to create multiple small worlds where players could participate. at a certain point these worlds would be full off course. Worlds with +- 200 planets would be much smaller scaled and players could have a global overview about what is happening in the world (with much more personal involvement than in bigger worlds) and even when taken out they could still follow what is happening in that world. Medals are given to the top players which they would show of in other worlds. (winning condition could be anything really, in my game it will probably be capture all the capitals, 10 or so)

There are just so many advantages to that system... There would be a lot of worlds if you have much players but that isn't a problem, is it?

When having a huge world (like TW) where the player with much points wins is also a good option. It is proven and it works. You are totally right that it would be some sort of sandbox. There are off course always some sort of drawbacks but there is no need to criticize one option when another option isn't much better. A reset isn't neccecary in my opinion, multiple worlds are though.

Don't underestimate how you need to balance battle and make it fun. It is never simple. Even when you are aiming for a very simple battle system, it's very hard to really make it fun enough.

Worlds as opposed to resets is, as I said to Chris, something I'm very indecisive about at the moment. Both have their advantages, and disadvantages. I think I'm currently leaning towards worlds now, but my mind is fluctuating regularly . I certainly like the idea of having both smaller and larger worlds, and of course as many games like this do, "speed" worlds which run much faster than regular ones.

Then one day I forget to send my fleet/army out from home as I usually do, when I return my whole forces are destroyed, the resources from them are collected by enemy harvesters. I click logout and never login back.

I think this is the difference between the players of these types of games and those that don't like them. Those that like them will often carry on playing and rebuild when this happens, and enjoy it. Those that don't will go and never come back. These types of games are all about community, even more so that other BBGs, IMO.

[Chris]

Structures indeed take longer and longer to build but at a certain point your city is full and building is just a side activity.

Interesting... You mean the whole building delay is not crucial to gameplay? Why they put it there? Only to push people for buying premium? Or just so they spend more time online?

It really won't hurt if you don't do anything for a few days on TW...

Really?! How? Were your tribe teammates defending you during that time? Or others were afraid to attack because of tribe revenge? Or maybe the combat casualites weren't so bad?

Worlds as opposed to resets is, as I said to Chris, something I'm very indecisive about at the moment. Both have their advantages, and disadvantages.

This is bad, rounds and persistent games are designed different way. For example in 7-day round game runaway leader is irrelevant while in permanent game it is absolutely the most crucial problem. You should select sides early here.

Then one day I forget to send my fleet/army out from home as I usually do, when I return my whole forces are destroyed, the resources from them are collected by enemy harvesters. I click logout and never login back.
I think this is the difference between the players of these types of games and those that don't like them. Those that like them will often carry on playing and rebuild when this happens, and enjoy it. Those that don't will go and never come back. These types of games are all about community, even more so that other BBGs, IMO.

Logical. But I wonder if there is another point as well, these game could be designed for people who have more time. From perspective, if I were online every 8 hours each day without breaks I would be safe and there would be no way for anyone to destroy my fleet...

I've not even mentioned premium accounts yet. No, they will not be able to buy victory. Premium accounts might have small benefits such as customisable themes, identification ingame with a special image or something, no ads, customisable planet/ship names etc. They may gain very minor benefits with the game itself, like an inflexible script that produces a set number of a particular ship each day, or something. Nothing game-winning, I'm not *totally* thick.

Take a note that all the "no ingame benefits for donators" was posted by people who don't have a game online yet. Once you have to pay the bills the perspective changes

since I want to give a benefit to people who can get online a bit more than others

Why?

[jannesiera]

Structures indeed take longer and longer to build but at a certain point your city is full and building is just a side activity.

Interesting... You mean the whole building delay is not crucial to gameplay? Why they put it there? Only to push people for buying premium? Or just so they spend more time online?

It really won't hurt if you don't do anything for a few days on TW...

Really?! How? Were your tribe teammates defending you during that time? Or others were afraid to attack because of tribe revenge? Or maybe the combat casualites weren't so bad?

How advanced a city is really is crucial. Instead of building though you are occupied by conquering and defending cities. In the beginning the building is important but after a while there are huge cities and tiny cities, so there is an interesting balance between capturing a big city (which, usually, is hard) or capturing a small city (which, usually, is easy) with less income.

So it certainly is crucial to gameplay but if you have a few cities you can afford to loose one. You'll just take revenge the next day! It becomes a game of tacics.

For me there are 3 stages in TW gameplay (not the same for all players in a world at the same time but the same for all players starting at the same time):

1. Building stage.

At this stage it becomes clear who has the most experience and it is preparation for the next stage (who will be the strongest when stage 2 begins?). It is an interesting stage for beginners since they get to know the game and it is interesting for veterans because they can analyse the world (players / cities) around them.

On the other hand it can be a bit boring too and farming is the biggest problem at this stage. Because the farmers have the opportunity to grow the fastest and rule out all other players.

2. Tactics

The fighting begins and cities are conquered. At the beginning of this stage a new player might stop because his / her city is taken and they have to start again. Luckily there are also "empty" NPC cities to take, which helps a lot for some players I think. At this stage most alliances can prove their value.

When you have conquered a few cities it becomes a battle of individuals and alliances to become the strongest in their region.

3. Boredom

When you have too much cities, too much people to take into account, a strong but annoying clan, ... It becomes boring and at this time I usually stop. I really can't get the players with 100+ cities but there really are more of them than you would think.

---

TW isn't the best game ever but I really did enjoy playing it. It has it's flaws (like: farming, extreme timing to the second, having to be online too much, ... ) but they are not to be generalised. I won't say you like it if you give it another try though. Not everybody likes the same games (obviously) but I hope you can see my point of view .

[saljutin]

whole building delay is cruical to gameplay....BECAUSE if you are online at the time to upgrade your farm,mine you gain some more resources compared to guy who is online 2-3 times per day. lets say some active non sleeping person will come online 5 hours before that player who is the same rank as him...lets say next level of house needs 30min to build and adds aditional +20 resources per hour, that means that more active person will gain 100 resources advantage. And because he is doing it that non stop that gap between them will only become bigger and bigger and then on some point that better guy who will be able to have bigger/better army can crush that other guy and use it as farm.

also allowing people that more time spend on game - better they are -> they will become so good that people who dont have so much time wont be able to have any chance and would quit....I am trying to create something where strategy and planing >> time spent on game - but still not successful with ideas they all fail at people feedback hehe

[raestlyn]

Hey, I have nothing against some minor benefits that donators would get, just don't get carried away. In 4X games like this the benefit might seem small at the begining, but become huge in the end. I saw it happening in couple games before..
Best donator benefit was on a rpg where you got alternative game currency for each dollar you donated and you could change them to other things like gems. The game had 24h resets where your energy was halved and then you got 250 more, so you couldn't save the energy without losing some of it. You could use the donator currency to buy tokens that prevented it, but at the begining no-one used them that much, only when they were on vacation etc. After a year one math-talented guy made some calculations and started saving the energy and pumping their stats by other means. After 6 months when he used his energy he had more stats and almost the highest level in the whole game because he could fight the harder monsters than others. He had bought the tokens for 2 years when he started because you could get 10 for dollar at the time, but after the energy usage the price went up for 1 for dollar. They were still sold. The donation amount went up from 300 dollars a month to 5k.

[jannesiera]

@saljutin

You are calculating for a 1vs1 fight. In reality it's getting along and cooperating with other players that brings you victory. So in a world with multiple players at same distance from each other combined with human stupidity your calculations are almost worthless.

On this forum I see a lot of people thinking abstract or focussed on 1 problem but often they seem to miss the bigger picture. Game design isn't about calculated features but about creating a world with it's own rules. A fun game is often to abstract to be totally calculated, people are just too unpredictable.

I totally agree with you that player skill should be more important than time spend on the game. I think that a game should represent a set of specific skills and that you get better at it while playing (=practising). While it is fun doing so. Like chess for example. (Note that this is about strategy games, the rules for other games might be different, e.g. farmville on facebook is something totally different)

[saljutin]

@janne

I played Travian on S1 when 1st Eng version was available and I was leader of TOP5 alliance and our alliance was in some sort of bigger "alliance" formed of 3 or 4 big alliances, and we won this server. So TW is basically same game mechanics as Travian. How were we so big? I found my members to message people with big population around me and we farmed others (smaller pop means smaller land development) with lower pop. So that is this thing I tried to explain in my post. If you fall behind other you become farm. This are not calculations this is logic...best guy on server was someone who registered when server started and he was using premium features to be there right on time to upgrade new building.

But I must admit that those days travian was "new" to users (before that only German version) and it was not so farming/raiding based. I am not telling this is bad thing, but you will loose people who like your game but don't have all the time in the world (e.g. login when needed even if it is 4AM and job at 8AM).

And if you look today's BBG market filled with mafia/RPG clones - guess people like to play non stop? But also when I had my own game and I had some sleep credits (8 credits per day, each credit gives you 1 hour of automated banking but u cannot attack at that time). People like that option some even wanted to have more sleep credits. But maybe devs use such game mechanics because they are easy to think/make/fix/optimize and because such game mechanics attracts people who pay 5$ to get some more turns etc.

[niche]

Take a note that all the "no ingame benefits for donators" was posted by people who don't have a game online yet. Once you have to pay the bills the perspective changes

Yeah, there will be ingame benefits. It just won't be things like "50% increased attack on all units for $5".

Why?[/quuote]
Because I think that someone who can dedicate an hour a day rather than 10 minutes should have an advantage. I'm not intending to make it impossible to play unless you're online 24/7, but a little more activity should be able to increase your standing a bit.