Topic

Street Projects

So, it was brought up during this latest test that street projects are ruining the world that we already have in sacrifice of developing new areas.

We now have the "No New Streets" group which has the goal of disrupting and protesting street projects.
beta.glitch.com/groups/RCR6...

What are everyone's thoughts on the necessity/needlessness of Street Projects?

I believe that Street Projects are the best part of the game, because they allow the world to expand, and new areas to come into existence, along with giving upper level players something to do in between learning longer and longer skills.

Also note: This discussion was sparked also by the new "Tree Killers" group (http://beta.glitch.com/groups/RIFHC2BFO902422/), that feels the need to kill all the trees for no real reason. I am actually not against this group, as I think there needs to be more patches throughout the world for use in projects.

Posted 20 months ago by Jhennauchan Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • The world only grows through street projects.  

    Do you want 1,000,000 players using the few lands and streets and housing we have?  In the long run, the game needs to be built out more - more resources, more opportunities for players.


    More thoughts on how to *improve* the projects so that they don't tax the world and player's patience are discussed here, because projects seem to need an overhaul.
    beta.glitch.com/forum/gener...


    As for the drama, the crap I've read in the Help channel since this started last night makes me want to give up this game entirely.  No, really.  And I think it's disingenuous to claim that people are testing the limits of the game - really? Because it feels like straight up griefing to me.  I've seen players testing the limits of the game - it feels different.  It feels like building community feels and not like tearing it apart for giggles. - not for any constructive purpose.


     I've really enjoyed the alpha testing; so far beta has been wholly different.  I've enjoyed the projects (for the camaraderie), though, some anyway.  I'm not going to have a meltdown about this as I've seen elsewhere, but just noting that it's not been enjoyable.
    Posted 20 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just to be clear: The "No New Streets" group (current membership: me) was mostly created in jest, but also to point out that there are in-game responses to in-game actions.

    But I think the weekend testing has been valuable in highlighting how Street Projects rely upon resources that are taken from elsewhere in the game world, and that some of those resources are less easily renewed than others -- jellisacs and barnacles might grow back, but trees have to be replanted. Clear-cutting Ix or systematically killing off every egg plant, whether for projects or for lulz, creates obvious difficulties for lower level players who are at the harvesting stage, even if they create opportunities for ones who are doing the planting/petting quests. 


    Beta's all about testing out ways of playing the game and calibrating things appropriately to reflect them.
    Posted 20 months ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like personally like the projects. When I read the description of the group I thought it might just be tongue in cheek or an attempt to make a social comment and get a political aspect of the game going. More patches would be helpful as well as more teleport points. It gets too tedious to travel through the streets in search of resources.
    Posted 20 months ago by Riverwalker Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Projects? They're amazing. I never, ever thought their existence would cause trouble. Wow.

    As zeeberk said, how would the current world be scalable without increasing the amount of streets? And what better way is there to do it other than as a community?
    Posted 20 months ago by Hburger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I absolutely LOVE street projects! It gives the slightest sense of accomplishment when you've helped actually shape how a game is made. 
    Posted 20 months ago by Mocha Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hburger: I spent the first half of the current test harvesting jellisacs and barnacles and contributing to the work phase on projects. Honestly, I like projects. But I suddenly got very uncomfortable when entire sections of the core game world were denuded of trees and you had new players asking where to find a spice tree or an egg plant. Again, to be clear: I'm not saying that the leaders of the New Streets stuff were responsible, but the building frenzy created an opportunity for players to benefit from grieferish behaviour.
    Posted 20 months ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I know everyone can choose to play this game as they'd like, but maybe we project folk at least shouldn't enable this grieferish behavior of the tree killers by buying any of the earth or planks that they're "harvesting"?
    Posted 20 months ago by Sugarcube Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I started doing street projects during the last test and continued to contribute through this one. I haven't witnessed any malicious behavior coming from players that participate in them, in fact the opposite. Players working well together, sharing, and communicating to reach a final goal. Gotta love that!

    I had no idea people were "killing off" acres of trees for the cause, I think that might be another group altogether.

    The only thing I buy when I'm doing a project is food. *om nom* have to stay alive - thank you chefs!
    Posted 20 months ago by Sadie the Goat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • While there is definitely some correlation between street projects and the tree-killing spree some of you are referring to, they can be considered somewhat separately.

    Street unlock projects are probably not going to disappear from the game any time soon, but they will most likely be adjusted as we move forward.  As with everything in the game, we'll be watching how the features play out once added and alter the design to make thing better, more interesting, and more fun.

    But, as far as the tree-killing goes …

    We've created all kinds of tools, items and skills for players to use in the game, and we've created a world in which players' actions can have profound effects on that world.  It often happens that we don't consider all possible outcomes to new game mechanics. 

    I consider ourselves fortunate to have players that like to test to limits of the world we're creating, and the tools with which players can affect the world.  Sometimes, things need to be adjusted to account for the unforeseen outcomes, and this is one of those times.

    Tree poison will be tweaked in the coming days so the world cannot be devastated by a single player, or small group of players - regardless of the intent behind the actions. 

    In cases where extreme use of a specific game feature can alter the world in a significantly negative way, we'll not appeal to players to behave in a certain manner.  The approach will be to solve the problem with better design.

    If we build the tools and put them out into the world, players are "allowed" to do whatever they can with those tools. In cases where we find extremely negative outcomes, we'll design the tools better.  Balance of some sort will be reached and especially while we're in beta, everything is likely to evolve.

    So, I say thanks for continuing to test the limits of the game and fret not … the trees will not be dead forever!
    Posted 20 months ago by jdawg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I enjoy the street projects and what comes out of them.  They also make convenient places/gatherings to test out things like Sparkle Powder and Sneezing Powder.  (sorry to people inconvenienced by it)

    On a whole, I love that it fosters a large scale coordination effort.  On the tree poison thing, I don't think I've ever used it in a non-housing street.  As it is, I actually keep one of my house patches empty just so I know I have a place to grab dirt when I feel like it.  I don't like not replacing what I destroy/harvest, either.  I think what it really comes down to is our own personal gaming ethics.

    Yeah, not having ANY spice trees in East/West Spice seems wrong to me, since it's labeled and everything, but trying to force empty patches won't help, either.  Wars like this happen in any game.  Competition isn't unhealthy until it's taken to the extreme.
    Posted 20 months ago by Riversong Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No... all the doubters, I have 3 SCREENSHOTS where several trees were poisoned and the glitch player standing by waiting to chop. When I stopped and asked "what's going on" and "what is this" and I was explicitly told that this is for a street building project to expose patches of earth/soil. I have screenshots of it. Not that I want to make it an issue.  I am not sweating it at all, however, I strongly disagree with zeeberg's stance in general, and specifically with his statement denying that an important part of testing is not just testing the capabilities if servers and the software, but also, testing the behavior of players. 

    Ditto to Holgate, where his/her most important point to me is not to resort to selfish acts (that are completely unnecessary as there are other means) where entire sections of the core game world are denuded of trees that makes it difficult for lower level players. Replanting what is taken is one way to remedy the situation, and although I did not poison a single tree, I did go out, purchased several tree (beans) seeds and planted some back. As in the real world I think we have just discovered the ying and the yan, the good and the bad of ANY world, virtual or real.
    Posted 20 months ago by GOHEMI Subscriber! | Permalink
  • oh no!  not SCREENSHOTS!!  :D

    i am pretty sure that the original group referred to in the post is a tongue in cheek reference to the tree poisoning drama.  projects are great!  especially working on a new, out of the way area toward giant mysterious towers :)

    devs, thanks for all your hard work re balancing, it's a lot of fun to see everything evolve in response to how we play the game!
    Posted 20 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just wanted to keep the ball rolling forward on project development, really. I know a lot of it has been said before, but I think these are pretty big issues that need to be tackled. :)
    Posted 20 months ago by Jhennauchan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • On projects:

    Projects are ok. They're a good way to get people collaborating towards a common goal, and of course, there's nothing wrong with that. Where I think projects could be improved is by allowing players more control. Glitch is supposed to be about building a world through the collective decisions of the players, but right now there are no "decisions" involved with projects. They appear wherever the devs create them, and apart from choosing which project to donate to, players have very little choice in how they want the world to expand.

    On tree killing:

    I'm a little concerned by the fact that a small group of tree killers can decimate several streets in a matter of minutes, that's simply unbalanced. However, no matter what their motives are, they are providing two important functions. First, they are providing a balancing force to the game. Trees take a long time to die naturally, and if players keep caring for them, they last indefinitely (by my observations). So by killing trees, they are providing an opportunity for other players to plant new ones, and that brings me to my second point. A lot of people have been complaining about the tree killers, how they make the game harder for low level players for no reason other than the lulz. They're "evil", but that means that the people going out and planting new trees or giving antidote are "good", so you have a sort of competition where people can role-play. It adds more depth to the game, which is almost always a good thing.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tofu Casserole Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1,000 to both points, Tofu
    Posted 20 months ago by Jhennauchan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As players, we've been given a lot of room to build the world, rearrange, and have a good time doing it. Not everyone is going to have the same definition of 'good time', and that's wonderful! Experience tells me, those who participate in collaborative efforts are the ones who have a) the most fun and b) the most success with Glitch. Street Projects are a shining example.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i wonder how the tree poison will be tweaked?  
    Posted 20 months ago by IxÆoN Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel that there should be balance in both creation and destruction within the Glitch universe (that goes for trees and animals); otherwise, there will be chaos. Chaos can be in the form of many consecutive streets with no trees around at all or in one street that has too many chickens, for example. In some areas like a house, having many animals may be manageable, but woe be to the new player who has to wade through 100+ chickens to find something.
    Posted 20 months ago by Vexia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like what Tofu Casserole has to say, as well as all the other thoughtful observations in here. I think my first reaction to the mass tree killing was negative and sad based on the fact that the group doing it explicitly stated that they wanted attention...and of course they got it. Also it bothered me because of the fact that the gas plants grow mainly in Ix (though then I noticed that actually those grow pretty well in the new areas too). And since new players have harvesting quests, I do think limiting the ability of the tree poison as jdawg mentioned is a great idea (loved jdawg's whole post actually). I will say, however, another player and I who aren't really into denuding entire areas for the fun of it did find a very off-the-beaten path street in the Heights and killed all the trees there for use in projects (over in Darnfree Air if you want to know where we did that, fairly unused area). However, we chose one street not an entire region, which felt a bit more balanced to us. I do agree though with those of you saying it's good to test the game limits and interesting role playing. Hmmm.

    Another thought on this is that if the resources for projects were adjusted to have a bit less of the hardest resources (loam especially) and more of the renewable ones, that might balance things, too.
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the projects.  They are a great part of the game and add to the anticipation of new areas.  I do think that there needs to be some tweaking as to what each project requires and how much each individual can contribute to one project in each phase.  Perhaps we should have a limit on how much of one item or skill can be contributed at a time and then have a block for several seconds or maybe a minute before that item or skill can again be contributed by that person within the Phase.

    At Faunasphere we had Community projects which required the donation of certain items such as pipes or wire spools or wax blocks, etc.  Often certain caretakers would dump thousands of items into the project at once thus monopolizing the project and making it impossible for others to participate.  I would hate to see that happen here and especially if it allows one person to poison a whole forest in an effort to monopolize a project.

    I have participated in several projects and enjoyed it very much.  I have had a hard time getting items to donate.  Each project has different needs.  If I leave the project to acquire an item, the project usually finishes before I can return with the item.  I carried those ingots for a long time before I was finally able to dump them in a project and complete the quest - LOL!
    Posted 20 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ Brib Annie: btw, love the name change, heh
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink