PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Toxich on March 06, 2006, 09:16:23 pm
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Automining should be made for the game.
I am talking about a command that gives you the possiblity to mine a certain of number of times before the characer stops.
Like lvl 3 means you can automine 3 times.
This would save some time and also make the game more rewarding when getting higher lvlv in mining.
there coudl be a downside for it so It doesnt get too good.
for example. you can\'t interrupt automining which means if your under attack you\'ll propably die.
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This belongs in the Wishlist more so than here.
What would be the benefit of this besides making it easier for \"higher lvls\"? We don\'t want most things to be automatic - maps, commands, etc., because you should control your character as much as possible, not the game mechanics. Being unable to stop mining is also unrealistic - your character is supposed to be a real person that should be able to react to anything (an attack especially) however he or she wants. Usually this would mean dropping everything else and defending.
I don\'t think this will work at all.
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Yeah... automatic playing is in general a bad idea.
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No ...just no
Why? Search the forums ...if nothing else, I think I explained the very same thing just a few days ago ...plus I remember this is something we discuss every few months again from anew ...and the answer is still: No!
automapping == bad
close thread?
1) wrong (sub)forum
2) the same user wrote another thread with the same content in another (sub)forum
p.s. sorry for being so direct, but i haven\'t slept much lately... you get the idea...
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Independently by the belonging of this topic to the right subforum or not, I think the problem is that generically the game should be as less mechanic as possible.
If you would have the character \"piloted\" by the engine itself, where would be the fun?
That is why you have to move everytime you want to mine. We try to design the game for avoiding this kind of \"auto\" game.
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Yeah, it shouldn\'t be easy to become the best! That\'s my two cent and my opionion! O.O
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OK..
well then maybe you should make mining more rewarding somehow then.
because right now.. it takes alot of time and it\'s not even fun to stand mining 30 minutes just to make 1-2K in money selling diamond crystals.
Its so boring and you also get alot more by just killing monsters.
you get faster xp and more xp in several kategorys when slaying monsters and you can also loot stuff and sell it.
It doesnt feel very rewarding when I go with my dwarf at lvlv 3 mining and dont get upp mining levels and just stand the in one spot very long time and wait wait wait. and get some money and almost no xp and the things you mine can\'t even be used for anything except being sold to 1 npcs in the town.
Or if there\'s a better way maybe you could tell me then because it seems totally impossible to learn this game without asking 1 million questions about everything lol.
(still like the game so that you know) it has great potential.
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Yes, mining will be adjusted to make it both more fun and rewarding for players.
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We are hard at work populating the database with more and more crafting information. Mining will be the base of the initial system since blacksmithing is the first major area we will be using. As a result the demand for raw materials will go up since people will need a lot of it and different types.
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Will there be an inventory wipe before crafting is implemented?
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Originally posted by zanzibar
Will there be an inventory wipe before crafting is implemented?
We don\'t have any sort of hidden plan about this sort of thing. I don\'t expect anything really soon, but if we need to wipe, we\'ll wipe. Until then, don\'t worry about it.
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When you say that mining can be boring, it is a compliment to the realism of the game. Mining IRL was never an easy task. But the miners are often nice people, more interrested in interraction with other players than in the easy glory of money.
Everyone can come to Yliakum and kill rats with his fists. Only people looking for a place in the economy and the society are interrested in going to dark places to mine.
Most of the miners you will meet are ready to share knowledge about the best places and chat while mining. Greet a miner and he will soon tell you what he is digging and if he is lucky or not. Do the same with many fighters and they will look at you like a competitor instead of a co-worker.
Allowing bots to mine would end this and turn mines into a silent bots working place with no interrest.
Miners are the foundation of the economy of Yliakum. And there is more fun in mining with good friends than looking for a free monster spawn even with a group of friends.
With the need for ore and raw meterials that crafting will \"soon\" add to PS there won\'t be enouth miner before long.
The answer to every \"automate this\" thread, even in the wishlist will always be the same: PS is a MMO, the point of playing with other players is to interract with them, not only competition. PS is not a screensaver that you can launch in background to levelup a character with no personality but with a lot of money/levels. It is a RPG where you build a character personality and history in your interraction not only with game mechanics but with other people. Keep that in mind and have fun :)
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Independently by the belonging of this topic to the right subforum or not, I think the problem is that generically the game should be as less mechanic as possible.
If you would have the character \"piloted\" by the engine itself, where would be the fun?
That is why you have to move everytime you want to mine. We try to design the game for avoiding this kind of \"auto\" game.
Imagine, for a moment, that your character did not automatically breathe by themselves. For the sake of realism, and to avoid seeing dozens of auto-breathers standing around Hydlaa plaza, you were required to direct your character to inhale and exhale at regular intervals. Failure to maintain a proper rhythm would lead to loss of consciousness and, eventually, character death.
What would this accomplish? For the sake of realism, the game has now sacrificed any opportunity for role-playing. Every character, save those controlled by the fastest typists, has lost the means to communicate. They pass out before getting two sentences out of their mouths. With no communication, there is no community, and hence, no game.
You may be thinking this example is a little extreme, but consider the ease with which a character that has worked his entire life in the mines should be able to swing a pickaxe. To a veteran miner, such a task comes as easily as inhaling the very air around him. There is no longer any requirement for active thought.
What exactly is the goal of such a strict no-automation policy? To avoid a horde of silent robots standing at the mines, obviously. This is a noble goal, but it is simply not practicable through the current Planeshift policies. If you survey the mines today, there is nothing more than a score of silent characters. There may be players behind those keyboards, but they are too preoccupied with getting RSI than actual role-playing.
Where are the miners singing work songs? Where are the miners telling bawdy jokes? Where is the realism? In my opinion, there is no practical difference between a silent automaton that is run by a script and a silent automaton run by a player who is too preoccupied with pressing the right buttons at the right time to actually bring his character to life. Both kill the suspension of disbelief faster than my character can take his next breath.
As players, we are not the characters arms and legs so much as we are their hearts and minds. The keyboard makes a poor interface, and the more bandwidth that is required to extend those muscles, the less that remains to express that spirit. It may seem non-intuitive, but automation is an incredibly useful tool for role-players.
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Erm... This thread is kind of old. :P
And you mention no-singing or jokes at the mines, you don't remember the platinum mine then. :)
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Erm... This thread is kind of old. :P
And you mention no-singing or jokes at the mines, you don't remember the platinum mine then. :)
As long as the post is useful and not just a BUMP, there is no problem on the thread being old.
I don't see it as a bad idea, currently it is pretty difficult to combine mining with talking, as you must type or shortcut the command for mining, then write say a message and hope it does not take too much of your time(or it would mean you will waste more time mining as it is interrupted by chatting)
For last, should we players share in a certain level the monotonous hard work of our characters? In PnP RPG sessions, when such activities happen, they are 100% automated(except for the occasional dice rolls), and all that happens is just a brief description of them with the aid of a GM, so such jobs won't ocuppy much of the roleplaying time, taking space from the more interesting and fun aspects of a RPG. This is a game, not a job. I wouldn't want to work in a repetitive task for a virtual character in a virtual world.
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Mazog, really nice post. I like when a poster looks at problem from from different sides.
Automated mining would indeed drag in people who aren't RPing, bug going afk. We been experiencing this once already, when the system allowed for easy automated mining with use of some additional software. This was really bad for RPing.
But so is the fact you need to press a key every 10 sec or so to dig, damaging to RP. What the problem there is, you can't activate mining, while talking without bigger problems. So, some people instead of talking, are keeping to press right key every 10 seconds and no later.
Although both problems stand against each another, i believe the second solution causes less problems. It is still automated, because you don't have to press a key everytime you swing the pick.
Although it is indeed a bit silient in the mines, for me it isn't because you need to keep pressing a key. Most of the time i just have nothing to talk about. When i have, i just type in beetwen pressing the mining key.
<pressing mining key><enter><writing message><double enter><pressing mining key, followed by moving if needed> and repeat.
I believe what we need is a way to hide the annoying activating mining over and over again. people shouldn't get annoyed by repeating the same action over and over again. If the procedure to mine will be enough complicated and varrying from attempt to attempt, it will be fun, not annoyance.
If we need to prospect (find) good spot first, where is x amount of not always the same resource, the ming will be somewhat more fun.
If there will be mines, possibly in stone labirynths, dangerous area, miners will have to look at their back and hire guards too maybe.
The mines could need maintanace. Bringing proper resources for maintaning what got broken and too old, to be sure the tunel won't collapse.
Maybe not all resources we need may be find in mines? One has to search (prospect) form them on bigger area? We could find spots, which we claim rights for some time (like to a monster) and mine till we take all (small amounts every spot)
Ming may be alot more fun that it is now. It just shouldn't that monotony as now. \o/
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The premise is faulty. You're assuming that if these people weren't mining or camping, they would be roleplaying. This simply isn't true. Why do you think there are so few people on when the NPCs are down? Why do you think the mines are so crowded during the same period?
No. You won't be able to force anyone to RP. Make the game fun, take care of the problem players, that's all you can do.
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And you mention no-singing or jokes at the mines, you don't remember the platinum mine then. :)
I was thinking something very similar about the platinum mine when I hear Mazog's post. It used to me very entertaining being down in the platinum mine, sove etremely funny things used to happn (generally IC aswell). I wonder what it is that stops this happening at the gold mine. Also IMO it seems like you are more likely to find conversation at the iron mine than the gold mine, and more people willing to chat at one of the mines than the other. I cant understand why this is myself but it does seem to be true.
Maybe the platinum mine was more interesting to work because of the extra time it took to get there, to get back and the much higher value of the resource that made people not so desperate to get every last little bit of ore out of the ground in the shortest amount of time.
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Things do happen at the gold mine, but they're extremely rare and often for (usually dumb) OOC reasons. It seems that this has become the story of the game though.
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Perhaps there is another solution...
Warning: strange ideas ahead:
For a moment, consider the player base Planeshift is current looking to attract: mature roleplayers willing and able to cope with a product still in alpha. This demographic has, for whatever reasons, a greater than typical overlap with the subset of the general population that has the means and desire to write a reasonably sophisticated bot. While I don't have hard statistics to support this claim, it seems obvious enough. The intersection of these groups remains a small minority in the game, yet its size outnumbers the development team by at least one order of magnitude. If these postulates are not contended, I'll continue.
Creating a bot is easy. Mix one part repetitive, monotonous task with one part hacker; add sugar, caffeine, and/or tasty beverage of choice. Simmer at room temperature overnight, stirring occasionally. If you want to create robust and effective bots simply add the constraint that bots will be banned as discovered, beginning with the most obvious (read: broken) ones.
You may ask why players with the tools, talent, and time would choose to do such a thing in lieu of jumping onboard the dev team and helping out there. Perhaps their specialties lie outside the realm of what the dev team requires. Perhaps extracurricular demands on their time would make them a poor team member. Perhaps they are legally constrained from doing so, owing to the nature of their employer. Perhaps they simply don't wish to. Why do you play a warrior archetype instead of a mage, or vice-versa? It's what you find fun. For the players, PlaneShift is, after all, a game.
Like every other commercial MMORPG out there, PlaneShift provides all the ingredients necessary for bots, save those available at your local convenience store. In addition, PlaneShift attempts to attract the flotsam of patient, creative gamers that seek to affect their shared world in profound ways. Some of those players will look beyond the bounds of the basic client to accomplish this task. The traditional means of curtailing such behavior are either increased monitoring and bans, which entail high administrative costs, or increased interface complexity, which only makes it easier to hide a bot among the players preoccupied with jockeying the controls.
Nobody wants to see the zombie bot dogpile. Enlisting in the everlasting armies of the undead to maintain character parity is even less palatable, yet existing solutions have not worked in similar games. Perhaps PlaneShift should entertain the alternatives. I'd like to offer up the SPC as a potential avenue for exploration.
SPC...WTF?
The SPC is the "semi-player-character" or "scripted player character". It falls somewhere between a PC and an NPC and is driven by player-written scripts produced with a tailored and authorized scripting language incorporated into the game. SPCs can act with much of the autonomy of a PC, but can also maintain a persistent presence in similar fashion to an NPC. An example may be more illuminative.
Consider a bank teller for a guild-run bank...a noble and needed profession, but currently unplayable. As an NPC, it will be found wanting. Each banking guild will assuredly have unique business rules for which the developers could never accommodate. As a PC, it requires a player willing to do nothing but wait for customers all day, every day, which is equally impossible. With the tools of an SPC at one's disposal, the task becomes trivial. A scripted teller can spend every day processing requests, accepting deposits, handling loans, relaying messages...even making tea. With judicious incorporation of some instant message protocol, a player could actually maintain a real presence to handle the occasional task that is not sufficiently mundane to include in the script. The guild's bank teller, while on the job, would be no more spontaneous or vivacious as their real equivalent, but no less, either.
At the end of the day the player can come home from their job, relieve the SPC from his job, stroll to the tavern and, using the full client, assist the character in blowing a day's wage on wine, women, and song. The grind stays in the coffeepot; the treadmill stays in the gym.
That's automation done right. That's roleplaying. That's breathing life into a virtual world.
...and keep in mind: If you can't see the light, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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That idea is actually quite interesting, It would be excellent in the circumstances that you describe. The only flaw would of course be people, as ever, trying to exploit this for personal gain. I understand why you choose a banker and not a miner for your example. But that is where, IMO, the problem lies. A player using this system to mine would without a doubt leave there character (Bot) working away at the mine, only coming back occassionally to visit an NPC to sell their wares. Unless of course the system is sufficiently advanced enough to dispense with even that requirement and make it possible to script the visit to the vendor aswell. Even going as far to make it plausible to dual client so the miner never has to actually leave the mine, ever.
I think in a perfect world, one in which people could be trusted to not exploit things like this, it would be fantastic. Unfortunatly even Yliakum isnt so perfect.
And yes, as things currently stand it is easy to create a bot, whether using off the shelf macro software or self coded scripts. That is why the Devs and GMs (and hopefully the vast majority of the player base) take such a dim view of such things and why they earn players a ban when caught.
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Hmmm... there shouldn't be auto-mining but mine-till-u-get-ore could free up some time to Rp in mines with hard-to-get resourses, im trying to talk with ppl when mining but then it takes me double or more time to get same amount of ores if i was just pressing shortcut & running from spot to spot... also i suppose our pets would be able to make a lot of actions & i hope mining too ;)
I like Mazog's idea but still need to re-read it to fully get the concept :P
Regards,
Didar.
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Mine once, and do not stop until you get ore? Now that is an idea I like. It frees you up for talking while you mine, yet keeps you there at the same time.
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Mine once, and do not stop until you get ore? Now that is an idea I like. It frees you up for talking while you mine, yet keeps you there at the same time.
It still requires you to be physically at your computer, but not as much as before.
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Mine once, and do not stop until you get ore? Now that is an idea I like. It frees you up for talking while you mine, yet keeps you there at the same time.
It still requires you to be physically at your computer, but not as much as before.
Yes, it reqires u to be at computer but it will really free up time to RP in mine where u need 3-5+ tries to get ore (especially in gold, especially now, when it's quite hard to get one) u will anyway miss some time if u get ore while typing but agree it's not like pressing DigGold Shortcut all the time :D