Auto Turret Behavior

So I have talked about turrets in the past, and in looking through my past posts I realized I didn't have anything written down about them.  The recipe for making one will include at least 1 energy crystal, crafted metal pieces that will include enough for the dimensions of the turret, which will be 12 triblocks, and possibly something else I haven't determined yet.  They will probably look a little like the Daleks from Dr. Who or the laser towers from Zelda with a floating globe that indicates .  When crafted I want to give the creator the option of the scanning range in sets of 45 degrees.  So for example they could set it to scan a 90 degree angle, or they could set it to 360 if they wanted, though it would be less effective as it would take longer to get back to a given point.  Also the larger the scan field, the less radial distance the scan will cover

When attacked the auto turret will automatically fire a shot directly back to where it was shot from, and then it will scan in a 45 degree angle the area from which the shot was fired for approximately 5 seconds.  The change of scanning also increases total distance of possible scanning to the maximum while it searches, but once it resumes it's normal scan the distance will go back to the original amount.

I want these towers to shoot a constant stream of soldier level weapon fire once locked on a target.  A frontal assault on one is just not possible unless a team of least 15 soldiers are all attacking it at once, but I do hope to have a relatively dumb AI so smart players can defeat them if they work it right.  All turrets will have the ability to fire in 360 degrees  as well as directly up and mostly down so getting around behind one is not a guaranteed destruction.

One other thing I will consider is that if a player near a turret does their laser pointer in a specific direction, the turret will briefly scan that area more thoroughly.  This could possibly be a problem though as spies could intentionally point a turret away while enemy players pass through an area, so I'll probably have to set a timer on it and a limit to how often a player could "direct" the turrets attention.

Distress Signals

I have been thinking about what could be done to indicate to other players of one's faction that someone is in distress.  So along with the laser pointer idea, I had a thought that distress signals could be sent by pointing their laser pointer directly up.  So long that a player is not under anything (like in a cave) and they are using the pointing function (which is a double use for placement of blocks and structures as well as quick communication), then if frozen the beam automatically shoots directly up and an alarm will be triggered if they are close enough to a communications structure( basically within the same hexfield as one).  The alarm volume will depend on how many distress calls are being sent at any given time and will be relayed back to the main base.  I envision a large map on one of the walls which will indicate distress signals by a radiating hex, the larger the radiation, the more attention grabbing it will be.  So basically it would provide a player controlled mechanism to quickly indicate incoming attacks.

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This could prove to be very useful in the future. So I thought I would link it here.  It's pretty boring behind the scenes stuff that has to happen.

Semester is almost done and Headgear

Ok I know that I have been rather quiet on this site for some time now.  The nice thing is that my semester is almost done.  I will have completed all of the prerequisites for grad school, and now I am just waiting to see if I will be accepted into the program or not.  Even if I am not accepted I have already learned a ton and I have a good springboard for moving forward with this project.  I will be focusing a lot more over the summer, so expect a lot more in the way of posts, though no guarantees of course.

So one idea I have had was to somewhat copy other FPS games in introducing purely aesthetic headgear for personalization.  In this game I plan on a standard headgear being the antennae, and so at first it could be different configurations of antennae.  If the game proves to be successful, then later on I will be able to commission an artist to make some better looking head items.  This will have to wait until a game model is put together of course.  This will also be another way for the game to get income and/or promote the game.

The Troll Server

So I have been thinking a bit about what can be done to make sure people behave in this game as I want it to be family friendly, to the point where a 6 year old watching it won't pick up new and unwanted vocabulary, and also so that a parent watching the game over a teenagers shoulder won't see how someone in world chat is talking in depth about their latest adult experience.  So an idea that I have come up with is a


Troll Server


That's right, a server where there are basically no rules,  no censoring, just be as much of an offensive "pick and insert your term here" as you wish.  Now if someone does something worthy of getting sent to such a place and "didn't mean it", then they will have to show real remorse in some fashion to be able to return to the "civil" servers.

What this accomplishes is a way for all types of players to be able to play the game as they wish, and they can be around the type of people that they wish to be around.  Banning from playing doesn't really work, especially since they may be paying customers who we don't wish to alienate, and trolls often pride themselves on the number of times they are banned anyway.  Of course if people willingly wish to play in this server they will be allowed,  since that will make it all the easier to police them.  It will just have to have a disclaimer before players enter it.

Players could then decide as a collective as to what behaviors constitute a sentence of going to the Troll server. I ran it by a friend (Columba from Aion, Israphel Server) who is a self proclaimed professional troll and he loved the idea.  I think it could solve a lot of problems if other games were to adopt a similar type of system.  Now of course if someone has a complaint of some sort, all that has to be said is "Look, your in the Troll server.  If you don't like it, show us you can behave so you can be on a normal server".  It could have a 3 strike system, where after the third strike they have sealed their fate of ever not playing on a troll server.  That should keep a lot of people happy in multiple ways.

Mirrors

I had an interesting thought last night.  A craft-able item that could be placed is a mirror that allows shots fired by the placing faction to be reflected, yet opposing faction's shots would be absorbed as damage which when it becomes to much will break the mirror.  These mirrors could be hacked just as any other structure.  There would be both ceiling/floor types and wall types, which could be represented as two different recipes.  This will have to wait of course, but will make a nice addition after the basics of the game have been completely developed.

Competitiveness and the desire to be on the winning team

At the heart of player vs player games or pvp as is coined in the industry is the desire to compete.  As my children have very convincingly shown me time and again, winning is funner than losing.  While many people point out that good sportsmanship is all about enjoying the game regardless of outcome, many of us secretly hope to be the winners.  What I have noticed that frequently happens in games is that people know who the good players are and will wait to see which team they join before choosing a team.  If all of the good players do this it's what's known as stacking, where there is an imbalance in playing ability on the two teams.  What occurs then is hardly a competition, rather it is a massacre.  I like to think of myself as a good player in many games that I play, and often I will try to be on the underdogs team so as to even the playing field a bit.  What I have noticed is the more that I play a game and become known, that when I join the underdog team that it isn't the underdog team for that long because many "good" players will switch sides as soon as the tide of the competition comes to be against them winning.

I try not to bring up politics very often, but since it is a common area of competition I think it bears a quick look at it.  When foreigners are being made familiar with american culture for example,  I found it interesting that Americans claim to be the most free country in the world, yet despite having many choices of political parties overwhelmingly there were only two dominant parties.  In talking to people about this occurring for such a long time, many people say that they would prefer to vote for one of the smaller parties, except that would just mean throwing away their vote.  Thus they feel obligated to choose instead from the two parties who clearly have a chance of "winning".  Some people were not even aware that they were allowed to choose other parties, or even that other parties indeed existed beyond the two powerhouses.  I like to look at this as people wish to be affiliated with a winning establishment, even if that establishment may not share the same ideals as said people, the "choosing the lesser of two evils" if you will.

In games the drive to win often leads people to extreme and unethical behaviors, such as cheating, hacking, stacking teams or sides, spying on their competitors, bribery, the list goes on an on.  Often systems are put into place to try and stop these unwanted behaviors, yet the desire to win will often lead people to seek out loopholes or other ways of getting an advantage.  The problem is once a system is compromised and people recognize the inherent unfairness the advantages the cheaters have, then many people are driven to leave the system if they have a choice, or if not they are forced to cheat themselves in order to remain competitive.

So to bring this back to my game, I really want to see this succeed and in order for that to happen it needs to be able to stop such behaviors from happening.  I've seen too many games where the players who are willing to play fair and follow the rules are driven away by cheaters and hacks.  Some areas that I am a little concerned in would be

1. How do you keep factions relatively even as far as number of skilled players on each side?
2. What happens when the majority of a faction decides to stop playing making things unequal?
3. How do we limit hacking of the client, and in what ways do we detect said hacking?
4. What if someone stops playing and gives their account to a friend who is on an opposing faction? How do we detect this and stop it, or does it need to be stopped?
5. What can be done to make sure the game stays fun for everyone?

Any help with how to tackle these questions would be greatly appreciated.