Comments on: Simulation vs. Game http://www.vectorstorm.org/2008/05/21/simulation-vs-game/ Creating games, one brightly glowing line at a time. Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:30:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Dan Haraj http://www.vectorstorm.org/2008/05/21/simulation-vs-game/comment-page-1/#comment-80 Dan Haraj Thu, 22 May 2008 02:26:42 +0000 http://www.vectorstorm.org/?p=160#comment-80 How about this: Negative buzz follows the derivative of a logistic curve in terms of how many new subscribers it brings in whereas positive buzz attracts a logarithmic function of itself in new subscribers. That way, positive buzz will be better passed a certain point. To make negative buzz worthwhile, you'd have to manage it to be in the sweet spot of the logistic curve. This is assuming forum buzz grows proportionately to the amount of users, eventually people get so angry and dissatisfied with a game that the sheer mass of negative buzz keeps people away instead of piquing their interests. Just an idea, you could use any functions to model the change I guess. How about this: Negative buzz follows the derivative of a logistic curve in terms of how many new subscribers it brings in whereas positive buzz attracts a logarithmic function of itself in new subscribers. That way, positive buzz will be better passed a certain point. To make negative buzz worthwhile, you’d have to manage it to be in the sweet spot of the logistic curve.

This is assuming forum buzz grows proportionately to the amount of users, eventually people get so angry and dissatisfied with a game that the sheer mass of negative buzz keeps people away instead of piquing their interests. Just an idea, you could use any functions to model the change I guess.

]]> By: trevor http://www.vectorstorm.org/2008/05/21/simulation-vs-game/comment-page-1/#comment-79 trevor Thu, 22 May 2008 00:13:20 +0000 http://www.vectorstorm.org/?p=160#comment-79 Right now, no, each region of the MMO runs on its own simulated server. In the original design, you allocated servers independantly from regions, and could resize and move the areas each server handled around on the world map to do load-balancing. But I've cut those features from the first release, in the interest of simplicity and being able to finish on time. Right now, the level of addiction is only used to make it less likely that someone unhappy with the game will unsubscribe. It does not (yet) actually make them spend more time with the game. With 10,000 users being simulated at once, I'm not sure how much value there'd be to simulating something as subtle as the quality of their outside lives. ;) jyrenth, simplifying the math of your suggestion (the '1-' operation was breaking my brain), the buzz generated by negative comments would look like this: "(positive_buzz/total_buzz)*negative_buzz". So effectively as you get less and less positive buzz, the negative buzz stops being as effective. I'm not sure whether or not it works that way in reality, but it'd certainly work a lot better in a game context. I think I'll probably go with that. Thanks! :) Now I just have to do something to try to balance out the buzz a little; it probably goes heavily negative just a bit too fast when a server goes down, taking a hundred or so players with it. :) Right now, no, each region of the MMO runs on its own simulated server. In the original design, you allocated servers independantly from regions, and could resize and move the areas each server handled around on the world map to do load-balancing. But I’ve cut those features from the first release, in the interest of simplicity and being able to finish on time.

Right now, the level of addiction is only used to make it less likely that someone unhappy with the game will unsubscribe. It does not (yet) actually make them spend more time with the game. With 10,000 users being simulated at once, I’m not sure how much value there’d be to simulating something as subtle as the quality of their outside lives. ;)

jyrenth, simplifying the math of your suggestion (the ’1-’ operation was breaking my brain), the buzz generated by negative comments would look like this: “(positive_buzz/total_buzz)*negative_buzz”. So effectively as you get less and less positive buzz, the negative buzz stops being as effective. I’m not sure whether or not it works that way in reality, but it’d certainly work a lot better in a game context. I think I’ll probably go with that. Thanks! :)

Now I just have to do something to try to balance out the buzz a little; it probably goes heavily negative just a bit too fast when a server goes down, taking a hundred or so players with it. :)

]]> By: Hawk45 http://www.vectorstorm.org/2008/05/21/simulation-vs-game/comment-page-1/#comment-78 Hawk45 Wed, 21 May 2008 22:36:51 +0000 http://www.vectorstorm.org/?p=160#comment-78 Will it at all be possible to run the MMO on one server such as Eve? I always thought that was neat how CCP did that. It'd be fun to emulate here. Also, how about addicted players quitting due to becoming too addicted and having their lives wrecked in the process? Will it at all be possible to run the MMO on one server such as Eve?

I always thought that was neat how CCP did that. It’d be fun to emulate here.

Also, how about addicted players quitting due to becoming too addicted and having their lives wrecked in the process?

]]> By: jyrenth http://www.vectorstorm.org/2008/05/21/simulation-vs-game/comment-page-1/#comment-77 jyrenth Wed, 21 May 2008 18:46:36 +0000 http://www.vectorstorm.org/?p=160#comment-77 Something reasonable might be having negative forum buzz influence addicted players to quit. It's realistically reasonable -- if you're on a forum sharing your dissatisfaction with a bunch of people every day, you're going to be more likely to quit. This would also mean a small game with lots of happily addicted people would be able to keep those people, while a large games that aren't satisfying would tend to have low numbers of addicted people (since they quit because of bad buzz), which would stunt their growth. Or you could have buzz weighted by how many players are addicted. You could weigh down the negative buzz, giving something like (1-negative_buzz/total_buzz)*negative_buzz, while keeping positive the same. Say you have 10 players generating forum buzz, and 9 of those are dissatisfied. Currently your buzz value is 1*2+9 = 11. In this system it would be 1*2+(1-.9)*9 = 2.9. It would reward have low numbers of negative buzz. If you reverse the example to 10 total people and 9 are positive, you'd be getting 9*2+(1-.1)*1 = 18.9. In this system, negative buzz still raises your exposure, but having a lot of it is bad. Just some ideas. Something reasonable might be having negative forum buzz influence addicted players to quit. It’s realistically reasonable — if you’re on a forum sharing your dissatisfaction with a bunch of people every day, you’re going to be more likely to quit. This would also mean a small game with lots of happily addicted people would be able to keep those people, while a large games that aren’t satisfying would tend to have low numbers of addicted people (since they quit because of bad buzz), which would stunt their growth.

Or you could have buzz weighted by how many players are addicted. You could weigh down the negative buzz, giving something like (1-negative_buzz/total_buzz)*negative_buzz, while keeping positive the same. Say you have 10 players generating forum buzz, and 9 of those are dissatisfied. Currently your buzz value is 1*2+9 = 11. In this system it would be 1*2+(1-.9)*9 = 2.9. It would reward have low numbers of negative buzz. If you reverse the example to 10 total people and 9 are positive, you’d be getting 9*2+(1-.1)*1 = 18.9. In this system, negative buzz still raises your exposure, but having a lot of it is bad.

Just some ideas.

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