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Staff Topic

An Experiment: Posting an Internal Design Proposal

I've always been curious about posting a detailed description of some change we are merely considering in order to get advanced feedback on it (and, to ward of some of the "Why didn't you tell us!?!?!" in the case that we actually do implement it).

So, with that in mind, here's an internal design proposal document titled Food Freshness & Quality which I made over the weekend. It's unexpurgated (excepting removal of links to other documents or images that you wouldn't be able to get to) and it was written for an internal audience so some of the terminology might be weird.

To be totally clear: this is just a something we are considering. We may do it and we may not do it. Your feedback is welcome (but we still may do it even if lots of people say they hate it and we still might not do it even if lots of people say they love it). It is one of dozens of specs, some of which are for things that we are in the middle of implementing and some of which we might never do. Like I said, just an experiment!

Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • i don't mind the idea, but mostly because the rot time in the fridge is so long, at one month, and that the rotted food could well be a benefit if used as fertilizer to grow higher value food.

    i think it is worth a shot, and when you look at the details of it, really isn't that bad.

    ~ things i like ~

    potential reward - people have been talking about the downsides of leaving the game for a long time and then coming back only to have lost everything. if the game handles things right, people might actually be *overjoyed* to come back to an inventory full of rotted food, which could then be used as fertilizer to make even better foodstuffs. rotted food would be an incentive to return rather than a punishment for leaving.

    use for houses - if you don't garden or animal farm, there currently isn't much use for returning to a house. i would actually enjoy *infrequent* trips home to refuel.

    ~ things i don't like ~

    transformations - too complicated, maybe if this was simplified a lot it would be more likable. pick 1 of the 3 proposed mechanics, or none at all.

    powerberries - i don't know why.

    i think what you want to do, if you go ahead with this, is to ..

    a] radically simplify the proposed systems while maintaining core ideas

    and

    b] ensure that players are actually HAPPY to have food rot, most of the time

    oh, and finally, Hell Wine could actually improve with age, as could some other foods.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this idea a lot, and I'll be the first in line to learn the  Discombobulatory Recycling skill as I am all for being discombobulated. 

    However it looks like I need to add my name to the very many people before me who dislike the part about food decaying while you're offline. That seems like a serious bummer and tough on players who aren't able to play every day. Imagine going on vacation and coming back to play Glitch only to find spoilt food in your house? Not a friendly feeling. 

    I also think this needs to come a long with a more fleshed out recipe book for cooking. Like, wavy gravy is an end product - there's nothing to make with it - what's up with that? There are quite a few other things like that, as well. 

     It would also be neat if some almost spoiled foods could be turned into yummier things - like beans spoiled and became natto (Japanese fermented soy beans) or perhaps some things could be made into beer, or bathtub gin? 

    And, you all probably know this already, but this kind of transparency, and willing to be vulnerable, and general letting us in on-ness, is awesomesauce. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Wren Bramble Subscriber! | Permalink
  • God, it's at times like this I so wish for a 'most recent post' button!
    Posted 17 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • oh and one more thing i really don't like ..

    food rots faster when online than offline, which creates an incentive to go offline any time you're waiting for something to happen in the game. going offline instead of hanging out for a bit and socializing with pals and organizing group activities or whatever is not a good thing.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • thanks for letting us in on the process stoot!

    i like the idea. but mostly, i am excited about getting a funky fridge into my firebog house and eventually.. fridge magnets. :D
    Posted 17 months ago by mileena Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Imagine going on vacation and coming back to play Glitch only to find spoilt food in your house? Not a friendly feeling."

    or it could very well be a feeling of "sweet! i've got a ton of valuable fertilizer now!"

    so long as rotting isn't innately a 'punishment', or if it is mitigated by the fact that the resulting product [compost] significantly accelerates the production of the replacement food, then i could see this working out.

    but the key is getting that 'coming back to play and seeing spoilt food' feeling to be a positive feeling. 

    focusing on that good feeling first, and the 'food churn, cooking skills, storage, economy, ecosystem' stuff a distant second is super important.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ooo...Ooo, joby - I sooo want to make bathtub gin!!  +10000000
    Posted 17 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I'm doing a render now of 18 coolers based on my previous (lengthy) comment about. 2 sizes, 3 colors, 3 grades. The colors are Hot Pink, Plastic Green, and Soft Magenta. The grades are Brass, Silver, and Gold. :)

    I'll post a link to a Google Picasa folder when I'm done.
    Posted 17 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i don't think that this change would necessarily have to create a certain kind of negative situation like a lot of people seem to be assuming would be the case.

    because this is being proposed as part of a game that is greater than the sum of the game we are currently playing.  there will be more and more fun and interesting and different kinds of things to do as we get to launch and beyond.

    so what i'm thinking is that this will actually allow for *more* whimsy in the long run.  because it will encourage specialization.  people who want to cook and collect and work together and profitize with food production and distribution collectives or whatever can do that.  and people who find food management to be fiddly and more trouble than its worth can buy food, and spend their time out in the coliseum or racing or whatever other crazy things are coming our way.  :)
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i also like the idea that rotten food is fertilizer and that (some) booze gets better with age (to a point)
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot, +1000 for the experiment.

    I read a few of the posts up top and then skimmed the rest of the way.
    With regards to spoilage--I'm not really a fan of the idea, as presented in the proposal. A lot of people have brought up excellent reasons why they disagree, so I won't repeat those. However, I would be in favor of voluntarily aging/spoiling stuff via menu, much like we do cheese, if there were good uses for such items. A recipe for banana bread comes to mind, or Stri's suggestion of wine.

    Also, I really hope the composting skill isn't just a proposal... would love an alternative to guano collecting! (And someone suggested growing mushrooms in the compost, which I heartily +1.)
    Posted 17 months ago by MX Ghostie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • While I'm intrigued by the idea of food spoilage, and kinda want a fridge for my house (can I decorate it with magnets?), I'm not sure that I really want my food to be any more complicated.

    Right now, we have to deliberately age cheese. What if the spoilage times were ridiculously extended, meaning food would still eventually go 'bad,' but you could speed up the aging process via pokes (or whatever)? Each spoiled item would have a specific, beneficial use, and the incentive to poke would be to get that end product needed for different items/foods/supplies. Want compost quick? Spoil some food. Need banana bread for the next party? Brown some bananas. Want your own homemade Ayn Rand doll? Wither an apple for the head and dry some corn for a husk dress. Lo, the crafty possibilities... I'm hoping for something absolutely ridiculous to happen with the mangosteens.

    The point in the doc I'm most unsure of, really, is the stack combination. It seems fair at first glance, but right now cooking seems to pull from stacks arbitrarily (or I may just not be paying proper attention). How would we choose which food, with which degree of spoilage, we're actually using? Will it be the most/least spoiled, the smallest/largest stack, will there be an option to choose, and how annoying would another popup menu be? And, going along with the arbitrary pulling of foodstuffs, I usually combine stacks when I've got multiple partials to save bag space. Now I'll be penalized for my efficiency! Sadness.

    Powerberries: ew, placeholder.
    Nomfruit: Negation Of Moulding fruit! Not Of Mush fruit! Needless Otherthan Mouthfeeding fruit! hehehehe...
    Posted 17 months ago by Jennyanydots Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I dunno. It's really cool in theory, but... I like being able to carry veggies in my bag without them rotting too quickly. Do giants really imagine things that rot away? If I were a giant I would imagine magical fruit that was always fresh. :P

    But I'm not adamantly opposed to it, either. I suppose I just don't like the discomfort that comes with change. :P
    Posted 17 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like parts of this. a little overwhelmed as it seems really complicated in concept. would love the opportunity to test it.

    questions....apologies if I have overlooked this info...

    What is BC?

    Would freshness impact currant value, favor from donating, etc?

    Does the faster spoil rate for items on ground apply to items on ground in houses?

    Can I volunteer to test it for you in a sandbox :)
    Posted 17 months ago by goodstory Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the server we all play on is technically the sandbox, lmao. We're still all testers (aside from the Devs), really.
    Posted 17 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If we have banana bread, I want zucchini bread too!
    Posted 17 months ago by Millie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok, I understand that Stoot loves to play Farmsville. Glitch+Farmsville=Me quit.
    Posted 17 months ago by Milolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yes @cerulean it was supposed to be funny :) thank u for lmao'n
    Posted 17 months ago by goodstory Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic - I was the glass half empty, you're the glass half full - It would be totally neato to come back to spoilt food and find that that blue mold is actually penicillin, or lots of good fertilizer. You are spot on about the 'feeling' one has when one comes back, and that it needs to be a bonus rather than a let down. 

    This makes me think of Animal Crossing - a game that happens in real time - after you've come back from some time away there are cockroaches in your house which you have to chase down and kill - that's kind of fun actually. There are also weeds by the bajillions and they are a bummer to take care of. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Wren Bramble Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot, I gotta say that if the meta-experiment is to find out if you'll get thoughtful, detailed discussion and critique of an idea with this group, it's a success.
    Posted 17 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unless the true plan is to keep our minds off of our usual whining about "when will it open"???
    Posted 17 months ago by marycontrary Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the idea of mixing things up a bit. And I would sincerely love it if I could earn a Composting skill and be able to turn my rotten food into valuable soil additives for use or for auction. But I would be at least slightly disgruntled if butterfly milk soured, if piggy chops went off or if my cherries or eggs rotted away. I can see veggies and changed fruit spoiling but meals I have cooked and basic pantry items are sacrosanct to me.
    Posted 17 months ago by Mistress*of*Fishies Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "What if the spoilage times were ridiculously extended, meaning food would still eventually go 'bad,' but you could speed up the aging process via pokes (or whatever)?"

    that's how it works in the proposal though.

    food in the fridge takes one full month to go rotten.

    leaving the food on the floor somewhere causes it to go bad in a mere 5 hours.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LOL, I think the result of this experiment will be the devs saying "Dear Giants, what did we get ourselves into! Let's never do this again..." I read all the posts from this morning before I went to work, then came home to find that the thread had ballooned up to an unmanageable size, so I skipped the middle ones and read through a large number of the later posts (up until the most recent when I started typing--I'm sure by the time I'm done there will be another 5 or 10 new posts). Wow-zee!

    So, here's my opinion on the concept: I am all for adding more complexity to the game if it results in a greater challenge that makes the game more interesting and fun. However, some extra layers of complexity can go overboard and just make the game more annoying. In this case, I'm not entirely sure how I feel. I do see some interesting possibilities in this, but at the same time, food is VITAL: we all have to eat it to keep ourselves out of hell. It's not optional.... so adding all this complexity and limited vitality to something that is absolutely essential to gameplay can have some bad consequences, and end up making the game more difficult and less fun for many people.

    That being said, if this is going to be implemented I would also recommend removing the decay rate altogether for food in the homes or inventories of those who are offline, or at least lengthening the lifetimes: 3 days for food to rot in inventory is too fast. What if you didn't put it in your fridge because you thought you'd be back tomorrow, but something unexpected came up and you can't log in for several days? All that will do is annoy people. I recommend a decay rate of 1 or 2 weeks for food in inventory or on home floors while the player is offline, and maybe even longer than a month in the fridge (as people should be able to take off from the game for longer than that if necessary).

    As for a new name for "Powerberries": I recommend "Superfruit".
    Posted 17 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It was fascinating for sure, jasbo :)

    It was interesting to see everyone hone in on one aspect (the food spoiling when offline) when that wasn't even intended to be a significant or interesting part of the proposal. Offline spoilage might matter for a single test session, but I'm pretty sure that if we made this change, people would EITHER decide not to hoard lots of food that they didn't want to eat (or sell, or donate or whatever) OR they would invest in a fridge and, boom: no (significant) spoilage.

    The proposal was much more about making the cooking (and transmogrification) skills more interesting since each step in the process increases freshness/quality and the current items can be made *more* beneficial than they are currently when they are made fresh. And the more experience a chef has (and the better tools, and the better mood they are in at the time of creation), the higher quality product they would produce.

    Granted, we could do exactly that without also having food spoil, but I liked the idea of there being an incentive to have food move through the system quickly (even if that allows for the possibility of worsening quality too). And I like the idea of there being some room for decision-making and optimization  (how much should I make now vs later? can I sell this fast enough? what recipes have the most transformation steps and therefore give the biggest cumulative crafting bonus?) Plus it allows new item ideas (like some extremely nourishing or buff-giving food resources that only grow in one part of the world, but which spoils very quickly).

    As for Farmville, perhaps I haven't played enough to understand the analogy but it seems completely different to me: in Farmville (I thought) the only productive activity is growing crops. So, by making them wither when you are offline you really are forced to manage your online/offline time if you want to play the game at all. If we made this change in Glitch, assuming people modified their behavior somewhat (i.e., did not hoard food or used a fridge), it would make almost no difference — the productive activities would still be stuff you did when online and the only thing you lost in prolonged absences would be excess food that you didn't sell, eat, donate or give away before going offline (for most players, a tiny fraction of a percent of their "net worth", rather than their only source of advancement in the game — and even then, the rotten food becomes another resource, rather than a complete loss).

    Anyway, like I said: it was pretty interesting and maybe we'll try it again sometime :)
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Striatic - I was the glass half empty, you're the glass half full - It would be totally neato to come back to spoilt food and find that that blue mold is actually penicillin, or lots of good fertilizer. You are spot on about the 'feeling' one has when one comes back, and that it needs to be a bonus rather than a let down."

    that's exactly the thing.

    what is the actual problem with farmville?

    is it the fact that crops spoil, or is it the fact that crops spoiling is "punishment" for not playing and that the spoiling is an entirely bad thing with no upside whatsoever that then results in a feeling of frustration on the part of the player?

    if food goes rotten but it isn't really a punishment so much as a change in state, and could possibly even be a good thing, then what's the issue? the food economy would still churn. there'd still be a use for storage, if you valued the food more than the compost - but even if you do value the food more than the compost and the spoiling food is something you didn't want .. in the absolute worse case scenario you can still console yourself with having the compost.

    btw, i love the idea of blue mould on food being useable as penicillin. that's AWESOME.

    vintage hell wine, blue mold penicillin and banana bread : ]

    one last thing regarding the "feeling" of rotting .. rotting will not always be a positive for everyone, coz some people are going to have wanted the food right then. the "trick" is to avoid having players fighting an uphill battle. "o noes my stock is getting rotten powerberries powerberries powerberries! grind grind buy buy powerberries!" and then still having half the crop rot out.

    some people might like that, but i like the idea of crops getting almost rotten and then have players actually accelerate the process by tossing out the rotten stuff onto the ground to have it rot out even faster. instead of fighting against the process, going with it after it crosses a certain threshold.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But "powerberries" sounds more like a euphemism for testicles. Which could be good or bad depending on the humor factor.

    and amazingly stoot and stri posted while I was typing this?!?!
    Posted 17 months ago by Mistress*of*Fishies Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The compost heap is a good idea.  Rotting food on purpose adds to the game and gives us more to do, instead of re-ordering things we already do in a way that makes a nuisance of itself.

    Also there'd have to a be a lot of thought put into which ingredients are thrown into the mix when cooking.  If I have a bunch of spinach, all harvested at different times, which ones are used when I decide to cook something up?

    And, thanks to the person who explained in bold above why I can't see the doc.  I don't do Google.
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for sharing Stoot.

    I do not like this idea. I don't want to be tied to my house in order to sort through my food and pull out what's rotten. I come to play. Sometimes I have limited time to play. I don't want to spend it sorting through my bags/house/cabinet or fridge (if we get one) to figure out what's good or what's spoiled. I like climbing ropes, jumping from rock to rock, mining once in a while, riding the subway, finding stuff in the desert, paticipate in street bldg. Basically, I just like doing all the things that were made for me to play with. Emptying the fridge doesn't sound like fun. It isn't fun in RL anyway.

    Since we have no home decorations, I use my garden as one of my decorations. It looks beautiful too. And when I'm tired of how the garden looks, I harvest and replant different seeds in a different order. It is a way to make my home feel like MY home. The change would cause me to stop using my crops for decorations. They would rot on the vine and there I would leave them. No reason to replant. My piggies will give meat and the butterflies will give me milk. (Here's one reason to reduce my gameplay - really having to work to prevent spoilage and maintain energy.)

    Perhaps changing the energy/mood value of prepared foods would allow for "food resources move more quickly through the ecosystem". Reduce Awesome Stew from 200 energy so you have to make more which would use more crops. Give a special bonus food worth more mood/energy every once-in-awhile. ("Oo oo ooh, I got a Humbaba Bacon Burger worth 300 energy.") After all, you bonus just about everything else, why not food as well?

    I will say I would try it, if I had too and I might say the same thing. But I might not. I didn't like broccoli as a child but I love it now. Things do change.

    P.S. - I wrote this before Stoot's recent post but I was too lazy to change this ;)
    Posted 17 months ago by Ruby Specklebottom Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmmm, I'm still on why is food hoarding bad and moving through system good?

    I'm still all for seeing how this would work, as I said. Testing it out now that we've heard about it...THEN giving some more feedback at that point. Like we give feedback now on stuff after the fact; this experiment might be intriguing in that we'd be giving feedback both before and after.

    I still think it'd be just awesome if the rotted stuff or old stuff or aged (whatever) could be used in really neat ways (besides fertilizer), like penicillin-esque things, potion ingredients, weird buffs, etc. (all the ideas people have thrown out). That'd be my major desire if we tried this out.

    And I do think it'd be nice to have the food aspects be more meaningful, as stoot says in the recent post. Definitely. Just wouldn't want it to be a big old drain on people's fun either.

    Dare I say this rottenly bad pun? Food for thought! (Yes, two of them. :P )
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yeah, a similar idea has actually occurred to me while playing these past few tests (it does seem a little weird to be able to leave piles of ice and raw meat sitting on my floor indefinitely - perhaps such limits/aging could apply to items stored outside of one's bags, like on the ground, but not to whatever they can hold in their bags, to keep people from hoarding huge stashes of supplies that could instead be recirculating somehow?), but i think i'd find it more bothersome than anything else trying to stay on top of keeping things fresh while accomplishing my other in-game goals.

    i'd also echo the sentiments of those who feel it'd discourage casual players from getting involved if for whatever reason they can't play for a week, only to return and find half their inventory rotted away.

    like the thought, though - keep the ideas coming!
    Posted 17 months ago by BeatFreq Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Rascalmom: "Hmmm, I'm still on why is food hoarding bad and moving through system good?"

    There's nothing wrong with food hoarding — this wasn't a proposal that was intended to solve the "problem" of "food hoarding": that's just a side effect or byproduct.

    What *doesn't* seem good (to me) is that (1) all food items (and all cooking skills) are more or less interchangeable (just different graphics), (2) players can't make any interesting decisions at all about cooking/food (there is no strategic element), (3) cooking skills are entirely binary (you don't get better with practice).

    Again, I think those can be addressed without having food spoil, but the spoilage makes it a lot more interesting (in my mind anyway!) because then there is a purpose for the increased investment in skills, decision making, etc.

    Just like how in real life most people aren't constantly sorting through mountains of food to find the stuff that hasn't spoiled because they don't spend all of their money on groceries every time they go to the store, I don't think the spoilage would make much of a difference for most players in most cases because they would just carry less food with them.
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "OR they would invest in a fridge and, boom: no (significant) spoilage."

    the issue with that is that it increases "run around factor". basically every time you want to log off for a while you've got to get home - and if something pressing is pulling you away for the day [dinner, phone-call, outing] you've got to hurry home and organize before closing the tab. if you don't to that, you're going to want to do a post-bedtime log in, organize, log out.

    i'm guessing that if you have teleport tokens or a spare daily map teleport this will be less of an issue. you warp home, drop your bags into the fridge, close tab.

    still, even then it makes the game feel less casual, coz you can't put it down and pick it up quite so easily. picking the game up requires opening the fridge and yoinking the daily food out, which involves figuring out roughly what you're going to do during that play session and setting up your food inventory accordingly.

    it adds cognitive overhead every time you log in, and the feeling of a ticking countdown clock in the background each time you look at a food item in your inventory.

    so refrigeration isn't a panacea. players would still end up with balls up in the air once the countdown starts whenever an item is pulled from the fridge.

    now, if that countdown leads to something that isn't a big deal or is even arguably good if you know how to react to it, the countdown remains but the fear doesn't.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this idea, overall.

    Maybe add the option of having a portable cooler that will slow things down on the road?
    Posted 17 months ago by Homer Grey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Really conflicted about this.  I'm already dreading the reset.  If our food spoils getting back to a nice house, interesting skills seems like it would be even harder.  It also seems to penalize the lower level player -- those that can't afford houses yet, let alone fridges.  Sure everyone will be eating all they gather very early on but there's a medium ground that i think it would be unfair to.
    Posted 17 months ago by Marla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks, stoot, re: hoarding. Wasn't only you who made that idea seem bad, though:)

    Yup, appreciate your point about the food stuff being just different visuals right now. As I say, after a lot of reading, I think this would be interesting to test out. Overall, I now think KittenKat's ideas on making it kick in later on or later along the skill tree would be a most interesting route, though....
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The staff will do as they like ,it is their game,my personal opinion is probably just that an opinion,but I store bags of food in cabinet for the simple reason when I am finished with other skills and feel like making something food wise ,I pull out at least 7 or sometimes with spices 8 bags loaded for cooking.Now if this game is going to rot my food I dont take to wasting my time getting the ingredients to make stuff and store it for when I want. I have enough in RL to deal with in shopping and worrying about waste ,dont want to come to a game and go through stressful stuff like this in a game.waste not want not. So in this idea it is foolish to rock the boat. Sure you want me to buy a fridge .hell yes for my beer I like it cold and hope you never rot that on me.lol
    Posted 17 months ago by Jellybelly Baby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like Jennyanddots thoughts. Poking and then crafting NEW items might be worth it to the items going rotten. If I got a benefit/fun thing out of the food going bad it would certainly seem like no big deal to leave a few apples lying around. But if they just became junk that I couldn't do anything with then I would be sad/annoyed. I think many of us have a sort of "escape clause" built in to our online game play thinking and this is why we play this game. It goes something like this: "When I play an online game it is a fantasy. Nothing in this game is real or represents real life. It can't hurt me or make me feel sad/angry/etc. about the world around me. I feel good when I play this game because I am my avatar and my avatar is safe."

     Or is that just the little voice in MY head and do I need serious therapy? 
    Posted 17 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic nailed my concern perfectly. I'm not so concerned about FarmVillanization, and I didn't know that "food hoarding" was a behavior so I'm not worried about the loss of it, but folks would have to pay a powerberry surcharge for logging off for the night without walking home. That might not be the worst thing, but it is a thing.

    I'm sure the main reason it feels prickly is because it's a new idea. I think it's really interesting that Maslow's hierarchy-type anxieties (no food!) pop up even in digital worlds :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Pomegrandy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "(1) all food items (and all cooking skills) are more or less interchangeable (just different graphics)," 

    freshness doesn't change that really, it just adds another largely interchangeable number to each of the food items. it doesn't make the foods have significant differences from each other in the way that drinks do. it adds an additional level of complexity but not an additional level of personality.

    "(2) players can't make any interesting decisions at all about cooking/food (there is no strategic element),"

    i'm guessing this might relate to the idea of people not spending all of their money each time they go shopping or having to deal with immense inventories of food at home, but isn't that something that could be mostly addressed through decreasing average stack sizes?

    "(3) cooking skills are entirely binary (you don't get better with practice)."

    could increase energy yields with practice, up to a point. also perhaps a chance of random buffs occurring when you eat something from an experienced chef. you've already got the buffs/debuffs thing in the proposal, but you can decouple that from freshness and have a "quality" rating instead, based on chef experience.

    i guess .. see, i don't see why you'd need such a large, complicated framework like freshness to deal with these specific issues surrounding cooking. it is a sledgehammer to nail type situation.

    still, i like the freshness idea.

    what i like about the potential of the freshness idea isn't on a 'rebalancing cooking' level but more on a 'what different feelings can this evoke in players' level.

    what's cool about the idea, to me, is that it would add an ongoing level of change to the gameplay, and a challenge for players to feel and react to the passage of time in interesting ways. constant change over time to help shake up gameplay. the idea of slowly shifting tension and release. if it isn't really about that, then implementing it probably isn't worth the complexity.

    but back to tension .. because of farmville, people associate spoilage not strictly with tension, but with a kind of *dread*. the trick is all in how your game *releases* that tension. if the release is "FAILURE. START AGAIN." i think it will alienate people in the way farmville apparently has. we shouldn't treat tension as a bad thing, but figuring how to release it, and whether the release is fun or un-fun is absolutely critical.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just assumed if you add this feature that it would include some new recipes and possibly a Skill or two.

    When I saw the rotten banana I had such a wonderful memory.  My Mother made the World's Best banana pudding hands down.  I have had lots of puddings but none as good as hers.  Why was it so good?  She let her bananas get black!  She then smashed 'em up and made pudding.  Wish I had some now!  We always had some black bananas in the freezer.  Please give us a banana pudding recipe!  It's OK if it uses fresh bananas but black ones would be best.
    Posted 17 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Pomegrandy, re "I'm sure the main reason it feels prickly is because it's a new idea." - Yes … it is always the way.

    Striatic (and Pomegrandy again): I don't see why people would have to play that way. If it takes more than a day before there is even a 5% decrease in the food's effect AND you can easily restore that amount (and more) through cooking or transmogrification, then why would you have to run home and worry about it and stuff? Why (if the game worked like this) would you be carrying so much more food than you needed for the next several days? Wouldn't you just carry less and buy (or make, or gather) closer to the time you needed it? (I'm genuinely curious because I wrote the spec and that never even occurred to me :)
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love the idea, cooking definitely needs to be more interesting.

    I have a minor suggestion. I like the composting idea, but in addition to that perhaps certain rotten foods could be used to make other specialty items. There's already the stinky cheese example, but there could be other things too, like huitlacoche.
    Posted 17 months ago by Tofu Casserole Subscriber! | Permalink
  • stoot, can you clarify whether the times refer to game day or real-life day? FYI, I have many game days where I don't manage to make it to my house...too much fun to be had out in Ur. But then many times I'm IN the house nearly all game day too :D
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree that with refrigeration, its probably not as bad as we all assumed. But you didnt address the rotting food on the floor issue, as in gifting to others or leaving food lay out in our neighborhood or trees is now not enjoyable since it deteriorates.
    Posted 17 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As I mentioned earlier in my post (buried somewhere deep in this thread), donating cooked food to the shrines results in a lot of favor points, which is why I like to mass produce large quantities of cooked food.  This requires collecting and gardening large amounts of perishables.  At the same time, I don't want to spend all my game time hunting and gathering, or cooking for that matter, and I don't like to drop all this stuff in piles on the floor of my house.  A refrigerator would be awesome, and the thought of stuff going bad if left on the ground is, in my opinion, a great idea, especially if it can be used for other purposes after decomposition.  I tend to spend one game day accumulating food stuff so that I can spend the next few days mining, participating in street projects, or collecting fireflies and barnacles, etc.  

    A large part of real life is learning how to adapt to change.  Whatever you guys decide will be interesting and creative.  Of this I have no doubt.  Now go eat some cake.  
    Posted 17 months ago by Lurell Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot said: "What *doesn't* seem good (to me) is that (1) all food items (and all cooking skills) are more or less interchangeable (just different graphics), (2) players can't make any interesting decisions at all about cooking/food (there is no strategic element), (3) cooking skills are entirely binary (you don't get better with practice)."

    (1) This is true for most things in most games. It's the illusion that counts. In any case, rotting food doesn't solve it.

    (2) With food getting better with time (as I suggested before), this is not a problem anymore. As other players said, you could combine both worlds: some food items rot, some get better. And you could do this creatively, in the spirit of Glitch.

    (3) Getting better with practice (as a cook or whatever) would be a great addition to the game, even if it has nothing to do with spoiling food.

    (I'm liking the idea of degrading food less and less as we advance in this conversation.)
    Posted 17 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Rascalmom: all times in the doc were real time (not game time).

    Dagnabbit Rabbit
    : there are many things we'd have to work out if we were to do this and that'd be one of them. But, we haven't actually done it (and we might not ever) so leaving stuff on the ground for people should be exactly as enjoyable next test as it was last test ;)
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • stoot, I carry lots of food I don't use right away to make stuff for projects. and sometimes while I'm making food for a project, that food fills up (grrrr......) and I think "I'll keep it for next time". Now I might have to use it and start over. I'm probably just being lazy, but it sounds like wasted energy on my part and your team's.

    However, reading your responses, it sounds more and more like this is gonna happen anyway. I could be wrong and I hope I am.
    Posted 17 months ago by bored no more Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah bored, I bet you posted just as he did though:) Notice that he doesn't say it necessarily will or won't ;) Thanks re: times, stoot! Honestly if it's real time...that's not quite as bad as I thought...

    And may I just reiterate that having the chance to do this kind of feedback has been utterly awesome, no matter what direction you all take this in. Just awesome. Thanks for responding to (and thus I assume actually READING) all these ideas. Tiny Speck rocks:)
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink