Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

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Do you like the idea of guided spawning?

Yes - I like the proposal given
57
73%
Yes - I like the idea, but not so much the suggestions given
11
14%
I Might like the idea. I need to read more.
4
5%
No - sounds like a bad idea
5
6%
I don't give a crap
1
1%
 
Total votes: 78
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Bmot
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Bmot » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:54 pm

Doug R. wrote:
Bmot wrote:Maybe it could be made so that activeness gets more newspawns? I mean, there are enough places that have like 20 people, but only two or three of them aren't sleeping. If you count activeness (We'd have to look how to measure that, of course), it'd be more fair, in my honest opinion.

That doesn't solve the problem of newspawns "not fitting in" "being ignored" or "not having something to do." You can have a very active or industrious town and newspawns get ignored. I want to empower the characters to be able to attract newspawns if they want them, and repel them if they don't. It serves the town, and serves the newspawn. Industriousness is not an indicator of want, nor is general activity.


I agree, maybe it can be combined? Somehow being able to say if you want newspawns, but also take into account activeness, so you don't get a town that slowly died off, but where sleepers still have 'ticked the box' of attracting newspawns.
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Doug R.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Doug R. » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:00 pm

The easiest way to achieve that would be to have characters that haven't been "active" in X days automatically excluded from the spawn parent pool. As soon as they do anything, they'd be added back in.

If the player removes the character themselves, it would stay in effect until changed. However, I think there needs to be a caveat: The excluded status needs to be plainly visible (say, on the character page), or a reminder needs to be periodically sent. The former is probably easier. A simple red circle with a line next to the character's name would suffice, perhaps with a person's shape inside.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby sanchez » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:04 pm

In the past, these proposals have been rejected for being too easy to abuse, in a eugenics sort of fashion because of the way skills were assigned. Removing the choice away from any one char, or at least requiring more consistent in-game effort, mitigates this somewhat. We're talking about increasing spawns for small but active towns. Logging in is not a measure of activity. There is nothing in the game that forces people to RP. I also think it's an error to allow anyone to reject newspawns. Serendipity is a nice feature.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:14 pm

Do you mean visible to other characters, Doug? If so, I don't agree with that. ETA: I do agree with the rest of what you said before 'caveat', though.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Doug R. » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:29 pm

No, to the player, not to other characters.

sanchez wrote:I also think it's an error to allow anyone to reject newspawns. Serendipity is a nice feature.


It is, but allowing characters to reject newspawns very nicely solves the problem of instant colonies of foreign characters popping up whenever a pair of sailors decide to stay more than a day or two in a foreign port. IMO, these are the newspawns that are done the most disservice, unwanted by the town and their spawnparents alike.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby nateflory » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:41 pm

While I like the "thematic" suggestions about items and projets and activity as away to modify this...
Why not a small unassuming tickbox on the character's page labelled "Parental tendancies?" or something?

There are already two fields there for "our" own use as a player (name and description) that are effectively invisible to other Characters (the outward description field is separate from personal description after all).

Ticking or un-checking a flagged field there would be efficient, transparent, and "neutral" enough that you can explain in IC'ly any way you want.

For added bonus, it would be character-specific, and if Programming would make it so excessive idleness unticks the box anyway (unless on Holiday, etc etc), it's a fairly straightforward method, without too much resources or extra fiddling needed.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby sanchez » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:56 pm

@Nate I think it's safer to make the choice Player-specific, so that individual character traits are not the influence.

I really like multilingual towns, and minority spawns have created some of the most interesting dynamics I've seen in game. If the purpose of this suggestion is limit this possibility, it should be presented in a different way.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby nateflory » Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:01 pm

Ahh, I had read this about specific characters, not players themselves.

It made sense to me one person could have a rogue piratey or loner-type character, and not want spawns nearby (for the varied arguments given) but also have a very social character that really wants more people to show up.
If you were active as a player, I figure 15 (30?) clicks once and done, wasnt' too much to ask to set your flag per character. :)
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby SumBum » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:05 pm

I hope the choices are more granular than on/off for the player's entire account. I have chars who would love to have newspawns and other chars of mine would prevent it if possible. Each char has different situations, personalities and lifestyles that dictate how accepting they are of newspawns. Some of mine are travelers who would not want to be guilted into taking a newspawn with them versus leaving them in an isolated area and telling them tough luck.

I agree that having a char spawn where they are the only one speaking a certain language can be interesting but that is not something I would throw at a new player, especially a mono-lingual one who had no hope of even RPing their char learning the native language.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Doug R. » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:07 pm

nateflory wrote:Ahh, I had read this about specific characters, not players themselves.

It made sense to me one person could have a rogue piratey or loner-type character, and not want spawns nearby (for the varied arguments given) but also have a very social character that really wants more people to show up.
If you were active as a player, I figure 15 (30?) clicks once and done, wasnt' too much to ask to set your flag per character. :)


Sanchez wants it for a whole player, so that individual characters can't practice eugenics. The suggestion was indeed for characters. I don't see eugenics as a problem for two reasons:

1) Since the status is invisible, and there's a random element in skill adoption, there's no real way to force another character to remove themselves from the spawn pool. They can say they did, but you'll never really know so long as there's at least three in the location. Also, you can already do it, by forcing the weaklings inside or out of town, so eugenics is not really adding a new feature. Weaklings will still be put inside or run out of town, simply because it's impossible to know if they are complying with your eugenics law.

2) The skills system will be replaced someday with a system that doesn't use a genetic basis. At least that's the direction the conversation has taken inside the administration. It's just too big a project to be worked on while another big project is being worked on (animals domestication).
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby sanchez » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:34 pm

I'll agree the potential for abuse must be weighed against the problem we're trying to solve. One consideration should be however why it is that the decline in the English zone over the past couple of years has become so much more marked than in other language groups. Has anything specifically precipitated a loss of English players? What are the differences in need among the language groups regarding population density, and how might spawning changes affect different zones?
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Chris » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:52 am

Doug R. wrote:1) Enable characters to increase the odds of attracting newspawns to their location.

The mechanism already exists: feed everyone in town. It requires desire and effort, both in producing food and distributing it.

Hey, you said you didn't care how! Problem solved.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Doug R. » Fri Sep 21, 2012 2:01 am

Chris wrote:
Doug R. wrote:1) Enable characters to increase the odds of attracting newspawns to their location.

The mechanism already exists: feed everyone in town. It requires desire and effort, both in producing food and distributing it.

Hey, you said you didn't care how! Problem solved.


There are remote towns with two or three people that are active and only see one newspawn every real-life 6 months. This does nothing to help them increase that frequency. So no, problem not solved.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Chris » Fri Sep 21, 2012 2:09 am

Doug R. wrote:
Chris wrote:
Doug R. wrote:1) Enable characters to increase the odds of attracting newspawns to their location.

The mechanism already exists: feed everyone in town. It requires desire and effort, both in producing food and distributing it.

Hey, you said you didn't care how! Problem solved.


That simply maintains that status quo, and does nothing to increase the odds of attracting newspawns.

Not true. Towns that feed everyone get larger faster than towns that do not. Otherwise, Dom Hofran would have a population of four.

The feed-everyone tactic takes a while to gain momentum, but maybe that's a good thing. Some people have a lot of energy for a short while and then burn out. Only the people who have staying power should be deliberately growing their towns.
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Re: Desire-Based Spawning (DBS)

Postby Doug R. » Fri Sep 21, 2012 2:10 am

Read my edit and try again.

Edit: Actually, let me retort to your as-yet-to be posted retort:

My oldest character is 114 years old. 90 years ago, he founded a town with one other character in the middle of nowhere. 90 years later, the town's population is 3. That's net gain of one character in 90 years. Sure, there were others, and he kept every one of them fed. Half left to start their own towns in the middle of nowhere, the other half had heart-attacks. One in 90 years isn't good enough, and he kept everyone fed. Clearly that's not an effective option.
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