Good news guys. This should now be fixed for the next release so it should be a moot point. Basically do what you will to the client but if the server thinks you are cheating you will be kicked from the game for a period of time (longer once we know that this is only kicking cheaters...) If we know you have altered the client for any reason other than helping us test you will be banned. Basically it comes down to this. If someone is cheating and we know and we do not have an email from them telling us how and what they did they will be gone. If they have told us what they did they are being a very helpful beta tester. Its that simple. If you want to know if someone is cheating there is one question to ask: Have they told the developers what they are doing?

You can read the rest of the forum thread here, with Scorch's contributions appearing about 80% into the thread.

Consequence. There needs to be consequence for making the life of a fellow gamer miserable. There's currently no real community, as I think I've stressed before, so the they will be outcast mindset won't work. You also don't want to run your game tyrannically, as I think this site has stressed, so that too wouldn't work. The consequence needs to come in the form of what the griefer desires most: attention. Granted, the drive may also be achievement, but more often than not, I've noticed that the true motivation has been attention. The gloating, the bragging, and the infamy that come with being a notorious griefer are all too often the real force behind the actions.

Reward. Currently, the reward for slaughtering the enjoyment of your fellow player is too great. Overcoming a human opponent that thinks and reacts as you do should be reward enough. The loot system's also play a large role: Killing a single opponent and likely getting a fine reward (because more often than not, he won't be using substandard equipment) rather than waiting in line for hours or killing dozens, if not hundreds, of monsters is much more desirable. Yes, I will agree that some other reward is appropriate too, but not when it is obviously leading to the unhappiness of a paying customer.

To agree or disagree with Savant's rantings, you'll need to read the rest of the article.

I'll end with an example of this entire process. About a year ago, we wanted to set something up for item creation. We knew we wanted the end-user to be able to piece together component parts from a specific sub-library, so that a large variety of unique items could be created. For example, a sword would be built from a large variety of separate hilts, cross-guards and blades. It didn’t take us very long to have some (well, really, two) prototype swords built and hard coded into the game for testing.

Having proven the concept, it has taken eight months before the final system has been completed. We had to conceptualize the huge library of parts, come up with naming conventions, figure out size formats, optimize the graphics engine to efficiently deal with multi-part objects, decide what the relation was between the inventory icons and their in-game representations, and so on. But being able to implement our original plan has been very rewarding, and now, after working out all of the uncountable details, creating the art, designing what items to make, and writing all of the code, we can finally create real items.

If the guys can take a page from the book of StarBucks (personalization = market share), then this game will be flying off the shelves. Make your own conclusions here.

Death was the most common end to any in-game conflict made before the emergence of the MMOG genre, and is such today. It's an unmistakable message of failure, a convenient device for a game designer to employ, even though unlike real death, it can't be permanent. Permanence equates to inconvenience, and inconvenience makes people quit games.

But it still serves a function. There's a perceived need to keep players thinking that death is important. So death takes player-characters out of a fight, incapacitates them, reduces their effectiveness (either by time delay or by outright loss that must be redeveloped,) rebirths them away from the place of death, requiring them to spend time moving back to where they were, or making them rely on other players so they can live again. Ex-UO programmer Ragnar Scheuermann suggests imprisonment or public humiliation in his laundry list of possibilities, most of which have never come together at the same time, and probably never could. Death remains the closest thing to absolute right and wrong in both player and developer minds.

You can find the rest of the editorial here.

 
 

The full screenshot gallery for SB can be found here.

Shelrabbi: Seguay time. We know there will be implants, and we know that weapons will be visible on a character. Will the implants be visible on a player like weapons?

Danny: Implants probably won't be visible on the character model. However, the -use- of certain implants may certainly be noticeable, such as a Digital Zoom that emits a small beam of light.

Shelrabbi: Is there going to be a limit on the number of implants or can you become a walking cyborg?

Danny: Yes, we will have limits on implants, from number of implants usable at one time, to actual energy consumption limits.

You can catch the rest of the interview here.

There has been a recent increase in the amount of players attempting to cheat using a recently released cheat-program that was developed originally for other games. I will not go into details as to what the cheat is, but suffice it to say that if you attempt to cheat, we will catch you and you will be quickly banned. I have banned over 10 people in the last 24 hours. There will be no second chances on this one.

Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry...