Fairness is killing DU

[Carnegie]

I think the concept of fairness is misunderstood by young people and the devs.

To be fair means to be equal for everyone in terms of opportunity, not results.

It is a subtle but huge difference.  Conversion of opportunity to good results requires intelligence, awareness, hard work, and persistence.  Some people tend to think fairness is equal reward... that is not the case and shouldn't be the case.

 

If a game was completely 100% fair in results, then it would be boring as hell to play. Challenges are what make things interesting and worth playing. However, there are different kinds of challenges.

1. Natural challenges:   Difficulties due to events naturally occurring in an ecosystem. Conflict over desirable, scarce resources is one example. People generated challenges.

2. Artificial challenges: Pointless busywork.  Schematics for basic items like screws/pipes and mining unit calibration are great examples of pointless busy-work.

To devs: Be fair in opportunity but don't try so hard to make sure all participants get a medal for showing up. People only respect a reward if they have to think and sweat a little for it in a meaningful way.

Concrete suggestions:
A. PvP should be fighting for something desirable other than bragging rights (that gets old quick)

B.  Mining & Industry should be able to make lots of ships cheaply - so they can be destroyed in battle. Pretty bookshelf ships don't have lasting appeal. Maybe partial insurance?

 

C.  The economy relies on a full player base, right now the game is barely hanging on to a few hopeful players - the economy needs NPC buyers to raise money when real player population is low. Ditch the NPC buyers when the player base comes back. Simple formula:    num_npc_buyers = 1000/ (1 + avg_num_players_online)

 

D.  The  reliance on players to build sights worth visiting has a fatal flaw. When there are few players, all the planets are barren. There should be some cities or something to visit in far-away planets.  People travel in real life to get exposed to different cultures. The sameness of everything is a real downer after you have traveled for hours to get there. Terrain differences don't count.

 

Anyways, DU has a fantastic code base just begging for someone with gameplay design wisdom to take charge. Design by committee doesn't work by the way. 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Carnegie