So it looks like I may be turning this into a regular weekly thing.

Because I am hardcore about being a geek like that. Plus I like finding out about which games are already doing ideas similar to mine.

Player Interaction

First and most basic thing: Universal Friends List. If you ever wind up making an second character, it can be a huge pain in the ass to have to re-enter all of your friends into a new list. City of Heroes has already done this, so there really isn’t an excuse for every new game that comes out to not include this.

Ditto for the ignore list. The idiot RoxUrSoxor, who is filling the newbie chat full of Chuck Norris jokes didn’t get any more interesting just because you decided to switch characters. In fact you should be able to select the guy, and put his whole guild on ignore with one or two button clicks. Because if there’s one thing you know, its that no one who would admit him to a guild has anything to say that’s worth listening to.

To avoid any problems from these universal lists, give the players the ability to “Opt Out”. Maybe a player has a character that they don’t want everyone to know about. Along those lines, perhaps a player just wants to play without his friends for a while. So make “Lurk Mode” an option. That way if you don’t want to hang out it tells all of your friends that you are offline.

Another related idea is an enemies list. Every game on the market provided options to keep track of all of your buddies. But so far I haven’t seen any that help you to keep track of all of the people who have ticked you off. To prevent this from being used as a tool for griefing it shouldn’t show certain details, like their location or even whether or not they are online. But the characters could be marked with an icon to help remind you that this is a player who has annoyed you in the past. This has the potential to actually be combined with the PVP mechanics to make a whole “blood-debt” system.

Yet another idea that I haven’t seen yet is Character Notes. The ability to basically make a little in-game post-it note and attach it to another player. Not physically in game, but just an icon, visible only to you, that showed that you had some notes written down about that player. Maybe another player was gracious about settling a dispute. Or maybe he sprinted past you to steal your treasure chest. Either way, now you can check your notes on how he acted in the past. I predict this turning into a great big pile of fun when combined with the enemies list.

Another problem area is quest tracking. Every one of these games has a either a journal or a log to track what quests you have available, and what your current progress is. And some of them even let you see if any of your teammates are on the same quest. But most don’t let you track your friends progress on their quests. I think you should actually be able to open up the quest log of any of your member of your team, right next to your own. This will make it far easier to keep everybody organized. Also, I think the whole “quest sharing” feature that many games already have should be mostly automatic. If you’re in a party with a guy who’s going to get a magic sword for rescuing a princess, then the king should just pass out blades to everyone at the end of the adventure.

One feature I have seen under-used is side-kicking. CoH did it first, Age of Conan has it now (they call it mentoring) but for the most part I haven’t seen any other games adapt it. I have no idea why not. The whole point of an MMO is that you are playing it with other people online. And unless all of your friends have exactly the same amount of free time, discrepancies in levels will develop. Anything that will allow players to overcome this sort of obstacle is a good idea. And since this feature has already been used in a well-known game, its kind of stupid that everyone doesn’t have it.

And the last idea I’m going to jot down tonight is my way of dealing with spammers. Especially the guys that sit there and send private messages to every person on the server, trying to drum up business for their slave labor gold farm. One relatively simple way is to charge in-game money for sending tells out to people who have not friended you. Losing 2 copper coins to send some random guy a private message about his cool armor would probably be inconsequential to you. But if you are trying to send out 1000+ messages an hour about your awsome power leveling service, your character mights start running low on funds. I’m pretty sure that Eve Online is doing this one already.

But to take this idea to its logical conclusion, make a simple addition to the end-user agreement. If a player advertises out-of-game commercial services, then the game company will charge that player $100 per infraction. Plus their computer should explode. But I’m not sure how to do that last part.

Discuss.

Pt 1 Military Humor

Navy Carrier Squadron “Pump It”

The Way To Amarillo

Swearing In

Ghost Riders in Dubai

Pt 2 Computer Game Humor

RP Servers - Probably Not Safe For Work

Violent Horsie

Sporn - Not Safe For Work

Well, California has started having same sex marriages.

Good for them!

I never understood the problem people have with same sex marriages or homosexuality in the first place. Ya, I know, some people have religious reasons and think it is a sin and God hates fags, and all that crap.

Well they are wrong. I know they are wrong because I spoke to God, and It told me those people are full of shit, and although God does not hate anyone, if It did, those intolerant, bigots would be near the top of Its’ list. But since God loves and tolerates everyone, and there is no Hell, God told me the only punishment these bigots will get is a slap to the back of the head when they reach the after life, and a stern, “What were you thinking?” (Seriously, God is pretty hip once you get to know It better, and is also a surprisingly good cook.)

I think the argument that I have heard that makes the least sense, is that allowing homosexuals to marry will damage traditional heterosexual marriages.

How!?!

Well, I never can seem to get an answer on that one. How does two homosexuals being married impact your marriage in any way, shape, or form? You’re still married. If your marriage is so fragile that two married homosexuals down the street will endanger it, I guarantee that your marriage sucks already and the gays getting hitched is not your biggest problem.

Oh. Wait. I get it. A lot of the opponents to same sex marriage are worried that if the option to marry the same sex exists, they will be forced to go gay. Because that is the only thing stopping most people from being gay, is that marriage isn’t available. Why would anyone marry the opposite sex when you can marry one of your own and avoid all those Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus issues?

Why should I put up with some bitchy woman on her period once a month, when I can marry my best buddy, and enjoy a football game in peace?

You ever ask yourself the question, “Whose dick do I have to suck to get a little peace and quiet around here?” Well if I marry a man, now I have an answer to that question. And as far as sex goes, I bet I can convince my new husband that we would both be happier going out and picking up some chicks, because as cool as this same sex marriage thing is, I need a little poontang once in a while. I know this would not be a problem, because any man I found worthy of marrying would like pussy as much as I do…duh.

I know, I know. I’d make a horrible gay man. My girlfriend tells me that all the time. Plus I have an overly sensitive gag reflex.

Seriously though, I don’t think marriage should even be a legal institution, but since that isn’t going to go away anytime soon, I totally support same sex marriages, because this is America and slowly but surely we will give everyone the same rights and treatment as everyone else. I know America’s track record on living up to that is shit, and if you disagree ask a Native American, an immigrant, a black person or a woman,…hell ask anyone. We all get screwed in one way or another, but at least this is one wrong that is being righted and I support it whole heartedly.

If you are one of those people opposed to same sex marriage, you need to pull the stick out of your butt and stop trying to make other people live by your rules. By the way, it is not hard to remove the stick from your butt, as I am sure you can clearly see it being that your head is up there too. Just grab it with your teeth and it will come out when you pull your head out. Now go take a shower. Your hair smells, and you should probably brush your teeth too.

Finally, I will point out my only reservation about whether legalizing same sex marriage is the right thing to do. The only problem I see with same sex marriage is that if you do not have sex before marriage, you could be in for a rude surprise on your honeymoon when you realize your wife has an eight inch clitoris and no vagina. But I don’t advocate saving sex for marriage either.

There is something that has been bothering me for a while now. I think that now is as good a time as any to get it out.

Iä Iä C’thulu ftagn

Iä Ph’nglui mglw’nafh

Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

Iä Shub-Niggurath n’sawp tk’li

Ya Shub-Niggurath K’n-yan Cybele Exham

Exham Shub-Niggurath io p’ag gof’nn hupadgh

Iä Tsathoggua naf’k y’el p’ag Dholes

Ya Tsathoggua Yaddith Eibon Yuggoth

Yuggoth k’el gurath io Byatis

Iä Azathoth g’ta k’teel

Ya Azathoth gof’nn Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep p’ag N’gi

Iä Yog-Sothoth p’ael Yibb-Tstll

Ya Yog-Sothoth s’slo Tawil At-U’mr

Tawil At-U’mr s’slo Aforgomon

Iä Idh-yaa pyg’nn C’thulu

Ya Idh-yaa m’threo n’sawp

N’Sawp Ghatanothoa n’sawp Ythogtha

Iä Idh-yaa pyg’nn C’thulu

Ya Idh-yaa m’threo n’sawp

N’Sawp Zoth-Ommog n’sawp Cthylla

Iä Dagon gof’nn C’thulu

Ya Dagon S’othis Thoosa

Thoosa p’ag C’thulu

Iä Iä C’thulu ftagn

Spoiler Alert: You should probably not have read any of that out loud.

No Shit there I was, Ramadi Iraq 2005, actually wait….. Back up. I can’t say “no shit” for this story as it’s central theme is just that.

I don’t know about your tours to the desert, but from my experience, H20 was never in short supply. It was located in huge bottles, on massive aircraft pallets located all over the FOB. It sat in the 110+ degree heat, and was like drinking fresh McDonalds lawsuit coffee only without the delicious coffee taste, and foamy clumpy shits that followed.

Ice in coolers did not hold up on three hour convoys, and the massive 2 liter water bottles took up way too much cooler space.

Gatorade was never plentiful, and was considered a rare treat when we could get our hands on it. One day the mess hall received three connexes full of grape flavored Gatorade in the 20oz bottles.

My Armorer, Young Specialist Wesley Green, whom you may or may not recall from my back scratcher story from a few weeks ago, took it upon himself to wheel and deal for a pallet of this grape-flavored nectar of the Gods. It cost us a broken Nautilus ab cruncher (but we had two in our gym and one was not on the property books).

This pallet was enjoyed by my orderly room staff exclusively for nearly a week.

That is when a few of my guys started noticing that their fecal matter color was changing. Bright hues of florescent green and yellow began to fill our Job Johnnys. Then one day our NBC Private, PFC Powell, whom you may remember as not being the smartest of privates, whom mistakenly purchased a douche for a female medic on my orders, decided to mess with Top, and try to get some free time off. He took a green chem light and a turkey baster (where in the hell he got a turkey baster in Iraq I have no clue) and inserted glowing green chem light juice in, on, and around his latest drop.

He came in and asked Top to take a look at the glowing pile of nuclear waste shit, and asked if he could be excused from duty to see the Medics and get some “bed rest”. Top was one of the brighter First Sergeants that I have dealt with, and made PFC Powell scoop out his creation to take with him to the medics. Since the medics hadn’t been aware of the tactically acquired Gatorade they were in for quite a shock when PFC Powell came in with his glowing sandwich baggy of poop. They immediately called the PA and the FOB surgeon. It was only when they were preparing to order an emergency Medivac did Top step up and say that his troop was simply sandbagging, and that the poor dumb bastard had just drank too much Gatorade, and added chem light juice. For some reason these Medics, the PA, and FOB Surgeon were all of the mindset that my young PFC had grew up in Chernobyl or discovered Saddam’s secret stash of WMDs. It wasn’t until Top, just through his “Top Glare”, made PFC Powell admit to what he had done that the FOB Medical staff relented.

What form of perverse punishment that Top gave PFC Powell eludes me at this time, but I’m sure that it was fitting. It does roll downhill after all.

Here it is, you Monday morning list of things you should probably not do.

(Submitted by Kennes Hendrickson)

• Not allowed to send soldiers to the motor pool for a can of air.
• Not allowed to send soldiers to the 1sg to ask for the pricky-8 for the radio
• Even if the platoon sergeant thought it would be funny
• Must not remove a soldiers canister from their gas mask
• Even if they are sleeping on duty
• Not allowed to send soldiers to range control to get keys to the drop zone
• There is no such duty to paint the flight lines
• Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my minions
• Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my little bastards
• Not allowed to tape corporals to chairs with 100 mile hour tape during lunch hour
• Nor allowed during duty hours
• Not even if they flunked out of jump master school twice
• Can not order soldiers to throw rocks at the same corporal
• Can not set up trip wires in the scif at Ft. Bragg in order to make the roving gaurds trip
• Not supposed to laugh at the NCOIC when she trips over the trip wire
• Not allowed to sell TA-50 on e-bay
• Not even if it is your annoying room mates TA-50
• Not allowed to call your 1sg a LEG even if he is one
• Can not laugh at your 1sg for being a reservist, because they have feeling too
• Must not tell locals in Hawaii that your MOS is Sub-terrain Pineapple growers, even if you work under a pineapple field and can not say what you do
• Not supposed to tell people they hate me because I am black, especially if I am white
• On Sicily drop zone at 0100 when the platoon sergeant is looking for his poncho, not supposed to take the token Mexican kid to him
• Can not hide your platoon sergeants poncho from him on jumps
• Not allowed to ask the battalion CSM why you always have to remind him he is a sergeant major
• Can not inject the “Army, it’s so easy a caveman can do it” picture into a power point presentation intended for the battalion commander
• Even if he thinks it is funny
• Can not even attempt to DX my neighbor
• Not allowed to have an EPW camp of field mice in an MRE box
• Not allowed to execute mice that were captured during time of war
• Birth certificate and high school diploma do not count for promotion points
• During war fighters can not brief the ACE chief on enemy activity in Rhode Island
• Even if you believe they are communist
• Can not fuel a generator while smoking a cigarette
• Not allowed to ask your CO for beef jerky, even if he did horde it on the show Survivor
• Not allowed to put a bumper sticker on a religious soldiers car that reads “WWSD” with small print reading “What would Scooby Doo”
• Not allowed to link all laptops together to play 2 vs. 2 command and conquer generals
• Not allowed to take the CO’s proxima projector to make a movie theater inside the t-scif
• It is frowned upon to teach a private MP that is 4th general order is to guard his post from flank to flank and take no shit from any rank
• Even if the MP NCOIC taught it to you
• Not allowed to hide in shelter halves to avoid work
• Can not perform an L shaped ambush on your SGL at PLDC with blank rounds
• During a brass shake down can not tell the drill sergeant “Your ass, my ammo”
• While as a drill sergeant can not give your soldiers ecstasy

Over the years I have played many online games. I have current accounts on City of Heroes and Age of Conan. I experimented with Pirates of the Burning Seas, Auto Assault, Eve, and Lord of the Rings, and D&D Online. I was on the Star Wars Galaxies and Tabula Rasa betas. I had a World of Warcraft habit that lasted for years. And in fact it was when I was introduced to Dark Age of Camelot while I was still in the Army that I decided that I want to make video games for a living.

So basically I have spent a lot of time thinking about how large scale online games are put together, and how to make them more fun.

So for this installment, I want to talk about crafting, and how I think that it could be improved.

At the moment, most crafting systems worked in one of two ways.

1) Static Recipe System

The player has access to recipes, and by providing the exact components the recipe calls for they can assemble an item that is identical to every other item created from the same recipe. This is how most of the big MMOs have handled it. It has the advantage of being very easy to understand, but it is a grind based system, which can get boring quickly.

2) Varied Recipe

The player has access to recipes, and the ability to create experiment with small parts within the formula. Star Wars Galaxies had a system like this, where there was a large variety in the stats possible when an item was generated. Various factors ranging from character skill level, the the quality of the materials, and even a certain amount of luck could effect the end product in a variety of ways. This had the advantage of being a lot more interesting for the crafter. But many players found this to be too complicated, and it was difficult to predict how any particular item would turn out. Player would frequently have to make several items in order to randomly generate an optimal one.

So the biggest complaints that I always hear is that every crafting system is either too static and simplistic to be fun, or too dynamic and complicated to be fun.

My solution is a system which I call the “Assembly” crafting system.

The idea is that the player still has recipes. But the recipes aren’t for completed items. The recipes are for the individual components that go into into a finished item.

To demonstrate I have made this quick example, using a retro sci-fi theme

Each ray gun is made up of three components. A Firing Mechanism, A Power Supply, and an Emitter.

Each component has a variety of ways that it effects the stats of the final weapon.

Firing Mechanism
Repeater - The pistol gets an increased rate of fire, but reduced accuracy and damage.
Charger - The pistol gets an increased damage, but reduced range and accuracy
Phaser - The pistol gets an increased range, but reduced rate of attack and damage

Power Supply
Heat Bank- Weapon does 5 points of heat damage per shot
Atomic Battery- Weapon does 5 points of Atomic damage per shot
Neutron Compiler- Weapon does 5 points of Neutron damage per shot

Emitter
Beam- Weapon gets increased range and armor penetration, but reduced damage
Blast - Weapon gets an increase to damage, but a decrease to accuracy
Ray - Weapon has severely reduced range, but gains area of effect attack

A player would be able to make 27 different weapons from the sample components I’ve shown so far. And in each case the weapon would be significantly different, both in game use and appearance. So if we had an expanded list of components, say 20 in each category, we’d have 8000 possible combinations. This would give the players who want to craft more than enough options to be able to make weapons optimized for the needs of any other player. And it has the added effect that players can also craft to get a specific desired appearance, in case they are more into the role-playing and dress up elements of the game.