Background for those who don't know... I'm designing a sci-fi MMO with many many elements. bla bla bla. now to my problem. Basis: One of the things I will allow players to do is modify their ships. This can be anything from Increasing the speed, manouverability, fire power, sheild strength, nav computer speed, ... overall ship efficency. First of all, many parts are not interchangeable on the fly. While inflight, you can't change your engine or guns. You must first go dock your ship at a space station and then change it there. It could also take some time doing so. This doesn't stop you from carrying it on your ship though. The modifications i have mentioned are exactly that. Modifications. Not new parts. Imagine for a moment the Millenium Falcon. (I know. It's just easier to describe than to explain in detail another ship.) Han can do modifications within the ship. He doesn't have to dock it. But it's just small modifications to fix problems or to increase speed. (or in many cases to get the hyperdrive to work). Now the game... Instead of aiming a tool at a specified mod area and pressing fire and seeing if it did anything, I'd like to have puzzles to solve to increase or possibly decrease the ship's efficency. If you suceed you might increase it, fail you'll decrease it. If it's damaged, it will get decreased so you might have to be constantly trying to increase it. Puzzles: I need help with the kind of puzzles to use. Should I have every puzzle solveable? Maybe if the puzzle isn't solveable, have a reroll to change the puzzle. I'm thinking i'll have all puzzles random which would include unsolveable puzzles. Also to have them have a time limit to either choose to do the puzzle before kicking you out of the puzzle screen and then a time limit to complete the puzzle. The higher the efficiency, the harder the puzzle. The purpose of the puzzle is to get rid of the regular boredom and give some challenge when trying to at least "skill up" your ship instead of just pointing a tool and pressing fire. Ship modifications: Another type of thing to do to your ship is replace parts that are small enough to fit into a hand. which could possibly modify your ship. I was thinking these parts would have to be placed together properly... no snap together units. They won't also snap together in the place they will go on the ship. They will use a 3d (if i use a 3d engine) view where you can move the part in all 3 axis. Everytime you have a peice in place, you'd need to fasten it and if it didn't go it would just display an error. You'd have to put the tool down and replace it. I know it might begin to sound frustrating but it might help in getting the player to have some actual skill in putting things together. This would also be transferable to any new characters they get. As you would have already known how to piece together a power coupling. Recap: There's circuit modifications (puzzles) and also hardware modifications (3d models). What are your views on this? [edited by - trapdoor on October 19, 2003 2:48:54 AM]

You seem to be crossing different genres that won''t work well.

Don''t make puzzles that you need a clue book.
Thing that get hard to assemble and it’s a puzzle are real things. Try to dismantle or look into a car, vcr, tv when it breaks and you can see how it works and what a puzzle it is to remember where some things goes after you take out so many things. One of the space quests Space Quest was like what you said in a part where you have to fix your ship.

Good luck

I had written an extensive draft document for a game that would have this ship upgrade feature. If you are really doing this then i''d be interested in talking with you about the gameplay.

You said MMO, but not RPG. I think your puzzle idea is a good one, and if you aren''t going to have a "maintenance skill" for your character, then it''ll be simpler.

You have to make a big choice, though. Do you make it a puzzle that can be coded easily and will engage the usual cognitive functions, or do you make it a simulation of the system being worked on?

In the first case, you can have a malfunctioning warp drive suddenly turn into a Tower of Hanoi or Mastermind, giving it a bit of an educational, "learning-game" feel.

On the other hand, you could require the player to manually reconfigure the wiring in the ship''s innards. That''s tricky.

Those are the extremes, and the golden mean can no doubt be found between them. This is a new and innovative idea, and it will require a huge amount of thought and elaboration. Depending upon your ambition, you may need to compose rule sets for dozens of novel challanges. I look forward to seeing what you wind up doing in this case.

I would most likely go towards puzzles that would fit the type of game. No solitaire games or pong type stuff to solve . If they must build a part, they need the correct pieces and put them together right. If you don''t then it''s possible to break them. It will go in even if it isn''t set up correctly because you need to test it first. When testing, things could go wrong. If they are using "cheat sheets" to put them together, it''s no different if I was fixing a car with a manual beside me. I''d like to make it difficult enough that skilled mechanics (players whos career is a mechanic) would do things a lot faster with less mistakes. I don''t think i have a problem coming up with the hardware puzzle. I just have to come up with many many parts and how they would go together.

The other puzzle is more along minicomputer programming and curcuitry type mods. This is the one I have more problems with. I want it randomly generated whatever it is. Not 200 puzzles in rotation. People would easily begin to have cheat sheets or just solve those puzzles after a while. I want it to be very unsure and sometimes not solveable. Sorta like if you were working on a computer and made a change to one of the settings, It may have increased the speed but might have made it a little unstable. Or it''s more stable and the communication panel goes screwy every now and then. Or if you happen to fail one, there''s the odd chance you''d blow another part somewhere else and have to replace it.

But I don''t want something that''s just totally luck. I''d still want some skill involved. That a master mechanic could easily make great modifications to the ship with the least risk of damaging something.


as far as gameplay goes. here''s two posts I''ve started that help describe what the game will be a little like Lastest on Massive PvP and Permadeath and Older topic on MMORPG Basics

This sounds a lot like the Java game I started playing, Puzzle Pirates. For example, if you're on a ship and water is filling the hull, you play a puzzle game to empty it. To load the cannon, a different puzzle. Swordfighting is another. It's not implemented, but crafting will have one too.

It's pretty fun! It's SORT OF a MMOPG (massive mutliplayer puzzle game), if you will. I don't know how else to describe it. Worth a look though; might give you some ideas for implementation.

EDIT: BTW, I'm all for games where you can increase YOUR skill, and not your characters. Some people are good at Tetris, and could score higher than me. It's not because they played longer necessarily, but they're good at it. RPGs are somewhat frustrating in that your strength is completely related to play time.

[edited by - Peon on October 20, 2003 2:10:50 AM]

Yes that is something i''m definitely aiming at... building the skill of the player and not have the character level related to playing time spent.

Just to clear things up. The type of puzzles are not unrelated to the game. It''s a sci-fi MMORPG. In the future. In space/on land. The puzzles won''t be something like a game of chess or cards or even some math puzzle. It is directly related to the game. You have to manually build the addons to your ship and even put them in place. You have to solve wiring problems. Reroute circuitery. Even program the addons to better your ships performance.

Sounds like a neat plan, if implemented properly. Just be wary of introducing a frustrating, boring aspect to your game. As in "I''d like to upgrade my sensors, but I''m really not going to spend 2 hours of circuit-clicking for it."

Marijn

I think this sounds like a great idea. I loved all those car racing games where you could buy new engines/tires/whatever. It''s always nicer to upgrade something you have than getting a new one, since you get more attached to that vehicle

One thing I''m kinda against is:
"If it''s damaged, it will get decreased so you might have to be constantly trying to increase it."

If I have struggled to get something working, and in a second by getting shot, I loose it. I get sad/mad. After 2 times I get frustrated. After 3 times I "see where this is going" so I stop careing (stop _trying_).

What is your target audience? Real mechanics? Then a simulation of circuitry based on mechanical parts might work great. But if the target audience also are normal players then try to color match and/or shape match the parts in some way that even if you don''t know that the Gurglaflex is connected to the Lithium Chrystal through the Thingamagig you''ll have a shot at getting it right.

}-- Programmer/Gamer/Dreamer --{

Sounds like you''re heading towards a circuitry simulator...

One thing I''d suggest is allowing "black boxes" - sealed modules that just plug into standard connectors and carry basic functionality - so you could either use "off-the-shelf" solutions or build your own (potentially) more efficient ones. For MMO elements, trading black boxes should be possible - either stock ones or "home-made".

As a crude analogy: most people are happy to buy a complete PC, never crack the case and replace it in 5-10 years (less time for corporate machines), a number of people buy the individual components (case, motherboard, sound card, video card, disk drives etc) and there''s undoubtedly a very small minority that gets out a soldering iron, a supply of transistors, chips, diodes, etc and builds (some of) their own components. It sounds like you''re tending more towards the soldering iron/handful of chips level than the plug-and-play cards level.

Depending on what sort of details you want to add, it may be worth considering implementing software upgrades as well - after all, having a hyperdrive capable of making U-turns at full speed is no good if your control software can only handle "stop" and "go"

Another thing to bear in mind is that you''re effectively inventing a cut-down sci-fi''ed up physics, so you need to have some way for players to discover the theory behind it all - after all, if the tribariun crystal resonates at a specific frequency that drastically improves the efficiency of the space warp hyperdrive at apparent speeds which are half-integer multiples of light speed, then you need to allow the player some way of discovering the space-warp oscillatory tremors that make the whole thing work (well, actually, you could just leave it to trial and error, but having a consistent theory lurking in the background will make the player feel a lot happier about it - particularly if he can come up with a way of tuning the tetraboron glass to variable frequencies as a result - or apply the same effect to the weapon systems or something)