Community Q&A Event

CM_Zardon

Some of you may or may not have noticed that Star Supremacy has been officially launched by Aeria Games, LeKool, GameSamba, and a few other companies in the US market.  We are getting ready to expand into the European market and when I say "getting ready", I mean the launch will be announced any day now.
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# b4 ]( w  _1 Y4 t: y8 FIn preparation of the expansion, we are pre-launching a Community Q&A Event for all of our gamers.  d2 Q0 S4 {5 S3 z; t
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How will this event go?
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Post any question on to this forum thread and we will answer as many question as we can.  We'll give you guys a full week from now to send in questions.
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2 m* _+ Q, S' k0 ~# c0 O% jWhat is the purpose of this event?( _8 }4 ~5 E- c  [
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It's simple.  We want to open ourselves up to the gaming community and let everyone know who we are and what we do.
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Ask us any questions you want.....what is your favorite food...what do we do in our spare time...what inspired us to work in the gaming industry...what are your plans for the end-game of Star Supremacy...etc etc
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- j1 M7 A' ?8 l/ q0 nYour questions will be answered by any of the staff members.  Keep it clean, keep it mean, keep it jelly bean...(in reference to The Battle at the Berrics...not sure if the quote is accurate though)

iamaepicki

oh its finished lol

CM_Zardon

Our Operations Manager answered the questions.  Problem is, he has a difficult time with being elaborate, detailed, and using good English.  I'm going to try and localize his answers (without changing them) and then post up the answers in a new thread this weekend.
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To give you all a sneak peak at what the answers are like, I can only say one thing: it seems like like other tasks are making the team busy so a lot of the answers are kinda like "not yet, but coming in the future".  Not sure how focused the operations team is on improving the game and whatnot.  I couldn't do anything this week since my wifi has been lagging really badly and I'm waiting for my new wifi service to finish verification.

rhonan

Reply 28# CM_Zardon
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# ]3 B0 i) J0 x- f' p3 t9 V$ bwell start with the easiest first - group mail.  all this means is sending the same mail to everyone in the alliance.    that is trivial.  it's just an extra option and a while/end for/next loop or whichever way you want to lst through alliance members.  It would be more complicated to try to send to multiple people but not full alliance, but that complexity is not needed.  1 or ALL is what we need.  Ideally restrict it to officers to avoid spam.  In other games, i've seen it cost bcreds too..  that'd be something you could factor in...    1  bcred per global message (paid from alliance coffers or from personal funds) is something i'd be happy to do.
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second...  alliance battle reports..  a bit more complicated but you already have the guts of it.  just send a copy of all the battle reports to an alliance page that gets updated.  again something very similar to your existing mail system that everyone can see.  
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keeping it simple will let you spin out the functionality you need without having to spend much time.  truly group mail is easy and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, and possibly another revenue source.

CM_Zardon

We're working on it, don't worry.8 R8 [5 U; Y! A7 q0 ?/ _. z
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@SS give us proper alliance chat tools and mail messages and war reports, then that'd also build up the social network.

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. z6 }: T6 _( E9 [& I4 ZPlayer interactive is an aspect of the game that the game severely lacks.  The question to ask is HOW will we be able to implement such interactive feature to be put into the game.  The programming behind it, the implementation process, and the aftereffects needs to be planned out in the quickest time possible.

rhonan

and now to the more important question.... when do we get our answers?????

Neminsis

@Rhohan - A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...
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" x9 o: u% I/ f9 g% Y6 h" P" just believe that other players could be that external threat (evony)"
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$ T8 P/ B( x% \; y5 bAt the early stages of player technology development the same type of beliefs were common on evony as have occured on SS i.e. that you could kill and be killed, that you could profit as a raider and to a certain degree it is true but only early on in the game.
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2 c4 }* t7 A4 c3 K1 I1 j; _And even then it's only a matter of perception based upon the ratio of how long it takes you to gather any particular resource and the amount of resource held e.g. 10k of ore that takes 3 hours to acquire is automatically valued higher by the brain than the same amount of ore when it takes 1 hour to acrue.% m* v' W1 R% ?% v2 A. u! g

  S7 V' `8 n  P" x( ?# [This is why it's so hard for someone with lower tech, smaller fleets, lower rank and fewer resources to understand why more advanced players have so little interest in their "valuables".
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% d% B6 h* Q. Y% \4 D* MBut back to the point of using other players as a "threat" mechanism, the reason why this won't work (beyond the natural sociability of players) is that even the worst player will hit upon a min/max strategy i.e. one that minimizes loss while maximizing gain.
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% |# `' M! T( X1 u8 Y1 N, Z2 J/ UThis effectually means that for raiders, although gain is initially high it diminishes quickly as colonies withina short radius of them are emptied and stop producing. As they range ever further away to find a fresh kill their cost in time increases along with the risk of loss.
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Furthermore, because the brain registers loss more strongly than gain, it further shifts the decision tree towards risk avoidance exept for approximately 10% of the population that get more of a charge from adrenaline than dopamine but I digress.
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The effect is most easily explained with the analogy of a predator in a closed environment i.e. on an island, any limited range. Overly active predators quickly starve themselves out and once weakened become prey themselves.
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The compensating mechanism in nature is aging, in mmos it tends to be boredom. Effectively, it get's old.
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0 [3 {/ O! o; {In evony a lot of these effects are masked and prolonged from notice by the sheer size of the maps and the time expense of travelling from one place to another. The same is simply not true of SS. I can be anywhere in the known supremacy universe in under an hour without speed ups and within 10 seconds with.
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. |) s- Z. ~( a6 S) J" VNow while this might seem a panacea to any raider, they'd be failing to account time they'd have to spend with the simple management of the number of leaders required to make this possible, not to mention return times and the fact that it's still a closed system and overfeeding still an issue.' t& Y, I( y1 S0 A7 Y
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But then we can produce our own resources with maximal gain, minimal losses, minimal risk, with the least effort. It's the natural conclusion to any and all linear economic systems to choose not to be a raider.
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# l0 j9 @- F9 j/ G# p, UIn the real world the problem is that the raiders have been able to successfully change the rules of the game so that they starve everyone else first and themselves last. The danger of inverting the system in such a way is the same for the games economics if raiding receives favored treatment.2 D/ I1 `& ~- k1 M( p6 l: x& j% y

9 s! ?" X' v" m. y/ M5 e% O6 sPower always concentrates. The choice is, do you want it concentrating in those that subscribe to  the predator ethos or those of a more egalitarian bend?

rhonan

@nemesis..  about a month ago I wrote a long email to SS explaining exactly just that..   and many other similar possibilities... i would love a game like that...  spent way too much money on WoW and that was much the same.  I don't mind which way to go, but at the moment i can farm for resources without really needing to be active with anyone./ ?- s3 x+ U7 [; R# {# T( x+ O0 T

  C, H) h& ]& F" b/ b6 C@SS give us proper alliance chat tools and mail messages and war reports, then that'd also build up the social network.
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" a6 }) w# J/ W) U! Q; X: h% U5 b@nem re "spend to protect", where there's an external threat, then if you alliance didn't work to defend each other... it won't last long..  so 100% AGREE, just believe that other players could be that external threat (evony) or proactive NPCs
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! E+ Z% R2 @! O8 L3 N; MPPS: the 3-strikes exploit is not WAITING to happen, it already is happening.

Neminsis

@rhonan -  Watch what I do now...
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! I7 Q4 F+ W6 n. K4 b, x# M"something closer to evony to be honest" - there were techniques that made you unkillable in that too.
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" ]# T9 I+ E- }- h" \! _/ L"but there is no excitement without a little tension... "  - Where was this argument when every one was freaking out about the merge?! S8 F# r" j$ L
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"in terms of resources - there is no effective limit if you want to be creative" - Accumulating resources before you hit maximum effective ship count is just silly. Except for the fact that it can make it impossible for someone to attach a drain but that's a different discussion.
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"what harm can you do:" - You'd have to figure out if it were possible to put up enough defense between now and some indeterminable point in the future to stop me breaking through even once. Because after that once you quickly find out that reinforcements do not count against the daily attack limit.
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Then it's drain, occupation and obliteration until you're forced to scavenge for whatever resources you can find. That colony can no longer be the terminating point of any of the best paying trade routes. You can no longer attack from it or level your leaders. With all of your colonies occupied in this manner your growth is slowed to a crawl. You can't help anyone. You become a liability for those you socialize with. Basically, it sucks to be you. [waves at subside]# U9 X$ i. k5 U) Q' B4 e

6 G3 F( G7 H7 k2 s( a$ Z( Y"Again, doesn't need to be other players, it could be NPCs." - Now we're talking...Back in the caveman days of gaming I played this game called Ultima Online. The social dynamic was much the same as every other mmo since but they introduced the concept of "world events" where it took friend and foe alike to win the battle (usually some palette swapped op death bunny or something). + w) P5 W8 g) k  b* o, c6 v/ s

- ~4 V% J) `# v9 ?4 NHere we have a space pirates theme, so why don't we have world events where the corsairs attack colonies instead of just sitting there waiting to be farmed? With each colony they successfully invaded they could spawn more pirates in a slow exponential death spiral until they were either killed or took over the planet. There drops could be exactly the same but if the planet was saved then the entire planet could share in some bonus to production or something. If it failed then it would have pirate overlords for 24 hours and there would be a penalty to the same resource production during that period.5 ?4 e* w* i; }  i$ l. [: {0 Y( Q
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You want people pulling together and acting like a community this is how. You want chaos, calamity and epic battles, then this is how you do it. You want a wider distribution of corsair drops then this is how. You want a little excitement, make the events random, perhaps with a 60 minute warning.
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8 f- R& {/ f4 h5 t- B6 kAlso bigger maps, more maps, higher difficulty areas, add a no loss, no gain challenge area to arena where we can fight each other for the fun of it instead of for profit or destruction. Fix it so that all members of a teams progress through the team instance is incremented.
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@Barbily - You want us to spend money. We're less likely to spend that money hurting each other than we are trying to save each other. We're only human.
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% a( e+ Y  Q$ @2 k4 `- Q/ X" f' OPS the 3 strikes you're protected thing is just one huge exploit waiting to happen at least fix it so attacking from a protected colony removes the protection.

rhonan

thanks for the long answer..
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okay.. "pure" warfare was an exaggeration.
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I was thinking something closer to evony to be honest, or grepolis, or a number of other space-based games I've played.6 Y8 m" ~/ X. m7 C* q, f/ q. D

8 z9 n5 {& X3 |" D- Iyes, play = relaxing, but there is no excitement without a little tension...  so i don't want to relax myself into the grave..  some systemic level of having excitement would be good
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On excitement..  you can go like Sins of a Solar Empire where the enemy is very proactive (pity no multiplayer option).  this is where you have single-player features in a multiplayer environment, which our instances are a poor imitation so far.  (WoW has these)
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+ [+ s4 a" S2 m% X4 x3 d% ain terms of resources - there is no effective limit if you want to be creative   was proven back in LP. 0 \% ~9 d3 K  w; H+ m9 v0 {
I agree with money income levels having an effective limit - if you have reinforced.
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you can fight nemesis, I know that, but I was asking from a game perspective - what is the point... what harm can you do
% q3 n5 O  k( C: NEven now on GEMINI, chaos took on everyone..  because the worse that anyone could do to us was kill a few trade fleets.  Now they'd not be even able to do that with the 3-attack limit.9 h! D% w+ O; f- I( u
So in that sense, even now, your fleets really can be ignored as you can only really use them when someone chooses to fight you.
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! I7 C7 f+ j* \) @' t* NSo why am I still here - sometimes I scratch my head over here.. it's the potential that intrigues me, but it is also addicting and i've met nice people.  However the reality is that boredom will get me eventually ... and I will quit.   I'm no expert, but the value of MMO's is that you can socialise AND play...  so now we're discussing play modes.  So my 2c worth, and it's not everyone's, is that I'd like some excitement and tension in the game.  Not too much, but at least some.  Again, doesn't need to be other players, it could be NPCs.