TUBSWEETIE Posted:

Where is the “gameplay mechanics are boring thusly repetitive so I play the game from time to time but stick around for the community” option?

That’s the only thing I could vote for. The game is, at this point, a novelty. It’s a good novelty but mechanically it’s very simple and gets boring quickly especially when you try to grind for items/money or run multiple characters who have to do the exact same things.

Also, WHEEEEEEE!!!

That’s the “I’d be gone if it weren’t for X” option followed by exactly what you did of course Log in to see images!.

And to ET, I have no friggin’ clue how much of a pain it would be to run everything on the site, I also don’t know if you have another job though I DO know that trying to balance a game is friggin’ ridiculous even without 250 people breathing down your neck and trying to worry about new mechanics which would make any balancing obsolete if done before their implementation.

Is or was there a serious thread anywhere which discussed possible new mechanics or ways to balance besides simple changes in power or refresh? Something as simple as status ailments for the player and forum could add a new dimension but I don’t recall seeing that anywhere.

Either way, it has the community and at the very worst, it’s the community with a game attached to it which puts it above most others.

Possibly a Cabbage Posted:

I totally agree with the bumertion that “more things like the Falcon****er quest” are something that the game desperately needs. When you’re done with the main plot, there just aren’t enough external influences to motivate you to do things. All of the endgame content is self-driven, things like “I want to acquire medals”, “I want more peen”, or “I want this item/lots of flezz.” It would be nice to have a bunch of things that are just “this NPC tells you to do something, you can get a reward for it.”.

How long does something like the Falcon****er quest take to create anyway? It seems like all you’d need is two STalk conversations, a task (ideally one that can’t be done in one or two days, a week or two is a good length), and some sort of unique reward. I can’t imagine that requiring a huge amount of development, but I could be wrong.

I do appreciate that people enjoy the missions enough that they want to see more of them being produced and launched on a regular basis. I should point out, however, that most people seem to misunderestimate the amount of time and work that goes into launching them.

If you’re interested, I can break down the process involved. Warning: Killing of magic ahead. For those of you who’d rather not know the what’s involved in creating Forumwarz content and prefer to think of NPCs as actual people who spontaneously appear in your sTalk list, then read no further!

Even though conversations/mini-missions tend to go by pretty quickly (on account of the fact that they’re just so damn entertaining), a surprising amount of labor goes into creating them. First off, Trout and I have to agree that there’s indeed going to be a mission coming up. That means we both agree to, at some point, drop what we’ve been working on up until that point and concentrate on the mission. Trout has a very regimented schedule, so besides his regular programming, bug fixing and moderation duties, he’d have to decide it’s worth putting time aside for.

It’s also no secret that (up until yesterday!) I was employed full-time at another company. Now that I’ve been officially laid off, it means I’ll have more time to devote myself to creating content. However, I hope that those asking for regular missions are not necessarily the same people clamoring for us to hurry up and finish Episode 3. My concern is, trying to do two content streams at once will hinder the quality of both, especially when tight deadlines are involved. Nevertheless, I am devoted to creating more regular content down the line, but I’d rather have a backlog of missions in place before launching them, instead of being under the gun to produce regular content when the inspiration simply isn’t there.

Even though convos are quick to read through, it actually takes quite a bit of time and care to craft these things. I’m not going to claim it’s “high art,” but I do insist on a certain level of quality when writing missions, and I don’t take the task lightly. If you’ve ever enjoyed reading them, or considered them funny, it’s because a decent amount of work was involved in creating them. I want to make sure the idea is original, the conversational elements flow nicely, it has jokes, there are several choices throughout the conversation, and that it’s generally well written and free of errors.

In the case of the Falcon****er mission, where one of your fellow players (Celerysteve) actually did the writing, you can still appreciate that quite a few hours went into developing the script alone, which then had to be converted into an sTalk chat, line by line. Those who’ve seen what the “convobuildr” front-end looks like can imagine how time-consuming this really is, especially when multiple convo streams are involved.

Of course, there’s also more to missions than just the conversation. You know the biographies attached to each character that probably no one reads? Those are written anyway. Each NPC has a new avatar and special typing messages you see when they’re chatting with you. There are often other bits of writing involved: mission statement(s), Tubmail(s) from your NPC after they’ve contacted you, SpendFriend messages you receive upon payment, special items as rewards, things of that nature. ET can only plug them in once they’ve been written. In the case of the Falcon****er mission, things got more complicated due to the fact that there was a new attack involved, as well as a special transferable E-Peen awarded to some players. These need to be designed, programmed, implemented and tested, and then we have to watch player reactions after they’ve been launched. Of course, not all missions are going to have as specific parameters as Celerysteve’s did, and new ones could be more straightforward. On the other hand, straight pwning missions without any distinguishing features are bound to get boring very quickly, so that’s something to keep in mind.

I’m not telling you this to **** about how much work is involved. This is my job. It is now, anyway. But I’d like you to know that it’s not something we can just bash out mindlessly, at least not if you demand that minimum of quality you’ve come to expect.

This is all kind of moot, because you’re not the only ones asking for more content — the Crotch Zombie team is too. So there is going to be a ****load of new content coming out, as I only now have the chance to work on it in earnest. So be on the lookout for that, and in the meantime, try not to get too bored.

Evil Trout Posted:

- Desperation attacks (that you can only use when very weak.)

– Super attacks (fill up a bar slightly with each move, unleash a super attack when full.)

I’m not sure how valuable these are, given how when you inevitably max out your level and have the best equipment and .moar files, high defense and one-shotting and two-shotting threads make these changes rather pointless. This might be a case of “balance first, program afterwards”.

MC Banhammer Posted:

I’m not sure how valuable these are, given how when you inevitably max out your level and have the best equipment and .moar files, high defense and one-shotting and two-shotting threads make these changes rather pointless. This might be a case of “balance first, program afterwards”.

If more difficult/complicated forums are involved in the same release, they might be valuable for a while – and they might add an interesting element of strategy for new players grinding their way to max levels, though.

When upgrading offense, apply it to specific attacks, instead of an overall offense stat. This could be interesting in combination with forum weaknesses. Offense from items would still apply to all attacks, but would have a lesser effect (say 50% of what you get applying upgrade points)

oh one other thing i wanted to mention was that dom is awesome in small doses for me.

sometimes going into a bracket and ****ting all over it or working to sweep is great fun.

could never keep that up but it’s great from time to time.

MegatronX Posted:

I haven’t been here very long but FW holds my attention more than any other game that i play or have played.

You should play more games imo.

There is nothing to do except grinding pink floyds to sell them on kyoubai.