A big if...

[The Gremlins]

If we ever get it built, you guys are going to LOVE this.

We think.

You might think it sucks too, but we think you're more likely to love it than to hate it.

[AiRsTrIkE]

About how long before you start moving into the pre-alpha stages?

[The Gremlins]

About how long before you start moving into the pre-alpha stages?

A year. Maybe two.

We'd like to have it in alpha by next summer, but we'll see.

[AiRsTrIkE]

Great. I look forward to it. I wish I could do something to help, but I have no knowledge of such things.

[Kane]

So you keep posting stuff like you want to make a game, but you've never told us what it is or what you plan on doing.

Care to tell us?

[The Gremlins]

Care to tell us?

Sure. Let's rock. We'll tell what we have to tell.

It's going to be an Urban Dead style game, except instead of zombies there will just be people.


There will be different armies and alliances and players can have their characters join them or remain unaffiliated.

All armies and alliances have the exact same skills, requirements and so on, so it's not like Urban Dead where the zombies have certain abilities and skills and rules and the humans have another set.



The game world is completely player created and controlled. If the players want, they can actually lock themselves out of the game by destroying their own structures and having everyone die.

Yes, it's possible to suicide the game. Unlikely, but possible.



The game will still work on an AP system, but it's possible to increase the amount of AP a character gets each day so it won't be quite as tedious as Urban Dead.

Right now I've spent the last three days in Urban Dead searching a police station just to find bullets. It's not because the searching is so hard, but because I have so few AP.

It's kind of boring like that, and tedious.

So in our game you can earn more AP per day.



Each character will be bound to its IP. Once that character is created, that character and only that character can be accessed from that IP and only that IP.

By default this means that dynamic IP users get shat upon. We're really sorry about that.

Only static IPs will be able to access the game without significant issues though, unless of course we see a good reason for unbinding a character. We might do that down the road.

This also prevents people from having five characters, even if they use a proxy (because proxies use dynamic IPs and they won't be able to access their character consistently).



Characters can also be permanently killed. It's a lot of work and it takes a lot of resources, but it's possible to permanently remove someone from the game and force them to start a new character from scratch.


We don't believe in "no one ever really dies." Bullshit. Bitches get punked and their bodies get raped.

People that pick fights and lose them will see their baby sisters get forced to their knees and they have to watch their rivals face-fuck their high school sweethearts.

Be forewarned: You are playing an Internet game; We are playing SomethingAwful.

Not literally, but you can actually lose at this game. Your character can get killed. Likewise, you can kill someone else's character.

It does take a lot of resources though.



The tone of the game might be a bit more mature too. For example on the item list already is a blood-stained teddy bear which can be found in evidence bags in the police station.


We have money, and stores. We'll include a money system with a very tightly controlled economy. Your characters will earn a daily income based on the amount of shit they've destroyed. We're not talking millions and billions here. We're talking about things like... "Shoot a schoolgirl, earn one penny per day for the rest of your life. Shoot one more, earn two pennies a day."

But it does add up. We're putting in tons of shit for you to shoot at.


There are NPCs too. Unlike a lot of the games out there, we have NPCs for you guys to kick the crap out of. This is especially true at the start of the game. As the game progresses there won't be as much need for NPCs, so we might look at that again when we get that far. For now though, you get NPCs, and you'd better be working together early on or you're all going to die.


On that note, you'd better be organized and drama free to start off. Your biggest challenge comes right away.



That's what we're thinking of. Now all we have to do is code it.

[Jesse the Great Tsar]

If we ever get it built, you guys are going to LOVE this.

We think.

You might think it sucks too, but we think you're more likely to love it than to hate it.

Revive Billy Mays and you actually might have a future with this.

I just hope it doesn't turn into those games in banner ads I ignore.

[AiRsTrIkE]

So you decided to pull the teraforming and building functions?

[The Gremlins]

So you decided to pull the teraforming and building functions?

Pull them?

No. We have them.

The only thing that we don't currently have a way for characters to do is create the physical land they're standing on, or destroy that physical land.

We might add that down the road though.

All land can be teraformed by the players though, and while the game will start with 3 resource buildings for basic needs, those buildings can be destroyed and other buildings can be built, so it'll be entirely up to the players to create the game world.

[AiRsTrIkE]

Pull them?

No. We have them.

The only thing that we don't currently have a way for characters to do is create the physical land they're standing on, or destroy that physical land.

We might add that down the road though.

All land can be teraformed by the players though, and while the game will start with 3 resource buildings for basic needs, those buildings can be destroyed and other buildings can be built, so it'll be entirely up to the players to create the game world.

Fantastic. I can see this being a great game down the road, provided a decent number of players. I trust this shouldn't be a problem for the gremlins at all.

[The Gremlins]

Fantastic. I can see this being a great game down the road, provided a decent number of players. I trust this shouldn't be a problem for the gremlins at all.

Well, we wouldn't think so, but that's proven to be difficult in the past at times for us. Then again, we don't really try very hard. We're sorry about that too.

[AiRsTrIkE]

Well, we wouldn't think so, but that's proven to be difficult in the past at times for us. Then again, we don't really try very hard. We're sorry about that too.

Really? I've always imagined you to be really cool guys.

[The Gremlins]

Really? I've always imagined you to be really cool guys.

Thanks!

Cool, yes. Well, sometimes.

Easily distracted? Yes.
Lots of other obligations? Yes.
Monetary concerns? For sure.
Completely derailed by anything with a vagina? Yes.
Shiny objects? Yes.
Things that have motors? Yes.
Things that explode? Yes.
Things that move or make noise? Yes.

This is the warm-up list.

As you can see, while we may be very cool (or we may be a bunch of bastards) it becomes pretty irrelevant because of issues like those listed above.

[IAmNotReal]

is it free? that is if you actually get around to making it...

[The Gremlins]

is it free? that is if you actually get around to making it...

Yes.

Well, the first character is free.

The binding thing comes into play. Partially to keep server resources under control, we're binding the characters to their registration IP.

Right now we're thinking about removing that binding for a $5 fee per month, so that if people want to have a second character they can do that. If they want to access their character from other places they can do that too. If they want to share characters, that's fine.

It's not really about game balance. It's about server resources. There are only a few images here, but this is a mom and pop operation. Essentially this is a text game that gets rendered in a graphical user interface, but that interface and the programs that drive the game are still fairly resource intensive.

We're not using the world's cheesiest random number generation system or anything for example.

So the more people that log in, bring up pages and images, and make the game calculate things the higher our costs are.

So if people want to have two characters, they're eating more resources. If they want to log in from multiple places, they'll generally do so more often and this eats more resources.

Our stance on game balance is that if someone has the time and wants to entertain themselves by running multiple characters, so be it. It's the server resources they use in the process that become a pragmatic concern of the game. They use a lot of resources.

So yes, the first character is free. We're leaning towards unbinding a character for 5 bucks a month (so that a second character can be used with a static IP).

Then again, since we allow for more AP to be earned than Urban Dead, as time goes on we don't know how many people will actually want a second character or have the time to use it.

[AiRsTrIkE]

Just a few general misc. questions.

If one were to die, would they have to pay for their new character?

Would it be possible for a dynamic IP user to play the game using a static proxy?

Are there any possible alternatives to restricting changing IP usage while still maintaining most of the server conservation burden? I'm fairly certain I have a static address, but I just don't see the system as being very 'user friendly', which may be what you're going for...

Can we expect Gametramp to be the community home of this new game?

[The Gremlins]

If one were to die, would they have to pay for their new character?

No.

Would it be possible for a dynamic IP user to play the game using a static proxy?

Yes.

Are there any possible alternatives to restricting changing IP usage while still maintaining most of the server conservation burden?

None that we can think of. We're open to ideas though.

I'm fairly certain I have a static address...

You show in our system here as having 13 different IP addresses, but you might be accessing the boards from several different places as well.

In fact, just looking we can see you've been accessing us from school, so that accounts for most of your IP addresses.

I'm not sure which one is your primary IP so I can't say whether that one's static or dynamic.

but I just don't see the system as being very 'user friendly', which may be what you're going for...

You're right, it's not.

Can we expect Gametramp to be the community home of this new game?

We're not sure at this stage. The game would almost certainly come to dominate this community if we house it here. What we might do instead is have the game and the game community housed on a different web site. Right now the game itself is definitely going on a different web site. We think we'd like a community to go with the game, but Urban Dead has done fine without one too, so we might not have one at all.

Ideally though, yes. There will be a game community, and no, it wouldn't be housed on this web site, though we're certain most people would realize this community existed and probably wander over now and again. We're not sure how well that would translate, though.

This is probably something we should talk more about with you guys and hear more of your ideas on. It could have a pretty big impact on this web community, an we don't want the game to take over your space.

[The Gremlins]

We just had a phone call about this, Airstrike, and we're really glad you brought this point about where the game and community will be housed.

We should definitely talk about this more.

You guys need to give us your input.

[The Gremlins]

Hey, what do you guys think of this version of the mini map portion of the GUI?

http://gametramp.com/justthemm.png

The numbers at the top (5000.5000) are the grid coordinates of your character's current position.

A character's current position is always in the central box.

We might to the top right-hand side next to the coordinates who the territory the character is standing on belongs to. In fact, "might" is the wrong word. "Will" is the better word.

This is smaller than the Urban Dead GUI Mini Map, because we might enable the PDAs to see more than a 3x3 area at some stage. Perhaps up to 5x5.

Ellipses (...) indicates there are more entities present than can be listed.

Churds are NPC Churds.
Bandits are NPC Bandits.
Bots are robots.

Wilderness is a terraform state.
Untended is a terraform state.

Anything with a building on it is in the highest stage of terraform; a clearing.

[I'm not Goro this time]

Looks great so far. Maybe have different colors for each terrain type? Just to add a little variety or something. Good job anyways.

[AiRsTrIkE]

No.



Yes.

Fantastic.

None that we can think of. We're open to ideas though.

Didn't think so. Just putting it out there.



You show in our system here as having 13 different IP addresses, but you might be accessing the boards from several different places as well.

In fact, just looking we can see you've been accessing us from school, so that accounts for most of your IP addresses.

I'm not sure which one is your primary IP so I can't say whether that one's static or dynamic.

Offhand I can name my home, my father's house, my uncle's house, this vacation house, and several different restaurants I've accessed GT from. Frankly, I'm surprised there are only 13.


We're not sure at this stage. The game would almost certainly come to dominate this community if we house it here. What we might do instead is have the game and the game community housed on a different web site. Right now the game itself is definitely going on a different web site. We think we'd like a community to go with the game, but Urban Dead has done fine without one too, so we might not have one at all.

Ideally though, yes. There will be a game community, and no, it wouldn't be housed on this web site, though we're certain most people would realize this community existed and probably wander over now and again. We're not sure how well that would translate, though.

This is probably something we should talk more about with you guys and hear more of your ideas on. It could have a pretty big impact on this web community, an we don't want the game to take over your space.

I could definitely do with seeing some new faces, though I also don't know if I'd want to compromise the 'intimate' sort of environment we have here now. It's so nice and cozy, and fucktards are few and far between.

On the other hand, creating a new community may have a migration effect, where everybody over here makes an account over there, and simply stops posting. It's a tough choice, and one I think would serve best being made in the hands of the community.

[AiRsTrIkE]

Hey, what do you guys think of this version of the mini map portion of the GUI?

http://gametramp.com/justthemm.png

The numbers at the top (5000.5000) are the grid coordinates of your character's current position.

A character's current position is always in the central box.

We might to the top right-hand side next to the coordinates who the territory the character is standing on belongs to. In fact, "might" is the wrong word. "Will" is the better word.

This is smaller than the Urban Dead GUI Mini Map, because we might enable the PDAs to see more than a 3x3 area at some stage. Perhaps up to 5x5.

Ellipses (...) indicates there are more entities present than can be listed.

Churds are NPC Churds.
Bandits are NPC Bandits.
Bots are robots.

Wilderness is a terraform state.
Untended is a terraform state.

Anything with a building on it is in the highest stage of terraform; a clearing.

I would make text white on a blue background, and I also dislike the font you used for the info. It looks fine for the place names.

What does the edge look like?

What would inside look like?

[The Gremlins]

Well, since there are alliances and armies and such, it might be expected that you guys would want to start an army. Presumably you'd want to work together especially at first.

If you do that here, that brings in plenty of new people and we could set that up easily enough.

If you do it someplace else, you're going to drift away from here anyway regardless of where that "someplace else" turns out to be.

We like the idea of changing the tile color for different terraform states. Good idea.

We'll test the font in white as suggested, because it does appear to be the better color choice for the blue background. What we're trying to avoid is too much code though, and having multiple font colors just means we're going to have one more thing to fuck up when we program it. We'll look at that though because the white does appear to be a better font color for the blue background.

What if we offered multiple background colors? The theme is the same as we have here (blue and gray) but what if we did one in yellow, green, red, and so on? We could allow the users to pick their GUI themes easily enough. Then they could select the background that works best for them which would negate the impact of changing the font colors. Would that solve that issue do you think?

We'll get back to you on what the edge and the insides look like in a bit. We have to go do some things right now though.

Good thoughts and good questions. This is why collaboration pays off.

[The Gremlins]

This shows the status of terraform states of land, with the exception of developed areas.

Terraform ranks:
1 Overgrown
2 Wild
3. Brush
4. Untended
5. Clearing

http://gametramp.com/terraformmm.png

A clearing would be light brown. Untended would be dark brown. Brush will be mustard yellow. Wild will be Light green and Overgrown will be forest green.

[The Gremlins]

Here's the mini-map display of "edge" areas.

In this case, the bottom left-hand corner of the map.

Notice that the affiliation or owner of the land is in the top right corner now.

http://gametramp.com/edgemm.png


When someone is inside of a building, the map looks pretty much the same except that they can't see anyone standing outside.

[The Gremlins]

The images that were originally posted here have been moved and the links no longer work, which is why it appears we were speaking about pictures that can no longer be seen, in case anyone reading this is a fucking idiot got confused by that.