Very true Nigel which is another plus with SN, you can just go and make a completely new a different world whenever you feel like it!
Yeah John, multiplayer is a whole different concept that draws on different things than say a single player game set up the way I mentioned. If nothing else, people play online for the soul purpose of some sense of interaction with others, even if it is just shooting them again and again :-)
Chryrsoula, I think the biggest thing is tailoring your goals to your audience. As with anything, gamers have groups that they migrate to. I think Mass Effect 3 had the right idea with being able to choose how you wanted to play the game and I have no doubt in my mind we will see more games following suite very shortly. edited by Kitsune on 9/5/2012
If it’s something that looks like a game and smells like a game, we need to apply game design principles - which are often just a special case of experience design principles - to optimise the experience. I get quite bored with arguments about whether something is ‘really’ a game. The principles usually apply in some way. This was a hard lesson for us back in the day. FL has its share of both successes and failures here. The fancy term we like for system supporting story is ‘ludonarrative consonance.’
that said (i), every design decision ever made is a tradeoff. Sometimes it’s the wrong decision, but every game fails to be a hundred things and, if done right, succeeds at being a half-dozen. The trick is focus. This is why card games and board games, with their hard limits on complexity, have such beautiful - and often such narrative-enhancing - design.
that said (ii) we have an occasional saying round here: ‘bad game design, good poetry.’ Sometimes artistic intention should trump good design, sometimes story trumps gameplay. I think this overlaps with what Jonas Kyratzes means when he talks about grace in game design (which is one of the reasons I asked him to judge our Season competition) - Designing for Grace – Jonas Kyratzes. But of course, we’ve all gotta learn the rules as well as we can before we break them.[/color] edited by Alexis Kennedy on 9/20/2012
Anyways, I think it is really great being able to create different types of games with SN that suits everybody’s fancy. I just hope there are a lot of people that are dedicated to making all of these into reality.
Thought I’d said this earlier: Still, apologies to you, Kitsune. I’m regularly misgendered and know how it can feel.
On topic, then. I am currently implementing Menace states for my worlds and am wondering if other authors and players have preferences or advice on it. So far I expected my menaces to be linear scores (not pyramid, so 1 change point = 1 quality state increase/decrease) which does simplify the appearance of earning/losing menaces but has the disadvantage of, with so few change points from ‘nothing’ to ‘in gaol/dying’, it being quite inflexible.
I am thinking of converting to a Fallen London style, with pyramid qualities and menace settings kicking in at 8, but I’m wary of copying FBG’s mechanics so precisely. Still, less than 8 seems to few and more too many in regards to the Change Points required to enter and then leave a menace setting.
> so few change points from ‘nothing’ to ‘in gaol/dying’, it being quite inflexible.
[color=#009900]was one of the two main reasons I used pyramid change points initially; and the cap was originally 5, until we just found that 5 felt too mean / low.[/color]
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[color=#009900]In other words, there’s some convergent design evolution going on here. But in any case, use of existing conventions is, all else being equal, a minor design virtue. If you had a compelling thematic or mechanical reason to make the Menaces kick in at 7, of course you should do that, but in its absence, there’s nothing wrong with making life easier for Fallen London players who come to your game by letting it fit their long-established expectations. It’s certainly not any kind of plagiarism.[/color]
[color=#009900]You can impersonate characters now (see Debug in the manual), but you’ll never be able to impersonate players - that would allow you to spend their Nex for them or change their username or link them to your own Twitter account. Obviously when I say ‘you’ I mean ‘not you but some less trustworthy creator’.[/color]
Ha ha yeah of course I knew what you meant and good to know. I meant characters from the very beginning, just didn’t make the connection. Thanks again!
So is it suppose to be listed under the debug tab to Impersonate a character? I just checked and didn’t see it there, all I have is Tweak qualities, Give a card, and Process TQEs. Is it somewhere else within the tools or is this a bug? edited by Kitsune on 9/22/2012
I feel bad for posting three times in a row, but at least for me there has been some very obvious and nice style changes. I just haven’t seen anything about this anywhere so I wasn’t sure if this was suppose to be the case. I have the area name overlapping the “Welcome to Story Nexus Beta” at the top of the page as well as my own personal world name in the box at the top left of the page. I mean, I like it and now I have to actually name my area, but I just wasn’t sure if this was suppose to happen yet. If it was I also wondering what other changes may have been implemented? edited by Kitsune on 9/28/2012
[color=#009900]Sorry, my mistake - Impersonate Character is also disabled for the mo, until we sort out a loophole that might allow a rare exploit by that possibly mythical beast, the mischievous creator.[/color]
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[color=#009900]The area name change went live a little early (it was due to go in THE VISION) - enjoy. Changing your area name won’t break anything for anyone (unless you change it to a blank name! don’t do that.)[/color]
Oh ok I figured that was the case, and it does look quite nice. I just didn’t want to be one of the few that accidentally experienced something they weren’t suppose to yet, or something others could not enjoy. Thanks much. edited by Kitsune on 9/29/2012
Will we ever be able to have items that boost qualities like in FL? I went back and looked over my year old brainstorming for Elemental Tango, and noticed that I have a few items like that. If not, I can just make them usable once to boost the quality but it seems easier the way FL is set up.
I think I found the said devil. I went to go make a new item and noticed an option at the bottom for enhancements with a drop down of EVERYONE’S (including FL o.O) adjustable categories. If this is in effect, I feel it could be very damaging, so I figured I would let you know. edited by Kitsune on 10/4/2012
My Pleasure and I don’t know if I was jumping the gun a bit or if it is a bug, but I created new decks for Elemental Tango and now they show up for everyone. I also went to set images for the decks and they all appear as broken links except for “cardback.”