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Perpetuum Forums → Posts by Gharl Incognito
Why not, the hordes of little spiders crawling over those walls would be so fun... And a -75% speed debuff is a pretty strong passive "AOE demob".
So true. You get hit with an L-Demob while making a risky move through that terrain and you're cactus. This is a really good idea.
buy Ice.
Tux you sig is so apt in this case it;s uncanny
YEEEEEAAAAHHHH, more LORE!!!! Everybody loves reading about games!
<Edit> Complete sarcasm btw, I loved lord of the rings but I do not wanna play fing gimli or whatever his name is I just dont care.
Exactly so, why play Gimli when you can build your own Mordor(I'm looking at you terraformers) and then do whatever the hell you like there.
Downside to this is that a storyline, even an amazingly loose characterization in fact, denotes the role an entity plays within a story. If a character is named Cain they are usually a bad guy or a 'hard boiled' good guy... the characterization associated witrh Cain a la Biblical hubris engenders that response.
None of that exists in Perpetuum so all characterisation is subjective. It was great fun 'hateing' on CIR and the Sov Nov back when I was a member of FOOM. I bore no ill will towards anyone in the Sov Nov group, it was just fun to have the characterisations to build my characters game story. Now I've 'joined the dark side' as it where and it is fun for the same reasons.
Emotional investment is great for game immersion, crossing that border into vilification is the danger. That's what happens when a swathe on individuals are given carte blanche to shape the world. Introducing a level of self imposed moderation could be a good thing(i.e. attack your enemies instead of everyone).
YEEEEEAAAAHHHH, more LORE!!!! Everybody loves reading about games!
Yes, they do... that's why so many games are based on movies, books, TV shows, etc... There is a reason sequals attract more money if an origninal was good. In a sandbox players make the story... if the majority of the population are ego driven the story end up like Twilight... except with a vain person staring at a kill board mirror not Shovelface the Vampire.
The biggest incentive I can think of for runnig a single account is more economic control and player market centralization. In game I have the same aversion to taxation that made Greece strong; this grew mainly out of seling bits and pieces to the NPC corps when I was Corpless and/or unable to create my own sell orders en masse.
If people were able to engage with the market easily and centrally there would be more incentive to play solo accounts and to do so on Beta and Gamma Islands. As it is taxation on Alpha Islands is FAR too low and resources FAR too abundant; as a result farming NIC is really easy if you have enough accounts.
Even when the player count was quite high it was never really an issue to find the resources you wanted on Alpha islands... except Epitron of course(who cares if you can sell everyhing else for a mint?). Oddly enough I now find that Gamma islands are, relative to size and travel times, quite low on resources. I suppose this would be a good thing if they were more accessible for markeet orientated players. Enter indiscrimminate ganking...
Another thing Eve has is easy access to danger. In perpetuum the 'easy access' involves a shipload of time walking(trundling if you're not savy with the T4 LWF fits) to get to the 'cool' danger areas combined with a very high chance you'll be ganked on sight no matter who or what you are. Corp alligience is hardly as strong as killboard alligience and this damages the potential 'story world' of perpetuum.
If unaligned Joe Blogs the solo newbie could do some scanning or minor mineing on Gamma(the SAPless PvP/Player controlled areas) then there is potential for new life also. On Beta this was never possible due to SAPs being hackable by anyone and thus 'aggressive defence' becomes the logical option. Gamma islands offer a far greater potential then just massive war zones, they make it possible to make economy and industry wholly player focused.
Pretty much nailed it there Syndic.
That said bringing a human element to the game has two sides. Creating a Gamma Outpost that acts like a sort of Nian Switzerland, offering friendship to everyone, claiming no territory and acting purely as a commercial/industrial hub could be awesome, more so if it was predicated on building an energy transfer station not owned by one of the Big Three(faction corps) as this would be a wholly story driven goal and could lead to all sorts of shennanigins... both player and dev side
The downside is it would almost certainly be raided into nothingness after a day or two. Get's you thinking though.. what could you do with one point in Corp Management?
Where players and accounts can't cut it, Devs can.
Amirite?
I'm not sure what that means.
Honestly the most pressing concern is the massive lag spikes. They seriously screw with anyone who doesn't have a beast of a computer. Many many older players use laptops now: mine can run World of Tanks, Mechwarrior Online, Hawken, Civ5, CS:GO and Deux Ex without issue... but combine the rendering with internet latency for those mega-walls and it stutters down to slide show level(granted I'm playing from Australia but my internet is still pretty turbo speed).
The physics thing bugs me because it looks silly and amaturish. I'd love to build a Gamma terminal with Niacrete walls but it seems the done thing is making a mini-Mordor instead. I can understand walls being used to block missiles but if you make a low land wall and then put Niacrete walls along thee top you could seal it off from plasma bomb attack anyway couldn't you?
P.S.: Syndics stil here! Can I still engage in purile flame wars using clips from old Australian Comedy shows even thought we're kind of on the same team now?
So having seen some of the results of terraforming walls on Gamma islands I find myself wondering how much gravity Nia has?
As it stands the land-walls that can be made are really absurd. Physics aside(clearly) they are total lag monsters. If the game is hoping for growth with the Steam Greenlight then making it as accessible as possible should be a priority.
Reduce the possible height of a terraformed tile in proportion to the tiles around it. Making a landwall should be possible, making a Nia based Osgiliath should be possible, making a bit of dirt 100 feet high with no supports should not be possible.
These land walls also negate the need for good old fashioned concrete(or Nia-crete).
Terraforming is awesome but it's overpowered right now.
Exolis nails it.... market is dead means player base follows. PvP Players meed Indy players to create the stuff they want to break. Indy players need a mobile market to stay interested... another option would be to scale down the price of bots
Gharl Incognito wrote:QUESTION: If Perp goes live on Steam how will that impact on those who play from places where Steam/Valve services cannot be accessed?
Will you maintain the integrity of the Perp Servers?
its not that valve will buy the game. most steam games are just sold there and got some extras like achievements added - thats it.
I understand that. My concern is that connect via Valve will become the SoP. When I say places where Valve cannot be used I mean places where Valve's I.P.s are blocked by a really Great Firewall(nudge nudge, wink wink).
As it stands Perpetuum doesn'tpop up on the VPN ban list because it's not a going concern in that respect... it would seem thaat Valve is. That's why I'm asking about the posibility of maintaining a direct connect option.
Make F2P accounts very restrictive. They do not get access to all Extensions(so Assault Bot is is big as they get- both Industry and Combat.. and no Sequers), have a cap on available EP, and are restricted to selling on to the games core corps and manufacturing on Alpha Islands.
You could maybe introduce Syntec bots(no bonus abilities, no HP bonus from mechanics skills, etc...) for them to tool aroud with... you could make Zerging Gamma imposible if a Gamma Station had an ECM pulse that only impacted on Syntec bots but cycled very consistently.
You can bet Yagle sales would skyrocket after a few weeks...
With enough grind time they could maybe buy an ICE but then you make them sellable only on Beta and Gamma and people buying ICE is people buying ICE...
QUESTION: If Perp goes live on Steam how will that impact on those who play from places where Steam/Valve services cannot be accessed?
Will you maintain the integrity of the Perp Servers?
Just c+p an idea I was kicking round on the TOG forums:
My 2c: A registration app. It runs and connects to one of 50 different IP addresses (using a shared algo to choose which one), it then authenticates with this mini server and adds your IP address to an upstream IP filter hosted by the ISP. This then allows you to login and not have your IP address blocked by the ISP.
In order to attack the game or login server the botnet would need to have all it's IPs registered and so reveal all the compromised computers, or all its traffic would be blocked by the ISP whitelist filter. It also prevents the randomised IP address commonly used in these types of attacks. If the attacker instead targets the mini authentication server, then the attack will only prevent people with a new IP address from registering, and only for the brief period of time that the login app is using that IP. Once it changes to a different server IP (remember it rotates around 50 different addresses) the registration will work again. The only effective attack is to block all 50 addresses, at which point you simply update the registration app with a different 50 IP addresses.
This would stop the attack from affecting anyone at home (ISP already known), and anyone already online (registration server is not the game server). The only people that could still be affected would be people with a new IP address which need to get it registered. In order to take down the registration servers would need 50 to 100* the size of the network of bots to achieve the same effect, and load on the registration server would have no impact on the actual game server/connections anyway.
McCeej is building a Death Star in his shed...
Plaeyers 'Takeo Prime' and 'Arga'; thank you for rationalised comment.
ed.
If this were to go ahead 'I' would cese to engage in Perpetuum as a player and would as such request feeback, as biased as you like, from players and player groups. The inate cynicism and skepticism of experienced game communities is one of the variables being evaluated.
EDIT: Also, do not take this as any kind of insult whomever you may be but I and my editors have read all of the Perpetuum fan fiction on offer; the is motivation and a smattering of content. More is required to make readable stories.
Another question for the forum warriors; would a character driven narrative or a graphic novel format be preferable; both are options at present. What other languages would be needed to reach the player base; French is not a concern, if a language based in the cyrillic text were used then there would be only one.
I tried employing a measure of subtly in my speaking to the players, I also asked that those prone to aggressive response show a little restraint. Both appear to have fallen short of the mark; that being the case I'll speak plainly.
I have been working on an interactive story concept based in the Perpetuum game world. It would require significant input from the player base, both active and passive. This interaction would be needed not to direct the players but to take direction from their actions; put plainly you would give me orders.
I have already put together a solid and concise exegesis mapping out the concept. This is predominantly concerned with expanding on the existing Developer created back story and selecting specific players and player factions to form the story base on a month by month basis. My regular illustrator is also quite keen on including a graphic novel element as well as the standard narrative(any excuse to draw giant robots) though the cost my prove untenable.
The crux of the matter is I have conditional approval from my publisher to run this as an 'e-zine' (online publication for those who've not encountered the term) but the condition is that my editors are satisfied the game environment offers enough variety to maintain a minimum of quarterly publication.
Again TOG members, really really sorry to take advantage of your kindness. Your help has been invaluable and shall not be forgotten should the project go ahead.
Development Team: You should have received an email from my 'money man' regarding creative licence; it favours Avatar Creations heavily.
Stopped reading at this point. I just cant stand people telling me how I should play a game, specially one as open ended as Perpetuum.
Above we find the essence of the problem: Celebro, the game tells you how you must play; it is not a choice you have. The concept behind what I spoke of was to make that process dynamic, to alllow the player to tell the game how to behave through interaction. Interaction as opposed to obdurate head burying; this is a sandbox after all... do you really want your head to be under it?
'Alexander you're character is as valid a part of the story as the robo-jocks that kill. Greed and jealosy are classic motivations for conflict; your multi-billion NIC deal to shift x Units of Epitron may just boil the proverbial blood og your Alpha based compeditor so mch that he'd risk his Syndicate protection staus to hire Mercs ordered to destroy your miner fleet whilst they travel on a Syndicate protected highway...
The Miners are destroyed and the Syndicate owes you an explanation... who is to blame? The Mercs did the deed, no more protection for them, no more Alpha islands... but how to take revenge on the one who hired them... you sneakily bribe his transporters.... suddenly his weeks supply of Titan ore is in your bunkers not his... "oh, and we just plum lost the paperwork"
Conflict is everywhere... it' doesn't need guns... it just needs lattitude.
And Alexander... why's Epitron so valuable? Why are the Syndicate corps so so keen to aquire all the Plasma they can? What is that laser the fires into the sky? Tinfoil hats, tinfoil hats...
So, I took a small break for personal reasons,RL stuff(christ I hate deadlines), but now I'm thinking of coming back... and I've had a horrible realisation: If you don't stay in Perpetuum constantly the sheen slowly vanishes. Firstly, I love this game; I love the world, the bots the people who play(even the ones I troll)... I love it all... more then anything I love the creative potential. So, what's happened to me?
I'll let you in on a secret, I approached Avatar Creations proposing a dynamic story concept that would feed off the goings on within the game world. A.C. would of course retain full editorial discretion vis a vie the content but the concept was, when reduced to total basics, the creation of an interactive, charcter driven story.
With a wary and justifiably conditional nod from David Maros I put together an exegesis outlining a dynamic plot in which the games population and developers would form the characters and hence dictate the plot. Once completed I took said exegesis to my publisher and we harangued back and forth over details, mainly the fact that the story was, in theory, never ending. The end result was positive... until now.
I've come back after a very brief break and nothing is happening; there are no more epic battles, no more wresting control of territory. The Super Pacs here make the U.S. electoral process look like a sewing circle.
To the Players: Stop being kissing cousins! Get out there and act like you want something more then Sid Meier in Space. PvPers... you're the god damned conflict... get on with the internal betrayal and make it bloody!
To the Devs: Why is everyone getting Syndicate protection when they have their own island holiday home. They want independence then make them take it with blood and oil! I have a plethora of justifications for it and they work within the present game mechanics.
I was going to send this as a private email but it's as stale as week old bread in here. There are plenty of MMOs around and none of them have what Perpetuum does; minimal back story, an unlimited time frame unimpeded by causality and a population that is by and large intelligent enough to engage in a dynamic story. Perpetuum is a Fort Knox of untapped creative potential.
The purpose of this comment is to gauge the reaction of the community, both players and staff. If you wish to 'troll' this post please keep it brief as I shall not be the only one reviewing it. Interactive stories have been attemptedf before and have usually failed under the weight of preconception; Perpetuum does not suffer that burden.
To TOG members; I am deeply sorry if you feel that I have used you as a 'focus group' of sorts. If I do end up back in this game I honestly hope you'll let me stick around. If not then kill me for all you're worth. Either way you have my thanks.
What he is really thinking:
er... merry christmas.
Just a thought; it might be nice to let folks have their family time without being concerned about their intrusion timers. No, I'm not in an outpost owning corp. Just thought this would be a nice change for the community.
Personally i would like to see the developers add more dimensions to the pve &pvp combat/mining&production and possibly economics/diplomacy aspects of the game.
Adding various theme-park-y additions and calling it content is a never ending void that must be filled since those activites lose their luster quickly.
Adding more dimensions to what we are already doing is how you add to sandboxes. I would like to see more reasons to do what we do in game, other than aquiring NIC and padding e-peen. I think that is the biggest drawback in the game, im either feeding my NIC desires or im aiming to wreak havoc in pvp. It seems those are the two ends to the means in the game. Develop this aspect, providing more "sand" for the existing sandbox is what people typically ask for in sandboxes as far as development. Only problem is, doing so requires unique thinking and its why the route of adding themepark type activites and polishing existing systems is the only route taken when developing sandboxes.
What he/she said; a game needs to be engaging. When you make a sandbox game you are essentially writing a story with no control over its characters actions. That being the case their environment MUST direct their actions in a manner that is conducive to the continuation of the story. When you add the concept of absolute freedom from ethical accountability you end up needing possible environmental engagement that will suit every personality from Genghis Khan to Gandhi.
In the case of Perpetuum the content is already there; it just needs to be moulded a little to produce the required desires.
Perpetuum Forums → Posts by Gharl Incognito
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