Q&A: Answers To Questions From The Board - 2006-04-03

[dazman76]

Noin, I salute you You're quite right - there are several good reasons for new players to have all the content. Hmmm. So is it the case that you allow the user to choose what they have available, on the premise that everything is available should they desire it?

You've echoed what I've been trying to emphasise in your post - basically the question to Nevrax, of what their true intention is with the points system. I want to keep repeating the bits about needing new players, but I feel I'm accusing Nevrax of being sneaky or something, or just coming across as negative - when the intention is completely the opposite. It's not the intention to play on the fact that Nevrax have difficult financial conditions, but to keep repeating the fact that R2 IS UNIQUE - no MMO provides this kind of tool with so much power, it is usually reserved for offline games, or online games with simpler mechanics (RTS). R2 is a massive step forward for Ryzom, it's players, and indeed the MMO community. Most MMO players haven't even heard of Ryzom (this I can verify from experience in other communities), and R2 is the key to introducing fresh faces to Atys.

Again, I totally agree with the "keys to the castle" theory - there are so many R2-hungry players here in the community *already*, and that means scenarios will come thick and fast. That's what the new players need - to see Ryzom, and to see what is possible with R2 when they reach a certain level of competence with the tool.

Please Nevrax, give Noin your telephone number

I think your idea about modelled items is great too - I don't know how many modellers we have in the community, but we certainly have plenty of 2D artists for texturing/skinning. And there are plenty of free 3D modelling programs out there, no need for 3D Studio MAX unless you have it already *cough* My Dad works for Discreet....erm....

[vguerin]

While I can somewhat see your point with new players, I disagree. New players may come to Ryzom JUST for R2. I can imagine a group of 50 or less hardcore pencil and paper RPG guides in the first wave. If they come in and see they are limited, when all they want to do is create awesome scenarios and run them, well then expect to chase most of them off.

You are right... I am wondering what they are thinking... folks coming here BECAUSE of R2 are not going to want half the tools because they haven't sat in game for X months. If you don't get the hook in them by the product, how long do you think they will stay ?

[cygnus]

I have to agree with all the statements about not limiting the content you can use within the Ring and also not linking it to your chars skill level.

I can think of many people ingame, who are relatively low skill lvl wise but who's creativity is so high I would jump at the chance to play anything they created as given access to R2's full poential they could and would produce some awesome scenarios.

For a craftsman to create his finest work he needs all of the tools for the task, whether he is skilled or not is actually unimportant as time spent using the tools will improve his skill. To limit the tools in the first place means he can never achieve his full potential.

Would you give your graphics designers Microsoft Paint and an 8 colour palette as a tool to create stunning works of art? Imagine a mechanic fixing your car and he only has 2 screwdrivers and 3 spanners.......

As to player rewards from scenarios, this is a tricky one. The potential for exploitation is high so great care is needed. I don't think I even like the idea of gaining xp cats to use in game from them.

In the past when Evolution has run events etc we always think of something to reward the players with or the winner, depending on what the actual event is. The high majority of the time players involved don't actually want a direct reward, participating in the event itself seems reward enough (if its a good one).

I love the idea of "Top 10 Scenario" lists and in categories, puzzle, adventure, exploration etc etc. This would create demand from the players to play them and be a terrific award of recognition for the designer.

Exciting times ahead for sure but I repeat, please dont limit access to this wonderful tool

[oldmess]

As to player rewards from scenarios, this is a tricky one. The potential for exploitation is high so great care is needed. I don't think I even like the idea of gaining xp cats to use in game from them.

In the past when Evolution has run events etc we always think of something to reward the players with or the winner, depending on what the actual event is. The high majority of the time players involved don't actually want a direct reward, participating in the event itself seems reward enough (if its a good one).

Totally agree. If an event or scenario is interesting or fun, I don't need or want a reward. If it needs a reward to get me interested, it's probably not worth the time anyway.

For the designer of the scenario the best reward is it's relative popularity. Ideas like the "top 10" list or more recently used list or similar public listings and/or ratings will end up being a designer's greatest reward ("you like me; you really really like me!")

For the players, token rewards are nice from an RP perspective, but they can be provided by the designer or sponsoring guild. That way there's no exploitation because the object or dappers were earned in the main game and simply transferred in the scenario. I'm all good with that idea.


One question I have after reading the Ring website - it seems that timed scenarios can have the ability to limit the number of people that attend the event. Is there also a way to indicate what levels are or are not welcome? If I want to create an event aimed at a team or 2 of mid-level folks, can I restrict high level players? I didn't see anything in the notes about this and given the open leveling system, this may be too hard to do...

[dazman76]

For a craftsman to create his finest work he needs all of the tools for the task, whether he is skilled or not is actually unimportant as time spent using the tools will improve his skill. To limit the tools in the first place means he can never achieve his full potential.

Yes! That is the perfect way of describing this, well played Snake There's a case of Firewine on it's way to you right now

"You see, I know something you and the duke don't know. Only got so long before Mr.President doesn't mean a whole lot..." Sorry, this comment is offtopic but vague enough to get away with it I think (John Carpenter fan)

[sluggo0]

16) That’s where all the questioning lies. Will the persons concerned be able to add methods, or is the system closed? (To users I mean). [Submitted by arbraz (FR)]
This would mean letting people code directly on the server, which is unconceivable for a MMO, at least not without a very advanced control system or a system based on patch submission (like with free software). No one would fancy spending their nights watching the servers go down each time a Ring user would launch bugged code... :/

This is a pet peeve of mine, another online community took forever to release scripting for users, despite it being a promise in the closed beta I was in.

Have you never looked at second life? Second life has a POWERFUL scripting platform built in, and it can't cause the system to crash because frankly, their INHOUSE programmers are competent.

If you allow end-users to submit code and the interfaces with which you expose to do so are pooly coded INSIDE ryzom, then this is not the end users who need to be blamed but your inhouse engineers. Since I think that you have competence inhouse, this shouldn't be a concern.

Secondly, there are a lot of very talented software engineers outside the game industry who enjoy making games as a hobby, but for whatever reason (married with a family so can't take a pay cut to work on projects they love in favor of what pays best, etc), are outside that industry, that doesn't make them any less capable than your inhouse coders.

Regardless, don't offer C++ submission to end users, that's a bad idea anyhow (for the reasons you state), but instead design and test (VERY extensively) the scripting interface you offer. If you confine the activities to extending and re-ordering of well defined and tested behaviours that your base objects already have, there is huge power, and probably more than enough flexibility and extensibility to get people doing all the things they want to, you'd be amazed what your technology is capable of when you open up even that much flexiiblity.

All that is needed are some states that are alterable (which are well defined), and a set of verbs, then a way to code loops, use variables (not necessarily requiring declaration), and do simple state machines to modify the AI.

No access to memory should be required (that is dangerous), and again, with proper testing of the 'language' you've developed, no concern need be had about a user object crashing the system, because it won't be able to .

Best practice is to actually build your own game in your own developed language, then you KNOW it's well tested when the designers try to do weird things with it..

Anyhow, too bad, it really will limit what can be done, and there is no solid engineering reason to deny that to the users of the ring..

I'm looking forward to playing with it regardless.. but it would be that much better if some scripting was possible (actulaly it sounds like events can be triggered which may be almost as good?)

[dazman76]

Minou, I think you may have missed the meaning - either that or I have There is mention of builtin scripting, and I assume it will be similar to LUA in syntax and use - it could even be an implentation of LUA itself, which would be great.

I'm one of these 'spare time programmers' you mention, and I can see a number of good reasons to not allow REAL source code changes. Firstly, R2 will share a large proportion of the main Ryzom codebase - it would make little sense to do otherwise. Rendering, object interaction, inventory management... Next up, Ryzom is a commercial product, and they would be very brave to allow users source-code interaction - the NeL engine is open-source, Ryzom is not - and Ryzom is much more than a NeL implementation with custom media etc. They won't allow open access to commercial source code, and since a lot of R2 code changes may require Ryzom code changes, it isn't really practical anyway.

As long as the scripting environment allows good control over R2-specific events, triggers, entities, etc. - I'll be a very happy programmer indeed In all honesty, regardless of how skilled *most* spare time programmers are, opening a CVS system to allow source patching and redistribution would be tantamount to suicide

[sluggo0]

Ah, I missed something in the original Q&A, I agree, it would be silly to open the whole codebase, and never meant to suggest otherwise .

My pet peeves are based on my misunderstanding that their would be NO scripting, I don't want to see an open source MMO either

Excellent, scripting of some kind will be fun to play with.. I'll be mucking with that too .

[dazman76]

I'm really looking forward to it I'm not expecting the UI scripting from WoW, but I have high hopes Nevrax will give us some interesting opportunities In fact, because the script should provide control of actual objects and items in the world, it should be much, much more interesting than any UI scripting

I keep meaning to look at the NeL codebase, but I know it will be lots of time spent with little real aim It'd be fun to get a shard running though, and invite a few friends I hear it comes with very basic media, and can be built straight into a running shard/client

[sx4rlet]

In the past when Evolution has run events etc we always think of something to reward the players with or the winner, depending on what the actual event is. The high majority of the time players involved don't actually want a direct reward, participating in the event itself seems reward enough (if its a good one).

Yes, this has been true most of the time. Last event 'our enemies' even didnt want to accept our gift, as they didnt want to get 'payed' to participate in a nice event.
But there has been one event where the participants were really complaining they didnt get a event item or special title. After we discovered why we had quite some fun tbh

On topic:
I would rather have a complete R2, so we can try to make good scenario's that benefit the game, then crappy grind stuff to get to next level. And like Ulani said, my levels arent that great, so I wont get as much R2 points as a powerleveler...