Since there seems to be some general interest, here's what I've laid out before. I sent this in a previous PM, but it didn't really go anywhere. It would be quite a big project to take on for just one or two people, I think, but as a group maybe we could handle it.
Obviously there has to be some sort of login/account system, and I have no idea how any of that works. When it comes to the actual features, however, we'd need:
1. A homepage for each player, like there is now, housing tasks. I'd also put the equipment on the same page. It seems a little silly that you get a popup on your tasks list saying you got a potato, then you have to switch to the Inventory tab, THEN click through to the pets page to actually use the damn thing. It's so slow and laggy that it is really irritating. All of the player's stuff should be on one page, with tabs for tasks, equipment, pets, etc.
2. The little popups are important. They provide the instant reward/motivation. However, I don't think they need to be handled server-side. Every little process the server needs to handle adds to lag, right? So as much as possible should be done client-side (all calculations), and then just update the server whenever a change is made. To my untrained mind, that seems more logical to me. Keep everything on the user's computer, and update the server when necessary (which means, whenever a change is made). Server-side calculations should only be necessary for group actions, right?
3. Speaking of the server, however they're handling it now is obviously NOT a good way to handle it. It's a mess, it's slow, and they keep claiming that every simple function I suggest is impossible. I don't know what the *right* choice is, of course, but this is an important decision and it needs to be the right one, right from the start.
4. Group play needs to be encouraged more. Most people are more motivated by accountability to others than they are by their own internal motivation. Guilds should be functional. They should have a normal message board or simple IRC chat. Challenges for the guild should be IN the guild. Right now there's just a link to the challenges page, which everyone can look at. That's no good (and the challenges page is a mess I don't even want to think about right now). If it's for the guild, that's where it should be displayed. There can be a “public challenges” page, but putting the challenges in the guilds provides motivation for people to join guilds in the first place. It provides a community feeling. That feeling provides more motivation to play and to keep playing. People are FAR less likely to quit playing a game if their friends are playing it too – or even more so, if the friends they have in-game are only in-game. If they quit, they lose that community.
Guilds would work great if there was some sort of community goal to work towards. Quests are good. But like the character leveling up their equipment, the guild could get together to level up their guildhouse. Upgrades could give every member a buff once per week or something. This would be a big project, but far more effective than the big projects they have going now (I'll get to the global quests in a minute).
5. Quests should drop randomly along with other items. They can be rare, but they shouldn't be locked behind a pay wall. Funding needs to come from somewhere, but paid content should be something you *want* to buy, never something you *have* to buy, otherwise users will quit.
6. Speaking of paid content. The way they have it now, where you can either buy items or hope for them to drop randomly, seems pretty good. There should be a few items that are pay-only, but they should add fun and motivation rather than being necessary to take part in some of the site. For example, a mana potion that refills your whole mana bar instantly (for classes which have one). A magic scroll that casts a buff on your whole party, or protects everyone against X points of damage on the next rollover. A bomb that showers everyone in your party with a few coins. A few cosmetic items would be fine as well.
7. The community is a giant mess. There's no private message system. We've already discussed the disaster that is the tavern. And there's a notifications button, which you can click to see updates, but when you have a notification, THE BUTTON DOESN'T CHANGE TO ALERT YOU. I only discovered it by accident. There needs to be an obvious signal when you have a message. Community is very important to something like this. There should be ways to send private messages. A chat room in the tavern is fine, but then there should be an external forum for people to have discussions that won't just disappear. As for the special formatting, I've never heard a single person in the entire world complain about a game not having special formatting in their chat room. Hell with it. use IRC or something similar, something simple that works.
8. Global quests aren't a bad idea, but they have to have actual consequences. That means that they have to be opt-in. You decide to help kill the dragon. When you fail to complete your dailies, you personally have some sort of consequence. When you succeed, you are rewarded. If you don't want to take part, you don't have to. I could see something like the monster is sitting on a pile of treasure, and every time you miss a daily, it destroys part of the treasure (and deals you a couple points of damage). When the monster is finally defeated, everyone who took part in killing it gets a share of whatever is left. Serious motivation to focus and get your tasks done.
On the other hand, something like a global quest is far from a necessary feature. Something to be added later, if time allows, after all the real issues have been addressed.
Of course I realize I'm not a programmer, and many of these things would be more complicated than they look. On the other hand, I'm fully confident that it's all doable by a small group of a few people, working from an organized plan. If anyone decides to try it, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. I do still want to learn to code (and I was making some progress with RPG Maker for a while, before my real-life work projects got in the way). It would be a fun way for me to learn.
I'm very interested in your thoughts on each of these points. Which are easily accomplished? Which would be really difficult or complicated? And for what reasons?
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Topic: Habit RPG (Read 39076 times)