Topic

So where is my sandbox?

Okay so I decided to write this topic after being inside the Glitch for the last three tests.
I discovered it months ago, but only figured out recently it was now open for testers.
That's a fun game and I'm enjoying playing it, but as I could see in other topics, I'm also wondering what will happen in the long term to keep the game interesting.
I mean, all those badges are very nice, and everything in the game keeps the player flattered with happiness and rainbows, but what will be the point in the end?
For the moment, the short test periods keep the players from being bored, but before Glitch gets out of beta, I think it really needs a major goal and a purpose to play towards.

A game of giant imagination
That's what the loading page says.
So what do you mean by "imagination"?
I can see that the designers have used a lot of that to create amazing and varied environment for Glitch, but what is left in the end for the player and where are we supposed to use it in the game?

Play Glitch and you'll have a chance to shape the world
There has been some mentions of that aspect in the trailer, home page, and in a few blog posts, but even if the game is still in beta, I'm surprised not to see a single glimpse of it in the current version.
What we can do for the moment is to participate in "projects" to "help build" the streets. I haven't had the time to do that yet because of my fresh account, but from what I understand it's at the opposite of a creative and collaborative process.
It seems to be just like a coloring book for kids. Everything is decided at first by the developers, and players would just have to gather random materials to fill the holes...witch seems pointless in the end because a level designer obviously doesn't need "game materials" from players to design a new street...
Okay maybe there's that idea for the devs to see which project is more popular, and develop more of that part of the world in return. But again, you could achieve this with some in-game voting system, letting the players use their time on less pointless tasks, and more (really) creative projects.

One enormous, ever-changing, persistent world
So that's what Glitch is according to the about page.
There are some aspects that seems really innovative already, like the ability to bring animals to other places, and give them a name, or play with trees in limited areas.
The recent "foodwriting" thing in Plexus also unveiled some possibilities, and showed the need for players to leave their mark and be creative. I could also read about home decoration, or customized groups halls, and I can't wait to see those happening.
But all of that is still a bit limited, and apart from players owned locations, the main word itself won't be "ever-changing", or will it be?

There have been some great games lately with ever-changing worlds.
One of them is Minecraft, but unfortunately it's not an mmo with a single world.
Another one is Love from Quel Solaar, but unfortunately it needs a powerful card, a monthly fee, and a bunch of tutorials.
What I love in those two games is that ability to modulate the world itself, in a true sandbox way of gaming. The nature of Glitch, and its 2d designed elements, probably won't offer the same level of liberty as cubes or procedural environments, but even if the landscapes can't be altered, I believe there's still some room for player-made constructions inside the streets.
There's a mention of "architectural endeavors (later)" in a blog post from April, is it possible to know more about those plans?

Taking the example of "Love" above, the idea of the game is to create settlements somewhere in the world, and develop small player-designed constructions.
The game is well-balanced, because the AI will start to attack the buildings as the base gets bigger and bigger and as it gets annoyed by the intrusion in its world.
Going back to Glitch, we have the rooks as negative force to balance the game.
But why do they attack us? No reason.
For example, players could be able to build constructions (in favor of the gods?), using their skill and helping each other in the process. They would eventually get favor or experience points proportional to time and size of the construction. But that wouldn't last forever, or without teamwork, because the rooks would be around, defending their territory...
.

The above is just a possible example, but to make it short, we need something to make use of our hardly learned skills in the future, something that could be creatively player-designed, and at the same time that gathers people together for a worth purpose.
I know that such wild stuff is hard to code, and I don't care much about the launch date, or less tests sessions, if that can give you more time to create an even better Glitch!
And if you already have some plan around those concepts, I'd love to hear more about it.

Posted 16 months ago by Lemo Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Oh heavens no. You're right Laurali. My thought is that programmable NPCs would be some sort of drag-n-drop custom thing. You'd assemble conditional tests, loops, actions etc by dragging them from a toolbox into a flowchart-like thing.

    You wouldn't need any prior programming knowledge but it wouldn't hurt. You'd probably have to get your head around programming concepts like loops and tests in order to get the most out of your robot but
     - it wouldn't be too complex
     - it would provide a safe sandbox... no blowing up the game
     - people might actually discover they enjoyed learning it (and might realize that programming isn't actually that scary)... a simple intro to the logical thinking necessary to program
     - it would give an opportunity for those that could do it to sell scripts to those that still ran screaming from the room at the mere thought of it

    But wow... that's a major chunk of work there.
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +100 for programmable robots. And Laurali, I think you are correct. I'm sure programmable means that you'd have a menu where you'd choose what to have the npc do, rather than actual programming with code.
    Posted 16 months ago by FrankenPaula Subscriber! | Permalink
  • FF: good point re C#... that opens the whole debate about whether Mono is a good thing or not. Then we'll get into software patents and we'll be here all day :-)
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Snazzlefrazz - The Sims had a graphical programming language like you've described. I've actually played with it some. :)
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I will create and deploy the  first Stri-Splankbot 20.  This will be a great success and lead to mass production and wide distribution.  In this way, splinters will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
    Posted 16 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ooh, stoot, cool, thanks for sharing the ideas:) The minds of Tiny Speckers sound like interesting places to me!
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Had to find the Sim's language. It's called Alice. 
    http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=sims_announcement/sims_announcement
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • there probably wouldn't be 'coding' required to make punch cards, more likely a sequence of commands executed by some simple AI on the server.

    it might be a list of commands like ..

    "recharge batteries"
    "find and harvest 100 cherries"
    "put cherries on auction for 1000 currants"
    "return to house"
    "repeat cycle"

    or stuff around the house or whatever.

    "return to house", "recharge batteries" and "repeat cycle" would be stock commands.

    "put cherries on auction for 1000 currants" would actually be more like "put x on auction for y currants" and the player would select the type of item to be sold and the number of currants from menus.

    "find and harvest 100 cherries" would just be the player setting parameters for what to "find and harvest" and how much.

    like building a macro from simple, pre-established commands, with no 'internet programming' required.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the thing i like best about having it be punch card based is that players could make punch-cards from paper and sell or give them away to other players.

    players who find even the idea of building from pre-established commands too complicated could still get punch cards made by other people and use those.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "the thing i like best about having it be punch card based is that players could make punch-cards from paper and sell or give them away to other players so that players who find even the idea of building from pre-established commands too complicated could still get punch cards made by other people and use those."

    +11011001
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Punch card +1
    Check out the "Alice" link I gave. Free software.
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh my gosh, the posibilites of selling code cards in an MMO to other players is just... man. Wonderful! Run your own vendor-robots! Harvester-bots! Mules to cary whatever you gave to them! 
    Posted 16 months ago by Caesura Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the alice link goes to something unnecessarily complicated for the in game context.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Short hijack: Just reminded of Robot War
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do pets count as NPCs? :P
    Posted 16 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The "Alice" language is graphical. It's just a flow chart. It's to provide a concept. And it's what the "Sims" was actually developed with - a game :) It does need simplification for player use I readily admit though.
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • pets could be programmable NPCs, sure.

    there are different ways to program though. it would be better if pets were different.

    so with robots you could set up strings of commands and swap out punch cards, but with pets it could be a bit more like Nintendogs, where the programming is set up as a "training" process.

    maybe you'd just randomly let your pet loose on the street, and like a cat it would drag random things back into the house that it found on the street. depending on what it brought in, you could either reward or scold your pet, which would then influence its future, organically evolving behaviour.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "And it's what the "Sims" was actually developed with - a game :)"

    this is incorrect. EA donated some art assets from The Sims for use with Alice in classroom settings. it did not actually develop The Sims using Alice.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Was just going to say the same thing striatic did. Besides just reading the link, the fact that The Sims came out in 2000 and that press release was from 2006 tells you something.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • another idea for programming pets would be to have them follow you around and emulate your actions. then you'd give the pet the option to try repeating your action, and rewarding them for successes.

    there'd be randomized chances for success and failure, but eventually your pet might follow players around somewhat randomly engaging in learned behaviors, to the player's benefit.

    maybe you could cross-breed pets in 'pet marriages' with cute little ceremonies and everything and then you'd end up with a litter of pets that possessed a kind of randomized mishmash of their parents' behavioral traits.

    the type of pet might influence what it could do .. like perhaps dogs would be really good at seeking out dirt patches, returning home with dirt and random knick knacks found in the dirt. birds might be good at harvesting things out of trees. maybe you could train a pig to eat stuff out of random community garden patches and return home to plop seeds from whatever it encountered all over the place.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • and of course the pet behavior could be built on the same underlying system as robot behavior.

    just with a lot more randomness involved and the commands not being directly exposed.

    and probably with little bonuses that the robots would not have, like giving little mood buffs to nearby players.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There was an article years ago by the creator of the Sims. Alice was indeed the name of the language used for the original Sims game. I programmed my own mods for that game years ago using a reduced editor, but it was still Alice. What's on that link is Alice 3.0.
    I'm still trying to find the link. I used to have it in my Google search history, but Google deleted some of that stuff from a few years back.
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @striatic -- I completely agree with you in terms of pet diversity and pets being programmable, and think it would be awesome if it were really a training process. Considering how much I nag about pets, and how much a lot of other people really seem to be pushing for them, that they shouldn't really be a cosmetic or superficial part of the game and should require a significant amount of player attention in order to fully reap the rewards of having a pet. If I were to have a unicorn, I would want to feed it, ride it to make sure it stays nimble, and polish its horn (all of these being responsibilities which could also be tied to the animal's mood, energy, and xp, if they were to have levels, haha).
    Posted 16 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • FF - you are thinking of the "SimAntics" visual programming language.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Now I have a dog that follows me around until it spots another pet... then it runs off and follows them for a bit... but eventually comes back to me :-)

    function myPet() {
    if (!canSee('pet')) {
      follow('snazzlefrazz');
    } else {
      $otherPet = getFirstVisible('pet');
      startTimer('distracted',30);
      while (timer('distracted')) {
        follow($otherPet);
      }
    }
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • SimAntics was used with Sims 2. Alice was used with the original Sims.
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the idea of automation and robots but would have more fun with the unintended consequences.  Everyone programs them to collect cherries then there are no Cherry trees as they got over harvested and under petted and watered because that lowered profits.  Over all will people do good things that help a community or only help themselves until a resource is depleted.  One person might not ruin the world but lots of people doing greedy stuff might.  Good lesson for a game to teach.  Safer to discover in a sandbox than RL.
    Posted 16 months ago by Artilect Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The trouble with programming NPCs to help you harvest/auction is that it short-circuits the whole "grinding" nature of an MMORPG which is what stops in-game inflation going berserk.

    We all know that a couple of hours (more or less, depending on skills) mining will earn you enough currants for the house of your dreams. Some people put in that tedious work for the reward, some people decide to take things slower.

    But if you could program your robot to mine continuously, give him a couple of large bags, a fancy pick, a tinkertool and a stack of earthshakers and leave him to it... where's the fun in that? Suddenly everybody who can use a robot is rich and buys houses in Alakol.

    Actually I guess this is no different to what I do in real-life... I sweat over lines of computer code, do no physical labour, then money appears :-)
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm new to this, so keep that in mind... If there's an EndGame, would that mean one or all of the giants are dead? And, since we're in their imaginations, wouldn't we die too? I'm a little confused here. Sorry if my questions sound a bit 'thick'. I've only had Wednesday and Thursday of last week to play and Friday through now to read up about the game in the forums. I really like what I've seen so far. Very cool game!  :D
    Posted 16 months ago by CoffeeSnob Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When you exit the world you see "Wait you're about to win the game!"  This makes me laugh every time it see it.  I like that there is no end game and enjoy the ability to chose what I want to do when in the World, from gardening to mining to exploring and checking out parties and so on.  And I really dig the social side of the World.  Not up on all the "programming talk" but I "get it."To me, the very notion of all the behind the scenes work that is happening - what the devs are frantically working on - Glitches who do things with API, this is amazing!  It's fabulous to be involved in a game where the feedback from us is considered and factored into its development.  While I'm a newbie (only my second time as a tester), seeing the devs share concepts and plans in forum threads is astounding to me.  I'm excited every time I get to play and see what's new.  To have a game that is continually evolving, even after launch is what makes Glitch such an attraction for me.  Just sayin..... :)
    Posted 16 months ago by Originalauntie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • CoffeeSnob, the other option would be to become a Giant one's self: To expand one's Glitchen head to be able to imagine on the level of Giants.

    But I've been saying that in response to question "What is the goal/aim?" as a joke-ish answer. (Metaphorically, I don't thing it is so far off.)
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @stri: thanks for explaining the idea further.  It sounds AMAZING.  I love the idea that the pets can be sent to do things, but like with my dumbass cat (who I love dearly) they could get "distracted" and do the wrong thing, or just come back empty handed!

    I also love the idea of simple commands so that I can remain self sufficient.  I really don't like the idea of having to learn another language or pay someone who knows it, that would be so exclusive to most people.  I've already learned and forgot French, and I'm learning all the Medical Terminology (believe it or not, its a language course), so I've got as many new words floating around in my head as I want
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 to old timey clockwork Tik-Tok men!
    Posted 16 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes - To no end game - I hope that Glitch will be the true game neverending and continue to grow and morph infinitely  :o)

    No - To robots that can do your current earning for you.. where's the challenge in that?

    Yes - To robots that can keep my house tidy and stuff organized - also, walk my dog and feed my cat :o)
    Posted 16 months ago by Joni Mitchell Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "No - To robots that can do your current earning for you.. where's the challenge in that?"

    i think that if you think about it, you will realize that it remains quite challenging.

    the only challenge it might remove is the challenge of repetitively tapping at one's keyboard while following a particular gameplay strategy. all the strategy remains when you play with a robot, it just becomes less RSI inducing.

    you'd have to figure out *what* to tell the robot to do and also *how* to do it. if you make the wrong decisions, you might end up operating your robot at a loss.

    presumably, since robots are not so different from tools, the robots would need to be repaired by their owners, which would require logging into the game on a regular basis to keep the machines chugging along.

    not so different than farming really, which is also a primarily timer based activity.

    if the robot broke down before returning home you might have to do something fun like repairing it in the field or disassembling it for salvage in the same way you can disassemble a block maker.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "I'm new to this, so keep that in mind... If there's an EndGame, would that mean one or all of the giants are dead? And, since we're in their imaginations, wouldn't we die too? I'm a little confused here. Sorry if my questions sound a bit 'thick'. I've only had Wednesday and Thursday of last week to play and Friday through now to read up about the game in the forums. I really like what I've seen so far. Very cool game!  :D"

    you're probably thinking about "end game" in the sense of a game like chess, with a beginning, middle and end.

    the term "end game" in the context of massively multiplayer online games means something different.

    "end game" is what you do after you exhaust all the 'content' in the game and are waiting for new content to be delivered.

    in the case of glitch, end game play is what you would do once you have completed all the quests, bought yourself a house, learned all the skills and so on.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "The trouble with programming NPCs to help you harvest/auction is that it short-circuits the whole "grinding" nature of an MMORPG which is what stops in-game inflation going berserk."

    grinding isn't the only way to prevent inflation. it isn't even a particularly good way to prevent it.

    "But if you could program your robot to mine continuously, give him a couple of large bags, a fancy pick, a tinkertool and a stack of earthshakers and leave him to it... where's the fun in that? Suddenly everybody who can use a robot is rich and buys houses in Alakol."

    why would you assume that a robot would be able to mine continuously without breaking down? if picks wear down, why wouldn't a robotic pick? you're also assuming that a robot would be able to mine as quickly as a glitch. there's no reason why that would have to be the case.

    why would a robot be able to drink earthshakers? why would a robot be able to use a tinker tool? why would a robot have the same inventory size as a glitch?
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • if picks wear down, why wouldn't a robotic pick?

     - that's why I gave my robot a tinkertool. But good point about the robot itself breaking down. I guess I could send two robots and part of their main loop would be "if (state($otherRobot) == broken) {repair($otherRobot);}" and they'd look after each other :-)

    And yes, grinding isn't the best way to separate people from vast wealth, but I'd suggest that, for your average level 15 player, the desire to spend 6 hours of their life in the mines is all that separates them from a house in Alakol. When the game economy gets set free, things will be much more interesting... presumably the price that vendors close to the mines buy rock at will quickly drop.
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " - that's why I gave my robot a tinker tool. "

    yes but like i said, why assume that a robot would be able use a tinker tool?

    or be able to repair one another?

    there's no reason to assume such a thing would be an innate aspect of any 'bot' implementation.

    and even if a robot could do absolutely everything a glitch could do, why assume it would be at the same speed? maybe it would take a bot 5 hours to gather 100 cherries but it would take an active player 30 minutes. in that sense robots might be similar in nature to gardening, primarily timer based and not grind based, but much slower than other ways of accruing resources.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think striatics idea is awesome, but I agree it should have many limitations making it less efficient than a player. I would hate to see something similar to meat collectors because that would make the game too boring.

    But if the robot were limited (ex: only a stack of cherries per day, or frequent break downs like stri said) then it would be very interesting and add more complexity to the game. It would even be really cool if there were random errors making it a risk to use the robot vs collecting for yourself

    It would also open a new path to create a skill tree in robot construction. as you learn new skills you robot becomes more efficient or can do more tasks and have less chance of errors.
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh yes, and a new line if robot clothes. I would spend money to dress up my robot. Or a pet for that matter
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "But if the robot were limited (ex: only a stack of cherries per day, or frequent break downs like stri said) then it would be very interesting and add more complexity to the game. It would even be really cool if there were random errors making it a risk to use the robot vs collecting for yourself"

    yep. there could be robot repair crews moving around, finding robots and patching them up with super high level tinker tooling skills.

    tho while limited inventories and constant breakdowns are probably necessary limitations, ideally i would prefer it if the problems with the robots came from the interaction of programming limitations with the game environment.

    like programming a robot to harvest cherries but having it wander into the firebog, get lost and run out of power looking for cherries in a region where there are no cherries. imagine seeing a robot hopelessly circling firebog with a thought cloud full of cherries above its head. maybe it would provide you an excuse to contact the robot's owner to come rescue it.

    or the "Dalek Problem" where the robot can't climb ladders or stairs, and so certain high value harvesting areas might be impossible for robots to enter. i mean imagine a robot that can't jump trying to navigate through the deeps. it wouldn't get very far.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm imagining a robot that can't jump trying to navigate through the deeps but wearing that french maid outfit
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Excellent ideas striatic... if a robot was, say, 10 times less efficient than a human then you'd be teetering on the edge of "oh for heaven's sake, I'll just do it myself" - which is probably about perfect. Kinda like petting pigs vs letting a harvester do it, growing vegetables vs buying them.

    I like the idea of random risks to robot usage. Maybe a rare chance of it blue-screening/core-dumping/whatever-the-mac-equivalent-is and spewing out all its possessions in a big pile around itself :-)

    And laughing out loud at the thought of a robot in a french maid outfit repeatedly jumping at a ladder that it can't climb LOL
    Posted 16 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the robots could come in 32 colors.  Everything is great until they meet up with a robot of the same color where they would fight to the death and someone looses a robot.  This helps keep the robot population down and add the expense of building/buying new robots hehe. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Artilect Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Lord Bacon-O & Striatic - thanks for answering my question and not thinking me a raving lunatic.  :D   Meanwhile, all of you seem so comfortable with one another... I hope that I fit in like that some day.  :)
    Posted 16 months ago by CoffeeSnob Subscriber! | Permalink
  • great thread...gives me a lot to ponder...
    Posted 16 months ago by ~Pink Flamingo~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "the robots could come in 32 colors.  Everything is great until they meet up with a robot of the same color where they would fight to the death and someone looses a robot.  This helps keep the robot population down and add the expense of building/buying new robots hehe."

    not sure i like the fighting idea [glitch is a rather non-violent game] but i have had in the back of my mind all through this topic that there would have to be something to cap the total number of robots in the game.

    maybe there could be a 'roboteering' skill, with skill levels I, II and III. each skill would open up a new slot for robot ownership, somewhat like teleportation. the maximum number of robots you could personally own would then be 3. couple that with 'wear and tear' taking robots out of commission, and the robot population would remain stable.

    or maybe each player would only be able to own a single robot.

    seems like robot ownership might be something that the department of ministries would want to regulate, which could explain the ownership cap.

    problem there is that people could get around the cap by having multiple characters. normally having multiple characters isn't so big a deal because it is difficult to play more than one at a time. robots are more autonomous, which steps around that issue.

    the solution is probably something similar to animal depression, where too many robots on the street causes robots to fall apart more quickly, keeping the robot population dispersed and constrained.

    or the robot population might simply stay low because robots would very expensive and also require expensive maintenance and generally not fit into everyone's personal play style.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • alternatively, robots could also be a "subscriber only" feature.

    might get some complaints about that being too much of an in-game advantage for paying players, but i think so long as the robots weren't overpowered it wouldn't be that big a deal.

    i also thought about robots being powered by teleportation tokens, but i strongly dislike that idea for a number of reasons.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Instead of teleport tokens being used to power the robot what if they added "robot token" and with the different subscriptions you could get 1/month all the way up to 3/month. It would take one robot token to create one robot which fully expire after one month unless you replace their batteries, aka robot tokens
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink