Ranking

The last few days I’ve been thinking about how I would arrange the ranking system. I decided to have one ‘main ranking’ and besides that multiple other, less important, rankings. This iswhat I’ve got:

1.   Most Sales: the quantity of sales you make decide your ranking
   
2.  Most Goods Produced: the quantity of goods you produce decide your ranking
   
3.   Stock Market Profit: the total profit you made by trading shares on the stock market decide your ranking
   

These are the ‘side rankings’. It’s the main ranking which I’m not sure about. Now I have:

1.  Ranking: your total value (in ‘points’). An example how this would be arranged: Cash on hand + (each level of each building you own x 3) + (each piece of empty land you own x 2) + ((every good + gold you own)  x 1) + (every resource you own x 0.5)

I think I can’t do much wrong with this, still if anyone has a better idea, feel free to tell me ^^. The ‘side-rankings’ would be available during each rounds. The ‘main ranking’ only after each round.

A little game theory based on "Maslow's hierarchy of needs"

This is a post about little theory of mine concerning the development of browser based games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Maslow's hierarchy of need says human's needs are divided into 5 levels.

Most important first:

1. Physiological needs (water, food, ... )
   
2. Safety needs (security from crime, health security, ... )
   
3. Social needs (friendship, ... )
   
4. Esteem (achievement, respect by others, ... )
   
5. Self-actualization (morality, creativity, ... )

When  the first need is satisfied, people will move on to the second need, and so on.

So why do people play (browser based) games? Where do games fit into this hierarchy?

I think it's pretty clear.

• Social needs
  
• Esteem

I would consider Self-actualization too, but I think that's less important. Note some people don't even get to this last level of needs.

When people play games, the reasons are:

• They want to make friends
  
• They want a feeling of achievement (e.g. quests)
  
• They want respect by others (Dude, see my lvl 100 char!!!)
  
• ...

I conclude that if a game wants to be succesfull it should take care of the social needs and esteem of it's players.

An intresting topic on bbgamezone was for me "Game Play vs. Graphics". And "What makes a good game?". In both topics there were people for graphics and there were people for gameplay. But most people agree that the community makes the game, the community makes the players stick around.

I noticed this in games I played already to.

My little theory applied on some games:

Erepulik:

Built on it's community, became very popular. The "social needs" are taken into account. Maybe it could invest some more in "esteem".

Neopets:

The "respect by others" is very important here. You can win prizes, collect things, make a beautifull pet, ... just to show off to your fellow players!

Tribalwars:

This game has good gameplay, but the reason I sticked around was because of the "clan" I was part off.

I bet you could apply this theory to almost every popular browser based game out there will forfill one of these 2 needs. And the bad games, the failures, couldn't forfill them.

Not browser based games usualy took care of the "esteem" (achievement), but now are focusing more and more on the "social needs". Playing together is always better than playing alone :D.

I didn't do a lot of research, so there is a very real chance I'm wrong on this, so feel free to comment.

Though, this is just a little theory of mine. And Maslow's hierarchy of needs isn't exact sience either. (chapter: "criticism" on Wikipedia)

Still alive!

Hey again,

It's been a while since my last post :D. But I'm still alive. I've been working realy hard on the gaming and it's going well. I started learning JavaScript (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript) a few days ago and that also is going well.

If I get to it, I'll give you guys more information about what I've done already and what the next steps will be. But for now just know the project is more alive than ever!

See you soon, hopefully

Changes in the basics: Villages

I’ve made a change in my design document.

There are 2 kinds of villages.

1.     ‘Resource villages’

2.     ‘trading villages’

Resource villages are smaller and have a certain amount of one or more kinds of resources. And you can only build buildings to gather resources or to make goods.

Trading villages are usually bigger and you can only build shops or buildings which deliver services.

Both kinds of villages can contain governmental buildings.

You don’t have a ‘home village’ anymore. First of all you have to build a warehouse in a village to be ‘active’ in that village. Then you can buy building grounds (just like before) and build buildings etc. So every good from your buildings in that village go to your warehouse in that village, and you have to transport goods between warehouses. So you will have to build 2 warehouses at least: one in a resource village and one in a trading village. For the rest everything stays the same, expect you don’t have to buy land anymore, but build the right type of building and upgrade it so it can contain more workers. (so there will be a building: woodcutter, sawmill, … ).

When a resource town is depleted you can move your workers to other buildings and destroy the buildings which gather resources and build buildings which make goods.

The pros:

• -          More interesting gameplay
  
• -          Simpeler?
  

The cons:

• -          I have to revise the taxes system and politics
  

Current state of development

Edit: This post may be a bit messy

Start of the new school year
The first of September was the start of the new school year. This had a serious impact on my spare time (obviously), and school is taking a lot of my energy. So from now on things will probably go even slower. It’s just that you know!

Modular Gaming
I have decided that I’m going to work with a framework for browser based games, called Modular Gaming. (http://modulargaming.com/) That means that I don’t have to set up the login, registration, inventory, … off course I’ll have to change some things. But it saves me a lot of time and work. However, with my programming skills, it’s going to take me long enough.
For the ones of you who want to make their own browser based game, you should really check it out!

My illustrators
Now I’m going to tell you a bit about my illustrators. Two eighteen year old guys were willing to make some (well, a lot) drawings etc. for my game. One of them is a cousin of a friend, the other one is a friend of a friend. I have spoken with them on msn and mailed with them.
Because one had an accident he wasn’t able to do anything yet. The other one is already making some drawings and sketches. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’m very curious! They can take their time, because it will take ME very long to program my game. I hope that I can post some sketches soon.

The next steps
The next steps in the development of CeasterTrade will be the programming of all the basic stuff, which will take a while. I will have to learn and practice. If that’s done I will concentrate on some more “special” features.

The name
As last item I will shortly explain the name CeasterTrade. “Ceaster” is old English for City, I chose the name because of the sound and because the game is all about trading and cities (trading in your own city, or with another city). What also represents the feature of “virtual cities” which creates almost a storyline.

Customizable shops

In CeasterTrade you will be able to customize your shop. This has 2 purposes:

1. Marketing. Everything you do has influence in your visibility and you can convince people to
buy their stuff in your shop quick and cheap.
2. Just the fun of the customization. This could go with contests for the best looking shop etc.

Every shop will have a main building. To see the discounts, prices etc. you’ll have to go inside. BUT a shop owner will be able to buy extras! And I hope you will help me decide which extras that will be. I had already some ideas:

1. A pricelist next to the main building.
2. A sign (banner). Some basic banners and also the possibility to upload one yourself.
3. A message.
4. A shop name (I think that’s a very important one, so people will recognize you!)
5. Spotlights. This is a very original one, but maybe not a good one. So there will be spotlight
shining on the shop so it is more notable.
6. This is not really for visibility, but I could make a little change to the discount feature and
make people pay to enable it.
7. This spot is for my blog readers to come up with some ideas!

I’m awaiting your opinion and maybe some ideas! Then I’ll soon make a poll.

Chat

The past few days I’ve been thinking about the chat. As I mentioned before in this blog, my original idea was to make a chat room in the inn. I changed that and decided to make a small chat on each page. I was thinking about the following features:

1. A list with all the users that are online in the chat.
2. Different “tabs” or “rooms”. So there would be a room for each village and an “international”
room etc.
3. Private chat.

With all these features in mind, and the fact that there might be a lot joining a conversation in the chat, I decided to return to my original idea and to make the chat in the inn.
What do you think?