What does it mean to "win" in a game like DU?

[JayleBreak]

The (IMHO) idiotic thread about PTW, did raise a question in my mind. What defines "winning" in DU?  In chess, you lose if you are checkmated or decide to resign. In poker, you are a winner if you walk away with more money than you came in with (even if you were "down" for most of the time you played). In a FPS, you "win" if you are the last man standing, or with the most "kills" at the end of the game.  But what about a game with no end? Perhaps its being at the top of the "leader" board in kills, have the most money, most territories owned, rank in your organisation, builder of the biggest construct etc? Frankly, I don't see any of those as defining a winner.
The only way I can see myself as a winner in DU is if I have fun playing and participating in the community.  I start by not defining my self worth on the basis of games won, rank in leader boards etc. More people should try this, they might find they like it.

[BiGEdge]

Absolutely agree,

 

espeacially for DU, i think most of us want to have fun.
Some people have the most fun, when they can shoot and kill as many other players as possible.
Some might want to make the most ingame money as possible.
But there are people flying around in theyr hauler and mine as much as they can. For them, every new ore vain is the biggest joy they can have.
Others use DU as a modding platform and they try to script the coolest Lua programs in the game and do this most of the time.

For me everything comes together.
I see DU as a Sandbox. And the goal of a Sandbox Game is to be creative and set your own goals.
To find and socialize with creativ, structurized, disziplined and kind people and with the greatest community i ever met in a Game yet.
Train my own creativity, get inspired by ideas from others and create breathtaking constructs i would archive as my main goal.
in DU there are so many different gamemechanics to learn, and it can be as complex as no other game.
Or help as many people as possible to learn the gamemechanics and share experiences.

I guess those are the main goals for me and all this can be timeconsuming but very enjoyable.
Those are all variable archivements, but just like wise men say...

The way is the aim.

[Mazillus]

The sandbox isn't a game you can traditionally win.

 

Usually your wins are defined by completing your objective in that given moment.

[blazemonger]

I hate to bring up the comparison (again) but like in EVE there is no end game in DU.. You win by uninstalling the game

 

I honestly believe that banter aside, sometimes heated, we are all here for one reason and that is to have fun. As long as we all keep that in mind, we and the game will be fine and succeed.

 

[Stinggg]

Build a bonsai... win DU

[BiGEdge]

7 hours ago, JayleBreak said:

The (IMHO) idiotic thread about PTW...

It is idiotic indeed...
This guy seemed to forget that with his argumentation every MMO is pay to win, even free to play ones.
And i tell you why.
If i pay 100 DU players or many more with my reallife money to grind ingame stuff for me lets say 18$ per month for each. it will be the fastest way to build an empire.

Or do this in other MMOs, because in allmost every MMO there are always players, real people who would take this money because they could play theyr Game for free then, by just investing this money in theyr own playtime. Everyone of those people including me, the one who payed them would be happy.
But there would allways be people saying this is unfair or pay to win.
But you cannot avoid capitalism in reallife.

And as long we use money there will be someone who will work (or play a game) for it.
Fine so far... just because this is possible and you can not fight this you must declare every MMO in wich you can grind as pay to win.
This means MMO without pay to win can not be possible.
The only thing, and best thing indeed you can do, is to just make this mechanic a part of the game.
The developer only gets the difference between the usual monthy subscription and the price of one DAC.

The devs dont get monthly subs from all the players AND the money from DAC.
Everything was grinded, mined, build and made out of work from people within the game.

Pay to win in this case means that you archive something faster than others, just by paying real money.

If the developer would sell stuff out of thin air for real money, but not made by players, well then you could speak about a real pay2win mechanic yes.
But only if those payed items would give you a benefit ingame. if its a weapon you can only buy with real money or an XP booster or something.

Then you would have players with a big ship for example, that is not beatable with regular ingame items or regular playtime.

Pay to win in this case would be really gamebreaking, because if only one person would not pay money for those benefitial items he has a real disadvantage against others.
 

We all are lucky that NQ decided to never put those gamebreaking real pay2win mechanics into DU

 

A bit up i explained what winning DU is for me, and to archive this i just have to pay my monthly sub to keep the game developed and the servers running.
Or just let others pay the sub for me by buying DACs from ingame market if i got enough time to grind for it. ^^

[DarkHorizon]

6 hours ago, blazemonger said:

I hate to bring up the comparison (again) but like in EVE there is no end game in DU.. You win by uninstalling the game

I know this is going over my head right now since I haven't played EVE long enough and I'm also ignoring the premise behind the movie War Games, but let me humor this from an ignorant perspective.

 

That sounds like a bad thing from a game developers perspective.

 

So, we all want to win, do we not? If loosing is your thing, blaze your own trail but me, I like winning.

 

Everybody uninstalls the game and therefore wins.

Dual Universe is shut down.

NovaQuark (theoretically) goes out of business.

People loose their jobs.

JC's hopes and dreams are destroyed, or at the very least put on hold. 

 

None of this sounds good!  

 

I've also read some stories about how the game sometimes leaks over into real life and... well, you're doing all of this so you can 'win' in some video game?  

[vertex]

To win DU is to uncover The Secret. But I don't need that to be happy in DU

 

@BiGEdge I'd hit like, but let's not unearth that topic again.

[Comrademoco]

In an MMO like DU... The answer to that question lies in everyone's own personal goals (and their own definition of winning as you've mentioned)

 

You actually did answer your own question with the questions you asked in the OP.

 

For some "winning" constitutes on;

• Economical Prosperity
• Military Advantage
• Political Standings
• Logistical Wellfare
• Explorational Knowledge
• Time Spent
• Etc...

 

It honestly depends on the individual and what they are really after. Once they've achieved that, they've hypothetically "won"

 

 

[tristan]

On 1/20/2020 at 2:06 PM, JayleBreak said:

The (IMHO) idiotic thread about PTW, did raise a question in my mind. What defines "winning" in DU?  In chess, you lose if you are checkmated or decide to resign. In poker, you are a winner if you walk away with more money than you came in with (even if you were "down" for most of the time you played). In a FPS, you "win" if you are the last man standing, or with the most "kills" at the end of the game.  But what about a game with no end? Perhaps its being at the top of the "leader" board in kills, have the most money, most territories owned, rank in your organisation, builder of the biggest construct etc? Frankly, I don't see any of those as defining a winner.
The only way I can see myself as a winner in DU is if I have fun playing and participating in the community.  I start by not defining my self worth on the basis of games won, rank in leader boards etc. More people should try this, they might find they like it.

I don't ever think they'll be such a thing as "winning" in Dual Universe. The game is too complex to really indicate what winning really is, but it really depends on what you, yourself see as winning. 

[Murmandamus]

"Winning" is an arbitrary line in the sand.

 

DU is a sandbox.

 

[Duckimus Maximus]

To win at this game you have to set a personal goal, and attain it.

Apart from winning stuff short term, like a battle, diplomatic interaction, or a trade you're not going to work towards a goal you haven't set for yourself.

[vertex]

I've seen "Ready Player One" yesterday. Not about to discuss that movie tho. Watched it because JC kept referencing the book over and over and I didn't want to read it, since a friend already complained about it being a bit out there overly referencing 80's pop culture all the time.

 

Tho seeing this topic again, I feel like adding this: when I look at the vision of "The OASIS" in Ready Player One and linking it to the vision of "emergent gameplay", I think maybe players will create challenges that you can win some day. Like what prevents us from having people to put in quanta in order to enter a race event and have them win the pot in the end? 50% goes to 1st place, 30% to second place, 10% to 3rd and the remaining 10% to the organizer?

 

The participants would have to arrive and be registered at the starting location. Race starts once the organizer announces the destination, where containers await. These could be like the vending machines that give out the speeder parts at the markets. The first to arrive would take an item from each of three containers, where the first would contain an amount of 3, second 2 and third only 1 - plus having a cooldown, so 1st and 2nd place wouldn't just take it all. This should result in 1st winner handing in 3 tokens, second 2 and third only 1.

 

There you have it. To win in DU means winning the CC0 race  or whatever other challenges we create. DU will be another world - like Second Life. We are the ones to fill it with goals. Think Last Man Standing once pvp is solid!

[Context]

Winning is however you define success without someone else telling you what it is.

 

Amusingly, for some in alpha, it is getting as a large a stack of money they will lose once the real game comes around.

 

For me it will be designing 'Systems' which are successful and do not fail under the strain of human internet interactions. This could be an IT intranet system, or a personnel organizational and administrative system. My second form of success is to use these systems for full scale warfare with my group against an enemy group worthy to also be praised for their prowess and beat them. If its a full scale slaughter there is nothing to gloat about.

[vertex]

"Why would they have to continue living when you don't see them?"

- Bernd Lehahn

@Context I like that username ?

 

Yeah, I'm holding on to my quanta as well - even during alpha, even if I lose it all, I just like the fact being on the liquid side of things. Plus it's fun learning about some economics. Bought stuff from the market, delivered it 35km to another market, made 50k from it. Doesn't matter if it stays - for now I count it as a success  

[Warden]

Ask yourself this:

How do you win in life?

 

Highly subjective.

 

[Murmandamus]

Life is a sandbox too.

[vertex]

Yeah, great grapics, but the gameplay sucks.

[Murmandamus]

Aye, too much realism.

 

(or should i say surrealism...)

[Chipfromearth]

For now it means having the most amount of members to win.

 

DU needs to provide us with more measurements of success to compare and contrast with each other.  Alot of people don't like using the word "competition" and will say that people just need to enjoy the alpha as it is.  But to that I say competition helps test the server and pushes the game to it's limit.

[Context]

Lol, BOO and NG sure don't use user-count as a metric of success. According to them the Empire is a trash heap. 

[Atmosph3rik]

who ever kills the most voxels wins. ?

[Arcus25]

As someone that's been playing games since he was 6, has tried everything, then studied game development for 4 years, I'd like to pitch into this.
 

There are different kinds of audiences in the game industry like every other industry of course, in the gaming industry you have these audiences (from my perspective):
Action

Achievers

Chill
Competitive

Roleplayers

 

Action players are into fast-paced games that give you as much to do in as little time as possible. Achievers want to try and 100% the games they play or grind for everything in an MMO. Chill players just want to relax and be in the game. Competitive players want to be the best and usually master the mechanics of a game. Roleplayers try to recreate a story or character in a game from something else or their own creativity.

 

If you look from the perspective of each one of these audience members, then what they see as "winning" in a game like this is different. Action players see winning as getting into combat and getting out of it alive, mastering the mechanics, or getting the highest score; basically short term wins. Achievers only win when they 100% a game, which is difficult if the game constantly updates adding new content. Chill players don't really care about winning a game, I guess they see winning as finding the best way to chill in a game, so if the game has constant distractions and annoyances, then they've lost. Competitive players obviously want to be the number one player, so a scoring and/or rule system that places players in a skill hierarchy is important for them to decide this, that way they can use it to find out who is truly "number one". Roleplayers usually see winning as completing their character's life I suppose, game mechanics like a progression system with skills, levels, etc. can help simulate character development, completing the development of their character and/or completing a campaign they've made or the game has made for their character is usually seen as a win.

 

I can go even more in depth, but this is just a summary for each audience. Overall though, it depends on the kind of person you are and what you are content with being the last thing you ever need to do in a game, being that making it to the number one player spot, or just building a massive castle.

[Murmandamus]

In other words winning and losing exist only in the eye of the beholder.

 

Which is to say, it doesn't exist at all.

 

 

"But Nanoman, you are in no position to tell me how I feel."

 

"But Nanoman, maybe it doesn't exist for you but it definitely exists for me."

 

"But Nanoman, that's not very practical."

 

"But Nanoman, you could be wrong, don't be so arrogant."

 

"But Nanoman, well that's just like your opinion man."

 

"But Nanoman, I disagree."

 

[Comrademoco]

But Nanoman, it's all about semantics. IMO ?

 

 

You DU you, I DU me. Mkayyy?!