Ok so now that game 1 is done I want to express my thoughts about what seemed to work well and what didn't from the host's point of view... I'd also appreciate it if you guys use this thread to relay what you think worked well and shouldn't be messed with & what you thought didn't turn out so well... We'll also discuss where the game is going to go in the future :)
1. Combat You guys didn't see the behind the scenes of this... But basically every time combat came along I did two rolls per attack.
The first roll was the person attacking (I'd then add any bonuses on to this number). Then second roll was an auto-defence for the other player.
What this does is decides how much an attack should harm another player. A high attack vs a low defence naturally is either going to kill or seriously injure... I did this to avoid unfairness & bias. This seemed to work really well and I don't see any need to alter it. In cases where it'd be unrealistic to escape (such as Majora in the hangar) I did a defence roll... But then added together all the attackers rolls. This allows the game to retain an element of reality- some days you get lucky, some days you don't and some days you're just screwed because everyone turned on you :)
Something to note about this, which a couple of players may already have realised. I considered a pure roll of 100 to be "perfect" to be unbeatable. When I say pure, I mean the initial number before bonuses are added... To only counter was to attain a 100 either from the initial roll or the initial roll + bonuses.
2. Team Play I don't know about everyone else but it looked to me a lot like team play was only crippling players in this game. Many of you seemed to want to do your own thing, look out for yourself, etc.
I personally feel this was more a flaw in the setup of the Aliens game than an issue with team play itself. I plan to redesign it slightly to either be more team friendly, or to remove the need for teams. See point 7. for further discussion on this matter.
3. Round Length I think three days was too long for rounds and when people missed a round it was usually for longer than three days, so the limit just extended the round unnecessarily. Reducing it to two days didn't seem to cause any issues with activity so we'll keep it as it is. So we'll keep it at two days.
4. Mid-Round Updates You guys got a bit greedy here! Remember I can only do them when I'm online & not at midnight, it's not automatic! Other than that it seemed to work nicely {:P}
5. Death Xhin is currently programming me a new setup for dead players. I've decided to trust dead players to be fair & not reveal info & allow them to see the game. So how will it work...
There will be two dead roles, by default when you die you will become a "Ghost". This will let you see into every room in the game (minus the Host thread). Ghosts won't be able to post in any thread other than the dead thread, where they can discuss with each other what's going on. This effectively mimics how death works in the Mafia game, allowing you to speculate on things but not directly contribute to the game.
The second role is "Dead". If I am given any reason to suspect that you're abusing the gift of sight granted by being a "Ghost" then I will move you to this other role... What does this mean? You'll lose the ability to watch the game and may only see & post in the dead thread.
We'll see how this plays out in Game 2 but I can't see it having any adverse affects since I know some of you discussed the game on AIM and such anyway {;)}
6. Host Tools I've got Xhin working on a few things to tidy up & improve the hosting tools. This might not have too much effect on the game itself, but it does mean things will be easier for myself & in future games any other hosts.
7. Everything else As noted, the setup was bad and resulted in most of the problems. There were too many rooms for the number of players and the game didn't lend itself well to team play being the most noticeable ones in my opinion. The Golem was also too powerful and he didn't play quite how I intended, although really I should've seen it coming! It was also set up too much like Mafia, so that's something I want to change.
Now onto the future. First read [d:299|this document] if you haven't already.
Basically, I'm re-branding it the "GTX0 Adventure" forum (name sucks, give me a better one and I'll use it instead). Instead of just the Alien game we'll have different games to play. They'll all work in the same basic way, do your three actions, sneak action if you want, talk, move between rooms, etc, etc... The key difference will be the theme, how points are earned and general objectives... The more we play the more themes I'm hoping we'll get but for now we have four very distinct themes.
I'm doing this because the Aliens game alone is quite limiting & I think people would get bored of the same old same old after a few games... Although every game will have different rooms, items, etc. So no two games will ever be 100% identical anyway.
I plan to host Game 2 myself. If that runs smoothly then I will likely open Game 3 to another Host (Dooku & Xhin have both expressed interest in hosting a game already so there's a queue forming). If it doesn't go smoothly then I'll be hosting Game 3.
So that's all I can think of right now... Feel free to discuss your opinions on everything I've said and haven't said :)
I plan to host Game 2 myself. If that runs smoothly then I will likely open Game 3 to another Host
If you have the time, I think you should host every game the first time it's played to make sure the bugs are ironed out and you get the tools the way you think are best suited for each game.
Forum title is fine. Picture that is used would illustrate what the current game is.
I don't know about everyone else but it looked to me a lot like team play was only crippling players in this game. Many of you seemed to want to do your own thing, look out for yourself, etc.
No, after looking at the thread, team play was definitely working, some players just didn't want to play on teams. It's a text adventure, so some people are more focused on the roleplaying aspects than the game aspects.
Reducing it to two days didn't seem to cause any issues with activity so we'll keep it as it is. So we'll keep it at two days.
Yeah, three days was definitely too long. Another idea is to turn "hammer " on so if every player makes their actions, you can end the round early. Although this would require cooperation from all players unlike mafia where you can get a 60%.
If you have the time, I think you should host every game the first time it's played to make sure the bugs are ironed out and you get the tools the way you think are best suited for each game.
I agree with this.
Other the being the person that started the Alien Game, does Shadow have any other role besides a player or guest host?
Shadow said he wants to play the next game, and I think I've programmed him out of the panel so he's more the originator. Redack is the executive host.
I do believe Aliens need to stay a team play game.
I agree with Redack, more players and fewer rooms may have helped that. Next time if enough people sign up to play you may want to think about starting out with 2 like players in the same room.
Also last I checked Shadow was an executive host (in terms of rank asigned on the site... not officially) and could get into the panel so unless you did it after the game started you may want to double check...
Yeah, three days was definitely too long. Another idea is to turn "hammer " on so if every player makes their actions, you can end the round early. Although this would require cooperation from all players unlike mafia where you can get a 60%.
That's what I was doing... You guys just always seemed to wait until the third day to do actions. There was one day where everyone got them done early and we ended the round a day early.... But other than that people kept waiting until the last day {:P}
If you have the time, I think you should host every game the first time it's played to make sure the bugs are ironed out and you get the tools the way you think are best suited for each game.
It's worth noting I intend to co-host with anyone who is a first-time host to ensure it runs smoothly anyway.
With the Golem I was rather hoping you'd play both sides for longer than you did... I suppose it didn't help that you discovered an alien on their own early on, otherwise you'd have been in rooms detecting aliens but never sure who it was. This was partly Castrael's own doing as she ventured off on her own.
But yea, I always intended for you to use the alien detection thing for your own benefit (hence why it never specified who or when there was more than one it never said how many). Instead you opted to side with the humans pretty quick and used it to work out the aliens (in the future I think it'll be something we won't have {:P}).
That's what I was doing... You guys just always seemed to wait until the third day to do actions. There was one day where everyone got them done early and we ended the round a day early.... But other than that people kept waiting until the last day
I feel like this is more of an issue with the three action system in general. Especially later in the game when I was in a room with three or four people, I didn't want to do my actions on day 1 and then not be able to respond to something that happened (like MM9 dropping the 'antidote'). So I'd wait until the last second to ensure I wasn't at a disadvantage.
I feel reducing to 2 days fixes that issue. But we'll see I guess.
There is no fix. No matter how many actions we let people have, you'd still be paranoid about saving that one/two/three actions until late in the round to ensure no one attacks you and you have chance to respond to it.
I was very much considering playing both sides a lot longer--I thought about killing Roxas that one time (I didn't because he had just gotten offed in Mafia) and if I weren't so interested in whatever the heck MM9 was doing I was going to kill him as well. But I wound up holding back partially because I couldn't be sure if I was the only one in the room, and partially because if I got caught the Humans could broadcast my betrayal all across the station. Didn't want to become Public Enemy #1, after all. {:P}
Also, apparently I would have gotten fewer points if I had done any of that, or if I had sided with the Aliens. So it worked out. ;)
Also, apparently I would have gotten fewer points if I had done any of that, or if I had sided with the Aliens. So it worked out. ;)
Well, your goal was survival. I guess the reason you didn't need to really pick was because the aliens didn't kill enough people to get the points to a level where you'd have been in the position of deciding which side was likely to win.
;)
;)
