Topic

An epistle to the devs

Dear devs,

You've made it clear, through word and deed, that part of your goals for Glitch are that players interact in groups, and that repetitive behaviors, not being fun, should be avoided.  These are goals I laud!  I want to see varied play, and group activities in Glitch.

Specifically, nerfing cheese making on no-no by adding a delay to the production of dairy products (rightly) made a very rewarding repetitive behavior much less rewarding.  Speaking as a former cheesemonger, I'm glad you did this.

Rook attacks and street projects are built as group activities.  Recently, Party Packs seem to be designed to encourage group activity.  I'll admit, I haven't participated in a Party (that was paid for), so I can't speak to the success, but I also can't say I'm drawn to them.

What I'm concerned by is this: the way that the skill tree, and the auction house interact produce the following effect reliably.  Players become economic islands unto themselves.  
It's *almost* too demanding to accumulate enough skills to fulfill some game-economic goal on your own - but not quite.  It's still very feasible to mine your way into large houses and much favor, and the mining tree is (relatively) short: a week covers the whole thing.

The auction house, as it functions today, is a race into the arms of arbitrage.  Players who can collect a resource easily drop it on the market for 80% of it's base cost where it is reliably purchased almost immediately by the literal crowd in Cebarkul and resold to a vendor.  Prices above that are quickly undercut - listing fees mean that it's a loss even to try to sell above minimums, so sellers ensure that their items will at least stay on the front page.

There are also structures in the skill tree that weakly incentivize economic independence.  For example, the fact that Refining II is required to craft a Grand Ol' Grinder means that a player needs to be on the Refining path anyway in order to make the best tools for the job.  Toolmaking as a specialty is weakened as a result.

So at present there are incentives and counter-incentives to find a cycle of harvest and crafting and do the whole thing yourself.  Mine, sell chunks and donate gems.  Keep herd, sell meat and milk, donate eggs.  That kind of thing.  These are solitary, repetitive pursuits.  But they're rewarding, and both variation and interdependence are not.

If I were the only one to feel this way, I'd have kept this to myself, but daily there's a new forum post that touches on the auction house, or the skill tree, and I believe these complaints all touch on these issues.

I put it to you that the best way to encourage variation and interdependence would be to change the Auction house.  I personally think the best change would be to add buy orders and a last-sold price for items.  Likely, the auction house would need to be more prominent in the world - at least be added to the main site navigation.  

I would predict the the result would be that players would check the market prices of things they can produce, and decide what to do on a game-daily basis.  It's possible side deals would spring up, but regardless, a miner who needs earthshakers would drive up the price, and other players would have a reason to break out of routine to fulfill the demand.  If the price of earthshakers goes to high, miners can buy food or consider other activities.  

Altering the skill tree - the addition of new skills and activities with their own feeds into the economies of the game - would also help.  It might also be beneficial to throttle daily energy refreshes, or to ramp up glitch attacks and street projects (possibly even: the one requires the re-do of the other.  But, their help would be magnified by a change in the auction house. 

It's distressing, having come to these conclusions, and seeing other players frustrated by what I see as effects of this core issue, not to at least hear a developer comment about this, since "macro-economic changes are coming..." which have yet to have had an effect.

Sincerely,
Yarrow

Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

Previous 1 2
  • Just to add my two currants to an otherwise excellent post, I would like to raise my hand and say I am one of those people who look at the auction house to see what's selling high (yesterday it was wood beans), and then manufacture those items where I can see a high rate of return.
    I also look at the auction house for certain resources (herb seeds, for instance, or raw ore for smelting and "tonging").
    Great post: I totally support it.
    ~CTP
    Posted 14 months ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've stated many of these things in some form or another elsewhere.  

    I absolutely +1 this post.  

    And I haven't said it elsewhere, but I agree that the complete lack of developer feedback on these issues is distressing.  Not having any concrete idea about the direction and priorities of the game is the main thing preventing me from subscribing. I would really like to see the glitch blog be an active discussion of what the team is considering, planning, and what may be implemented in the near-future, rather than just marketing news encouraging me to buy my glitch a new outfit.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yes, you can learn every skill, but that doesn't mean you can actually use every skill simultaneously.

    today i'm a miner, tomorrow i'm a cook. this week i'll be a rook fighter, next week i'll be a street builder.

    that's ok.

    that said .. the addition of the teleportation skills and the change in the auction system [commissions and listing fees] has put a damper on this flexible interdependence. before, you could use auctions to move items from one activity center to another faster than a player could travel back and forth. this created situations where one person might harvest and send resources to a player at a street project for processing. due to the ubiquity of most skills, if anyone got bored they could swap roles during the next street project or phase. malleable interdependence.

    the new mail system is slower and more expensive than just teleporting yourself, which changes the game considerably. you also need to find a dispatcher to send the mail, for no good gameplay reason that i can ascertain. so you just TP instead.

    i don't like the idea of limiting skill development to certain areas at the expense of others. i like how the current systems allows a player to shake up their 'role' on a daily or even hourly basis.

    but there needs to be a way to emphasize cooperation. before, that was through geography - promoting auction based transport and teleportation parties and the like. now? i don't know what that is. the auction system does support economic interdependence [somewhat] but there is something really impersonal about it.

    nerfing the TP skills seems like overkill, but having more activities in TP blocking zones - other than just mining - might stoke the fires of cooperation a bit, especially if the shielded activities generated some collective benefit.
    Posted 14 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "i don't like the idea of limiting skill development to certain areas at the expense of others. i like how the current systems allows a player to shake up their 'role' on a daily or even hourly basis."

    I want to clarify my position on this issue.  I feel like the current setup of how skills are made dependent means that a player who can craft powders or grand grinders must also be able to mine and refine, so there's no room for a player to decide that they only want to supply refiners with tools or buy unsmelted chunks.  The existing tendency to be and island is reinforced: "I had to get mining anyway - might as well mine the chunks myself."  "I had to get refining anyway - why not GO'Gs myself instead of selling them?"
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting thoughts on teleporting... I hadn't considered that but I think y'all are correct. The ability to quickly teleport anywhere does have a major effect on the way I play the game and, once I discovered I could use credits towards TPing, even more so... I no longer feel the need to hoard my TPs and today realized that I actually kinda miss the subway. I wonder if just getting rid of that would solve some of that problem?
    Posted 14 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1. Right now I'm finding myself very much as an "economic island." Haven't seen a street project in over a week, and have never seen a Rook attack. Did a party and that was fun, but I would love to see more structural supports for interaction in the game -- and fewer perverse incentives to go it alone.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pease Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If anyone want to encourage to ride a subway, maybe slow increase their mood/energy while riding? :)
    Posted 14 months ago by Inspirare Subscriber! | Permalink
  • re:subway -- higher chance of Rube appearances would also be a nice incentive. It might even make it worth it to miss your stop! :)
    Posted 14 months ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • While I can't use them simultaneously, I do use them in succession.  On my way to travel to a mining area, I gather food products.  When I get there, I create Earthshakers.  Then I mine.  Then I teleport home, make any seasoned eggs or beans I was planning on, make food for my next session, grab some flaming humbadas from my storage cabinet, do up some refining, then make any powders I;m interested in before logging out and posting any excess to the auctions.  

    I am completely self-sufficient, aside from the occasional hairball and purple flower purchases.  Both of which are completely unnecessary to enjoy my play sessions.  

    And I had no intention of ever doing anything with alchemy until I was forced to in order to learn Botany.  

    I really don't see teleports as having anything whatsoever to do with the OP.  Without teleports, the current skill system still allows players to be islands.  I'm willing to bet there was also more communication and cooperation in the beta because the population was smaller and players were more familiar with each other.  The increase in population not familiar with game mechanisms that beta players were already aware of---street projects and rook attacks---confounds such a conclusion.  It's just as easy to conclude that new players aren't aware that there are collaborative activities and thus the decrease in cooperation has nothing to do with teleports.  Plus, there aren't any street projects while they revise the system, and rook attacks are still rather uncommon.  So without ports, there would still be little collaboration among players.  Besides, teleports are a useful convenience that take some of the "blah" out of travel and will likely feel even more necessary as the game expands.  

    I really don't need any of you in order to enjoy the majority of what this game has to offer right now.  And that's not very multiplayer or massive.  Or social either, and they have termed this game a "Social MMO"

    I don't think there needs to be a skill cap.  Learning a skill doesn't have to eliminate the chance to learn another anymore than it does now.  But since we can only learn one skill at a time, there should be advanced skills that are significant time sinks.  Then specialization occurs naturally, and complete self-sufficiency is only possible when one has been in the game for six or so months.  Right now, six weeks in, I'm completely self-sufficient, and that wouldn't be changed by taking away my teleports.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Yarrow: I hate mining. Passionately. I like every type of crafting, however, so I spent an hour getting Mining I in order to learn the other crafting skills and get 98% of my ore by auction or trade. At some point I learned Mining II so that if I didn't want to wait for an auction, I could mine for myself, but I have no intention of going any further down the tree until/unless I learn every other available skill--the same was true during Beta.

    I don't in general disagree with your post; the auctions definitely need an overhaul and more overt incentives to specialize would be welcome. The removal of seasoned beans and eggs from vendors is a good move in this direction and I look forward to more changes of that sort as the game evolves.
    Posted 14 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So are people asking that the game be designed to force players to interact from the very beginning  instead of allowing players to interact? 

    It seems to me that forcing people to interact, and not allowing people to be self-sufficient if they so desire, would eliminate quite a few of the current players and also limit the number of new players who would find the game interesting. 

    There's already a lot of gentle nudging, but fortunately it's not a requirement. 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What gentle nudging are you referring to?  

    If the game does not force players to interact, why have other players at all?  Why should anyone pay a subscription to play such a game?  

    I'm not saying there aren't answers to these questions -- I'm asking honestly.  But I have to wonder what the point is in claiming a game is a social mmo and then not attempting to encourage social behavior or massively multiplayer gaming.  And I have to wonder how many solo-only players will still be playing a few months down the road.
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There's lots of ways the subway could be improved, but the benefit to the game would be more limited than improving the Auction.
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • At the moment, the gentle nudging is early quests that require you to interact with other players; later quests that require you to help newbies, and the totally group-oriented rook attacks and new street projects.  The quests are optional, so if you want a solo experience, you can have it.

    If the game doesn't force players to interact, then people have a choice, at all times, whether they want to engage in group activities or play alone.  Eliminating options and narrowing the audience after more than a year of design and testing for a broader market doesn't seem to be warranted. 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Is someone forcing you to use auctions?  I think its working pretty well.
    Posted 14 months ago by Friend Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do you believe there are self-sustaining non-repetitive activities that will reward solo only play for those same players six months from now?  What single player game do you play so often that you would be willing to pay for it over and over again each month?  Solo players tend to be the tourists of online games.  They check it out and leave, with little to no attachment to the community to keep them there.  

    I don't think making it so that players have to look for components on auction or have to put in more time to have all the desirable skills have anything to do with eliminating solo-only play anyway.  But nice straw man.  

    @Friend:  I believe he is laying out the issue that there is no incentive to use auctions and that the skill system is actually built to remove any need for auctions, so your question is missing the point by a few miles.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "social gaming" may just be a few of my friends and me hanging out in a group hall and chatting, taking pictures of ourselves in our cute outfits.    It doesn't have to involve producing goods for the Glitch community.  Social does not have to mean players being required to hook up with other players to accomplish anything in the game.  That's a very limiting definition of social. 

    You can bowl by yourself or with your buddies.  Choosing to bowl by yourself doesn't make bowling less of a social activity.  Nor does the lack of joint effort to achieve a score make it less social.  I'd describe bowling as a social game, but it certainly doesn't preclude someone spending hours and days feeling like they've had fun knocking down some pins all by themselves.

    And Glitch is not about driving players into subscription mode.  They have said repeatedly that free players will have all the same access to features that subscribers will.  The only difference will be decorations for your character and your house/hall. 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I use auctions all the time.  It's quite useful for buying and selling. 
    Posted 14 months ago by Friend Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally agree with Windborn.

    I like how this game doesn't force you to send requests to 50 friends in order to complete a quest. That's the way on so many Facebook games, where spamming the wall feed asking for items is the only way to finish certain tasks.

    I think social activity is already encouraged in areas such as mining; if you mine with multiple people you get higher bonuses. There are also some quests that require multiple people to help, but it's not a demand for every single quest to require help. So as far as game play, I'm very glad there's a balance unlike the way Facebook social games push you to start mass chaining/spamming to achieve results.
    Posted 14 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In other words, you would be perfectly happy playing any game with a chat box, and have no need for online gaming at all.  So why are you here?  

    And while the game plans to keep all features free except vanity, the game, and the company, will fail if players do not feel it is worthwhile to subscribe.  Retention keeps their jobs.  It's basic business.  I'm sure in marketing meetings no one is saying, "how do we keep it so no one ever subscribes?"  I'd expect to hear things like "how do we keep it so that all features are free but that players WANT to subscribe for a long periods of time in order to support the game?"  

    Glitch is not the only game that profits from subscriptions that are not needed to access all of the game.  But it is still a product, and they are still a business.  I want to have a reason to play glitch in six months, and I'm sure tiny speck would like me to still be paying in six months.  No business can survive on constant turnover, not when their only income is subscription-based.  Are you actually rooting for the game to close down in two months?  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't see why people are so concerned when the game is just starting out, and over 80% of Ur hasn't even been released yet. Who knows how many untold features are in the pipeline waiting for their scheduled release? It seems like people are analyzing this too prematurely without knowing all that's behind-the-scenes.
    Posted 14 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • And actually, if I bowl by myself, there is nothing social about purchasing my lane and renting shoes.  What a ridiculous, clearly false statement.  

    I golf by myself regularly.  But I don't think shouting "fore!" at complete strangers counts as social interaction.   

    @Tom C: none of that has anything to do with what we've suggested here.  Glitch has said that it will never force you to spam your friends or gate content based on how many you have -- none of that has anything to do with economic interdependence.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tom C: I get the feeling from your surprise that this your first MMO or online game not on facebook.  There's nothing wrong with that, it's just that this type of analyzing is very common in this genre and helps guide where the companies go.  For an idea of what I'm talking about, check out recent articles on Massively about the company CCP.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I bought a subscription because I support TS and their vision for this game.
    Posted 14 months ago by Friend Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No, I would not be perfectly happy playing any game with a chat box.  I am perfectly happy playing a game that gives me a multitude of options of how I can play the game.  I'm here because I enjoy the serendipity of the game day events and the many, many game features that I can play with while I am on line. 

    I don't enjoy games that limit me to one playing style (chat box, forced socialization, linear story line).  I do enjoy games that give me flexibility to play the game I want to play based on my mood, my RL day, who's online, and what new toys are available in the game. 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do you believe that there is a large enough population that does not want interdependence of any kind that the game will still be highly populated in six months?  If interdependence created a more vibrant market, do you believe that would drive away a portion of the population?  

    Basically, what is your objection to the game being structured in such a way that you might need to buy a few components from someone else in order to make things you want to sell, donate or consume?

    Where is the downside to this proposal?  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Economic interdependence would do nothing to affect the play style you have described and would simply expand the flexibility to play the game however your whims take you at that moment.  You would simply have more viable choices, rather than as it is right now, where some skills are much more valued than others, and there truly are ways to min/max game play.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This has gotten me confused.
    Posted 14 months ago by Friend Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Honestly, I get the feeling I said something that irritated you and you've now made it a mission to find anywhere I post and disagree.  Because you've not actually talked about economic interdependence at any point, nor has anyone said anything that would remove solo only play or make social groups the only way to play.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The downside is that that is not a sandbox game.  A sandbox is a place where I get to use the sand as creatively as I can, and the other kids in the sandbox don't force me to play their game. 

    My objection to the game being structured in such a way that I might need to buy a few components from someone is that would be structured in such a way as to require that.  That's not what the game currently is.  I see no reason to force everyone to play in that singular way.  Being a "social" game does not mean that it is always and only for people who want to interact with others.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, go back to the article I posted yesterday, and you will yet again find another quote that directly contradicts what you say. You also don't seem to know the definition of sandbox, as you gave the definition when describing what you like about the game.  

    Buying a few components is even easier than finding a vendor.  You really are being contrary just for the sake of being contrary.  How cute.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Can you two please confine it to one thread?
    Posted 14 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Would you like us to make a Saucelah versus WindBorn thread and never post anywhere else no matter how interesting the topic? 

    Otherwise, no, I don't think we can.  I enjoy debate immensely and I get the feeling WindBorn feels the same.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am honestly baffled by those who wish to force social interaction on others. An astonishing amount of people are solitary in nature. Why would a lack of (unwanted) social interaction make someone unlikely to remain within a game?

    Example:
    gaia online, a social website. I have been a user since 2004. How many "friends" do I have? One. And I don't talk to them. I check it every single day.

    When did I join Glitch? Spring. How will the game keep me around? By NOT forcing me to interact with others unless I specifically choose to. Which I do, for probably less than 5% of the time I am actually playing the game. Even if that percentage were maintained, and I was absolutely required to interact with others (socially, not just by being at the same resource obviously) for say....4% of my play time, I would leave. No question about it. Some days I do not feel like speaking to (or listening to) others. I would either leave, or be a terribly cranky person occasionally. Nobody wants that.

    You talk about people leaving in 6 months if they are solo players. Why do you think that? Obviously you don't quite grasp the concept that not every other human out there wants interaction. What is an average user's hours in playtime in 6 months? Because I can top it, no question. I play more than 8 hours almost every day. By myself. I am not bored. (though I may be developing a strong case of carpal tunnel!) In no way does being self-sufficient make me unhappy.

    I thoroughly enjoy my self-reliance, and every time I purchase something a tiny part of me dies inside if I know that technically I could make it myself.
    If I were to buy the ingredients for what I want to make, I would get bored. Why would I want to buy gas+spices+fruits to season beans constantly? Why would I want to buy components to grand ol grinders and churn them out one by one? I like that I do 4 or 5 tasks to accomplish one thing, it keeps it from getting too boring.
    Posted 14 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • None of that would change, and theoretically, you would reach the point where you could be self-sufficient again.  Picking up a few components at auction that you CAN'T make yourself would not eliminate multiple steps.  You are imagining the existing structure segmented, and the OP is discussing going beyond that into an advanced tier that has some mild segregation.  Your play style would not be affected at all, and new niches would emerge to create greater options and attract different play styles.  

    Would you pay for Gaia since it is a social site that you do not use to be social?  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Anyway, you may be entertained, but I believe the majority of human beings do not stay entertained in the long-term when performing repetitive tasks.  

    But to help me understand, what are your short term goals in any given play session?
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have given them almost $100 of my money (when I was 15 and working part time, it was a huge amount to me), and only stopped because it became clear that I was wasting money on a website that could (and subsequently did) remove every purchased item from my possession, because their TOS says they can, without any recourse available to get a refund.

    I would not pay for it now, as I have enough trouble buying food to waste money on pixels.
    Posted 14 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What did you use it for when you did pay?  I've never heard of the site, so now I'm just really confused.  

    Not as interested in that site as I am interested in understanding how and why you play, and why you believe you will be satisfied doing so indefinitely.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Every part of this game is a repetitive task.....

    Everything that anyone could possibly enjoy from a sheer game-play perspective is something a solo player can enjoy.

    I rarely have goals aside from the basic Speed Up My Skill goal (accomplished in maybe 30 minutes per 8 hours), and I have never needed a goal in order to enjoy an activity.
    Posted 14 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Absolutely, and I play solo nearly as often as you do.  There's no reason not to -- there's nothing I can do in this game that requires any one else's existence at all.  But I see no reason to pay any money to play a game that does not encourage social interaction (note: encourage is not the same as require), as I can get similar game play for free elsewhere.  I'm not talking about eliminating solo-only game play, and the changes that Yarrow and I have suggested, as I understand them, would not change your day to day game play at all.  

    So given that such an advanced tier would not eliminate your play style, would not force you to interact with others when you don't want to, and would only require you to take two moments to place an auction order if and only if you are crafting something from a top tier, what other objection do you have?
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not really grasping what you mean by An Advanced Tier. I want to be able to do things myself, and I like having the option of skipping that and buying it, should I have a specific short-term goal I want to accomplish (such as, I bought special metal ingots recently because I had high level tinkering, but no Alchemy 2 and wanted to finish the quest)
    I'm not sure if you mean that a current part of the game should be altered so that people cannot provide their own resources for every need, or that a new part should be implemented that will not allow you to do it if you can already get the materials?


    I'm also seriously confused by the implication that buying something from auctions represents social interaction, but hey, I don't really understand interaction as a concept so that might just be me.
    Posted 14 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "I really don't see teleports as having anything whatsoever to do with the OP."

    of course they do. you can look at the kinds of activities that existed before the teleportation changes, and what happened to them afterwards as a direct result of those changes. it's a very straight line, and it has everything to do with interdependence. this isn't a theoretical discussion, it is a historical one.

    most basically, if you wanted to move back and forth between two points, you only had one teleport point so you needed to team up and "follow" with a buddy to hop back and forth between reversed TP points. otherwise you had to walk.

    have you participated in any street building projects? time is of the essence there, and walking and switching between skill sets and doing everything individually typically means being locked out of the projects, because people cooperating would go much faster. teleportation changes the timescales on 'going it alone' entirely.

    "I'm also seriously confused by the implication that buying something from auctions represents social interaction, but hey, I don't really understand interaction as a concept so that might just be me."

    it can, if the transaction is arranged beforehand and used as a kind of "dispatcher-less mail" system. otherwise, i agree, not very social.
    Posted 14 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • btw, teleportation interdependence still exists in a mutated form. you can arrange with a second player with TP5 summoning to leave locked locations like Ajaya Bliss and Neva Neva to 'trade summons' so that you each can take turns exiting, selling/donating and returning via summon.

    finding partners for this and executing on the trades has been some of the most social gameplay i've engaged in for some time.
    Posted 14 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It doesn't, to me.  The idea that it would be nice if the game encouraged more social interaction is out there, and I agree with it, but it wasn't the focus of this thread.  In other words, more, and more common, activities like Rook attacks and street projects would be nice, but I'm not asking for them to be requirements on everyone's game time.  

    What we were talking about here is fostering a vibrant market by encouraging economic interdependence.  What I'm talking about is creating more situations like the one you describe, in part by adding more skills to increase the overall time it takes someone to master them all, and creating more recipes where it is possible that a player will need to turn to the market to get components they cannot make themselves.  

    As an example, let's imagine two new skills: Cocktail Crafting III and Master Chef III.  Let's say they release these skills tomorrow, and I immediately start training Cocktail Crafting III while you immediately start training Master Chef III.  Let's just pick out an arbitrary training time of three weeks -- that means in three weeks each of us will have our skills.  Now each of these skills has recipes that require components from the other (sort of like flaming humbadas require hot & bubbly sauce), but due to the time it takes for the skill to train, you and I would each be dependent on the other for at least another three weeks.  As it stands now, there are very few of these types of interdependent relationships that cannot be rendered meaningless after only a day or two of training.  

    If a goal of yours is to be self-sufficient, you can immediately start training the skill you don't have.  I might not, however, and may train another advanced skill with different dependent relationships, and thus the possibility for regular demand on the market becomes more likely.  
    The whole solo versus social thing was not my issue and was simply a misinterpretation of what I was talking about.  Addressing it in anyway confused me likely as much as you, so it's not your fault that you're confused.  It's clearly mine. 
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Buying things from an auction is absolutely social interaction, at least if the auctions are designed properly. The auctions are how you communicate information about how much you value particular items to the Glitch community, and how the Glitch community transmits its opinions on commodity worth back to you. (Incidentally, the auctions are also the most powerful way that player activity, in aggregate, influences the mechanics of the game world. Not even street construction comes close; it's just an artificial gate on a process that the devs decide to initiate. It would be nice if there were non-auction channels for this too.)

    On the other hand, in Glitch right now, the fact that you can buy/sell most items at vendors means that the auctions don't really communicate that much, because the vendors are a powerful conservative force. But if you got rid of the vendors you'd probably see more auction movement and more interesting market dynamics.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pillow Guerrilla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, I see what you are saying striatic, but my understanding of Yarrow's post, while it doesn't explicitly say so, is that he was laying out ways to encourage economic interdependence rather than social interaction.  Just not being able to teleport would not require me to need things created by skills that I do not have, nor change the fact that disparate skill trees sometimes require seemingly unrelated skills, such that I had no plan to train alchemy until botany forced me too, and as a result of learning alchemy, no longer need a single thing on the market.  Nothing about teleports would change that.  We're on different issues.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • striatic - when did the teleportation changes happen? I participated in street construction projects in the early part of this year, never teleported much, and only made it into the top few "credited" spots on a project when I acted substantially on my own.

    I did have a lot of fun barnacle-hunting in groups, though. I haven't really seen anything recently that's reliably encouraged people to band together like that.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pillow Guerrilla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Saucelah:
    You write: "...my understanding of Yarrow's post, while it doesn't explicitly say so, is that he was laying out ways to encourage economic interdependence rather than social interaction."

    I think you're right in that interpretation, but what occurred to me was that economic interdependence would actually make people interact more. 

    FWIW, I don't think over-specialization needs to be rewarded anymore than it is -- I like being a generalist, and being able to focus on what I want to do that day.  It's a bit like my objection to D&D; I hate classes.  The open skill tree allows me to specialize or not specialize, and I like that choice.
    Posted 14 months ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Yeah, I see what you are saying striatic, but my understanding of Yarrow's post, while it doesn't explicitly say so, is that he was laying out ways to encourage economic interdependence rather than social interaction."

    teleportation swaps *are* economic interdependence.

    goods aren't the only commodity. transportation is also a commodity. these are economic exchanges for mechanical gameplay benefits.

    i don't care about 'your understanding' of yarrow's post. what i care about is the point made that players are self-sufficient "economic islands" and the desire to "encourage group activity" .. my point being that skill acquisition and auction are not the only way to achieve this.
    Posted 14 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok, I can see now that the conversation about solo players was a huge sidetrack, sorry. I tend to respond to whatever post I notice the most, be it in a good or bad way.

    As long as there is the possibility to still be self-sufficient (even if it takes a while), I wouldn't mind things that would encourage more use of auctions. Up until the past week or so, it was an essentially useless piece of the website for many people, and I know that the end goal involves a more user-driven market, so I can understand this.

    That, and my love of giant numbers in my pretend bank account, put me squarely in the Yay Auctions Should Be Better group, although I am not seeing a huge impact after seasoned beans were removed from vendors. They are almost all in the very narrow range of Info Price, so I am not sure exactly how it would become more supply+demand based, aside from completely abolishing vendors, which I wouldn't like either because I very much enjoy the immediacy of vendors (frogs seem very slow, to me, whenever I buy from the auctions)

    If the only forced interaction were through auctions, I don't think that would drive away either me or the people in a similar boat as me, whether socially anxious or just plain anti-social, as it normally wouldn't involve conversations. I definitely see the point in rewarding those who craft harder items (though not insofar as actually paying them more than I could buy it for from other people or vendors, price doesn't equal quality here!) as I know that I have never sold food because it just seems ridiculous to take less than my own perceived worth for something I have made!
    I think that a few good steps have been made so far. The meal vendor now sells at a 25% markup (still gives miners convenience, makes food production less ridiculous as a "career"), seasoned beans+eggs need to be bought from players (even though the price has not changed, it is still an incentive as you have no choice but to buy from them)


    I think I probably overreacted at least a bit, because I am sick of hearing that my lack of desire to talk to strangers is weird and/or unacceptable and/or means I do not like the thing I am doing as much as others. I can see now that that wasn't the main point so going on about it was a little silly.
    Posted 14 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
Previous 1 2