virtuozzo

I would agree, but I do think I should point out that these are subjective perspectives. One man's justice, or system of justice, is another man's oppression. While this goes way outside of gaming, consider the following. Tracking a citizen without reservation (morality) may provide a foundation of a system (law) of justice in one society. In another it would be a violation of justice (morality) as well as the system of justice (law). As players in a sandbox we can and are expected (even required) to create our own systems. That might clash with how others do it elsewhere, or even with corporations active in the same territory but with a different set of ideas. So it would require those creating their selected system to secure it, providing safety. I'm sure you can see the chain of interaction in this. The sandbox just provides the arena. If a player wants anything in that arena, he or she will have to invest in that. Choice of gameplay carries cost of meeting requirements. Only players can meet that cost in a sandbox. I'm not saying there can be no governments. But I am saying that the sandbox will not provide it. Never, or it will not be a sandbox. Players can create it. If they so choose. Just keep in mind that the only distinction between governance and robbery is that the ones in government make the laws

I think you just got confused on expectations. No worries. It's perfectly human to try and find safety, security and freedom - each requirements for both basic necessities and anything beyond that. In a sandbox it's the player who has to provide for these things. The game developer might provide common mechanisms or options which share dependancies, but the environment itself does not provide these three things (sole exception being the equivalent of a starting point, and even that has limits). I do think your exploration has merit. I've spent 15 years in EVE Online (plus F&F & Beta time prior) where a lot of this was completely overlooked (just like it other games) - it never was a factor at all in those days. But it is an exploration in terms of "so how are players going to organise themselves, what choices will share what options for shared mechanisms". Features which players can use to support their choices in organisation within the sandbox. I don't doubt that to a high degree NQ have already done homework on this. Getting different perspectives on that together in a discussion will enable NQ to prevent a few traps CCP (and others) bumped into. DU is - in a nutshell - a reimplementation of the classic computer game Elite, with the advantage that it can learn from best practices established by other games. Most of those, like EVE (as Braben put it back in the day) were just that: reimplementations. DU however is - or can be - more than just that. In any case it is being designed to be more than just that. But for this the devs not only have to build the game in terms of core, code, tech and infrastructure. They also have to figure out what makes different people and groups tick in different ways. A lot of that is known, there's a ton of research and experience available on it in the industry (but more importantly, outside of it). But as a game is developed and it starts to grow, players tend to push harder than implementation. It never hurts to see player considerations ahead of time, on the contrary. So don't worry about such explorations. Just keep in mind the nature of the sandbox. P.S. Comparisons between DU, EVE, Elite, Ultima and such are easy to make. This doesn't mean however that they're also actually accurate. All these games share certain concepts, and in terms of genre + environment (DU, EVE, Elite, Homeworld) there's other similarities. But they are not the same games, we shouldn't treat them as such. While there are some baseline concepts specific to both DU and EVE, it's still a completely different starting point of development. I'm sure that considering the roadmap of EVE there will come a point where DU will have to face refugees from there, but that is still far off. But there are lessons and there is an experience base to draw from EVE's development history.

Every system humans create for any kind of interaction always comes down to an exchange of energy in one form or the other. Energy consumed or in turn exchanged for something else. Most of the time when we consider feeding systems we think of feeding mechanisms Like how we eat, whether we use knife and fork or fingers or tentacles. But this is about human behavioural psychology. We feed, in order to facilitate this we create systems. That's the gist of it. Different human groups make different choices in developing their feeding systems. Different groups provide different forms or methods for their respective systems. We tend to get lost easily with all those different forms and shapes and types of systems, whether it's politics or economics or anything else. When we drill down to the heart of it, humans always require energy, they feed with it, they build because of it. Approaching human activity from this angle makes it a lot simpler to observe human behavioural choices.

That's the crux here. They might, if they so choose. If NQ gets insight from how players might run things in and with their chosen types of organisation there are things which they can do to potentially support such behavioural options by means of game mechanisms. Practical example: if your organisation wants to choose its representatives, you might have to do that out of game. If another organisation might want to vote on paying dividends, they might have to do that out of game. But NQ can provide a voting construct which players might make use of in their chosen type / form / niche of organisation and behaviour. It isn't about power. A lot of people make that assumption and confuse matters. It's about feeding mechanisms. The focal point matters as little as the chosen currency. These matters are interexchangeable. For some it might be control, for others it might be capital, yet others might select something else entirely. It all comes down to feeding habits, regardless of whether the proverbial food is tangible or intangible. Any system humans create is assumed to be stable, yet the reality is that any human system is inherently unstable exactly because at the heart of it all choices come down to the above. In game it's a little simpler than in real life, since in game people can't exactly procreate

No worries on the idea, it's the focus of the exploration which is off. Let me put it this way, a lot of people just want their type of gameplay - they want to be happy with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Nothing. But in a sandbox the core foundation of functionality is that it is players who build their niche of choice through their actions, thus making a choice in available game mechanisms a niche of gameplay. There is no magic security or safety for any such niche. Except that which players provide for it. The bright side is that in a sandbox there is a lot of room for exactly that. Discussing that is important. As I said, there are considerations to make for NQ in this as well. But in order to punch through a bunch of common perception problems and expectation challenges it would be more productive to seperate any such exploration from theorising on sandbox constraints. That's NQ's prerogative. I'd rephrase the topic, basically. If you want a type of play based on or connected with concepts of demos cratos, make that the topic. Along the lines of "Player Organisation: Player Governance". That would seperate matters, enable players to provide their perspectives on what they want to try, explore, build or compete with. For some that might be systems based on or derivative of democracy. NQ could filter datapoints from that. Others might aim for strict economics, where NQ could see what datapoints might match possible features or mechanisms. Others might weigh in to see what organisations lean which way, and use that as their own datapoint for choosing whether they want to join one, or not.

Nope. What people do in a sandbox has consequences. Ergo, privacy is a non-topic beyond NQ's domain of RL connections - and any multi-account considerations (alts). A name is an identity, connects to actions, connects to impact. It's a door that swings in more than one direction, otherwise there's no door at all. If you want a court system, build it in your chosen organisation / territory of connected organisations.

Probably? Indubitably. Be that as it may, if you'd taken a different angle devs might have had potential for inspiration. It is a sandbox, but some core concepts will be anchored as mechanisms. Like "corporations" (which strikes me as limiting, I'd have gone for "Organisation"). But also like "voting". Other such mechanisms will not be unlike those known from other mmo's. Getting datapoints on perspectives is never a bad thing, provided they're clearly identifiable as narratives. But honestly, think about what you are saying. An all inclusive sandbox government concept would have to take into account every possible type and interaction of human behaviour with itself and every type and form of feature / mechanism interaction. Which makes it a dumb concept diminishing your cherished freedom. Never going to happen. Even going down that road is a black hole of iteration and resource allocation that's just stupendous in scale. This isn't a debate on philosophy or political ideology. It really is as simple as behavioural and social psychology as mechanisms within a sandbox of game theory. The freedom for your type of gameplay is the freedom you provide for it. Not anybody else. This is the foundation of freedom in a sandbox: your choices in interaction with others. You are confusing it with security and safety.

There is no such magic as "balance". This is a game, subject to iteration, at minimum because in a sandbox people will always go overboard with anything. The truth is that this is just a perception problem. It's not a real problem. It's a big universe, and nobody needs to be alone. Heck, even the guys or girls who want to play alone have plenty of room and opportunity. The reality of a sandbox is that nobody and nothing guarantees any sort of magic protection some might see as necessary for any chosen type of gameplay. It's a sandbox, so it is entirely up to the player.

That's just begging for a deus ex machina. "I think I can be safest and have my fun if devs pour what I need for that in concrete". Removing the behavioural and mechanical sandbox by arbitrary constructs might provide a specific player type with a desired outcome, but it'll still be a non-sandbox game that way. Funny thing, NQ present it as a sandbox. Which makes all of this a theoretical discussion on things which are never going to happen. Unless you - the player - strive to build and organise your ideas and convictions in to a reality among pixels for yourself and yours. Just like others will do different things in different forms with different methods. You want government? Get people together, go out there, plant your flag and stake your claim. Build and organise your group the way you want it.

I'd have gone with "organisation", simply to not predetermine type - so to speak. Players might want to organise around completely different yet equally valid concepts, other than economics. Think ideology, politics, convictions, beliefs, etc. But I suppose "corporation" makes sense, even if it makes it something along the lines of other mmo's.

When push comes to shove this is a discussion of applications and requirements of signals intelligence - how NQ provides game concepts and turns those into mechanisms is the real question, and I'm sure the real debat at NQ. Any discussion on stealth and cloaking follows the concepts they decide on as this is what determines available and potential mechanisms.

It's a sandbox. That makes it what you make from it. The moment you try to replicate artificial, arbitrary and subjective constraints on it as controlling mechanisms is the moment you effectively strip the potential for making it into what you might want to turn it into for yourself. In other words, while there will be baseline feature sets and mechanisms that enable the sandbox, some of which might support types of human behaviour and organisation in the sandbox, you don't want to go down the road as described in the topic start. There's important lessons to learn here from both successes and failures of other mmo's (and human social psychology in general). A. No. Sandbox. Make it what you want to be. Invest in it. Deal with it interacting with what others might want out of it. Nothing is worthwhile without a cost. Nothing has meaning without effort. Nothing has significance if it doesn't have to stand up to something else. B. No. You're talking about arbitrary constraints. This is a very different thing from game features and mechanisms. You want to mix the two. While a cocktail can taste good to one or the other, it's a matter of subjective taste. Welcome to the human species, one shoe does not fit all. C. NovaQuark. That's it. I sincerely doubt they will dabble in player affairs however. They're smart cookies, and they recently hired someone into the position of exec producer who's got quite a bit of experience with the hard lessons of that other mmo in these matters. Reality check: it's a sandbox. Reading tips: organisational psychology, game theory. Honestly, don't try to wrap a subjective perspective or ideal in either lore or feature marketing. Use the sandbox. It provides the room and the means for you to make your perspective or ideal as real as possible.

Keep in mind that shelter - even the perception of this - is one of the primary requirements of human activity. Ingrained reflex. It'll be an exception for people to not go down such paths, unless the devs build in guiding constraints.

Well, the idea isn't that there's always going to be enough of everything ... scarcity is a factor (not the only one, but even a solar system carries variables and types of scarcity). A game isn't just "done", it also evolves - it gets worked on, built on. I haven't found much of a real statement from NQ on any relation between scale and economics. I've read they want no arbitrary constraints, and there's a lot of talk on virtual economics. But it's in that relation where the implementation really is decided. Economies of scale isn't necessarily static, it can easily be migratory. Shifting the center of things, much like how cities once were built around a temple, later on around a market, later around a stadium - etc.

Sure they can. For starters, consider the volumes of resource deposits / sources. I'd be willing to wager that having to venture outside of an established territory will take years for any pressure to become tangible - there will likely be more typical constraints such as resource types in regards to distribution. As you say, no pressing matter and people are short term animals either way. Settling and building up is a human thing. People will do it anyway. It pays to do so and it pleases to do so. This is what creates dependancy interactions on top of social interactions. Add to this both generic market mechanisms and human variants of that (complementary, supplementary, substitutes etc) and I'm not worried about these things. I sincerely doubt that any of this will create any tangible pressure points pushing organisations out of their comfort zones. But I could be wrong, depending on how the game provides room for logistics - the penultimate cornerstone of just about anything. Frankly, there's a high potential conflict driver right there: the value of well functioning territories and their organisations. Now that is something which can and will take people out of comfort zones. It's rarely resources, natural or otherwise. It tends to be human.

That's something which may very well be more productive to approach by means of game feature iteration over time. For example, technology paths. A resource deposit of a type which previously was depleted, may be viable at a later point when an advanced version of such a tech path becomes available. Another example is through scripting, a concept of tweaking could also be introduced by the devs. Something can provide acces to a resource if highly tuned, if not, then you can't get to it. The idea of depletion being a mechanism of entropy is something I would value heavily. Virtually no mmo has this. EVE could have gotten it, but well, door closed (no pun intended). No behavioural dynamic - which is what determines use of scarcity and availability - can consistantly be both stable as well as in a state of flux if there is no presence of entropy. From a different angle, it also adds stimuli for player organisations to innovate on their own goals and functionality. Thus introducing fun group behaviour which tends to prevent things from going stale. I think we shouldn't see resources as a mechanism seperate from DU's underlying economics and human interaction schema. Means to an end, glue and lube as well as goal and type of play. If this would mean that demographics would carry an element of geo-economics all the better. Expansive / moving demographics isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing.

I can understand the logic from a PR angle, but it would be a shame. Image/Video is but one type of content that attracts users, and only certain types of users. Also, people at work doing other stuff besides work

Interesting little discussion. The right to be evil? I'd say it's a case of rights granted by NQ to be human - they decide the limits, if any, of behaviour. DU thusfar strikes me as something EVE decided to no longer become, a petri dish.

Coming from Down Under isn't going to be that much of a difference, considering there's neither up nor down in space :-) That said, this thread made me think back to a few lovely weeks at the Hoey Moey's in Coffs Harbour which for some reason I appear unable to remember ...

No. Keep in mind that resource cycles tend to go way over the limits of human perception. Resources are finite, so ultimately variables like availability, difficulty, cost, value and such kick in. The idea is to go out there, application of scarcity concepts is a big stimulus in that. I'm sure there will always be some sort of low key / baseline type of resource available unless you strip every planet in every safe zone, but variety is the spice of life. Which may very well be possible, as Nanodot points out. Nobody is "Remi in space" - alone. Embrace people. Just keep friends even closer than enemies Think of it as choices in terms of behavioural goals and methods. You can be a locust, or part of a group of locusts. Or you can be more human, or part of a group of humans. I wouldn't worry that much about these things, from what I understand thusfar the devs are avoiding pitfalls like spawn cycles / timers which have a tendency to result in less than productive types of gameplay elsewhere.

The next universe could do with some more refugees And, as I understand it, people getting curious now that Hrafnkell Oskarsson has joined NovaQuark.

Everything can die. Doesn't mean it's supposed to.

Let me put it this way: Titans now are just Battleships there. Yes it's a tier of warfare, yes it's advanced organisational requirements, yes it's logistics and costs. But they are just like common battleships now. What is prohibitive for one group or segment is peanuts for another. Economies of scale is not a part of game theory, even though it should be, but in most games that carry it as a behavioural or mechanical concept there is a very rough experience base that says "never underestimate - insert any possible human action here".

The equivalent of submarine warfare in space. Which would either come down to a sort of active / passive sigint construct mechanism, or something along the lines of the backroom concept (mechanism tied to player activity / role). Incidentaly fun reading tip on both first and second option can be found in a neat book series by Honsinger (I know, looks a bit indie, but not to underestimate. Picture Horatio Hornblower in Space with strategy and tactics. I'm sure he'll gladly provide devs with copies). Combat there leans towards strategy actions, but reading what the devs are considering / proposing for pvp mechanisms there's a low key / cost approach for implementation to be found. DU's system mechanics aren't going to make cloaking the perception problem (!) which is can be elsewhere, like EVE Online and others. That doesn't mean that as a mechanism it should not have a solid base in both game concepts as well as player behaviour. That said no game can really reliably feature the kind of technology arms race which any complete implementation would both provide and require. At least not unless the devs decide to open this kind of tech mechanism as a can of worms for Lua scripting. Either way, any arms race path is a boo-boo, because of the pitfall of iterative development. Here's to devs learning from the mistakes of others :-) As such, any sort of cloaking implementation will by default be part of a baseline feature set for capabilities. Tied with variables for cost (resource), dependancies (prereqs but also activity), abilities (specialisation, coordination). Which brings us back to submarine warfare in space. Which is basically signals intelligence. I'd favour any cloaking implementation which is an advanced tier, so far above other levels of sigint abilities.

\o Let the games begin!