Topic

Playing Together In-Game...

So during this beta test I invited my wife to play Glitch with me and while showing and explaining the game to her, she asked a question I had a hard time answering... she wanted to know what the point of playing in-game together would be since all the activities and quests were really more geared towards solo play.

I struggled to think of an answer. Sure there is the peat quest, some challenges, and street projects, but we aren't really playing together. We may work together as a community to accomplish things like projects, but the multi-player, team or party dynamic (small group play) is missing.

Somewhere in another thread, someone mentioned that playing Glitch was like having people run past you in the hallway... everyone too busy doing their own thing. I now think this is true and I also think that the game is sorely missing multi-player/party/small group play.

Background... in years past we both played WoW and we would play together in-game all the time, quest together, battle baddies together, and the game was designed to reward parties for playing together (shared exp, shared loot, share a quest, etc). It worked really really well.

However, Glitch does not work this way. There is no real reason for us to play together in-game. The quests aren't really designed for playing together, there really isn't a party system. Experience can't be shared, and so on and so on.

I point this out as a huge fan of Glitch who wants to see the game do incredibly well. I'd love to know what everyone else thinks.

Posted 20 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Been thinking about writing something similar. It's starting to feel like a bunch of people chatting while playing Mario. Community isn't inherent to the game. It's a by-product of a small (in the grand scheme of things) group of testers.

    And, as I've been saying elsewhere, the lack of competition or plight makes it a pretty pointless solo game after the novelty fades.

    I've been around for a few weeks and a couple of tests, now. A few days ago, as I ran out of quests, I hit the whats-the-point-of-this wall. I know that they are still adding things and expanding the game, but the underlying issues aren't things that will addressed by allowing players to decorate their houses, for example.
    Posted 20 months ago by Lyndon B Johnson Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I’m sure the devs have more multiplayer-oriented features (quests, challenges, game dynamics) already lined up for Glitch further down the road. So far, though, they’re busy enough just getting the single player experience built out.

    And if not, this is a good thread/example of the need for that. :-)  

    (+1)
    Posted 20 months ago by KuraFire Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1

    en, it's funny cause just an hour before reading your post I read this blog post about how the author and his wife can't really play together in WoW …

     Adding bonus mechanics which reward playing together in a direct way is pretty easy (and on a to-do list) and things like more multiplayer challenge (races, etc.) or "normal" quests that require more than one person are only a bit harder and will also get done.

    However, those won't make a *huge* difference. For sustainable truly non-solo play there need to be some societal-level mechanics (economic, social, political — even cultural). We have ideas, but I'd rather hear some of yours!
    Posted 20 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think  that one possible reason why co-op play doesn't feel required here is that everybody can do the same things, learn the same skills, travel to the same places. So the thinking comes to "why should i ask help from another if i can do this myself?" Some games out there have classes/division which require co-op play between specializations in order to accomplish goals, but I don't see Glitch as being that. 

    Here, there are quests that require you to work with other people, but these quests are quite few. Most of the quests I've seen so far have a "tutorial approach" style to them, which does seem appropriate given that most players are in the lower levels. However, I am still looking forward to having a "quest of epic proportions" that will get me befriending other Glitches and emphasize the importance of groups (or collaborating with other people).

    Honestly speaking, the most fun I have gotten from interacting with other people here is through the help channel. Though majority of the questions there do revolve on how to get things or general info, it is so far the most satisfying social aspect of Glitch for me, as of yet.
    Posted 20 months ago by roderick ordonez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @stoot, funny timing! Thanks for posting the link, I checked it out and it sounds like things have changed quite a bit with WoW since the time I played years ago. When I used to play, the game had really good co-op play dynamics. It wasn't perfect. Anyway, I am not looking to compare Glitch to WoW so I will move on to Glitch specific commentary  :)

    As far as ideas, aside from some of the obvious dynamics, like parties, shared exp/quests/loot, I will have to spend some time thinking about the economical, social, political, and cultural ideas.


    I definitely agree that sustained co-op play needs more than some basic multiplayer/party dynamics. Ideas to follow...
    Posted 20 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I encouraged my husband to play glitch (as long as he used the laptop and left me to play on the desktop) since I got tired of hearing him complain about how addicted I got to Faunasphere and now Glitch. Aside from giving him a couple of bags to get him started he is enjoying playing solo and figuring out things for himself. If you and your wife want to do things together the only thing I can think of for now is to split things up, like one of you mine rocks and the other gather basic foodstuffs and then divide up the bounty (guess that's not really playing together, but more just sharing of resources). Or get a couple more buddies and go out together to gather jellicacs or barnacles since more than one person can scrape or scoop at the same time. When I was working on a project we did a buddy teleport, so if you & your wife both wanted to work on projects one could set their teleport location to near the projects and the other to an area close to home or where resources could be gathered from. Can't think of anything else now, but it will be interesting to see what stoot and friends can come up with.
    Posted 20 months ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think one thing that drives community (and the in-game economy as a very close second), is making it extremely inconvenient to try to do everything. 

    It's pretty easy for me to do all the things needed to create a plate of food (oversimplified example). But if I had to, or enjoyed spending the majority of my time assembling all the ingredients into the dish, then I'd have to depend on others to bring the components and/or tools together. (In this extremely oversimplified example, we'd need a strong marketplace/auctioning system).


    Additionally, if there were *qualities* of ingredients and tools that affected the *quality* of the final product, then yes people would be drawn only to the better providers, BUT it would also drive people to focus on becoming better in specific fields. Again, a strong market system (in my humble opinion) is a fundamental piece for bringing people together.


    The game is currently small enough that the seller of an item doesn't have to be hidden, buried or anonymous. If player "Stoot" is constantly selling (high quality) grain because he is constantly squeezing his chickens, then eventually people who make/want high quality bread are going to seek him out. Hint: make certain regions better (NOT exclusive) at producing certain things.


    I don't know if I've answered the question of a specific pair of people working together, but as the marketplace develops (and I have ONLY to assume it will), the general sense of community is sure to be inherently built into it. 


    My 2 currants.
    Posted 20 months ago by Wes O'Matic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Someone pointed it out above... right now we're all very 'same' or have the potential to be. The unlearn you've got planned will help, and we're starting to see more player missions and player driven objectives as the world expands. We'll start seeing more cooperative efforts as time progresses, people are always coming up with things to do.

    To OP, I'd offer up this... I find that I spend more time gathering materials for others, or on some random, whacky mission as the tests run longer. This test, I *had* a goal in mind, but happily let myself be derailed when the Holiday Eggs started appearing. Other people helped gather them all up, and it wound up being a fun collaborative effort. (If you found Holiday Eggs randomly sitting around - congrats! You were a benefactor of the Great Egg Hunt.) I couldn't have done it without other people, and I really hope we have more chances to cook up our own silly plots down the road. I think Tiny Speck means to give us every tool to make that happen, we just need to tell them what we need!
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Trav...and it was fun, too.

    That's the way I like to play "socially" - being able to help out in my own time.
    I have so much trouble trying to type and keeping up with the chats (most peeps end up being 2 novels ahead of me by the time I can get anything typed in response) and I have no doubt that I miss things being said to me due to having to look at the keyboard while typing (hunt, hunt. peck, backspace, hunt, hunt peck...lots of cursing...backspace, delete, etc. :P :D :D  ).
    I mainly just like to be able to play by myself. I tend to hyper-focus on whatever thing I'm doing and forget to try to look at the chat and even with the IM thing, it'll end up with 3 or 4 messages in it before I even notice it flashing at me lol
    But I do love this game and can't wait to see what's in store for the future. :)
    Posted 20 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ sgjo I am the same type of player....it is sorta like the sporting world: there are team sports like basketball or baseball and individual sports like archery or swimming. I like games like Glitch because though my personal preference is solo playing, I do enjoy a game of basketball once in awhile:)
    Posted 20 months ago by GreyGoose Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The only way to travel to a special location is to work together: ie, five players, in five different locations, acting together in order to teleport to a sixth special location
    Posted 20 months ago by 1padme Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've said before, but what I love about Glitch is that each of us can play the game so many different ways. You can focus more on your own quests and leveling up or you can wander around enjoying things...or you can go mad with streets projects or you can set personal goals (someone I know wanted to create a huge pig herd) or come up with group goals. As an example of social things, Travinara and Cupcake's egg hunt was neat. They went out of their way to rally players to collect spare eggs and then help hide eggs all over the world and let people know to look for them. Another goofy, self-directed quest that a group did together: Some of the Faunasphere Refugees got up a little goal together to populate Shimla Mirch with pigs named variations of the word "soon" (based on the number of pigs that kept getting renamed, I'm sure people noticed here and there); was kind of an inside joke, but we had fun collaborating and sorting out what ingredients and skills were required to do a bit of mass piggy population. Another group I'm in had another little secret mission to do as a group that required a fair bit of collaboration (and no, I swear on the giants it was NOT the tree killing thing), which was quite fun.

    I agree, however, that the game is more slanted toward individual play overall. So it would be nice to see some more cooperative mechanics in the game...basically to give those who want them that option. I'm quite happy playing as the game stands and using the group chat as my main social outlet, plus some of those self-directed ideas, but of course it would be great for Glitch to be able to feed the need for group/teamwork stuff for those who really want it as well...just because I love Glitch and wouldn't want anyone to leave because they preferred more cooperative play! Sadly, I don't have any thrilling ideas to contribute, just my thoughts here. 
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting stuff. I'm new to the game as of a few days ago, but I have to say I definitely got the having people run past you in the hallway vibe when I started playing. To that, I'd suggest a simple fix of just slowing down how quickly the character can move, but allowing the character to "run" by hitting a modifier key. That's what I expected, so instead of walking or running, I found myself jumping across most screens.

    Because I'm new, I can only guess what projects, ingots and building materials are all about. I've purposely kept myself from reading too much about the game so that I can discover first-hand, but as I said in chat shortly after I found Briar's note about killing trees, finding that inciting note with the very strange lack of trees brought me to join the community in Help chat.

    As a result, I can't imagine the current community without that chat window.  This introduction to folks playing the game also made it surprising to read that many were anticipating the removal of said global chat.  It was sort of like seeing a bunch of people saying goodbye to a close friend that has no clear reasons for leaving.

    My experience of online games (of the MORPG and not MMORPG variety maybe fifteen years ago) is such that having some sort of real-time communication mechanism across the entire game is just plain fun.  I can't vouch for the lasting value, economic or otherwise -- it's all time and place as far as I'm concerned -- but I'd have to agree with the sentiment of having a project group chat or channel-based chat.  It's certainly a ton of overhead, but it would allow groups to form and disperse interesting ways.

    I'm excited to see how all of this develops.  It's a damn-charming game so far.
    Posted 20 months ago by Naoko Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Naoko, have you joined any Groups yet? Each group does have its own real-time chat channel/window, and I believe they want to funnel people into the groups because the help channel was being used for a lot of general chatting rather than people asking for and getting help (there is a Global/Social Chitchat group; I'm thinking maybe if that group gets its chat window rolling, a lot of people who used Help Channel just for chatting could go there). If I just told you something you already knew and I misunderstood your post, oooooops, so sorry! If you didn't know about the group chat windows...click the Groups tab and go group shopping ;)
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am so glad so many of my friends from Faunasphere are here.  I just started here but my old buddies have time and patience to stop long enough to guide me in the right direction.  I would be totally lost without them.  I enjoy both playing with small and large groups and being by myself.  

    I played F/S in beta for 18 months and it was a blast but when it went "live" the entire game changed, both good and bad.  We had new worlds to play in and could pay to control what fauna we had and how we looked.  In Beta we were basically all friends living in a small village that changed into living in a big city most were able to adjust with the changes.  The game was priced right at first and most of us paid extra to have the things we wanted in the belief the game would be around for at least 5 years or more.  

    BigFish closed it down 18 months after going live all of us were in shock.  The only notice we had was that in 30 days F/S would be shut down.  Money we paid 30 days prior to being told the game would end was refunded.  BigFish informed us that basically the game was not cost effective.  Those last 30 days a lot of us players started adding up just how much they had spent once the game went live, and it was unbelievable amount of money.  Many players had spent plus or minus about a thousand dollars, believing the game would be there any time they wanted to play.  The reality hit hard, a virtual game that shuts down leaves the players with absolutely nothing but a few screen shots.

    BigFish lost a lot of loyal customers who had bought other games for years prior to F/S. All companies need to make money and protect the corporate bottom line.  Many of  the F/S players I have talked with do not believe BF wasn't making money hand over fist or that the game had to be shut down, that made the closing even harder to accept.

    I was very lucky that I was there long enough to meet friends I will have for life.  My friends I met in F/S live all over the world and it is wonderful that so many of us are here in Glitch together again.

    Smile, laugh have as much fun as you can, and enjoy the now.

    xoxJulie
    Posted 20 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I didn't read the post about not being able to play together - but to be honest if you cannot play together in Wow then you will never play any game together.  Wow works as a multiplayer game - even if you only help someone out.  The only real problem is when you have massive level difference and you want to pvp.  But then you can often build an alt to keep up with a slovenly partner :)

    To the point however I would really like see more social questing in Glitch - it will add extra depth to a great game that really is beginning to show it's strengths
    Posted 20 months ago by Accy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I posted this in a thread in the ideas forums, but maybe it will be seen by more people here:

    I just thought of another cool way to encourage player interaction: a quest that pops up after buying your first house to host a party there, where you must have at least a certain number of players in your house all at once. The party guests could also get a share of the rewards. This could be a recurring quest (maybe with the number of required guests increasing each time), or there could be a "party mode" that is triggered when there are more players in a home than some number (5 or whatever). In party mode, all players in the home would get some reward, like a small amount of constantly increasing mood, energy, and experience within some time limit. There should be a cool-down period, perhaps only one party allowed per game day, so this feature isn't abused.

    Edited to add: Maybe there could also be some group items that can be used by multiple people at once (like a hookah or a dance floor).
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As an individual player, I love that you do not need to partner with someone or join a party in order to accomplish the quests. I am all for social gaming but I loathe there being no way to complete something by yourself. At the level where a single player MUST become a team in order to progress...that's about when I leave every game. I'm not anti team but I hate waiting for someone else to play.
    It is something I love about glitch, you can totally play with other people, but you don't have to. It is more efficient to work in a party or group but you don't have to.

    I think a good balance would be some social questing or social interaction at least required to complete things...maybe nto so necessary while there are fewer testers but as the game expands it could be one of the ways to keep it social.
    Posted 20 months ago by Mimi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree, Mimi. Making it fun to play with others is a better avenue than requiring it.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @xoxJulie - +1 (lovely to see you here, dear, as well as so many other post FS'ians)
    ...as to playing together, which is cool and the basic mechanics are in place e.g. new street projects and specific skill building quests, I should always like the option to accept/refuse any future group quests. I'm not an unsocial snob but some days my hands refuse to cooperate so I am best at playing solo in slo-mo...
    Posted 20 months ago by Poney Tails Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Shepherdmoon, love that idea. 
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Making it fun to play with others is a better avenue than requiring it."

    I agree. I still haven't even attempted the peat digging quest yet, simply because I'm not completely comfortable with the idea of finding a bunch of people, interrupting them and then persuading them to stop whatever they're doing and trek half way across the world with me to help me complete my little quest.

    I like the way the races work. If you want to race, you basically advertise your availability to race and if somebody else is nearby and in the mood, they can accept the challenge. If there must be quests that require group efforts, it would be nice if there were better ways to find willing helpers - some in-game advert, just as the races do. Perhaps we could wear little sandwich boards that say something like "Quest Help Needed - Apply Within"
    Posted 20 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • World-wide events could be a good way to bring players together. Maybe live lottery drawings (for prizes, not just money, so it seems more worth it. I won't gamble for money, but I'll gamble for neat, limited-edition stuff), quiz game shows could be a good way to get players together with audiences and the chance to be randomly selected from that audience for participation. We could have a Glitch-type Olympics where players form teams (maybe the teams could be group-based, but that would pose problems when a lot of different groups' active members are the same people) and compete for prizes in competitive areas spinach jumping, racing, and maybe even mining and other resource gathering. Contests provide an optional way for players to compete for something, but my only fear is that especially racing-style competitions would favor those with high quality connection speeds and hardware.
    Posted 20 months ago by Vexia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ dopiaza, several friends and I have become pros at the peat bog quest and would love to help. Friend me and then you could IM me in game, and I shall arrive with 5 or 6 expert diggers who love to help each other out:)
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love watching other people enjoy working on things together and I hope that there are a lot more things added for groups to do together - as long as it's not forced on me to have to join in order to achieve certain levels or skills. 
    There are several quests in my log that I'll probably never end up doing and wish I could delete them. They're just not my cuppa-jo. And if I can't advance in levels or skills unless I do certain quests that I don't enjoy, then what's the use of playing the game?
    I don't mind having to work at something a little harder than a group of peeps would have to work at to be able to accomplish anything...even if it means I have to use more energy/mood/whatever to do so. I like competing...but mainly against myself.

    I know it's a social game...and I AM sociable, just in my own way.
    I have more fun watching others have fun, but a party goer I am not. Makes my tummy hurt just thinking about being stuck in a group of peeps with thought bubbles popping up all around me ...I have enough trouble just trying to follow one person who is talking to me ( just who decided that the alphabet is "ASDFGHJKL;'" and not "ABCDEFGHIJK", anyway !?! lol)
    But if you want foodstuffeths and/or drinks donated to said project/party - you got it coz now you're talkin' MY kinda fun! :D I will blend, shake and grind for your group...Hell! I'll even blow bubbles for your group project/party if you need me too! lmao! (As long as you don't mind me doing a drop and run. :D :D :P)

    I think it would be great if there could be "services" added to the game...such as catering for parties or street builders and the likes...so peeps like me could be considered as a social part of a group without having to stand around feeling useless and ill-equipped at the "social" aspect of the game.
    It's one of the reasons why I loved FS so much. I always felt like I belonged whether I participated publicly (which was rarely) or behind the scenes (which I loved to do). I felt "useful" to the game and peeps that I came to dearly love.

    Guess what I'm trying to say is that there are different kinds of ways to be "social".
    Social to you may mean being amongst a ton of peeps chatting and laughing and accomplishing tasks that need to be worked on by a group and you enjoy doing, whereas social for me is planting/growing/harvesting foods, planting and picking trees and getting too friendly with the critters so I can cook and make drinks that I can then put up for y'all to buy so you can keep up your energy/mood/whatever to be able to finish whatever part of the game that you enjoying doing. :)
    Posted 20 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Rascalmom way up in this discussion.  Thank you!  Nope, I didn't know about chat being associated with groups. I imagined groups being somehow similar to LinkedIn (IE, not used much, or used only for asynchronous communication). I would imagine then, some sort of connection in the chat interface with the groups might be in order (or, as you point out, I might have just missed it altogether!).
    Posted 20 months ago by Naoko Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hey, sgjo, cool ideas! One thing you might like to hear is that at several street projects there at some kind souls who pretty much show up mainly to put out food and drink around the area or gift it to those standing there working. Your cup of tea? Maybe you'd enjoy that one:)
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ RM.I always did enjoy doing those things in FS...Yuppers definitely my cuppa-jo ;)
    Posted 20 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Love your ideas sgjo. I certainly have social and non-social days. So I like the idea of still participating in projects like making food and other commodities to aid players, while not being in the thick of it all. Days I feel like being social I will whole heartedly jump In with both feet. I like that Glitch offers this balance.  
    Posted 20 months ago by tweetypie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot said:

    "However, those won't make a *huge* difference. For sustainable truly non-solo play there need to be some societal-level mechanics (economic, social, political — even cultural). We have ideas, but I'd rather hear some of yours!"

    So... o.k.!

    Group Causes: Groups can dedicate themselves to one Cause, a kind of a "Mission Statement" with in-game consequences. Actions related to that Cause give the Group's members a small mood/exp bonus. Actions antithetical to the Cause take away a bit of mood, or cost a little more energy. So, maybe I create a Group whose cause is "Honoring Cosma"; members of the Group would receive a small mood/exp bonus for Donating to Shrines of Cosma, Meditating, Radiating, etc.

    There would, of course, have to be a pre-made list of Causes to choose from; more could be added over time as Glitch expands. I originally imagined it as a sort of multiple-choice "Mad-Libs", where a Group's founder could build his/her own Cause from a bunch of building blocks.

    Group Street-Patrons: This idea would let Groups influence a Street, without owning it. Basically, whatever Group Donates the most to a Street's Shrine over a certain threshold (so it costs something at the very least), becomes that Street's Patron for the next real-life week. At the end of the week, the Donations over the previous week are recalculated, and Patronage is either kept by the current Patron, transferred to another Group who Donated more than the current Patron, or abandoned altogether if the minimum threshold isn't reached.

    The benefit of Patronage is being able to define your Street's...

    ... Street-Effects: For every week a Group retains Patronage of a Street, they can define one rule of reality (or "Street-Effect") for that Street, up to a logical limit (3 weeks, 7, 11, whatever). Each Effect could be chosen from a list, or even built Mad-Libs style like the idea above for Causes.

    So, my Group might choose for it's first Street-Effect, "No Killing the Trees, 'kay?"; players would still be able to kill trees on my Group's Street, but the action would take longer, or be more expensive Energy-wise, etc. If my Group loses Patronage, the Effect is reset.

    Oh, and a simple yea/nay Voting system for use within Groups.

    That's all for now! Thanks for the great game!
    Posted 20 months ago by beej beej Subscriber! | Permalink
  • beej beej, I like the street patron idea...cool!
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • great thread.

    This all makes me think about the different sizes of groups glitch could encourage/ reward. Community starts by linking one person with another person. Then another. And another.
    People have different comfort levels depending on how many people they are joining in with.
    And different comfort levels around breaking the ice with other players, approaching strangers, asking for help, or favours.
    So, perhaps we need to think about what tasks/ quests/ achievements could be designed for

    2 people 
    (does it matter if they are pre-existing off-glitch friends? have just met?)
    -this would be a good start for first 'find-other-people-to-do-something-with' quests.  Like dopiaza, I found the jump to 'find people to harvest peat with' a bit steep. 'Mine a rock all the way down with another player' would have been an easier introduction to approaching another player and working out the whole communication/ working together thing. And the task (mining) is easy. Alternatives could be 'scrape a barnacle' with another person, etc.


    Next, graduate to 'mine 5 rocks with another person'.


    Now that we've worked out basic communication one-to-one and no one died of embarrassment, we can move on.


    3 people tasks
    -an easy number of players to co-ordinate more complex, timed tasks with. There could be many, many quests or rewards that could require 3-somes.
    And more complex communication skills/ tools can be introduced like communicating out-of-view across one street, communicating from different locations (IM or party chat) or using a group, etc. So, for example water three trees on the same street simultaneously, then water three trees in three different streets simultaneously. etc.


    4 people tasks
    -co-ordinating 4 people is getting more tricky. Especially if some/all of the 4 are slow typers/ readers or have poor chat skills. Tasks that require precise timing and co-ordination are more difficult.


    5 - 8 people 
    -these tasks need to be fairly basic for the most part, like 'scrape a barnacle'. Otherwise they will lead to frustration or limit participation to people who can follow directions quickly and accurately. Slow typers/ readers will get lost, mess up the timing, etc.
    Or they need to be tasks that can be accomplished separately (no timing element) and then brought together, like 'mine as many iron rocks in 2 mins as possible then everyone donate to the same shrine'.  Lame idea, but you know what I mean.


    10 people or more
    -this is where you're getting into Project territory, the current shortfalls of which have been discussed elsewhere.  I see the main problem with the current projects as an opportunity for people to compete/ out-donate each other, rather than an opportunity to work together. 


    20 people or more
    - Project workers to Clubs/ Associations/ Neighbourhood Groups/ Skills Guilds/ Giant Admirers, etc.
    What we need are activities for these groups to do. Missions, a purpose, a structure, the ability to communicate, the ability to create, have meeting places, effect change, etc.
    Posted 20 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @beej beej, your ideas sound great!

    @wrendolin, i like how you've broken out groups by size and captured the dynamics, i think for groups larger than 4, there needs to be a party system that can group you together automatically. otherwise it may get hard to assemble a group of larger size.
    Posted 20 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting, sgjo - I like the idea of contributing to a project from the sidelines - especially if you thereby avoid the 'politics' that already seem to have crept in to the street projects. Nobody is going to yell at you if you didn't make enough food - or are they? When I played Guild Wars people would get mad at players who didn't do their role as well as the other players would like - eg if they were a healer and they didn't heal them fast enough. It was the main reason I quit playing - since I didn't want to spend 20 hours a week researching the wiki and finding out the ultimate 'build' (I have a real life too) and if you didn't do that you would generally not meet the expectations of players you might team up with for a quest. These days GW has 'heroes' who are non-playing characters and you can do a quest with them instead of with other players. It seems that teamwork is just as hard in a game as it is in real life.
    If there are different ways of contributing to a project, that would allow people to fulfil the requirements for moving to the next skill level without having to put themselves in a situation where they are not comfortable. There seems to be a fair bit of unpleasantness arising in the street projects and expectations that new players would find confusing - they would think they are being helpful and some advanced player has some goal they don't know about and have no reason to understand.
    Posted 20 months ago by Emu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ Emu: teamwork is just as hard in a game as it is in real life. :D That's cause it's real people behind the avatars ;)
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Emu... I'm sorry you're feeling there is some sort of politics surrounding Street Projects.Not sure exactly where it's stemming from, unless you're finding the rapid fire delivery of info in the New Streets group chat a little disorienting. New Streets is a public group, anyone can join and leave at will... I myself often leave the group in down time, then rejoin when I feel up to working on Street Projects. However, once you're in the chat, the info comes fast and furious. In minute of watching and you can usually find out where the projects are and what they need. The set up is a little sink-or-swim at that point, but people are always willing to stop and explain what Street Projects are and how to find them.

    Street Projects are a hard thing to explain to an incredibly new person without making their head explode. They also aren't introduced through any in-game mechanism... you either have to stumble across one or hear about them for the first time from another player. It's a serious flaw... but I don't think it's politics.

    Street projects are a bit of a 'feeding frenzy' if you will. That can be painful, especially when you're new. I don't support putting a cap on how much you can donate to a project, or on being able to 'reserve' a certain amount of work or donations, I think they defeat the purpose of a shared reward.... but I do think more, much much more as this thread indicates, can be done to give people a bigger window of opportunity for inclusion.

    My only objections to the Street Projects thus far are: 
    a) the requirements are so terribly low at times I myself can go in and wipe out a good chunk of the collection requirements, if not all of them, just with the stuff I carry around... 1000 beryl or ingots is really truly a nothing. Add another decimal place and now we're talking a 'community effort' to achieve.
    b) the requirements that can simply be bought at vendors. We've got soooo many items and objects and stuff that could be used in a project, a requirement of say Hooch seems like 'dumbing it down'. There's no thought, no effort, just... 'anyone standing by a drinks vendor that can auction 500 Hooch'. I'd really like to see all of the requirements be something that requires an actual player effort.
    c) the way the Street Projects get queued by the development team. Right now... I totally understand every single street projects spawing in the new regions... it's the artwork you have queued. But.... from a player perspective.... I've helped build Shimla Mirch, and now the two new areas.... not only does it feel like an endless pattern of 'laying track' but the lack of variety is actually very boring, and totally takes away from the 'wow factor' of a new street. It's not nearly as fun to explore the street you (you the player and you the developers and artists) have spent so much time creating when it's the 6th barnacle tree background with layers for jellisac everywhere. It's become methodical... work street project, open the next gloomy street one street over that's gonna look 99% the same, just to work another project and open yet another gloomy street one street over.

    I know there is more in the works... but right now it just feels like there's no variety in the Street Projects. I dislike it that whole regions are opening up, and it feels like that's how Street Projects are going to be handeled down the road.... one 'batch' region of streets in a queue, all in the same place, until we're out... then the next 'batch' region. As a result, you stand at the 'end of the line' working, and Glitch starts to become very anti-social... even when I'm handing the same few people cherries and bubbles so they can polish off a different part of the project.

    In short, I guess I'd like to see things set up a little differently. I'd like to see requirements better suited to the current scale of the game (cause it really feels like these aren't getting scaled for the volume of players)... and I've mentioned a Project Cool Down elsewhere. Seriously... say we get 2 streets built in a region, and then there's no more in that region until the next Glitch Day. This, of course, would only work if there were Street Projects going on in multiple regions, and not just the region next door. Not sure the Glitch world is ready for such diversity and activity in multiple locations... as mentioned, I think we're just going to get big whopping batches of art. Love the game, love the developers.... but it's starting to get a 'manufacturing' type feel as the race to Live picks up speed.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What I like about Glitch is that you can choose whether you want to be social that day and participate in group activities or play solo, cooking up meals all by yourself in the privacy of your home while following chat.
    Therefore, I would prefer the playing-together-in-game to be provided by other items, places or mechanics rather than quests. As many have said in this thread: the quests involving others are the ones lining up in my log as well. Lately, mostly because I haven't had much time to test and was eager to see the new places and test new items. But for whatever reason someone tends to solo-playing they shouldn't feel like they won't be able to finish all main quests.

    One thing that comes to mind are meeting-points/get-together-areas. Each region should have a public place like a market-square for people to hang out, trade, find racing buddies and make friends. That would also reduce the running-past-each-other-in-the-hallway effect (at least while you are there).
    The Market Hall (whatever happened to that place? will it appear again?) was a concept I liked much better than the current auction system.
    Each housing area/quarter should have one block for community activities. Maybe with the above mentioned dance floor (love that idea!), an already installed butterfly milker and piggy feeder or a swimming-pool filled with bubbles.
    I haven't met half of my neighbors and I would love to see more game mechanics that would encourage that.
    How about a project for the inhabitants of Groddle Meadow and a different one for the Forest Community?

    I also would like to see items that will only work if you have at least two player using it. 'Tea for two' can only be consumed when someone else is around (everyone receives energy and mood, as many cups are needed as players are present) and will grant 100xp for everyone in a group of at least 10 players.
    Posted 20 months ago by Mina Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 to all of Travinara's ideas, love them!
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the community housing area ideas, Mina.
    Trav, the comment about projects becoming political was based on some comments going back and forth (can't remember if it was in the New Streets chat or Help) which were getting very heated, and seemed to be around people being bossy and thinking one project should take priority over another. I was just an innocent bystander but it put me off participating in the projects.
    Posted 20 months ago by Emu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Trav, I agree. Back in Faunasphere (I see you non- FSer rolling your eyes now), the community projects normally requires 100,000 or so of each item (am I right?), which can be bought from other player's spheres. All except for bio fuel, which is food, and you make/ gather that yourself. Also, once you donate a certain amount, you get a 'reward', 3rd tier generally being something store bought, 2nd tier and 3rd tier generally being much more expensive and can only be bought from a Bux (game currency that is bought with RL $$) store, and sometimes not even able to buy it. There is also raffle prizes, like a lucky draw. As long as you donated to the project, you will stand a chance of winning one of the raffle prizes. Of course, the more you donate, the more 'tickets' you will have, so that encourages people to donate more. The real trouble began when the underwater world project opened. The 1st tier prize was a waterproof gene that allows our pets to be waterproof and is needed for our pets to remain underwater for long periods of time. The problem is that it demanded 5000 tickets. So a lot of inconsiderate people began to 'sweep' the totems (that's where to buy the components) on other people's spheres and caused the speed of patronage to slow down (I'd explain the patron- totem system but I'm tired and you're probably sick of reading this already, so I'll leave it to someone else. Just think of it as someone digging out all the peat in an area for a project and leaving none for everyone else, or something). So what happens if loads of people are stimulatively donating stuff in chunks of 5000? The projects fill up quickly, and only leaves food to be filled by some poor soul. So if Glitch were to use this reward system, I'll strongly recommend it, but don't make the rewards too pricey.
    Posted 20 months ago by KitkatCat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd be against any game currency that could be bought with RL currencies.  That leads very quickly to unbalanced play and gated communities.
    Posted 20 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ KitkatCat and WindBorn, no worries, stoot has said in more than one place that he does NOT want or plan to sell anything that actually affects gameplay to be bought w/ real money (except multiple teleport points were mentioned). KitkatCat, even using just currants though, it would be interesting to incorporate some of those ideas.
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Forcing communal play: When this thread started, I certainly thought this was the only solution. Most easily manifested in the "take-something-away-from-me" model that would require me to play with others (ex. If I learn to mine, don't let me cook [to regain energy]). After giving it a few days to percolate and reading some of the responses though, it seems that forcing people to play together is almost anti-Glitch. As the skill tree grows and specialization becomes the norm, I like to think relying on others to fill some blanks spots closely follows suit, naturally.

    Encouraging communal play: I believe I've seen ideas around the forum that would implement encouraged group play, in theory. My inner-economist wants there to be some incentive to playing with others. Let's use mining as an example, again. What if players could officially register a mining party with the game? Provided everybody is mining on the same street, all players get a mining bonus (could be faster mining, lower health reduction, greater rock return, or anything else). It would gently push players to play together by making it worth while, but anybody would still be able to go it alone. Finally, still using this scenario, as skill specialization takes effect, perhaps the party could be diversified by including a cook to provide energy for the miners. For providing food, the party system could grant a benefit to the registered cook (be it giving that player rocks being mined, extra cash, etc...).

    The logistics certainly need to be fine-tuned, but the shell of the idea can be applied to many different aspects of the game even in its current jacks-and-jills-of-all-trades state. And best of all, nobody is penalized for playing alone, just rewarded *more* for playing in groups.
    Posted 20 months ago by Lyndon B Johnson Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd like to put in here that it would be FANTASTIC to set up a situation where communal play is encouraged and even greatly rewarded.
    But please don't require it.
    One of the reasons aside from expense that I don't play WoW is that I don't like their system where it nearly requires you to be part of a Guild to advance. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the idea of being in a Guild, but I'm swing shift, so NEEDING my guildmates to be online when I play is a pain for scheduling reasons. I like the fact that I get to play with the night owls and Aussies when I'm awake at night, and the US, Germany & UK folks in the day.
    Posted 20 months ago by Murri Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I completely agree, Murri. 

    As for the idea of working together on projects: it's fun, but it's not for everyone all of the time.  I do enjoy coordinating efforts, but once in a while I walk past a project, contribute some items, and keep walking.  This may or may not anger players who have already divided item acquisition responsibilities among themselves.  I've also seen a lot of anger directed toward "hoarders," but I don't really understand why; anyone can collect a large amount of anything, and contribute it at will.  Projects are equal-opportunity endeavors, and I'd much rather they stay that way.
    Posted 20 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink