06 Apr, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 22nd comment:
I think you are failing to understand that you don't know anything about my game, how I develop, the players, the testers, or the community that we have there, and that doesn't put you in a position to be able to make a call as to what constitutes good or bad policy, what is and isn't a problem on the game, or how I should run it. I don't know if you were intending to be helpful, or just taking what you felt to be an easy opportunity to critisize comeone, but it's important to remember what is right for one game isn't always what is right for another, and I think you might want to consider that next time you feel the need to offer unsolicited advice on how a game you know nothing about should be run.
If you so desired to come spend a month or two on my game, get to know the staff, the other player testers, and get a feel for the community, then I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on how I Administer the game, but I just don't feel that you can tell me anything that isn't obvious anyway without some sort of actual insight into what we have going on.
As David Haley said, there isn't such a clear distinction. People are playing and enjoying the MUD, but are doing so under the expectation that they are testers, are to be looking out for bugs, and may find the gameplay, world, aspects of their characters, disrupted or some how changed as things are tweaked to achieve balance or desirable gameplay or what have you. We do well in not disrupting normal play, and we have most of the major character affecting changes behind us, and have done well using update scripts and such to keep the player files as intact as possible and to keep from having the need for playerwipes and such. So while there isn't so much of an "end product" they are enjoying at the moment, the majority of the people on the MUD are in fact doing both.
Based largely on the fact that part of the allure we've setup to encourage play testers is that we have no intention of player wipes, we can't very well have a bunch of testers running around, abusing bugs and whatnot, and gaining an unintended and unfair advantage over other players, and players to come later. There was a point to where things were far less regulated, where I had a bit more of the "hey, we're developing, who cares what they do" type of attitude, and let me tell you how well that worked out. I don't think there is some magical "okay, we're open now, so behave" switch that people work on, which seems to be what is being insinuated. It's really not that simple. People get used to being able to abuse things, get used to being able to get away with being vulgar over public channels, get used to being able to multiplay… they are going to be a lot more likely to continue that type of behavior later on, say, when we open. Once I started cracking down a bit more and enforcing the rules a bit tighter (due largely in part to us losing testers because of the more hands off approach we were taking), I found pretty easy that a sudden switch to that mindset wasn't an easy thing to accomplish. Now, I haven't made a rule against "don't camp in front of a chest during frequent copyovers" or any non sense like that, I think code can trump needing new rules or policy changes in most cases, but that topic did come up with the player, and out of respect for my wishes, he said he wouldn't do it anymore. I told him I planned on taking action within the code to prevent that from being possible, but that I appreciated his willingness to avoid that type of thing in the future. Being that we are in testing, I'm not prone to dropping the hammer either when I find someone abusing a bug, as that's part of what I need players doing… finding these bugs and bringing them to my attention before we open.
As far as what is the difference? I see a lot of difference in expectation, mostly. Despite people playing and enjoying themselves, and not all of them strictly looking for bugs, they are playing with the expectation of balance not being what we eventually want, with the expectation of things not being fully implemented, with not every skill accessible, with not every area accessible, with some mobs maybe too powerful than they should be, with skill changes, damage formula changes, additions that may drastically alter the way they might have built their character now, with the expectation of an occasional disruption of their playing either as a result of a copyover or crash… ultimately with the expectation of everything not quite being up to par yet.
So no, I don't call it or view it as being a production MUD because there is a lot still to be done in order for us to say "look at what we have created, and judge us." Players can't come in right now and expect that the work they've put into their characters to remain untouched and to expect the balance issues and the way they build their characters to remain valid on a long term scale. We're close to that, and I don't think that we have any major changes that will affect characters now, but until I'm sure, we're going to remain in development and those that have chosen to play an unopened MUD will simply have to remain patient with their decision to play, or find somewhere more finished.
If you so desired to come spend a month or two on my game, get to know the staff, the other player testers, and get a feel for the community, then I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on how I Administer the game, but I just don't feel that you can tell me anything that isn't obvious anyway without some sort of actual insight into what we have going on.
Gimble said:
One is to find bugs, the other is to enjoy the end product of that effort.
As David Haley said, there isn't such a clear distinction. People are playing and enjoying the MUD, but are doing so under the expectation that they are testers, are to be looking out for bugs, and may find the gameplay, world, aspects of their characters, disrupted or some how changed as things are tweaked to achieve balance or desirable gameplay or what have you. We do well in not disrupting normal play, and we have most of the major character affecting changes behind us, and have done well using update scripts and such to keep the player files as intact as possible and to keep from having the need for playerwipes and such. So while there isn't so much of an "end product" they are enjoying at the moment, the majority of the people on the MUD are in fact doing both.
Cratylus said:
But if you're going to treat your testers like they're normal players
(trying to prevent them from "getting away with stuff" based on the
testness of the mud, for example) then for all practical purposes
you've got yerself a production mud, even if you don't call it that,
because that's how you're treating it.
(trying to prevent them from "getting away with stuff" based on the
testness of the mud, for example) then for all practical purposes
you've got yerself a production mud, even if you don't call it that,
because that's how you're treating it.
Based largely on the fact that part of the allure we've setup to encourage play testers is that we have no intention of player wipes, we can't very well have a bunch of testers running around, abusing bugs and whatnot, and gaining an unintended and unfair advantage over other players, and players to come later. There was a point to where things were far less regulated, where I had a bit more of the "hey, we're developing, who cares what they do" type of attitude, and let me tell you how well that worked out. I don't think there is some magical "okay, we're open now, so behave" switch that people work on, which seems to be what is being insinuated. It's really not that simple. People get used to being able to abuse things, get used to being able to get away with being vulgar over public channels, get used to being able to multiplay… they are going to be a lot more likely to continue that type of behavior later on, say, when we open. Once I started cracking down a bit more and enforcing the rules a bit tighter (due largely in part to us losing testers because of the more hands off approach we were taking), I found pretty easy that a sudden switch to that mindset wasn't an easy thing to accomplish. Now, I haven't made a rule against "don't camp in front of a chest during frequent copyovers" or any non sense like that, I think code can trump needing new rules or policy changes in most cases, but that topic did come up with the player, and out of respect for my wishes, he said he wouldn't do it anymore. I told him I planned on taking action within the code to prevent that from being possible, but that I appreciated his willingness to avoid that type of thing in the future. Being that we are in testing, I'm not prone to dropping the hammer either when I find someone abusing a bug, as that's part of what I need players doing… finding these bugs and bringing them to my attention before we open.
As far as what is the difference? I see a lot of difference in expectation, mostly. Despite people playing and enjoying themselves, and not all of them strictly looking for bugs, they are playing with the expectation of balance not being what we eventually want, with the expectation of things not being fully implemented, with not every skill accessible, with not every area accessible, with some mobs maybe too powerful than they should be, with skill changes, damage formula changes, additions that may drastically alter the way they might have built their character now, with the expectation of an occasional disruption of their playing either as a result of a copyover or crash… ultimately with the expectation of everything not quite being up to par yet.
So no, I don't call it or view it as being a production MUD because there is a lot still to be done in order for us to say "look at what we have created, and judge us." Players can't come in right now and expect that the work they've put into their characters to remain untouched and to expect the balance issues and the way they build their characters to remain valid on a long term scale. We're close to that, and I don't think that we have any major changes that will affect characters now, but until I'm sure, we're going to remain in development and those that have chosen to play an unopened MUD will simply have to remain patient with their decision to play, or find somewhere more finished.
06 Apr, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 23rd comment:
The notion of "best practices" needs to be contextualized. When the best way to test a game is to actually play it, it's hard to consider players and testers to be completely separate groups of people. Of course, expectations need to be carefully managed, and somebody who isn't aware that a game is being tested will be irritated by interruptions. But once expectations are set, it seems quite understandable to me that one would consider these "player testers" as both players and testers.
06 Apr, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 24th comment:
And actually, the marriage thing isn't so bad of an analogy after I thought about it a little bit. Particularly for the religious types, the promise of fidelity for life is a pretty big deal. Cohabitation isn't necessarily the same as a vow to be faithful and together for the rest of your lives, but upon getting married, there is generally quite a bit of a change in expectation there. Likewise, play testing on EoT right now doesn't carry with it the expectation of a vow that the integrity of their efforts remain intact, while after opening, that expectation should exist and it will be our responsibility to uphold that. Our intention not to be pwipe might could be considered the "engagement" period of the MUD right now :p
06 Apr, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 25th comment:
Quote
Particularly for the religious types, the promise of fidelity for life is a pretty big deal.
I would argue that for religious types, the important bit is the religious significance of the wedding before God etc. rather than fidelity, which is sort of assumed across the board for many people religious or not, marriage or not.
06 Apr, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 26th comment:
David Haley said:
I would argue that for religious types, the important bit is the religious significance of the wedding before God etc. rather than fidelity, which is sort of assumed across the board for many people religious or not, marriage or not.
Quote
Particularly for the religious types, the promise of fidelity for life is a pretty big deal.
I would argue that for religious types, the important bit is the religious significance of the wedding before God etc. rather than fidelity, which is sort of assumed across the board for many people religious or not, marriage or not.
I misspoke… that's what I get for stealth posting at work :p
Basically what I meant is the promise, before God and in God's eyes, of everything that marriage entails, including fidelty, a lifetimem partnership, respect, and all that. While some people who cohabitate may certainly take their relationship as seriously as any married couple, I think there are stronger and higher expectations in a general sense among those that decide to take a vow for a lifelong commitment.
06 Apr, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 27th comment:
Well, I would argue that there's a difference between making a vow to commitment and an actual marriage. For at least some of the more religious people, the vow itself made in isolation isn't terribly important, it's the fact that God approves it that matters. For example, you could make the vow all you wanted, but it still wouldn't be ok to e.g. have sex until the vow has been officialized by the church. I think we might be saying the same thing though if I read between the lines of what you say :wink:
06 Apr, 2009, Grimble wrote in the 28th comment:
Hades_Kane said:
I think you are failing to understand that you don't know anything about my game, how I develop, the players, the testers, or the community that we have there, and that doesn't put you in a position to be able to make a call as to what constitutes good or bad policy, what is and isn't a problem on the game, or how I should run it. I don't know if you were intending to be helpful, or just taking what you felt to be an easy opportunity to critisize comeone, but it's important to remember what is right for one game isn't always what is right for another, and I think you might want to consider that next time you feel the need to offer unsolicited advice on how a game you know nothing about should be run.
It was never intended to come across as criticism. "Best Practices" are just that, common and proven approaches for success, and that's what I attempted to convey. I suspect that from the perspective of your testers/players, you've got a production MUD on your hands (announce a player file wipe and gauge the reaction if you need convincing), and that results in whole other set of considerations that didn't exist with a development MUD (hence the original advice at the top of this thread - and yes, it's unsolicited, but you're posting to a forum for cripes sake).
07 Apr, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 29th comment:
Grimble said:
I suspect that from the perspective of your testers/players, you've got a production MUD on your hands
I can't really be held responsible for any misconceptions on the part of the people play testing the game. The MOTD makes it clear we are in the testing the stages, and in fact is the first line :p
Grimble said:
announce a player file wipe and gauge the reaction if you need convincing
I'd be tempted to take you up on this if we hadn't have made it clear to the players that we have no intention of having a player wipe, and in fact one of the most common questions we're asked from new people coming in is whether or not we plan on having a pwipe prior to opening. If I announced a change of policy, I imagine some individuals would be rather cross and with good reason. Judging from the number of people that have come in and ask whether or not we plan to pwipe, there does seem to be a high level of awareness from new people of what stage we are in, and there seems to be a high level of expectation of drastic changes (such as pwipes) from a MUD in the stage we are in. Based on these things, I can't say I agree with your suspicion of how the play testers on EoT feel about what stage the MUD is in.
Random Picks
Perhaps… though I think it's more along the lines of best practices rather than any formal development methodology. As a community, we're quick to point out the pro's and con's of various languages, tools, algorithms, protocols, etc, and the development process shouldn't be any different, assuming you are interested in avoiding numerous associated pitfalls.