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 Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:31 pm
I remember Pan mentioning a multitude of times that one of the key differences between zOMG! and Facebook games were the synchronicity of multiplayer interactions; simply, Facebook games generally don't require players to be online simultaneously, in order to 'play together'. zOMG!, on the other hand, requires realtime interaction - which makes it potentially more engaging, but also considerably less available in some circumstances. Now, I still don't think that zOMG! would be a good fit for Facebook, but when we see others succeeding where we're not, it's generally a good idea to consider what we can learn from it.
Facebook tends to orient its asynchronous play amongst 'friends' - and that seems like a perfectly good strategy to me. Personally, I think it would be ideal to work the G'hi system into it - it would retains the system's original intent of rewarding 'socialisation' amongst players, while recycling the framework of that currently useless system into something beneficial to the game. It would still be reasonably familiar to old players, vastly more understandable to intermediate players, and something that new players can simply ignore until they're ready for it.
My first thought was modifying the G'hi system to be additive, rather than subtractive; essentially, have every G'hi ability work constantly at its current 100% rate, and then have any additional G'hi increase it from that point. A player with 1 G'hi would have 101% abilities; a player with 10 G'hi would have 110%, and a player with 100 G'hi would have 200% abilities - and those would require 'interacting' with 1, 10, or 100 friends, respectively. As it does now, G'hi would deplete over time (albeit more slowly), meaning that players would accrue their G'hi for the day early on, and simply let it run down from there.
EDIT: The big issue with G'hi as a reward is that it's not much of a reward in-and-of-itself; it simply facilitates further gameplay. To work for asynchronous and short-term play, we would want the system to distribute some other kind of reward as well, I'd imagine.
My big stopping point has been that I don't know what sort of 'interaction' would work best - Facebook games tend to simplify it down to 'point-and-click', but that could easily refer to the majority of those games' mechanics. Do you think a mini-game of some sort would work? Any idea what sort of minigame? What mechanics, what theme? And while we're here, what do you think of the premise in general? Would asynchronous options be a good avenue for zOMG! to explore? Do you think the G'hi system would actually serve as a good method to facilitate that?
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 12:14 pm
A mini-game of some sort, you say... hmm well to be able to boost your friends' ghi abilities you have to win the ghi power from the animated first?
Of course for this to work we would need to have a zOMG! player profile that can be viewed even if the player is offline.
For example then I visit your zOMG! profile while you are offline and I click "boost luck"; this warps me into a mini-fight with some creature, let's say an OMGWTF that I have to beat. The animated could even give out loot to the both of us just as if we were fighting in a crew.
It could be like in Backyard Monsters that there is a limit with how many friends can help you with a specific ability each day (like in BYM only 5 people can help me build a Tesla Tower).
There could be points for how many people you've helped, this could even be worked into a sort of leaderboard.
But speaking of leaderboards: you have touched one aspect of asynchronous gameplay in your post, namely helping each other, but on Facebook there are also a lot of games that have a different aspect of asynchronous gameplay: the competitive factor!
And here we go again with the pvp. Not as in actual player-versus-player fighting, but as in player-versus-player competition of how well (or how often) they can play.
Imagine that when I beat the stone coatl, it would register how fast I have done it. And then imagine that I could send you a challenge: "Memory has beaten the Stone Coatl in x minutes y seconds. Think you can do faster??"
Or how many times. "Memory has beaten the OMGWTF 521 times. Can you beat their score?"
Hmm this could actually even be done with the repeatable quests as well.
At the moment we have the 5k badges, but once you've beaten 5000 of the creatures (for example lawn gnomes), you're pretty much done. I wish the count wouldn't stop there. razz
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 1:33 pm
Memory Haunts You But speaking of leaderboards: you have touched one aspect of asynchronous gameplay in your post, namely helping each other, but on Facebook there are also a lot of games that have a different aspect of asynchronous gameplay: the competitive factor!
You're absolutely right, yes. Synchronous co-operative (crewing) play already exists, and synchronous competitive play (PvP) is the game's single-most-common suggestion; asynchronous competitive play exists (badges), but is very poorly facilitated. I chose to focus on co-operative asynchronous gameplay because it's something that doesn't appear to have been widely considered for zOMG!.
If we wanted to facilitate competitive play, I'd really push Badges. First of all, I'd make it more obvious when you receive one; have a little glowing icon appear in the upper left of the screen (like where they appear for mini-events) showing that you've obtained a badge, and allow players to click it for more information. I think your 'challenge' suggestion would work well there, as the information panel could carry an option to challenge your friends to obtain the same Badge.
On top of that, I'd suggest a new class of 'upgradeable' Badges, which would work for your other suggestions. As an example, implement a new 'diamond level' Badge that requires 10,000 kills per enemy - on top of that, though, it re-grants every 1,000 kills thereafter, meaning you can have a 10k Badge, an 11k Badge, a 12k Badge, etc. Each time the Badge re-grants you'll have the opportunity to 'challenge' your friends again, meaning you can maintain competition. Similarly, implementing an 'upgradeable' Badge for speed runs - that grants if you finish the instance within a certain amount of time, and then re-grants any time your time is lower than your current Badge - would allow for something comparable, in that regard. 3nodding
----
Back to cooperative play, though: I like the idea of using basic combat for it, and putting it somewhere that's easily accessible to every player, but the notion of having to access each player's profile individually to achieve it seems a little too fidgety to me. However, I think that issue would be easy enough to solve.
Say you were able to talk to Trixie (at this point, I know I've already sold gataka wink ), and she would lead you to another room in the Null Chamber (for which assets already exist, making area creation easier) - in that room, a Crystal Fluff (again, assets already exist) spawns for every friend that's logged into zOMG! in the past 24 hours (or something similar; perhaps up to a certain limit, favoring players who have logged in more recently - there's some room for adjustment there). The premise would be, roughly, that these fluffs have been 'stealing' G'hi from Gaians whenever they visit the Null Chamber, and that each one contains 'stolen' G'hi from one person on your friendlist (with indicators to show who's who). Whenever you defeat one it grants G'hi to both you and your friend, and when you talk to Trixie again to leave, the game grants you all the G'hi that you and your friends have accrued for you. And if we're really hurting for more direct rewards, give those Crystal Fluffs a small chance at dropping Null Fragments - it makes perfect sense in terms of flavour, and it'd be a very worthwhile reward when those supplies become valuable again.
I think that would be a pretty straightforward (and easily accessible) way of achieving it - any alternatives, though?
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:17 pm
...huh, quote notice but no quote, guess you'd like to hear what I think of this ¯3¯ Well let me think. Read this in the mean time.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:36 pm
gataka Read this in the mean time.
That article seems to be primarily a semantics argument about what "synchronous" should mean; unfortunately, it fails to illustrate why the author's distinctions were really meaningful. What's worse, he's pushing a change on the generally accepted definition of "synchrony" while introducing a new term to mean precisely what that term currently means - why not just let "synchrony" be "synchrony", and introduce a new term to suit the concept you're introducing? Apologies, but semantics arguments are something that just grate on me, and that's really all I got out of that one. redface
The argument that examining game time and realtime as distinct is certainly interesting, but the article didn't really expand on that distinction in any notable way. Perhaps, though, you were able to glean something from it that I wasn't... sweatdrop
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:44 am
Red Kutai gataka Read this in the mean time.
That article seems to be primarily a semantics argument about what "synchronous" should mean; unfortunately, it fails to illustrate why the author's distinctions were really meaningful. What's worse, he's pushing a change on the generally accepted definition of "synchrony" while introducing a new term to mean precisely what that term currently means - why not just let "synchrony" be "synchrony", and introduce a new term to suit the concept you're introducing? Apologies, but semantics arguments are something that just grate on me, and that's really all I got out of that one. redface
The argument that examining game time and realtime as distinct is certainly interesting, but the article didn't really expand on that distinction in any notable way. Perhaps, though, you were able to glean something from it that I wasn't... sweatdrop
lawlz, semantix. Don't know really. I think I agree with him on a high level, he's onto something really, however I think he mixes a few issues together. Still need to think about it. Let's get back on track: general, general... You when we see others succeeding where we're not, it's generally a good idea to consider what we can learn from it. Facecrack games succeeded at (ab)using the platform's strenghs to better milk serve its market by simply understanding both. You're learning the wrong lesson : P That's not where you wanted to go but... How did we fail at that?
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:29 pm
gataka Let's get back on track: general, general... You when we see others succeeding where we're not, it's generally a good idea to consider what we can learn from it. Facecrack games succeeded at (ab)using the platform's strenghs to better milk serve its market by simply understanding both. You're learning the wrong lesson : P That's not where you wanted to go but... How did we fail at that?
I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment of the situation, really - that implies that it was the platform that did all of the work, when we both know that their success is measured in the number of players. I agree that they were simply designing to the platform, and that that inadvertently allowed access to an unforeseen market - but just because the discovery was largely inadvertent, doesn't mean it's not worth learning from. Saying that it's just about the platform misses the point that there are obviously millions upon millions of individuals out there who actually chose to play these games, I'm afraid... redface
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 1:21 pm
Red Kutai
I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment of the situation, really - that implies that it was the platform that did all of the work, when we both know that their success is measured in the number of players. I agree that they were simply designing to the platform, and that that inadvertently allowed access to an unforeseen market - but just because the discovery was largely inadvertent, doesn't mean it's not worth learning from. Saying that it's just about the platform misses the point that there are obviously millions upon millions of individuals out there who actually chose to play these games, I'm afraid... redface
Not sure where I implied that, platform hardly did a thing and in fact started working against them at some point, only allowed same way you don't get MMOs without Internet. I don't measure success that way...usually. And, regardless of how unexpected the discovery may have been, I don't think it really was, I said that they succesfully design based on a correct understanding of the situation/market...you can't do that by accident! x D My point was that you're looking at what they did, asynch play, not why they did that. That's totally worth learning from. Are we still talking the same language?
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:07 pm
gataka Are we still talking the same language?
I see the problem, now; same language, vastly different perspectives. sweatdrop
You're more interested in the method the developers used to achieve their success; I'm more interested in the implications of the success itself. You're more focused on the road they took, whereas I'm more focused on the value of the destination they discovered. You're learning from why they thought it would work, whereas I'm aiming to learn from the fact that it did.
Both methods are comparably valuable, I assume; I think I simply rely on my own ability to intuit a 'road' as necessary, so I find the destination the more valuable piece of information. I can certainly understand why you'd be interested in the 'roadmap', though. razz
Apologies, though, if I misconstrued your viewpoint - I wasn't really aiming to be unflattering, I assure you... redface
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:44 pm
Red Kutai gataka Are we still talking the same language?
I see the problem, now; same language, vastly different perspectives. sweatdrop
You're more interested in the method the developers used to achieve their success; I'm more interested in the implications of the success itself. You're more focused on the road they took, whereas I'm more focused on the value of the destination they discovered. You're learning from why they thought it would work, whereas I'm aiming to learn from the fact that it did.
Both methods are comparably valuable, I assume; I think I simply rely on my own ability to intuit a 'road' as necessary, so I find the destination the more valuable piece of information. I can certainly understand why you'd be interested in the 'roadmap', though. razz
Apologies, though, if I misconstrued your viewpoint - I wasn't really aiming to be unflattering, I assure you... redface
Not 'roadmap' more like...trying to figure out how fire works so I can make it at will...the mechanics of success... the principles at work and BLAH! x D No apolothing needed. Unless me hurt you someway o3o That was hilarious x D Huh yeah thread, serious. Overall, gut feel, doesn't fit. Core point of the game is togetherness, I guess, and asynchronous doesn't support that. Not sure how to explain. Email, note on the fridge, gift on the porch, make you feel good, but they're just not there.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:47 am
gataka Not 'roadmap' more like...trying to figure out how fire works so I can make it at will...the mechanics of success... the principles at work and BLAH! x D
The fire example is good, I think. You were more focused on how they managed to generate the fire, while I was much more focused on the implied phlogiston. sweatdrop
Quote: Huh yeah thread, serious. Overall, gut feel, doesn't fit. Core point of the game is togetherness, I guess, and asynchronous doesn't support that. Not sure how to explain. Email, note on the fridge, gift on the porch, make you feel good, but they're just not there.
I'm not sure the core point of the game is togetherness, really. I understand that if you define the game by synchronous gameplay that asynchronous gameplay obviously wouldn't fit, but I was always under the impression that the game was designed for social play, not exclusively synchronous play.
Nonetheless, the game already offers synchronous play - the option of asynchronous play is not being posed as a replacement, but as an alternative. I've gotten in trouble plenty of times for not leaving a note on the fridge, myself; even if asynchronous play isn't as rewarding as synchronous play, players would rather play asynchronously with their friends, than not-at-all... whee
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