Interesting idea using a kind of economic model to balance the power of items based on supply.

Thanks for the in-depth thoughts. I’m always happy to read well-constructed viewpoints.

Take note of the situation we see in Gunbound though. I remember playing a year or so ago, and there were ‘stat on’ and ‘stat off’ servers – in the stat on servers, everyone had a pirate coat, mecha tail, warrior headdress… everyone. Those that didn’t couldn’t compete.

Now, we know Lila Dreams isn’t necessarily a competitive game, but a lot of people won’t get this into their heads. They’ll think of it as the fastest way to kill monsters, get places, take objectives or get more loot. If there is ‘top tier’ equipment, people will aim for it… it’s just the way some people play.

One option is to have equipment balanced against itself. Say, there’s common, uncommon & rare equip. If you’re wearing a Baseball Cap (c), the stat bonuses it offers are on par with every other common hat. Same for all uncommon gear & rare gear.

Another option is to prepare the game to balance itself. So you set it so that if there’s a piece of equipment that 25% of the game is wearing, then they get -25% to their earnings of PoM & drops. Make it automatic to take the strain away from the devs & leave it up to the players.

Conformity is bad… or maybe it’s one of the challenges our girl Lila has to face in real life.

I want to blow up an image of the concept art into a poster, becuase it’s just amazing, and think it could help me with my art. But there are two things I have to clear first.
One, is this okay with you, Greg?
And two, it’s copywrighted, and Kinko’s won’t allow me to blow it up without consent from you.
So, any help here?

I also like the idea of growing an item or buying it thru microtransactions. Concept art is phenomenal as always

Keep up the good work and don’t loose sight of your inspiring vision

It certainly can be. “Easy to learn yet hard to master” is a mantra that is easy to say and hard to do. Even harder, oft times, is making things simple enough that players can actually understand them or that they can be explained easily and yet the combination of these simple elements leads to deeper play. Perhaps my achillie’s heel is always trying to simplify but accessibility is a real part of the success of a game.

“If you are like me, you enjoy making tough decisions between two or more really great choices.”

Players tend to agonize over these choices. They can indeed be an exit point from the game if the player can’t remedy a choice or if the choice is bound to a buyer’s remorse. Remember that the grass is always greener on the other side. players might like to walk in both fields to be sure which one in which they really want to frolic.

Even if there’s no economy between players, will there still be a way to trade? If there was no way to trade it would cut a large swathe out of the multiplayer aspect of the game as well as reducing the number of ways players can co-operate.

The reason you would want multiple items of the same kind, though, is because you will have a lot of control over customization of their capabilities. So you might want two or three of the same kind of item with differently balanced capabilities for various situations.

Good SirWamsly, creatures you kill will only ever drop one kind of thing, a form of currency called “Pieces of Mind” (poms, for short). But you can peacefully “harvest” other stuff from creatures and plants out in the wild. So, gardening materials will be scattered throughout the explorable areas. Gardening starts from scratch in the garden, with a seed.

My current plan is that there will be no economy between players at all. This could change (depending on how testing goes), but for now that is the plan. But there will be a market where you can buy/sell with NPC salespeople.

Growing is the only way to get items, unless you purchase them with micro-transactions as a convenience. Growing will take some time, unlike other crafting systems.

Keep the questions coming! It let’s me know that there’s still interest in the game.

r.Okamo, that’s actually a screenshot from the game Iron Dukes.

Oh how I wish I could borrow the “artistic lobe” of Greg’s brain just for a day!

Thanks for the great update! The image posted in this entry, is this a preview of some of the ingame interfaces? If it is, I’m certainly loving the look! I’m assuming it’s still in development, of course? How likely is it to change?

Looking forward to hearing more!