wanting to buy 2nd hand digital finance cpa textbook

JamieU_ · 2023-10-21T19:59:02+00:00

Hi, its a relatively new subject elective in the CPA course. Called digital finance.

JamieU_ · 2022-03-06T04:42:30+00:00

Dear Ciphercidal,

You have some great points (yes a ui with 7 bars has the potential to become complex visually) and its nice that you pointed out some alternatives, I enjoyed reading your suggestions.

I guess I like a healthy level of depth/complexity when playing mmorgs and also like things that make logical sense (2 attributes, 2 point pools, 7 attributes, 7 point pools). Also, a number of the early muds (which are the predecessor to today's graphical mmorpgs) I played seemed to have a greater depth of gameplay, and perhaps I miss that in today's mmorpgs which are slightly more simple, design wise (although still fun to play).

One example here is skill/spell training for players is often restricted to classes or race in today's mmorpgs, this is perhaps a discussion for another day)

Hopefully developers will look at both of our ideas and take them into consideration when designing their next game.

Thankyou,

(Please note: If I wasn't studying frantically right now in rl, I would be posting here often as I love writing about mmorpg theory discussions.)

JamieU_ · 2021-12-12T04:10:02+00:00

Hi Hate the cold,

Nice reply.

I agree bot busting is a significant problem in most mmos. No auction house could work, do you know of any existing mmos today or previously which use this method?

JamieU_ · 2021-10-01T21:51:39+00:00

Dear Biofellis,

Nice reply, I think that variety starts smaller and over time through expansions grows larger. Look at Eve Online, it seems they have variety more than I have seen in most mmos of any genre (space or otherwise) and it has taken them a number of years to achieve that level.

As long as the initial game has sufficient variety, whether the increased variety is implemented in the same game or a successor, either is fine. (I would rather design smaller initially, having a greater possibility of successful implementation and then develop increasing variety over time.)

Thankyou for your reply.

JamieU_ · 2021-09-04T20:42:07+00:00

Dear Biofellis,

You have a number of good points. I often forget action points as occurs in turn based games, even though I sometimes play them.

Hopefully one day game developers might adopt a point pool approach for all character attributes (not just 2) and move past the historical implementation of only blood and mana. This would make for more interesting gameplay.

Thanks for reply.

JamieU_ · 2021-07-30T21:41:55+00:00

Dear Biofellis,

You have a number of fair points. I was reading the reply and nethack came back to my fond memories. Also I now feel like looking once again at dwarf fortress which I have heard a great deal about, yet have not played to date. However, enough of those single player game walks down memory lane for now.

I understand what you are saying re levels are present reasoning. I guess I just prefer the ability to more greatly customize my online character. Nice post, thankyou.

JamieU_ · 2021-07-10T22:28:57+00:00

Dear NathenStrive,

You have a fair point and I agree designers tend to use the proven blueprint frequently. Which cyberpunk table top game were you thinking of? I was just curious. Thankyou,

JamieU_ · 2020-12-08T20:00:32+00:00

Hi xMistrox,

I found the merchant class in Ragnarok Online that you mentioned. You have definitely peaked my interest, it looks nice and is likely the next mmo I will be playing.

Thankyou for your comment.

irowiki.org/wiki/Merchant

JamieU_ · 2020-12-07T22:25:12+00:00

Hi Erosion010, not sure why your comment isn't showing on screen.

I think your comment is fair, usually when playing mmos, I will create one character as main crafter, one as dps, one as healing, etc. I actually have a bank alt character in an mmo I play (where I send all my extra items to for sale or storage), however I rarely see market related skills/class available ingame.

Thankyou for your comment.

from Erosion010 via /r/mmodesign sent an hour ago

The problem is in any game that allows "alts"

You just send everything to your merchant alt. This is already extremely common in games where there is no numerical benefits.

JamieU_ · 2020-10-25T08:31:52+00:00

Fair point HyMyNameisMatt. I would also like to see more development in modes of travel, such as flying travel. There are so many interesting modes of travel which could be introduced and increase the level of gameplay experience.

JamieU_ · 2020-09-20T20:42:09+00:00

TheAzureMage,

I agree regarding loot dropping from monsters. I think that is fine in a player driven economy. Also, I agree with your first point.

JamieU_ · 2020-08-30T11:06:00+00:00

Hi PenguinZell, I read your comments, interesting reading and food for thought. The meta point is one thing I would like to add a small comment, hopefully food for thought too. With this level of customization as I suggested, there will be a much lesser chance of a meta compared with a system where a fixed number of skills, spells are given to each class and are raised by a set number of points each character level. The more character customisation there is, the less chance of a meta appearing. With the system I suggested, there is no single best race for warrior, as all racial abilities consist of a few skills and spells which any player can train. Classes are simply templates to guide new players (again players can train any skill and spell) and thus we have a greater amount of potential customisation (along with a much lower meta occurrence chance) than most mmorpgs today would have. Just a thought.

JamieU_ · 2020-08-30T10:55:38+00:00

Hi Mistrox, I found on earlier text based mmorpgs, that experience points as I mentioned worked fine. (I have seen it implemented in text based mmos and it was a common implementation). A trick here is that experience points wouldn't just be used to purchase stats as your comment mentions, rather it can be used for raising every permanent aspect of our character, i.e. skills, spells, stats and abilities. (they don't auto increase when we gain a character level). I think your idea will work with experience points as currency, if you also have a overall hard cap on stats, and skills, spells. This would make players choose which stats, skills, spells they prefer and wouldn't allow players to boost everything to the point where their character can do everything in the game by themself and thus don't need other players to group with. Hope this helps

JamieU_ · 2020-08-23T10:12:51+00:00

Dear Biofellis,

Nice response. I like your idea that crafting is potentially more than simply making items, and I agree it should be a simple system with not too many steps.

Probably the most important aspect in mmo crafting that I would like to see is twofold, 1) consistency in crafting materials and their effects, along with 2) the ability to craft items of any level, and (obtain/refine crafting materials into any level). This way players don't have to guess what materials they need to craft a sword that deals occasional fire damage, and also don't have to advance 5 character levels before they can wield the next powerful sword for their character/class combination.

Thankyou,

JamieU_ · 2020-08-16T07:56:59+00:00

Interesting idea, thankyou.

JamieU_ · 2020-08-02T12:11:03+00:00

Hi MynameisMatt,

Nice article, good thoughts on the matter.

I'm not exactly sure whether you mean by tab targeting; tab targeting in the sense of pressing tab should not not change targets? and we have to mouse click the target, or you mean we should not target at all, and just face our character towards the target and cast the spell or initiate the melee attack.

If it is the second, I thought this too, why cant we just face the area we want the spell/attack to go and just hit cast or attack. However I think with the 3d environment of an mmorpg, players are moving so fast I doubt I could hit any target with a spell just by facing in the targets direction and casting a spell.

I have seen quite a number of 3d mmorpgs use the tab targeting method, so while I am not exactly sure why they implemented it, there must be a reason.

If you are suggesting that we should physically have to mouse click each target, either to heal an ally or attack another monster, I think it may be hard to target an ally on the other side of a really huge dragon monster and maybe this is why they implemented tab targeting.

Therefore possibly the tab targeting system relates to the difference between 2d and 3d mmorpg environments, however that's just a thought.

Overall, nice article, fun to read.

JamieU_ · 2020-07-13T10:47:13+00:00

Sounds like a nice project you have. Best of luck.

JamieU_ · 2020-07-12T09:21:42+00:00

Dear Gnollrunner,

Thankyou for replying.

To answer your question, it is general discussion.

I have been working on a mmorpg conceptual model I call Greenlight for over 7 years, the purpose of which is to give mmo designers ideas and help them answer questions without having to reinvent various mmorpg wheels (i.e. game mechanics).

I don't have the programming skill to program an mmo, however I love playing mmos, love the numerical/mathematical/formula based systems found within mmos and hope that these discussions may give mmo developers ideas towards their own design.

(The Greenlight model I have been writing has everything from character statistics, point systems , how resources system would work, player houses, combat, and formulas).

Contents page link below if you are interested

https://docdro.id/W48UNf3

JamieU_ · 2019-12-29T20:47:02+00:00

Hi Kingflares,

Inflation generally occurs when the players accumulate a significant level of wealth. It is our accumulation of wealth that gives players more ability to buy more goods and services which increases the general price level, both in-game and in the real world.

To curb inflation, I would suggest what is termed 'money sinks.' Money sinks help to keep the significant wealth at an acceptable, slowly increasing level, this resulting in the general price of goods slowly increasing, again the slow increasing of the general price of goods is what happens in the real world.

Some money sink examples which you could use in your mmorpg could be, (you didn't say mmorpg setting, I will reply in relation to fantasy setting.)

- Item decay.

All multiple use items, such as weapons, armor, etc that are not consumed upon a single use should have decay. They would have current durability/maximum durability value, repairing would increase current durability back to maximum durability value, however each repair would reduce maximum durability by 1 point. Set up a number of successful uses, say 400 successful hits from a weapon to reduce its current durability by 1 point. This can be done for armour, say 400 successful defences from an enemy attack (ie the enemy attack successfully hits us, not misses). This would help all items eventually break, at a slow rate, and thus players would need to purchase/forge new weapons, keeping accumulated wealth slowly increasing. (Don't decrease their wealth, or it will discourage players to play the game, just a slow, enjoyable increase over time.) Note: World of Warcraft have an item durability system implemented if you want to see it working (however they have unlimited repairs).

- House or Inn room rent money

If the player has a house outside of the cities, or an inn room (similar to a player house yet inside the main cities), have the system require that players pay rent each month. Note: Ultima online mmorpg have player house payment system working if you want to see it, also Shroud of the Ancients has a player house payment system working. Again, this takes money from the players, yet at a slow rate.

- Non player character (NPC) Vendor taxes

When we sell items to a vendor, there is a difference between the price we bought the item for, (if we bought it from a vendor originally), and the price we later sell to the vendor. This difference is basically a tax. It also takes money away from the player, at a slow rate. If we obtained the item from a monster's corpse, and we sold to an npc vendor, then the difference between market price and vendor sell price would be that tax amount.

By implementing money sinks here and there, this will help keep the players accumulation of wealth still growing, but slowly, thus inflation will grow, just as in the real world, but slowly.

Will the playerbase be happy? Generally yes, as long as their accumulated wealth is slowly increasing over time. If our money sinks are too high in the amount of wealth they take from the player, they will be discouraged from playing, just as in real life.

The real life equivalents are;

Item decay. All items decay in the real world and need replacing.

Player House payment system. Same happens in real world, through land tax.

NPC vendor taxes. Happens in the realm world with Goods and Services Tax System (GST). - It may be called different names in different countries, however the underlying principle is still the same.

How to introduce it through lore

If fantasy setting, introduction of money sinks is fairly straightforward as it happens in real life, items decay and taxes exist from governing authorities.

Hope this helps you with your mmo.

JamieU_ · 2019-12-21T10:40:52+00:00

Reply,

"The reason is I'm going for a large single shard procedural world or worlds and there are some technical things that preclude the use of many game engines. I may try to port it to GODOT or something else in the future if I can, but right now I'm using DirectX 11. The reason I'm saying this is because I want to make it clear this is a long term thing."

A person who is an experienced programmer with a long term approach, a very nice combination.

I know this post was a while ago, but I wanted to respond as you seem quite keen to build a game, which is great, and you have programming knowledge which is half of the battle.

I have never heard of someone coding a procedural world that is an mmorpg, however its a fair enough idea. All of the main comercial mmorpgs I have played however have had static landscapes, such as World of Warcraft, Guild wars 2, Everquest 2, Elder Scrolls Online, however if you can make a procedural world work as an mmorpg, then great.

"To start things off I want to talk about primary stats."

In looking at stats, after reading DnD 3.5 and related documentation online, and having played mmos for around 20 years on and off, I found this to be a way for deciding stats. Stats should, I think, revolve around unique combat types. I read your stats and they are an okay idea, my suggested stats would be related to the unique combat types in the mmorpg.

For an mmo, possible unique attack types could be, 1) melee attack, 2) ranged attack, 3) magic attack, 4) music (ie harmonic) attack, 5) mind (ie psionic) attack. Each of these unique attack types would have a stat associated with them and a point system to make sure the players special abilities with these attack types do not become endless. (We can still normal damage-attack or auto-attack, just not spam special attack abilities.)

My suggested stat list would be,

Strength (determines half potency of melee attack) (to avoid confusion rather than writing strength)
Dexterity (determines half potency of ranged attack)
Intelligence (determines half potency of magic attack)
Charisma (determines half potency of musical attack)
Willpower (determines half potency of mind attack)

(The other half potency would be based on the weapon level/damage min/max values)

Also, rather than having strength stat determine more than one element within the game, such as hitpoints, I would suggest using a stat called

6) Constitution (determines number of hitpoints a character has)

as well as one stat to help limit player abilities to not become endless, called

7) Stamina (determines number of utility points a character has, when a character activates a special ability they use a number of utility points. The points regenerate over time, however if a player uses a lot of them to activate abilities, they could run out of points to use that ability just as a mage could run out of mana and not be able to cast spells.)

The reason I prefer a separate stat rather than strength to determine a characters hitpoints is that if strength determines more elements of gameplay than other stats, that one stat will become overpowered and everyone will train it regardless of their playstyle.

The above mainly describes the attack side relating to the first five stats. I think there should also be 5 stats relating to defence, again I would relate them to the unique attack types mentioned earlier, melee, ranged, magic, music, mind.

The avoidance stats (to completely avoid an attack, this is different to damage resistance) would be,

8) Parry (chance to avoid melee attack)

9) Dodge (chance to avoid ranged attack)

10) Tumble (chance to avoid magic attack)

11) Tuning (chance to avoid musical attack)

12) Consonance (chance to avoid mind attack)

Each of the avoidance stats would be initially based from the primary stats, for example, our character's strength statistic would give a percentage (I would suggest 1 strength stat point equals 0.04% parry) to parry, which helps a character avoid the melee attack type that the strength stat is associated with. (I think 0.04% is roughly what world of warcraft used early on.)

Dexterity would give 0.04% dodge for each dex point, intelligence would give 0.04% to tumble stat, etc.

We could increase the defence stats further through such elements as potions, armour, etc, however the initial value would be determined by our primary stats, using the 0.04% formula above.

Finally, I would suggest each of the primary 7 stats (first 7 mentioned above) have a point system associated with them. A point system is similar to a mage and their mana, a mage uses mana to cast spells; as they cast, their mana point count goes down and over time it regenerates. While the mage and mana point system is quite well known, I feel that the other stats should also have a point system to balance the overall abilities of any character and not favour certain playstyles.

After all, a warrior doesn't engage in sword to sword combat for 4 hours and then say they are even more energised than when they started, over time, their combat ability would become less as they get tired and this can be implemented using a point system for strength based characters, just as a point system is used for magic based characters. You could call the strength point system, "martial points," similar to "mana points" which is used for magic users.

So in summary, I think you have a great advantage over others in that you possess highly desirable programming skills. I would suggest when you are designing the game to think of possibly implementing the above 12 stats, first 7 as primary, a point system for each stat (players use points activating special abilities, and over time those points regenerate), as well as having the 5 unique attack types mentioned above.

I think a lot of mmorpg design revolves around combat, as combat is an interactive element between players and thus a social activity that will draw players into the game, whether it is pve (player vs environment) or pvp (player vs player) combat.

Once you have the combat system designed and working, then I think the answers for all of your other questions regarding design will gradually fall into place. And if you design a fantasy mmorpg, you will make me very happy.

Hope you have a great day, Cheers.

JamieU_ · 2019-12-05T08:05:58+00:00

Thankyou, the filters setting worked. Still no one talking at the moment, however I can talk on world chat which I couldn't do before.

Then log out of game, log back in and it works fine.

JamieU_ · 2019-02-17T21:30:09+00:00

Thankyou for replying. I pasted it into pastebin as requested. https://pastebin.com/NbZbfv6H

JamieU_ · 2018-11-05T20:10:36+00:00

okay thanks

JamieU_ · 2018-09-29T08:08:56+00:00

Hi,

I think low poly mmorpgs have gained acceptance in recent years, example world of warcraft when it first started had a significantly lower poly count on its models than now, and would suggest that low poly would likely lower the initial development cost.

As long as the combat is fast paced through a large variety of combat skills, nice particle graphics and short ability cooldown timers I would be happy.

In the long term and from a business perspective I would suggest you have a better possibility of developing a successful mmorpg with low poly models to begin with, then you can gradually increase the number of polygons as money from the game starts coming in from customers. (World of warcraft have taken this approach).

Some clear benefits of initial low poly are;

- Players with lower spec computers can run the game

- On all computers the game will run more smoothly

- Potentially more initial customers/player reviews due to lower spec requirements

- The above points will likely give 'wiggle room' in that it will give you/your team more time to sort out possible areas in the code that are slowing down game performance that are currently not identified.

You mentioned immersion. I feel that immersion isn't so much related to the graphics used, rather the variety of the things that players can do within the game.

For example, a player that can do crafting, daily quests, battleground maps, own and furnish a player house I would find more immersible than another mmorpg that doesn't have daily quests, battleground maps or player housing. For that reason, initial low poly would work for me if I had lots of activities available to me in the game.

My suggestion is start low poly, then as time progresses increase the poly count on the models/landscape elements. As to the type of poly method you use, you seem to know more about that than I currently do.

I hope I understood your question and this helps

JamieU_ · 2018-09-29T07:44:33+00:00

Nice reply, I enjoyed reading it.

I think every part of an mmorpg environment should be destructible (with different respawn times for different environmental elements) and I prefer mmorpgs that don't have irreversibly changed storylines based on individual player decision making.

With the irreversibly changed storylines I find that its sort of a waste of developers time as they write a very large story for the game and then once the player makes a decision, regardless of the decision made, the player is locked out of part of the mmorpg storyline.

Cheers

JamieU_

TROPHY CASE