Will there be a ESRB so people know which games are more risque then others?
[color=#009900]'So is StoryNexus just a branch of Failbetter or its own entity? Would games made using StoryNexus be considered Failbetter games?’ StoryNexus is a Failbetter product. Games made using SN are only Failbetter games if we make them (and we plan on making our own games using the platform). Creators retain copyright to their own games.[/color]
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[color=#009900]This may help you picture how it’ll work. http://www.dropmocks.com/mBjKJX All SN games will have that bar at the top. The dropdown menu I’ve moused over will contain games you’ve recently played and games we want to promote. We’ll also have a directory of games.[/color]
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[color=#009900]'graphic violence, for instance’ - We’re looking at a [/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]‘mature content warning’ again, though I’m sure someone could write something sufficiently appalling that we would want to take it down.[/color]
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[color=#009900]‘ESRB’ - See above.[/color]
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[color=#009900]‘Rating scheme- a way for the cream to rise to the top?’ - For now we’re looking at a curated rather than a rated solution - ‘these are the games we recommend’. However the moment you create a world, you’ll have a URL you can share it around on. In the longer term, we’ll look at automated recommendations - but it would be premature to do this when we’re not sure yet how much or what kind of game we’ll get from the crowd.[/color]
Which other visual elements will we be able to play with? Thinking here specifically of page background, storylet background/border, game banner/logo, etc.
Will high-performing games be able to request forums for themselves?
How much freedom will developers have in creating ways for players to spend Fate? I’m sure we’ll be able to charge for storylet packages, but what about additional daily actions, changing the action cap/refresh rate, custom profile pics for their characters, custom storylets, etc.?
Alexis said “I’m sure someone could write something sufficiently appalling that we would want to take it down.”
Challenge accepted! (No, not really. I’ll be good.)
Also, what level of HTML/java are we going to be able to put into storylets?
(Thanks for answering all my questions…!)
[quote=Lily Fox]Alexis said “I’m sure someone could write something sufficiently appalling that we would want to take it down.”
Challenge accepted! (No, not really. I’ll be good.)[/quote]
My thoughts exactly.
…which I suppose makes it relevant to ask: our things will be reviewed to make certain they’re within guidelines before any of it goes live, yes?
[quote=Lily Fox]Alexis said “I’m sure someone could write something sufficiently appalling that we would want to take it down.”
Challenge accepted! (No, not really. I’ll be good.)[/quote]
I am very very sad that you didn’t say “It 'll be good” instead.
Question: Interface-wise, can I display more than four qualities on the side?
Can I let people have a bigger scrapbook and mantleplace?
edited by Byron Man on 6/11/2012
@Byron - That too. 0:-)
Is StoryNexus the “Prisoner’s Honey” project mentioned on Betterblog in 2010?
Will we be able to alter the probability of certain opportunity cards, making them rarer or more common? Will we have a way of changing locations, more like on the unterzee rather than the travel map. Press the GO button be taken to another location, which shows different storylets and maybe a different opportunity deck. Can we change the text on text buttons to say something other than GO (like how in Polythreme it says ZAIL)?
[color=#009900]Review: see my comment above: ‘the moment you create a world, you’ll have a URL to share it around on.’ We will post-moderate, not pre-moderate.[/color]
[color=#009900]Prisoner’s Honey: yup, this is the same project, though it’s changed substantially in the interim.[/color]
[color=#009900]Visual elements: see my answers about art elsewhere on the thread; but certainly logo, area banner and brackground will be editable.[/color]
[color=#009900]Forums: We wouldn’t set up a dedicated community site. I imagine a very successful game might develop its own forums elsewhere.[/color]
[color=#009900]Fate (which will probably be ‘Nex’ rather than Fate): it’ll be either primarily or exclusively action refreshes and branch unlocks, although branch unlocks are a bit more flexible.[/color]
[color=#009900]HTML: basic Markdown-like formatting, no arbitrary HTML or Javascript.[/color]
[color=#009900]Opportunity cards: yes, you’ll be able to change frequency.[/color]
[color=#009900]Area movement via storylets: yes[/color]
[color=#009900]Editable button text: yep![/color]
So, sort of hilariously the opposite of some other ideas that have been presented (though more power to those too!), I’ve been kicking around the idea of repurposing the platform to make a more educational game. I know you’ve said that content won’t need to be pre-approved, but I wanted to check that the owners and developers would be alright with this, given that it could potentially have a younger or school-aged audience that isn’t typical for Fail Better Games (to my knowledge). The game would also probably have limited “story” aspects, while preserving the core functionality and user-interactions, and I wasn’t sure if that was an acceptable use.
Basically, educational StoryNexus, yes/no? Thanks!
[color=#009900]Basically, educational StoryNexus, yes/no? Basically, absolutely! although there will be links to other games from the nav bar that you won’t be able to control.[/color]
One last technical question on my part before I stop haunting you: Will it be possible to have ‘hidden’ qualities - things the game tracks but which the player is never explicitly informed about, so that we can spring a surprise on them? Similarly, will it be possible to - partially or entirely - hide storylet prerequisites, so as to avoid accidental spoilers?
[color=00ffff]Hidden qualities: No - there are strong design and craft reasons for this. We feel they’d be more trouble than they’re worth. From debugging, testing and support standpoints they’d be a nightmare.[/color]
[color=00ffff]Hidden prerequisites: No - for the same reasons. There are ways to retain the element of surprise, though, even with visible qualities. Currently, Storynexus has different classes of qualities that display differently. [/color]
Understandable. Thank you very much.
It’ll be great to try this platform out! I also have a couple questions for you guys:
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Will the platform enable the games created to use people’s connections on Facebook/Twitter, as Fallen London?
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Will we be able to create clique specific storylets? Meaning - a member’s actions change the qualities of the whole clique/group, or certain storylets become available only when in a clique/group, and maybe depend on such clique specific qualities.
Trying to work through something here:
One thing we’re considering is starting a Kickstarter for our game. We’d like to be able to offer paid content free to people who donate. Would FBG have any problem with us doing a Kickstarter and awarding ‘unlock’ traits to donors? (Example: for a $5 donation, we’d manually add the Charitable Quality to all characters associated with an email address, which would be an alternative way to access all initial release paid content – the main way being $5 of Nex, of course.)
[color=#009900]Connections: The short answer is yes, but there are some changes coming.[/color]
[color=#009900]Cliques: We’re still talking about how cliques will work (or not work) across worlds - this is why we’ve held off introducing the long-promised further clique functionality into Fallen London. We are introducing more multiplayer-relevant stuff, but it’s not in the first drop.[/color]
[color=#009900]Kickstarter: In principle, yes, absolutely - we’ve been talking about doing something very similar with our own games. I’m sure you weren’t thinking of doing this, but we wouldn’t want to see Kickstarter project placeholders going up before the builders’ tools are both live and stable - the risks of over-promising are too great.[/color]
Alexis: good to know, thanks! We certainly wouldn’t start advertising before we had dev tools. That would be madness!