Topic

Stoot interview! (Massively Speaking)

Araldia posted the link earlier in Global Chat, but I thought I should share with the forums too.

Justin and Rubi from massively.com had an interview with stoot. The podcast is here, the interview starts around 00:42. He talks about the origins from Glitch, the way players shape the community (GAG is mentioned) and even reveales some future Skills and features!

Posted 13 months ago by Victoria Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Verra verra interesting, 20 more skills coming, 5 new areas ready. These guys crank out content fastfastfast!
    Posted 13 months ago by Garney Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Cool!

    is there a transcript for it anywhere - at work and would love to hear whats going on....

    I guess this is going to force me to learn better learning 5, it just seems so boring to learn but if its right that 20 more skills are comming its going to be a nesessity :( 15d+ of time now :(
    Posted 13 months ago by Balgra Fonzarelli Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot mentions that unlearning will be implemented as well to make room in our tiny brains for all these skills XD
    Posted 13 months ago by Garney Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But... cannot unsee what has been seen! Cannot unlearn what has been learned!
    Posted 13 months ago by Cait Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd loove a transcript too! :(
    Posted 13 months ago by Mandy.23 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not a transcript, but what stood out for me:

    Potion Making and Construction skills coming soon, around 20 new skills in all, most to do with house customisation/guild halls. As already mentioned, Unlearning is coming, as well as the POSSIBILITY of BL6.

    Guild halls/group halls will actually be personal islands! This is because if there was one hall per street, we'd quickly be overrun with halls on every street in Ur.

    I'm sure there was other stuff as well...

    EDIT: Around 150 skills in all have been planned.
    Posted 13 months ago by DTC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • and we can develop our own land and houses and make them customizable.
    Posted 13 months ago by Xyrem Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If the giants are listening, it would be REALLY nice if unlearning could be rolled out ASAP, so that Glitchen who are quietly planning for the new content would have a chance to trim their skills tree before the fact, rather than when it's all turned loose.  
    Posted 13 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sounds lovely.  Don't see using unlearning cause it was hard work getting these skills.  More "Better Learning" to get rid of the learning time punishments would be nice.  Learning should never be punished. Just seems like a wrong kind of message to send the world. :)
    Posted 13 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Learning IS punished.  Every skill you learn over a cap adds a 3% compounded penalty to further skill learning times.   Considering that, I unthinkingly learned Jellisac and Herbs, and I don't live in the bogs nor do I intend to move.  It would be nice to unlearn those skills so as to ease learning of newer more relevant skills.   The point of my plea is that I wouldn't mind starting that unlearning now rather than when the full content update is eventually rolled out.

    This is a problem people are going to be facing as more skills get added to the tree.  I think the worst thing you can do for your overall game right now is to grind to get the full skills tree in as little time as possible, which is what a lot of people are doing just because it is something to do.  

    I think that ultimately the compounded penalty will enforce skill specialization.  People will look at their desired skill path and decide to trim off something like cooking or even mining and purchase those sorts of resources from others, all in favor of reasonable learning times along their preferred parts of the skill tree. 
    Posted 13 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tibbi - I agree with that - not sure why unlearning is needed, just shorter learning times or some other devices/means
    Posted 13 months ago by gimmegames Subscriber! | Permalink
  • YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Omg!!! This is so exciting!! We're gonna have no RL whatsoever now ^_^
    Posted 13 months ago by Mizar Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tibbi @gimmegames Most likely the devs want to force specialization without the use of the race/class system common in most MMOs. This game is supposed to be cooperative and social after all, and that's a lot more difficult if everyone knows every skill. They want us to rely on each other for help, not for all of us to be completely self-sufficient.
    Posted 13 months ago by Rev. Desdemona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tibbi--I think the idea behind penalising learning is to encourage cooperation as it takes a long time to learn all the skills.

    @Cait--Wait until you get old and KNOW you know how to do something...and can't. Say, languages...unused...forgotten.
    Posted 13 months ago by M<3tra, obviously Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If unlearning a skill takes a long time as well then I think I will just charge ahead. It depends on the maths.

    Edit: Obviously, the total time it takes to unlearn skill(s) plus the new time to learn the new skill must be less than the old time otherwise it's just pointless to unlearn your skills. Then the next question will be if the difference between the old time and the new time is worth it compared to the skills you unlearned.
    Posted 13 months ago by gamecharacter Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unlearning is needed because the 'penalty for knowing too much' is so poorly documented at the beginning of game-play.  New players come into the game thinking 'hmmm, these skills are ones I can pick up fast' without realizing the penalty for loading their skill tree up with junk they won't use.  The game can't grow if the only people who know how to properly run through the skills tree and specialize are a few hundred pre-release glitches who have been playing forever and benefited greatly from resets that everybody else missed out on.  

    I would like to excise the whole 'beverage' branch in my case.  And prune out some other areas where I would rather let somebody else specialize.  My second (unconnected) account finished Mining IV last night.  I am still twelve days away on that skill on my main.  It is tempting just to ditch this clogged-brain account and move over to the other one entirely.  Do they really want players throwing accounts away and starting over?  That's where things could be headed.

    So yes, looking forward to unlearning.  All the other stuff sounds exciting too. One of the great things about Glitch is that skills and production are seldom pointless.  We don't have 'crafting cottages' where the only endpoint from all of the anything produced is (*snort*) tractor fuel.  Everything we do has more meaning in Ur.
    Posted 13 months ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It depends on the "efficiency" of unlearning really.
    Posted 13 months ago by gamecharacter Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One thing that stood out to me about the interview that hasn't been mentioned was that Stoot thought that the "Gag vs. Miners" butterfly wars was/is entertaining.

    Note: I'm neither a miner nor a GAG-er but I agree with Stoot, it is entertaining, especially the forum battles! Also the "miners-rights" and "key camper" threads. :)

    (are people still dropping butterflies in the mines?)
    Posted 13 months ago by Kungaloosh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As I understand it, the 3% penalty does not depend on the learning time of the skill.  It's a 3% penalty, compounded, per skill over the cap.   This would actually make it very desirable to unlearn simple skills (which I assume are unlearned in proportion to their complexity) in order to bring a skill you want closer to your cap.  Compounding is very powerful, and if it's used as a disincentive it will be a very powerful one.  

    I agree with PG, the rock needs to give you a better heads up during skills selection regarding your ability to learn lots and lots of skills.  
    Posted 13 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The Skillifier was designed to help you understand the 3% compounded penalty by showing you the amount of time it will take to learn subsequent skills (and offering a look at your own skill tree, if you so desire)

    agent86.nfshost.com/glitch/

    The Unlearning skills are already kind of sort of in the game, they're just not in use yet.  There are 3 levels, and when you unlearn, you spend a fraction of the time it took you to learn the skill to forget it.  The fraction gets lower the higher the level of unlearning you have.  Since these aren't in the game proper, the mechanics may change prior to implementation, so your mileage may vary :)
    Posted 13 months ago by agent86 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I, for one, am eager to learn all skills and will employ the patience to do so.

    And group islands are AMAZING!
    Posted 13 months ago by Tamashii Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, as long as they don't make learning a skill take a month. Its really stupid to frustrate your users too much (may lead to less real money spending)

    Plus some of us like being generalist, knowing something about everything. It seems like forcing people to specialize would go against the spirit of the game.
    Posted 13 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am looking forward to unlearning skills and Glitch's taking on a more specialized role. Right now i can do every thing and while that is fun it is not very social, i hope that the major construction jobs entail more then just using up resources but are more skill based.

    I listened to the pod cast a while back but i agree that having competition for those glitch's who desire it is a very welcome idea. 

    Welcome Home
    Rev.
    Posted 13 months ago by Revrent Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tibbi you'll always be able to be a generalist, but what I mean to say is that you won't be able to learn everything. You'll have to choose between knowing a little bit of every subject, or knowing a lot of a few subjects. And I don't think that's against the spirit of the game at all, since the spirit of the game revolves largely around working together socially to help the world grow and change. Knowing everything there is to know takes away the cooperative aspect.
    Posted 13 months ago by Rev. Desdemona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Agent86, that tool is really helpful.  Thanks.
    Posted 13 months ago by Zauberberg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So excited for group islands! That sounds absolutely delightful!!!!
    Posted 13 months ago by Avery♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unlearning? No way... 

    I have time. I can well wait until I am all-knowing. After all, what is the point of going after something useless like badges and then leaving precious skills unlearned?
    Posted 13 months ago by Ayzad Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Far from taking away from the cooperative spirit of the game, knowing everything means I can help out in whatever way is needed regardless of the makeup of the group of people needing the help.

    Which is why I really dont understand this artifical limiting on how much we can learn.
    Posted 13 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So far, the only thing I can think of as positive about Unlearning is that since gettting Animal Kinship VI I am swamped in milk. If what I enjoy is milking butterflies, then maybe I would prefer not to be in a milk bath from doing it. In fact, I'm new to having that skill, so for now I'm just adjusting and seeing how I feel about it.
    Posted 13 months ago by gimmegames Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Tibbi, I think what they are saying is that there may be a limit to your skill tree. Is there are 150 skills for example, and your skill tree only holds 50, then you will need to unlearn a few to customize your skill tree towards how u play the game. So if u are a generalist, maybe u only have room for level 2 or 3 in most skills whereas someone who really likes to mine will learn all the way up to mining 10 or whatever but have zero gardening skills. Similar to choosing a skill path in most other mmos. The learning penalty will make more sense to us if this is the case since u will have to choose wisely.
    Posted 13 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The skill tree ready doesn't sound like somthing that will enchance the player's experience in the game to a point they want to donate at higher tier levels. I know I will be holding off upgrading my subscription now, since if TS adds something like this, something that limits my play in this way, I see no reason to add something to my support.

    Of course that could all be moot, and there really isn't going to be this kind of limitation on the play. We are all just imagining things. :)
    Posted 13 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Given that we know what the penalty cap is (it's in the BLV description), at a compounded 3% penalty, if you add 20 skills to the existing tree then what is the penalty for the last skill?   

    (I'm supposed to be working or I would try to figure it out)
    Posted 13 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • From my perspective, as someone who once played Eve, there are currently not any skills that take a long time to learn even well into the penalty area as I am.  2 weeks is really not a long period of time, especially since I plan to play this game years from now.   

    Whoever called for shorting skill training: please god no.  Skills that take longer to train would be nice -- having skills that require a time commitment creates products that are actually in high demand.  

    I don't want to see a skill cap anymore than Tibbi does, but I don't necessarily like that I am completely self-sufficient and rarely buy from auctions.  Such could be solved by just making it take longer to learn newer, highly desirable skills as the skill tiers grow.  
    Posted 13 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with Tibbi.  I spent a lot of favor to learn some of my skills.  If the skill tree suddenly requires me to undo my hard work it will drive me away from Glitch.
    Posted 13 months ago by Lucille Ball Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Directly from a staff member a few weeks back. 80 areas are planned. I wish I could have heard the pod cast. :( I figured on the skill tree expanding. Staff has been hinting at it for a long time (beta tester here). I don't mind the long learning times. :)
    Posted 13 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • you can still hear it, FF, I just listened myself.
    Posted 13 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think for me, the skill learning time is an issue because I was level 53 by the end of beta and had already learned most of the skills - so this is the second time thru for those skills and associated quests, and I'm a tad impatient to get past the stuff I've already done before.
    Posted 13 months ago by gimmegames Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Heh, I can understand that gimmegames, but I don't think it's a reason to change game mechanics for everyone.  

    But it is the reason I don't really play a lot of betas.  
    Posted 13 months ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • that was a pretty good interview.

    i do worry about the desire to increase the level of "interdependence" in the game through skill specialization.

    personally, i'd like there to be more interdependence but i'm not sure that skills should lead the specialization, more that they should follow it.

    just because a player knows how to do everything does not mean that they can do everything .. at least not all at once. pushing the restrictions on the skills will primarily lead to restrictions on player choice that can lead to frustration, while there are other, better ways to promote interdependence.

    Ajaya Bliss/Neva Neva are good examples. even if everyone had every skill, an interdependence would still exist between those in the locked area and those outside, by way of auctions. those in the locked area cannot harvest foodstuffs and so must purchase at auction, while others focus on AK, farming, gardening, harvesting in order to create the food to put up on auction. players skill sets have little to nothing to do with this interdependence yet it exists nonetheless.

    benefit? in that framework, if the miner gets bored of mining they can immediately leave the mine and take up cooking, and if the cook get bored they can immediately stop and go into the mine.

    we can think of this in terms of "lock in" versus "lock out".

    in the first scenario, players are "locked into" skill specialization. it is trivially easy to select a learning path... but once you go down the path it is very difficult to shift.

    in the second scenario, players are *literally* "locked out" of certain areas by locked doors, or less literally by geographic or time constraints... very difficult to get in, but once you get in it is trivially easy to get out.

    sure, restrictions can be good but it is the nature of the restrictions that matter most. a chair or walls restrict and direct our movement or posture to positive effect. a straightjacket does the same, but to negative effect, the primary difference being the ease with which the restriction can be circumvented when necessary. 

    i personally am in favor of the "lock out" approach. there's probably going to be some mixture of the two but i hope Glitch figures out "lock in" is not the only way or even the best way to foster player interdependence.
    Posted 13 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 for stratic's response.
    Posted 13 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just finished listening. I love the game and company behind it even more now!
    Posted 13 months ago by XD Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 striatic
    Posted 13 months ago by scottj Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 striatic

    A lot of what makes this game fun is being able to choose to do different things each time I log in. I'd feel like I was missing out if a large portion of the skill tree were unattainable.

    I can totally see myself creating an alt just so that I can play around with some of the new skills sooner...
    Posted 13 months ago by geekybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • -3 striatic
    Posted 13 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • okay, now that that's out of the way, i agree with geekybird about the "session freedom" quality that glitch has.

    a useful metaphor is that of players having energy, similar to their avatars in a way.

    when a player logs into the game, they are at maximum energy. they might want to use this energy to get into a locked area, grind to generate money/favour, travel, set up infrastructure, socialize or something else. this is when the player has the energy to make and realize those kind of choices which will colour what they do for the remainder of the session.

    this point of maximum capability and versatility is also, i think, where you want to place the hurdles and challenges. fun hurdles and fun challenges, that's critical, but challenges nonetheless.

    but there should be choice to go along with those challenges.

    once the player has overcome the challenges, you don't want to lock them out of doing other things so much as make the player not want to do everything because the challenge is too high for their now depleted reserve, and they are in the midst of gaining the benefits from overcoming the first challenge and want to continue reaping those benefits.

    the trick is that initial energy supply. the player should be able to do almost whatever they want with that energy, but having done so stick with it for the duration because they feel they are being rewarded for having done so, instead of being prevented from doing anything else.
    Posted 13 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 for @Striatic's -3 :) And people say he has no sense of humor :p
    Posted 13 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for sharing this in the forums, Victoria!
    Posted 13 months ago by Melody Pond Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm currently reading Hawai's Story by Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani. The parallels to the sweet creative community of Glitch beta and beyond makes me worry and pray-to-Giants that Glitch fares better than Hawaii's beloved monarchy and culture did.
    Posted 13 months ago by gimmegames Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 for the idea of not limiting gameplay choices by making skills unattainable. (I'd like to give it +1000.)
    Posted 13 months ago by Flowerry Pott Subscriber! | Permalink