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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => General Game Discussion => Topic started by: The Lost Children on May 04, 2012, 12:29:16 am

Title: What Would It Take?
Post by: The Lost Children on May 04, 2012, 12:29:16 am
What would it take to take this game from "Client of Grievances" to a sprawling MMO with grand support and a grand community?

What needs changing?

-Developer priorities?
-GM attitude/ game disruption?
-Communal efforts?
-PROPER ADVERTISEMENT?


What do you guys think this game needs to take it to the level of a game that is worth playing for more than x months?

I personally think the game needs to be advertised anywhere and everywhere, I think we as a community should band together and advertise the positives of the game, and bring in new and willing players. Take them by the hand and show them the ups and downs of the game and hopefully in a few months after such an effort, we'd have a brand new generation of community who could hopefully offer different views and opinions on a "dying" game (AS EVERYONE SAYS).

Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: maciek83 on May 04, 2012, 12:31:07 am
money...
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: The Lost Children on May 04, 2012, 12:33:42 am
money...

Donations are part of advertising. You get a community BEFORE you get funding. That's the point. If devs want money, perhaps they should dispatch some kind of community event where everyone can show their efforts in advertising the game. It's not hard to write up a detailed thread and offer friendly assistance with installing/running/playing/learning the game.

It just needs to be done by the community that is ALREADY here.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: chocolate_chip_cookies on May 04, 2012, 12:40:53 am
I think you're right. Except that the game is still unfinished so all the devs probably need right now are the testers. After the product is finished and stable there will be time for advertising and growing community
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: The Lost Children on May 04, 2012, 12:54:29 am
I think you're right. Except that the game is still unfinished so all the devs probably need right now are the testers. After the product is finished and stable there will be time for advertising and growing community

But let's be honest, for legal reasons the game will ALWAYS be in OPEN beta test.

For the sake of the "game", or "beta" that we love, should we not spread the love... not only to help give longevity to the game, but to make testing faster, to make the game world bigger, etc etc?

The game will NEVER be finished legally. So there's no reason to not spread the word.
---------

I've done my fair share of advertising for this game in the best possible ways I could think of that were not too time consuming or spamalicious. But I think if everyone took like 20-30 minutes to write up a nice thread and post it on all community forums they're a part of, we would be neck deep in new players.

Imagine the dynamics of small-time gameplay with a slew of 20-50 new players?  The players who are NOT part of those majorly OP factions, it would add great new dynamics.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: ThePhoenix77 on May 04, 2012, 12:56:05 am
After the product is finished and stable there will be time for advertising and growing community
Give it 10 years  :P  or maybe *soon*
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Marko on May 04, 2012, 01:47:12 am
None of us need to concern ourselves with any of this since the game itself will attract a number of players proportional to its value, and that value is only determined by one group: the developers.

So you and i and a bunch of other people can love love love the game and wish wish wish upon all the stars in the sky, but none of that matters at all. This is a private game. It will never be commercial. So we cannot force-fit this game into a standard game template where labels like "beta" apply.

(Think about the value of words for a moment; if this game will "always be in beta", then the word beta virtually has no meaning. You could just as easily say it's done but they are always making new updates. Hence calling ourselves beta testers might be a bit pretentious. How 'bout "Free-Game-Players"? That sounds about right.)

Not to worry though: those of us playing it already consider it "worth playing" or we would not be reading this. And the devs are apparently working on it so...i look forward to more.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Giftless on May 04, 2012, 03:31:17 am
I kinda like it being underground with splinter groups attempting their own Fallout Online variations; an Open Fallout essentially.

However, one thing I would like to see is more support for the small-group roleplayers, something closer to the kind of multiplayer Neverwinter Nights has. Sure, it's fun being in the chaotic free-for-all wasteland, but I think people should have the option to switch off the asshats if they just want to do some PvE with friends.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: The Lost Children on May 04, 2012, 04:00:20 am
I kinda like it being underground with splinter groups attempting their own Fallout Online variations; an Open Fallout essentially.

However, one thing I would like to see is more support for the small-group roleplayers, something closer to the kind of multiplayer Neverwinter Nights has. Sure, it's fun being in the chaotic free-for-all wasteland, but I think people should have the option to switch off the asshats if they just want to do some PvE with friends.

I feel the way of doing that would be to add some kind of honor/dishonor system which would incur penalties on shooting people of a certain faction, a faction which preserves its laws within this honor/dishonor system.

example: Crafter joins crafter faction, gets dishonor for killing anyone who has not shot at him first. vice versa etc etc.

But all of this also does affect the free nature of gameplay that Fallout is famous and infamous for.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Giftless on May 04, 2012, 06:20:40 am
I feel the way of doing that would be to add some kind of honor/dishonor system which would incur penalties on shooting people of a certain faction, a faction which preserves its laws within this honor/dishonor system.

example: Crafter joins crafter faction, gets dishonor for killing anyone who has not shot at him first. vice versa etc etc.

But all of this also does affect the free nature of gameplay that Fallout is famous and infamous for.

That's a good idea; I was thinking though of a metagame sort of reputation that applies no matter which character you use. With Fallout, moral ambiguity is to be expected so a Player Kill or two wouldn't be a big deal, given a little time the meter would swing back to neutral. But for players doing mass suicide bombings and other devil spawn activities, I think it would be nifty if they got to experience bad karma effects no matter which account they were using.

For example towns would start generating bottlecap bounties on that player's alts and other players could kill them and bring in ears for the reward. There could be radio frequencies with announcements saying which town the fugitive was last seen in. The idea is that grieving and other criminal activities would get lay-low cool down times while other players could get rewarded for policing activities; it would just be more balanced I think.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: jonny rust on May 04, 2012, 10:36:15 am
None of us need to concern ourselves with any of this since the game itself will attract a number of players proportional to its value, and that value is only determined by one group: the developers.

I disagree.

The player community has a lot to answer for in terms of the games value. We are the life blood here, the developers just create the rules, I know that's a very limited way of expressing how much work they do and I don't mean to demean them by it, but we are the ones who take their rules and breath life into them and the quality of that life is largely up to us. It's like that with any multi-player game, they are just as fun as the people you are playing with make them be it an online MMO or a table top board game.

When new players arrive in the wasteland they are usually sold on the idea of the game already because of their love of fallout (otherwise they will probably devalue the game themselves unless they learn to love and appreciate it) but many soon get frustrated and leave due to other players devaluing the games experience for them ( and I believe that many of those players are true fallout fans).

Now, I'm not saying that there is a right an wrong way to play this game, but there is perhaps an appreciating and depreciating approach to the game.

When we enrich each others gaming experiences, we enrich the game's value at the same time but because it's free and open it's very difficult to stop players from devaluing the game or indeed even objectively saying that they devalue the game, it is after all a matter of opinion in the end. But I would say that The Lost Children is/are on to something with their original suggestion here.

Ultimately, in my humblest opinion, when the server's player numbers dry up I think all of us who are willing to need to ask ourselves what we are doing wrong, why are they not growing and what can each of us do to maintain and increase them.
 so...

I kinda like it being underground with splinter groups attempting their own Fallout Online variations; an Open Fallout essentially.

However, one thing I would like to see is more support for the small-group roleplayers, something closer to the kind of multiplayer Neverwinter Nights has.

I would like to see more of those kinds of players too. Perhaps you could recruit some to Fonline from the Never Winter Nights community?

P.S.
That's a good idea; I was thinking though of a metagame sort of reputation that applies no matter which character you use. With Fallout, moral ambiguity is to be expected so a Player Kill or two wouldn't be a big deal, given a little time the meter would swing back to neutral. But for players doing mass suicide bombings and other devil spawn activities, I think it would be nifty if they got to experience bad karma effects no matter which account they were using.

For example towns would start generating bottlecap bounties on that player's alts and other players could kill them and bring in ears for the reward. There could be radio frequencies with announcements saying which town the fugitive was last seen in. The idea is that grieving and other criminal activities would get lay-low cool down times while other players could get rewarded for policing activities; it would just be more balanced I think.

many suggestions have been made about how to end griefing but it would seem there is no way to implement a karma system for a player (rather than his/her characters individually) without introducing paid accounts, which will never happen. However keep an eye out for 2155 beta tests. 

But don't worry, I think griefers still receive negative karma, just not through game mechanics ;)

Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: café saké on May 04, 2012, 11:28:47 am
I think ...

-Developer priorities.

-> Quests for life and stop stupid pexing centaurs : caravanes, scouting, scavenging, delivery, capture bitch of opposant chef gang. More special encouters.
-> Implant real karma impact in wasteland (not for player to player, but for player to npc)
utilities of karma : ask guard escort, new safe locations for trusted members and more.
-> Do live in NPC faction with help of GM.
We want see Brotherhood paladin. We want see enclave patrol make deal with Salvatores. We want can be more of a centaur killer, we want to be a real vault citizen, a real mafiosi of New reno, a real NCR Ranger etc ...

I think that is the problem of fonline : No roleplay. No quest. NPC Faction are dead.

If dev's say they want more quest, more roleplay, i think communauty help them to do it. But .. what dev's want? Except more money ........
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Kilgore on May 04, 2012, 12:05:21 pm
But .. what dev's want? Except more money ........

I probably know what they want from you (ofc except thousands of $$$)...

They want YOU to ...

Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Mike Crosser on May 04, 2012, 12:52:57 pm
Well a big step forward would be if someone like IGN or GameSpot would review the game but small chance that is going to happen .
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: falloutdude on May 04, 2012, 03:25:25 pm
Well a big step forward would be if someone like IGN or GameSpot would review the game but small chance that is going to happen .
lol we would get worst reveiw never. its not noob friendly , its not cod, the person reveiwing would just rage quit and give us a -10.
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: ThePhoenix77 on May 04, 2012, 04:19:50 pm
lol we would get worst reveiw never. its not noob friendly , its not cod, the person reveiwing would just rage quit and give us a -10.
True story.

What would they say about the player base?
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Andr3aZ on May 04, 2012, 04:33:44 pm
1. Kickstarter to buy rights to use all F1 & F2 data commercial from right-holders
2. Kiststarter to gather money for the dev to be paid for living expenses on step 4
3. Right to use FOnline Engine commercial from cvet
4. devs drop current jobs and work fulltime on FOnline:2238 for 2 years and release it on steam for 5-7 €/$ with nice TF2 hats if you preorder
5. huge success
6. stop dreaming Andr3aZ
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: maciek83 on May 04, 2012, 05:26:50 pm
ah i actually thiked about same thing, but i stopped dreaming and decided not to even post that :D

but... if they get some rights to selling this game , there are few possibilities to keep the game free and make small money on it , like some concern pays some small fee to introduse their commercials in city maps , ie big coca-cola banner in ncr:) or people could use real money for some extra things than do not give advantage of others like in example having custom skin for like 20$ , or even free experience given by gm so one could buy himself a 24lvl character at startup for real cash .

but that would never happen ,and if somehow do, i fear it would quickly become another pay to play game and i would quit so its better it stays the way it is
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: Alexandrite on May 07, 2012, 10:43:41 pm
What would it take to take this game from "Client of Grievances" to a sprawling MMO with grand support and a grand community?

What needs changing?

-Developer priorities?
-GM attitude/ game disruption?
-Communal efforts?
-PROPER ADVERTISEMENT?


What do you guys think this game needs to take it to the level of a game that is worth playing for more than x months?

I personally think the game needs to be advertised anywhere and everywhere, I think we as a community should band together and advertise the positives of the game, and bring in new and willing players. Take them by the hand and show them the ups and downs of the game and hopefully in a few months after such an effort, we'd have a brand new generation of community who could hopefully offer different views and opinions on a "dying" game (AS EVERYONE SAYS).

Rules would be nice to regulate A LOT... I see so many things that are taken advantage by players... and advertising this game to a lot of people would be nice too... the more we bring, the more each person counts! :D
Title: Re: What Would It Take?
Post by: The Lost Children on May 08, 2012, 09:23:29 am
Rules would be nice to regulate A LOT... I see so many things that are taken advantage by players... and advertising this game to a lot of people would be nice too... the more we bring, the more each person counts! :D

Yeah I think you're right about the rules.  That goes along with GM disruption and attitude. Despite GMs sometimes being very friendly and amiable, let's be serious, it throws the balance off when the GMs have personal relationships with individuals.  Things like that would have to stop for this game to be valued at all.