Mar 28th 2021, 18:27:09
I feel that now is a good time to share my philosophy towards the game along with a personal development roadmap. My goal is to create and maintain fun experiences for players. I view the three key elements of Earth Empires to be diplomacy, conflict, and market activity. To further explain what I mean by that, below is a list of player actions related to each element. Positive examples are behaviors that I view to be inline with the ideal Earth Empires experience. Negative examples are behaviors which harm the game or aren't inline with what I want to see. Neutral examples are somewhere in between.
Positive examples of player diplomacy:
* Finding ingame allies and forming mutually beneficial relationships with other players over many sets.
* Finding and joining a clan that's a good fit for the player.
* Resolving ingame disputes via ingame messaging.
* Clans signing pacts with one another.
Neutral examples of player diplomacy:
* Players tricking another player into leeching tech.
* Clans breaking pacts with another clan.
* Players who cannot communicate due to a language barrier.
Negative examples of player diplomacy:
* NPCs countries cannot engage in diplomacy.
* Players who are unwilling to engage in diplomacy. For example, deciding that the goal of a reset is to destroy another player's country before the reset even begins.
Positive examples of conflict:
* A country landgrabbing another country with the intent to rise in networth.
* A country using spy ops against another country with the intent to rise in networth.
* A clan warring another clan over an ingame issue such as differing retal policies.
* A clan warring another clan in a pre-arranged war to test their skills.
* Country to country wars over ingame issues, such as too many landgrabs.
* Players setting forum grudges via country to country wars.
Neutral examples of conflict:
* A player landfarming another player.
* Players who seek to war bad actors on solo servers instead of aiming for high networth.
* A clan FSing another clan without any provocation.
* A player using last minute attacks on solo servers to increase their rank.
Negative examples of conflict:
* NPCs countries cannot attack or spy other countries.
* Players pretending to be NPC countries in order to force other players into war.
* Players engaging in cross server attacks.
* Players griefing other players.
* Clan server OOP wars under most circumstances.
* Clan wars on the final day of a reset under most circumstances.
* A player "suiciding" a clan under most circumstances.
Positive examples of market interactions:
* Countries specializing their production and getting what they don't produce off the market.
* Countries selling extra goods off the market.
* Appropriately priced goods sell quickly and reasonably priced goods are typically available for purchase.
* Players taking advantage of market inefficiencies with recycling and reselling.
Neutral examples of market interactions:
* A clan using market buyouts to propel a player to first place.
* Market buyouts done on solo servers in an attempt to make a profit.
* Buying out SDI before a clan FSes another clan.
Negative examples of market interactions:
* NPC countries distort supply and demand for the market.
* Players cannot specialize due to insufficient public market supply and demand.
* Market buyouts done solely to annoy other players, such as purchasing all of a technology type so other players cannot buy them.
I think that paints a pretty clear picture of what kind of player actions I believe to be good for the game and what kind of player actions I believe to be bad for the game. As much as possible, the admins want to facilitate the positive examples by creating an appropriate set of rules for each server. Personally, I would like to allow the neutral examples as much as possible as well. However, some neutral actions may be disallowed or discouraged in the effort to prevent the negative examples. You may note that the NPCs currently negatively contribute to all three core areas of the game. That was our mistake as admins and one of my biggest development priorities is improving the NPC code.
Better NPC code is the foundation for a lot of the development efforts that I hope to add to the game on a medium time frame. These include:
1) Better functioning markets on all servers except Primary.
2) Resolving the core issues affecting diplomacy, conflict, and the market for Express.
Please note that just because something isn't listed here doesn't mean that it isn't being worked on. I'm not the only admin and everyone is focusing on different things right now.
One last thing to discuss is the negative examples that cannot be resolved with better NPC code and cannot be resolved in a reasonable matter with coding, guardrails, or server rules. I understand very well that different players have different ideas in terms of what should be considered to be a negative example. At the end of the day, the admins are going to be strongly biased against behaviors that drive players from the game. I do not believe that a player with bad intentions who drives ten other players from the game is more important then the ten lost players. I kindly ask players who view most of the negative examples listed here as acceptable to evaluate why you choose to play this game. There are millions of free games out there to play. This may not be the right game for you.
Positive examples of player diplomacy:
* Finding ingame allies and forming mutually beneficial relationships with other players over many sets.
* Finding and joining a clan that's a good fit for the player.
* Resolving ingame disputes via ingame messaging.
* Clans signing pacts with one another.
Neutral examples of player diplomacy:
* Players tricking another player into leeching tech.
* Clans breaking pacts with another clan.
* Players who cannot communicate due to a language barrier.
Negative examples of player diplomacy:
* NPCs countries cannot engage in diplomacy.
* Players who are unwilling to engage in diplomacy. For example, deciding that the goal of a reset is to destroy another player's country before the reset even begins.
Positive examples of conflict:
* A country landgrabbing another country with the intent to rise in networth.
* A country using spy ops against another country with the intent to rise in networth.
* A clan warring another clan over an ingame issue such as differing retal policies.
* A clan warring another clan in a pre-arranged war to test their skills.
* Country to country wars over ingame issues, such as too many landgrabs.
* Players setting forum grudges via country to country wars.
Neutral examples of conflict:
* A player landfarming another player.
* Players who seek to war bad actors on solo servers instead of aiming for high networth.
* A clan FSing another clan without any provocation.
* A player using last minute attacks on solo servers to increase their rank.
Negative examples of conflict:
* NPCs countries cannot attack or spy other countries.
* Players pretending to be NPC countries in order to force other players into war.
* Players engaging in cross server attacks.
* Players griefing other players.
* Clan server OOP wars under most circumstances.
* Clan wars on the final day of a reset under most circumstances.
* A player "suiciding" a clan under most circumstances.
Positive examples of market interactions:
* Countries specializing their production and getting what they don't produce off the market.
* Countries selling extra goods off the market.
* Appropriately priced goods sell quickly and reasonably priced goods are typically available for purchase.
* Players taking advantage of market inefficiencies with recycling and reselling.
Neutral examples of market interactions:
* A clan using market buyouts to propel a player to first place.
* Market buyouts done on solo servers in an attempt to make a profit.
* Buying out SDI before a clan FSes another clan.
Negative examples of market interactions:
* NPC countries distort supply and demand for the market.
* Players cannot specialize due to insufficient public market supply and demand.
* Market buyouts done solely to annoy other players, such as purchasing all of a technology type so other players cannot buy them.
I think that paints a pretty clear picture of what kind of player actions I believe to be good for the game and what kind of player actions I believe to be bad for the game. As much as possible, the admins want to facilitate the positive examples by creating an appropriate set of rules for each server. Personally, I would like to allow the neutral examples as much as possible as well. However, some neutral actions may be disallowed or discouraged in the effort to prevent the negative examples. You may note that the NPCs currently negatively contribute to all three core areas of the game. That was our mistake as admins and one of my biggest development priorities is improving the NPC code.
Better NPC code is the foundation for a lot of the development efforts that I hope to add to the game on a medium time frame. These include:
1) Better functioning markets on all servers except Primary.
2) Resolving the core issues affecting diplomacy, conflict, and the market for Express.
Please note that just because something isn't listed here doesn't mean that it isn't being worked on. I'm not the only admin and everyone is focusing on different things right now.
One last thing to discuss is the negative examples that cannot be resolved with better NPC code and cannot be resolved in a reasonable matter with coding, guardrails, or server rules. I understand very well that different players have different ideas in terms of what should be considered to be a negative example. At the end of the day, the admins are going to be strongly biased against behaviors that drive players from the game. I do not believe that a player with bad intentions who drives ten other players from the game is more important then the ten lost players. I kindly ask players who view most of the negative examples listed here as acceptable to evaluate why you choose to play this game. There are millions of free games out there to play. This may not be the right game for you.