Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 11, 2014 15:57:03 GMT
I was thinking about the progression of time within a simulation game and what would be the right speed to make a game feel epic but not as much that it becomes extremely boring. It struck me that perhaps considering the lifespan of a tree would be a good starting point. A large tree can take a long time to grow, say for example 50 years. A really large tree might take 100 years to fully develop and then there are trees like in the ancient redwood forests or Amazone that take hundreds of years to grow to a sheer massive size.
Let's say you're playing a game and you want to be able to see a forest (with 50 year old trees) grow from nothing, how much playtime would you be willing to spend on that? I think it shouldn't come easy. If it took an hour of playtime then it wouldn't feel very significant. Perhaps a month of playtime might be a good scale? (considering a simulation that is continuously running) In order for a redwood forest of 500 year old trees to develop that would then mean about 10 months of simulation time. I think that might be a good fit. It would give a hardcore player a true sense of achievement to have grown a forest like that and less serious players wouldn't be able to get that far.
So let's say we went with these numbers, what would be the time scale factor?
500 years / 10 months
500 * 12 / 10
6000 / 10
600
So things in the game would be developing at 600 times normal speed. That would mean a day would go by in the game every 144 seconds. I just looked up how long an Amish barn raising takes and that is apparently about 1 or 2 days, but that is not including all the preparation work that comes first like the felling of trees and turning logs into beams. It is hard to say how long that would take.
In any case I'm wondering if this pace I described sounds in any way realistic. Anyone have any thoughts?
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Post by morsealworth on May 11, 2014 17:34:45 GMT
I think your idea is interesting, but you're losing the point of gaming.
1. Game should proceed only when player allows it to. Because game is not only a process - it's an activity and it should happen only when played.
2. Games need to be less complex than reality. Not because we cannot make it as complex - but because if it's too complex, it becomes work instead. The should be always a place for imagination and omittances. Pokemon always just go "poof" to evolve. They level up, but still just go "poof".
3. If you haven't learned from Godus, I should spell this one out for you - one of the most important aspects of the game is player's freedom. And simulation games aren't exactly "games". They're playgrounds and they demand even more freedom. That's the reason of the word "sandbox" in the genre. So... As Penultimo once said,
What I want to say is, it's great to be hardcore, but being hardcore should has to be fun and simple enough. And if you need 2 days to grow a barn, I have bad news and some gems for you.
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Post by rubgish on May 11, 2014 17:36:22 GMT
I think it entirely depends on what you want the simulation game to do, and specifically what kind of level do you want to be involved on. Godus is strange in respect of the fact it both attempts to be entirely impersonal and long term (i.e. tech 'tree' sticker system and supposed follower AI), and at the same time trying to be very personal (you have to build single houses at a time and micromanage settlements).
For a game where you are hands-off and allow the AI to grow your civilization while you modify the outside conditions (I can't think of an ideal game example of this, which is a shame because i'd play the hell out of it), I think that kind of timescale is probably a bit slow, as if you played a lot you could get a huge amount done and your civilization would only have advanced 10-20 years.
If it's more of a hands on game where you have to micromanage more and concern yourself with your followers on a much more detailed level, I think that time of timescale is more reasonable.
Overall, I think my main issue is that simulation time being linked to real time is almost impossible to balance with the huge range of different playtimes that people have. If i'm on holiday, I can play 10 hours a day no problem and could get so much done in just 24 hours of simulation time. If i'm busy, it's going to be a few hours a week at most, and it's going to be almost impossible to balance around those kind of differences.
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Post by morsealworth on May 11, 2014 17:38:20 GMT
One more thing: If you want to simulate labor, don't go in the direction Godus goes. Play some Iubes first.
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 11, 2014 19:20:24 GMT
I think your idea is interesting, but you're losing the point of gaming. 1. Game should proceed only when player allows it to. Because game is not only a process - it's an activity and it should happen only when played. I don't agree with this. I think the concept of a continuously running simulation is awesome. This is perhaps the best part about the concept of Godus. The only problem is in Godus it is not really implemented properly. Plus everything else about Godus pretty much sucks ass. I think if a concept like this would be worked out properly it could be the most awesome game ever. And if you want to make a massively multiplayer game you pretty much can't get around running a continuous simulation. 2. Games need to be less complex than reality. Not because we cannot make it as complex - but because if it's too complex, it becomes work instead. The should be always a place for imagination and omittances. Pokemon always just go "poof" to evolve. They level up, but still just go "poof". A game doesn't have to be as complex as reality. But I have always longed for a game that was much deeper than what was on the market. Still to this day there is not really much depth in games at all. You don't have to create reality but you can at least try to approach it a little. 3. If you haven't learned from Godus, I should spell this one out for you - one of the most important aspects of the game is player's freedom. And simulation games aren't exactly "games". They're playgrounds and they demand even more freedom. That's the reason of the word "sandbox" in the genre. So... As Penultimo once said, What I want to say is, it's great to be hardcore, but being hardcore should has to be fun and simple enough. And if you need 2 days to grow a barn, I have bad news and some gems for you. As I wrote in my post the time would be sped up by a factor of 600. So if raising a barn in real life would take 2 days then it would take about 5 minutes in the game. I do think there is a problem if you want to simulate people moving around. You can't exactly have them walking 3000 km/hour. So you'd have to use several scales of time simultaneously to get something workable. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 11, 2014 19:37:46 GMT
I think it entirely depends on what you want the simulation game to do, and specifically what kind of level do you want to be involved on. Godus is strange in respect of the fact it both attempts to be entirely impersonal and long term (i.e. tech 'tree' sticker system and supposed follower AI), and at the same time trying to be very personal (you have to build single houses at a time and micromanage settlements). In my vision there would be a complex non-linear tech tree but it would be completely invisible to the player. The player only knows that the people have evolved because they start doing new things and creating new tools and professions and buildings. You would as a player be able to exert influence on the development in some ways that I haven't really clearly pictured yet. But in no way would you be picking out advances to research. The people decide what they need based on the simulation parameters. Influencing the parameters is the game aspect. Watching what happens is the enjoyment you get from it. For a game where you are hands-off and allow the AI to grow your civilization while you modify the outside conditions (I can't think of an ideal game example of this, which is a shame because i'd play the hell out of it), I think that kind of timescale is probably a bit slow, as if you played a lot you could get a huge amount done and your civilization would only have advanced 10-20 years. This. ^^^ But I don't know if I'd find the timescale slow. You have to imagine that while there are processes running in the simulation that take a long time to develop there are also lots of things going on that don't take as long to develop. So for your short term gaming pleasure there is plenty going on to look at while there is also a sense of achievement of reaching long term goals you set for yourself. Think of it like starting out with a single house that through your outside influence grows into a settlement in a relatively short time but after ten months you might have hundreds of settlements some of which might have developed into large cities. If it's more of a hands on game where you have to micromanage more and concern yourself with your followers on a much more detailed level, I think that time of timescale is more reasonable. Absolutely not my idea. Overall, I think my main issue is that simulation time being linked to real time is almost impossible to balance with the huge range of different playtimes that people have. If i'm on holiday, I can play 10 hours a day no problem and could get so much done in just 24 hours of simulation time. If i'm busy, it's going to be a few hours a week at most, and it's going to be almost impossible to balance around those kind of differences. Yes I guess that is always an issue. But as long as it's not a game that depends on war or other forms of competition with other players it shouldn't be a problem. It might take your civilization longer to get to a certain point than that of someone who plays more frequently but that doesn't make the simulation any less enjoyable for you. You will always have your own little world to come back to. In the meantime the trees and forests will keep growing. Your people will make sure they don't overgrow the town in your absence.  |
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Post by morsealworth on May 11, 2014 20:30:10 GMT
I do think there is a problem if you want to simulate people moving around. You can't exactly have them walking 3000 km/hour. So you'd have to use several scales of time simultaneously to get something workable. |
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Post by rubgish on May 11, 2014 20:34:06 GMT
A complex invisible tech tree would be great if its implemented properly. Like the way I envisaged Spore to be before they ended up making it awful (some of the old videos for that looked fantastic before they decided to dumb it down).
I think perhaps a good solution to the issue of varying play-time in persistent worlds is how some online text-based games work, in that for the first X hours after your last logon/play, the game runs at a normal speed or close to normal speed, and then after that point it begins to slow down. If you had this (and allowed it to be chosen by the user), then you can tailor the game to ensure that it rewards those who play more often, but is still well paced for everyone else too.
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 11, 2014 20:46:01 GMT
A complex invisible tech tree would be great if its implemented properly. Like the way I envisaged Spore to be before they ended up making it awful (some of the old videos for that looked fantastic before they decided to dumb it down). I think perhaps a good solution to the issue of varying play-time in persistent worlds is how some online text-based games work, in that for the first X hours after your last logon/play, the game runs at a normal speed or close to normal speed, and then after that point it begins to slow down. If you had this (and allowed it to be chosen by the user), then you can tailor the game to ensure that it rewards those who play more often, but is still well paced for everyone else too. That is an option but only if you are not in direct competition with other players in the same world, otherwise the ones who play more often have an unfair advantage. |
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Post by rubgish on May 11, 2014 21:10:14 GMT
It's difficult, because multi-player in a large simulation kind of game would undeniably be awesome, especially if your minions would begin to wage war/form economic pacts/share and grow from interaction with other peoples. However as soon as you bring in multi-player you are always going to have some kind of competitive aspect, and under most circumstances in competitive games, the person who plays more (or practices more) is going to get ahead.
In terms of Godus, I think this is something Peter is very worried about (considering he is attempting to target non-hardcore gamers), and that is why the interactions in the hubworld will initially be very sanitized, non-communicative and non-competitive.
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 11, 2014 21:54:57 GMT
Enter the single player mode.
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splitterwind
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Post by splitterwind on May 15, 2014 4:58:30 GMT
I don't agree with this. I think the concept of a continuously running simulation is awesome. This is perhaps the best part about the concept of Godus. The only problem is in Godus it is not really implemented properly. Plus everything else about Godus pretty much sucks ass. I think if a concept like this would be worked out properly it could be the most awesome game ever. And if you want to make a massively multiplayer game you pretty much can't get around running a continuous simulation. It sounds nice in theory but there are too many problems that can't be solved in a optimal way - godus is facing many of them. A huge difference between a MMO-Simulation and a MMO-RPG would be that nothing happens with your character if you logout. Other players change and advance, but you don't. If the simulation would only keep running while your online - what's the point, its basically a singleplayer game. Sim City 5 did that, it sucked. It was a singleplayer game in which you had limited interaction with other players and many of these could harm your city. (for example they simply stopped playing and their neighbor city froze forever) So if the city/simulation keeps continuously running - how interactive should that game be? If that game requires me to constantly do something (build something, change taxes etc.) I would need to spent a lot of time. What if I'm sleeping for 7 hours and go to work or at least school? So the simulation has to be either so slow paced that I can easily ignore it for 15 hours or it has to be so simple that it doesn't matter. (i.e. I can't lose that game) In the first case it would be like a browsergame, in the second case we get Godus. In the second case we face another problem, investing time is more important than skill. If you can't lose, you can only win and advance. Thats what I personally hate about MMORPGS, its mostly about investing time and luck. Your skill only determines how effective the time will be you invest, but it can't beat someone who invests way more time than you. Simulations however should be about skill and strategy, not time investment. (unlike Godus). If your simulation is really slow paced instead it means that you can't do anything most of the time (like godus, again). However you try to solve that, it will never be optimal. I much rather have a hard unpredictable simulation that I can lose, that I can pick up whenever I want and in which I can control speed so that I don't have to wait for hours before my next decision. Time alone won't make a simulated forest epic. In the worst case scenario it would be as much fun and as epic as watching grass grow. In my opinion the much better alternative for waiting is a good mix of longterm and shortterm effects that influence each other and lead to unpredictable stories. Crusader Kings 2 is a good example in my opinion. You can control the speed in which the simulation advances, the games takes place over 400 years, 600 years with the expansion. On the highest speed months can pass within seconds. However I never played another game that gave such a immerse illusion of ruling over a huge empire over hundreds of years, being a king and making important decisions, even at the highest speed setting. You have to constantly make decisions and there are many times were you wan't to slow the game down, so playing just for 100 years can equal more than 5 hours in realtime. There are structures in the game that you can build that will start making profit after 200 years (!), so some of your decisions will only start to have a positive gain after about 10 hours of gameplay. On top of that longterm effect it has short and midterm effects - you invest a lot of money that you could use for mercenaries to defend yourself or bribes, assassinations etc. Many desicions you make will lead to a butterfly effect. If you marry your daughter to a duke in a foreign land it may happen that her childs will inherit a claim on your throne. So after 7 hours (realtime) or so there might be a big invasion waiting in front of your lands because your grandcousin is claiming the throne of your character (who is the son of your previous characters). A simple desicion you made over 7 hours ago may lead to a game over (even though you did quite well until then) and you might even completely forgot about that marriage at the time (especially if you aren't familar with the game and the laws of feudalism/succession). On the other hand you might inherit land (sometimes even a complete kingdom) from a distant family member you didn't even know existed in a similar way. There are many other reasons why this game makes you feel like hundreds of years passed within a few hours, for example watching empires form or fall, religions splitting apart (christianity in orthodox and catholic), new cultures that form etc. And small decisions you make (that you may made in less than a minute) can have a huge impact in the longterm. If you are pondering about a decision because it will heavily influence the next 30 hours of your game it truly feels epic and meaningful. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 15, 2014 16:35:59 GMT
I have just spent over an hour attempting to reply to the post above and had to start from scratch again and again and again. There are just so many factors that could be of influence in determining whether a continuously running simulation would be viable or not. It seems almost impossible to create a clear picture of all the possibilities. Perhaps through discussion we could try to work them out and tackle the potential problems. You could have a single player game without opponents. You could have a single player game with one or more AI opponents. You could have multiple human players each playing for themselves against each other and/or against one or more AI opponents. You could have a single human playing against a team of human and/or AI opponents. You could have a team of human and/or AI players playing against a team of human and/or AI players. Did I leave out any options? There could be elements in a game that lead to a game-over situation for a player or a team of players. There could be no elements that lead to a game-over situation whatsoever. This could be different for each of the human and AI player combinations mentioned above. It could be left up to the player(s) whether they want to keep the simulation running in their absence or not. An AI player could take over for a human player during their absence. If your simulation is really slow paced instead it means that you can't do anything most of the time (like godus, again). That would depend on the level of complexity of the simulation and the amount of options that are provided. A game doesn't have to advance in time fast in order to provide interesting game play. That's why I spoke about short term goals and long term goals. In a simulation you are generally not highly actively gaming. I mean that in the sense that in a shoot-'em-up you would continuously be ramming your fire button whereas in a simulation you look at what's happening and then give it a little tweak here and a tweak there and then you look at what's happening and rinse and repeat. However you try to solve that, it will never be optimal. I much rather have a hard unpredictable simulation that I can lose, that I can pick up whenever I want and in which I can control speed so that I don't have to wait for hours before my next decision. One option does not exclude the other. There could be multiple modes of gaming. You like what you said above. I actually like that too. But I also like the idea of a continuously running simulation. I've been playing many simulation games in my life and spent many nights playing them till the break of dawn or beyond. There are games that I just left running 24/7 without being continuously present. A good example for me is A-Train. That game takes a long time to get up to speed. (it wasn't initially meant as a game actually) Leaving it running would give me something to look forward to when I eventually got back to it. All games like that have had a rather limited scope though. A continuously running game on a server offers the possibility of endless expansion as opposed to for example building up your city to the max and then being left without options other than to start over from scratch. Time alone won't make a simulated forest epic. In the worst case scenario it would be as much fun and as epic as watching grass grow. But you wouldn't be watching it grow. You are playing and doing your thing and over time you would notice that the world around you has evolved. I have just spent over an hour attempting to reply to the post above and had to start from scratch again and again and again. There are just so many factors that could be of influence in determining whether a continuously running simulation would be viable or not. It seems almost impossible to create a clear picture of all the possibilities. Perhaps through discussion we could try to work them out and tackle the potential problems. You could have a single player game without opponents. You could have a single player game with one or more AI opponents. You could have multiple human players each playing for themselves against each other and/or against one or more AI opponents. You could have a single human playing against a team of human and/or AI opponents. You could have a team of human and/or AI players playing against a team of human and/or AI players. Did I leave out any options? There could be elements in a game that lead to a game-over situation for a player or a team of players. There could be no elements that lead to a game-over situation whatsoever. This could be different for each of the human and AI player combinations mentioned above. It could be left up to the player(s) whether they want to keep the simulation running in their absence or not. An AI player could take over for a human player during their absence. If your simulation is really slow paced instead it means that you can't do anything most of the time (like godus, again). That would depend on the level of complexity of the simulation and the amount of options that are provided. A game doesn't have to advance in time fast in order to provide interesting game play. That's why I spoke about short term goals and long term goals. In a simulation you are generally not highly actively gaming. I mean that in the sense that in a shoot-'em-up you would continuously be ramming your fire button whereas in a simulation you look at what's happening and then give it a little tweak here and a tweak there and then you look at what's happening and rinse and repeat. However you try to solve that, it will never be optimal. I much rather have a hard unpredictable simulation that I can lose, that I can pick up whenever I want and in which I can control speed so that I don't have to wait for hours before my next decision. One option does not exclude the other. There could be multiple modes of gaming. You like what you said above. I actually like that too. But I also like the idea of a continuously running simulation. I've been playing many simulation games in my life and spent many nights playing them till the break of dawn or beyond. There are games that I just left running 24/7 without being continuously present. A good example for me is A-Train. That game takes a long time to get up to speed. (it wasn't initially meant as a game actually) Leaving it running would give me something to look forward to when I eventually got back to it. All games like that have had a rather limited scope though. A continuously running game on a server offers the possibility of endless expansion as opposed to for example building up your city to the max and then being left without options other than to start over from scratch. Time alone won't make a simulated forest epic. In the worst case scenario it would be as much fun and as epic as watching grass grow. But you wouldn't be watching it grow. You are playing and doing your thing and over time you would notice that the world around you has evolved. In my opinion the much better alternative for waiting is a good mix of longterm and shortterm effects that influence each other and lead to unpredictable stories. Yes I agree. I thought that was what I've been saying all along. There are many other reasons why this game makes you feel like hundreds of years passed within a few hours, for example watching empires form or fall, religions splitting apart (christianity in orthodox and catholic), new cultures that form etc. And small decisions you make (that you may made in less than a minute) can have a huge impact in the longterm. I do think that sounds like a lot of fun. I also think that this sort of play doesn't have to last a mere few hours. I like the idea of a game that takes a huge amount of time to play. But like I said above there could be multiple modes of game play that give you what you want and me what I want. Peter Molyneux' execution might be crippled but his vision is great. |
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splitterwind
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Post by splitterwind on May 15, 2014 21:45:13 GMT
True, having a highly customizable game could fix many problems. But its very hard to balance, the effort in programming and game design/balance are surely enormous.
Its already hard enough to create a good and balanced singleplayer simulation/strategy game and most companies fail in implementing a decent AI (Civilization 5 for example is a pretty good game, but the singleplayer imo is ruined by a horrible AI).
Multiplayer games are already harder to balance as one single broken strategy could ruin the game, MMO are even worse. The more complex and customizable the game would be the harder it would be to balance. If you play against other players or are depended on them balance will be very important.
But in a singleplayer game you can usually fast forward. After you made your tweaks and gave orders, whats left to do in a slow paced simulation in which you can't speed up time?
Sure, it could be interesting nonetheless. But it wouldn't be something you constantly play.
The closest thing we have are browsergames, (beside the usual strategy browser-games there are also simulations like economical or political simulations) some of them are surely interesting and offer a variety of strategy but you only do tweaks a few times a day and give orders. Its not something you play without a break.
Some of them already have different rulesets like servers with 10x the normal speed or nighttime peace, beginner protection, disabled buildings etc.
There are also a handful that have human vs AI gameplay.
I agree, that would be epic.
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