There's a couple of people still building regularly - I think we'll have at least one new box this week.Wuzzy wrote:It has become so silent around this server. Deadly silent, almost. Please let this game not be dead already. :-(
[Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
- Wuzzy
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
I found some bugs in box 257:
1) If you open a terminal, the music suddenly restarts!
2) In the room with all the sponges (?) (sticky blocks), the wall lamps overlap with some of the blocks and are doing some awful Z-fighting. I think there are at least 2 wall lamps with Z-fighting issues here.
Anyway, thanks for the new boxes! They are of high quality, as always (apart from those bugs).
1) If you open a terminal, the music suddenly restarts!
2) In the room with all the sponges (?) (sticky blocks), the wall lamps overlap with some of the blocks and are doing some awful Z-fighting. I think there are at least 2 wall lamps with Z-fighting issues here.
Anyway, thanks for the new boxes! They are of high quality, as always (apart from those bugs).
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
The music can be controlled since the jukebox block was added. In box 257, it is used to change the music. So, it's not a bug, and entirely intentional.Wuzzy wrote:I found some bugs in box 257:
1) If you open a terminal, the music suddenly restarts!
2) In the room with all the sponges (?) (sticky blocks), the wall lamps overlap with some of the blocks and are doing some awful Z-fighting. I think there are at least 2 wall lamps with Z-fighting issues here.
I fixed the lights, it seems there were enough lights around that removal of the awkwardly placed ones didn't matter too much.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Alas, I have cheated death. I failed to swallow my s### and die like a b####, thus millions will soon pay the price for my abominable sin. The storm that is about to strike the east coast of the USA is in every way, shape, and form like LCA Clusterf###'s True Legendary Sentient. In layman's terms, this hypercane is massively overpowered, lasts an extremely long period of time, and is gargantuan beyond all comprehension. My parents are laughing at this thing, but I am paralyzed with fear of it. I know and understand that my cheating on this server for Minetest is the cause of the rapid intensification of this storm. I need you to know that I brought this storm upon the USA, and that I am exceedingly sorry for it. I am also beginning to suspect that my cheating is responsible for that European hypercane as well. I hope you find peace in knowing that my life is now a living Hell, and that many others will soon buckle under the wrath of God as well. This server's world takes place in the clouds, so it is fitting that divine judgement against me should come from them. Let this be a warning to you from God to never, ever leave a box without completing it unless you absolutely must leave this server.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
ahaha, that was hilarious.Inocudom wrote:Let this be a warning to you from God to never, ever leave a box without completing it unless you absolutely must leave this server.
You may further repent by playing box 40, 168, 39, and box 179, all of which have copious amounts of snow. If you need to warm up, consider playing box 78, 86, or 8. They'll be awaiting your arrival with fresh snow, and lava.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Yeah, the ranking system is pretty much broken IMO.
The exact “score” for each player is not visible, let alone the scoring algorithm, so the ranking feels pretty arbitrary and meaningless.
The system rewards players who—somehow—already knew the solution to a box. This is the core flaw as this makes it trivial to game the system. And no, your logs don't tell the whole story. Players can watch someone else play.
As the system was introduced, old-timers were punished because their completed boxes didn't count.
IMO the ranking is neither fair nor does it make a lot of sense. The whole ranking system is so messy I think the game/server would do better without it.
I think the only scoring which at least barely makes sense is per-box completion time. And even that only for the parcours boxes.
The exact “score” for each player is not visible, let alone the scoring algorithm, so the ranking feels pretty arbitrary and meaningless.
The system rewards players who—somehow—already knew the solution to a box. This is the core flaw as this makes it trivial to game the system. And no, your logs don't tell the whole story. Players can watch someone else play.
As the system was introduced, old-timers were punished because their completed boxes didn't count.
This is ridiculous, but sums up perfectly everything wrong with the ranking.Let this be a warning to you from God to never, ever leave a box without completing it unless you absolutely must leave this server.
IMO the ranking is neither fair nor does it make a lot of sense. The whole ranking system is so messy I think the game/server would do better without it.
I think the only scoring which at least barely makes sense is per-box completion time. And even that only for the parcours boxes.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Yeah no, not so fast. I'll try to explain but I fear that I'm wasting my time since you have shown before to not attempt to understand why things are the way I designed them.Wuzzy wrote:IMO the ranking is neither fair nor does it make a lot of sense. The whole ranking system is so messy I think the game/server would do better without it.
The rating system serves a purpose. The purpose isn't what you think it is. Since you don't understand it, you are complaining but your arguments are based on the wrong data. Here goes my futile attempt at proving myself wrong that you can follow me through to the end.
First, the rating system is geared towards rewarding builders and not players. The player ranking is a side effect, but it is still valuable information.
The reason it is geared towards builders is because I wanted to create a ranking system that rewards, what I think, are good indicators of what is the most valuable thing to the server/project.
That indicator is really simple. That indicator is the amount of time people play and enjoy themselves on the server.
To explain this in stupid terms: Box go fast, bad box, box take long, good box.
This means that we rate each box by several factors that give us a measurable indication whether a box "go fast" or a box "go slow". If people "give up" then that's an indication that zero enjoyable game time was had. If more people complete a box, more enjoyable game time was had. If people get damaged a lot or people die a lot, that also means "more enjoyable game time" was had in a box, so that all ends up giving points in the favor of the box.
Maximum player retention
This, in essence, is the reason why the rating system works as is. It purely exists to promote good boxes and show builders what boxes result in the maximum player retention. Nothing else is more important than to know what boxes are good, and how we can tell builders to take notice of good boxes and try and do more of that..
From this rating we can easily make a compound ranking that ranks builders - this ranking shows which builders are doing the best job at making the server a success.
The player ranking is utterly unimportant. It is literally only there because the server has the data to create an inverse ranking for each box and calculate which players took less time and damage to complete a box, and who has finished more boxes. Being on top of the list means you're statistically within a few percent of the entire top 10 or so, and almost bears no significance. Also, the player ranking has a few mechanics in them that don't reward replaying as much as you think it does, and replaying or watching a video ... who gives a fuck, really.
But really, the player ranking exists and is published to make sure people don't sit idle forever in a box and mess up the box ranking to unfairly skew it maliciously. Without the player ranking, the box ranking would be easily skewed by abusers who are attempting to make their own box rankings better. Because we publish both rankings, and they work as opposites, we make systematic abuse almost impossible since most players aren't builders and it's going to be really easy to spot the players who attempt to maliciously skew the rankings in any way; How did you think I spotted Inocudom essentially cheating so easily?... You can really not hide abuse of the ranking system as it is implemented, but it would also be immensely hard to fight the statistics of large numbers as a single person. Sure someone could do this once or twice, but we have 9000(!) box completions on file and it's only going to get harder to skew ratings in a certain way over time.
Due to the mechanics of ranking, the top #3-5 are so close that even breathing on your monitor may change your player rank too, btw.
Aside that, I'm actually happy that some people are annoyed enough and really want to be on top of the player ranks. It makes players come back to the server and spend time playing, which to me is already enough reason to reward them with a minuscule improvement in their ranking score.
So, stop looking at the player score. You don't need to get the self-confirmation that you're doing great all the time, stop being frustrated and posting on online forums about this and just go and try and build a nice box instead, because that rating is really the one that is important to me, and it is the one that is most of all important to all the other players on the server.
Ultimately we planned to do more with the ranking code and possibly even use it to automatically approve or disapprove boxes and have some sort of community review, but given the frequency at which boxes are created, it's clear that the economy isn't there to make that worth the time. I'd rather spend some time coding up some sort of statistics for builders so that they can see how well their boxes are doing.
Summarizing, all the important bits:
- I decide how the rating works
- I made it so it helps me to determine what are good boxes and what are bad boxes
- To make it work it needs to balance and reward fair play, and not be easily skewed by bad actors
- If you don't like it, don't look at it (it's not even near the play section)
- Wuzzy has built 0 boxes so far
relax, most of this was in jest :) Come back and play some more!
BTW, where's MicrosoftXP? He's got one tiny little bit to fix in a box and then I can publish it.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
and how can i give up?sofar wrote:If people "give up" then that's an indication that zero enjoyable game time was had.
i spent almost 1 hour in some lava pakour box and wanted to ragequit.
but there is no way of leaving a box, except by logging out.
does that get registered as "giving up" or were my efforts forfeit when i left?
✨🏳️🌈♣️✨
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
The inventory contains a "leave this box" button.firefox wrote:and how can i give up?sofar wrote:If people "give up" then that's an indication that zero enjoyable game time was had.
i spent almost 1 hour in some lava pakour box and wanted to ragequit.
but there is no way of leaving a box, except by logging out.
does that get registered as "giving up" or were my efforts forfeit when i left?
Leaving a box doesn't do anything for your player score. The effect of lots of players not being able to finish a box will however affect the score of the box, though.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Sofar. OK. I should be more specific. When I talked about “rankings”, I only meant the player rankings. Not the other two. Sorry.
OK, so it seems the whole ranking system is actually more about builders and boxes and pretty much not about players at all. This seems OK. Please stop framing me as ignorant.
But this begs a question: why publishing player rankings at all? You quite openly admitted the player rankings bear no meaning. What's the point of having a meaningless ranking list?
If the player rankings serve some purpose for internal calculation, so be it. But it seems pointless to publish them in the first place if they are meaningless. This just creates a fake sense of competition. You even said I should just ignore the player rankings. WTF? This doesn't make any sense.
You might argue this doesn't matter but I think it does matter for one simple reason: Polish. It's bad polish in a game to include useless features. Another reason is psychological. It's weird to know you're being ranked when the rankings actually don't mean anything.
The concept of “fair play” seems weird in a singleplayer game. Just saying.
Besides, if the builder plays his/her own box, does this actually count to the box' ranking? Hopefully not.
But I have a reason: The project is still closed, I just wait for you to open it up which I guess will happen eventually. But right now, the risk that either you or the server disappears and goes up in flames forever, destroying all my work, is still too high.
Please do not reply with endless explanations on why you do this, I already know and understand your reasons. :P
On the other hand, I am just a player who literally played every box. So who am I to judge? ;-)
Have you ever rejected a box for the sole reason of it being too short?
I also want to stress I think that, with only 1 exception, all boxes are of high or very high quality. ITB has no problem with crappy boxes at all. If builders seek inspiration, well, just take any random existing box as example.
My message to all builders: Don't be frustrated when your box ranks extremely low. Chances are it's still a good or great box because it still managed to go through the sofar filter.
It's a shame that near-finished boxes are left to die forever.
OK, so it seems the whole ranking system is actually more about builders and boxes and pretty much not about players at all. This seems OK. Please stop framing me as ignorant.
But this begs a question: why publishing player rankings at all? You quite openly admitted the player rankings bear no meaning. What's the point of having a meaningless ranking list?
If the player rankings serve some purpose for internal calculation, so be it. But it seems pointless to publish them in the first place if they are meaningless. This just creates a fake sense of competition. You even said I should just ignore the player rankings. WTF? This doesn't make any sense.
You might argue this doesn't matter but I think it does matter for one simple reason: Polish. It's bad polish in a game to include useless features. Another reason is psychological. It's weird to know you're being ranked when the rankings actually don't mean anything.
Perhaps in the secret internal numbers, but the top 10 player ranks that everyone sees, I don't see how it is valuable.The player ranking is a side effect, but it is still valuable information.
Did anyone got ever banned for stuff like “leaving a box” because it supposedly skews ratings? xD- To make it work it needs to balance and reward fair play, and not be easily skewed by bad actors
The concept of “fair play” seems weird in a singleplayer game. Just saying.
Well, you do know people can just go AFK with no malicious intent, right?But really, the player ranking exists and is published to make sure people don't sit idle forever in a box and mess up the box ranking to unfairly skew it maliciously.
Besides, if the builder plays his/her own box, does this actually count to the box' ranking? Hopefully not.
This is completely irrelevant to my argument.- Wuzzy has built 0 boxes so far
But I have a reason: The project is still closed, I just wait for you to open it up which I guess will happen eventually. But right now, the risk that either you or the server disappears and goes up in flames forever, destroying all my work, is still too high.
Please do not reply with endless explanations on why you do this, I already know and understand your reasons. :P
IMO just because a box is short does not make it bad.To explain this in stupid terms: Box go fast, bad box, box take long, good box.
On the other hand, I am just a player who literally played every box. So who am I to judge? ;-)
Have you ever rejected a box for the sole reason of it being too short?
I also want to stress I think that, with only 1 exception, all boxes are of high or very high quality. ITB has no problem with crappy boxes at all. If builders seek inspiration, well, just take any random existing box as example.
My message to all builders: Don't be frustrated when your box ranks extremely low. Chances are it's still a good or great box because it still managed to go through the sofar filter.
Maybe for later, you could add a checkbox which says “In the event of me disappearing in a puff of smoke, these players are allowed to continue my work: <player 1>, <player 2>, …”BTW, where's MicrosoftXP? He's got one tiny little bit to fix in a box and then I can publish it.
It's a shame that near-finished boxes are left to die forever.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
:)
So having the player rankings show in-game is done for my purposes, not for the player purposes. I am altering their behavior on the server by showing them how I want them to play.
Also, the server kicks idle players after a certain time. There is nothing wrong with someone occasionally going afk for 15 minutes, since statistically this is part of how the population behaves in boxes, and therefore a legitimate part of the output data. In the same way, there is nothing wrong with someone redoing a box once in a while, since over all, it doesn't matter enough for it to be significantly worth it - you will only skew the ratings by a tiny amount with this type of behavior, and the amount of people who just want to solve the box and go to the next one is far larger. In the end, the size of the numbers will make cheating not much of a problem in this aspect.
In this box' case, the whole thing is essentially finished, and if he doesn't show up, I'll actually fix it and publish it. I just prefer that builders come and check things one more time.
If we didn't show it, we wouldn't be letting players know that we prefer that they don't take forever in a box, die needlessly and other things that create the balance between player rankings and builder rankings. In short, we need to have some mechanism to tell players that we look at how they're doing and that we hope that they understand that we want them to behave in a certain way.Wuzzy wrote:Perhaps in the secret internal numbers, but the top 10 player ranks that everyone sees, I don't see how it is valuable.The player ranking is a side effect, but it is still valuable information.
So having the player rankings show in-game is done for my purposes, not for the player purposes. I am altering their behavior on the server by showing them how I want them to play.
I've given out warnings to players, yes.Wuzzy wrote:Did anyone got ever banned for stuff like “leaving a box” because it supposedly skews ratings? xD- To make it work it needs to balance and reward fair play, and not be easily skewed by bad actors
The concept of “fair play” seems weird in a singleplayer game. Just saying.
Builders can play their own box, but their performance isn't used in the ranking. Neither is nore or my play time counted either - since nore and me review and heavily test boxes, we have an unfair advantage. We even go as far as removing our own boxes from the ranking, since we've had a huge advantage time and knowledge wise how to make better boxes.Wuzzy wrote:Well, you do know people can just go AFK with no malicious intent, right?But really, the player ranking exists and is published to make sure people don't sit idle forever in a box and mess up the box ranking to unfairly skew it maliciously.
Besides, if the builder plays his/her own box, does this actually count to the box' ranking? Hopefully not.
Also, the server kicks idle players after a certain time. There is nothing wrong with someone occasionally going afk for 15 minutes, since statistically this is part of how the population behaves in boxes, and therefore a legitimate part of the output data. In the same way, there is nothing wrong with someone redoing a box once in a while, since over all, it doesn't matter enough for it to be significantly worth it - you will only skew the ratings by a tiny amount with this type of behavior, and the amount of people who just want to solve the box and go to the next one is far larger. In the end, the size of the numbers will make cheating not much of a problem in this aspect.
I have given it serious thought to open the project source code up sooner than what I previously announced. We're currently at 65 boxes (excluding my own), so it will take a lot more time if I wait for 100. Apparently that wasn't a significant encouragement for builders, so I'll need to figure something else out.Wuzzy wrote:This is completely irrelevant to my argument.- Wuzzy has built 0 boxes so far
But I have a reason: The project is still closed, I just wait for you to open it up which I guess will happen eventually. But right now, the risk that either you or the server disappears and goes up in flames forever, destroying all my work, is still too high.
Please do not reply with endless explanations on why you do this, I already know and understand your reasons. :P
Yes, and on a significant amount of occasions actually.Wuzzy wrote:IMO just because a box is short does not make it bad.To explain this in stupid terms: Box go fast, bad box, box take long, good box.
On the other hand, I am just a player who literally played every box. So who am I to judge? ;-)
Have you ever rejected a box for the sole reason of it being too short?
Absolutely, and, I'm helping builders to make their boxes more interesting and enjoyable - don't hesitate to ping me and schedule a time that we can collaborate to improve on a box that you're building.Wuzzy wrote:I also want to stress I think that, with only 1 exception, all boxes are of high or very high quality. ITB has no problem with crappy boxes at all. If builders seek inspiration, well, just take any random existing box as example.
My message to all builders: Don't be frustrated when your box ranks extremely low. Chances are it's still a good or great box because it still managed to go through the sofar filter.
We don't let that happen.Wuzzy wrote:Maybe for later, you could add a checkbox which says “In the event of me disappearing in a puff of smoke, these players are allowed to continue my work: <player 1>, <player 2>, …”BTW, where's MicrosoftXP? He's got one tiny little bit to fix in a box and then I can publish it.
It's a shame that near-finished boxes are left to die forever.
In this box' case, the whole thing is essentially finished, and if he doesn't show up, I'll actually fix it and publish it. I just prefer that builders come and check things one more time.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Box 312 seems to be buggy.
Spoiler
At the “memory room” with the 6×6 field to place the blocks, it took me several attempts to finally trigger the door opening, although I copied the pattern several times.
After I put in the same pattern over and over again, the door finally randomly opened!
In the first pattern (from the left), the door already opens after just 8/9 blocks placed. But even this took me several attempts to finally accomplish.
Also, I think the memory room was just a chore. :/
I am not sure if I missed something here and I were just lucky or if this really is a bug.
Otherwise, it's OK. The box took me way longer than I expected. :-(
After I put in the same pattern over and over again, the door finally randomly opened!
In the first pattern (from the left), the door already opens after just 8/9 blocks placed. But even this took me several attempts to finally accomplish.
Also, I think the memory room was just a chore. :/
I am not sure if I missed something here and I were just lucky or if this really is a bug.
Otherwise, it's OK. The box took me way longer than I expected. :-(
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
I'll take a look at this again later today. This room uses `adder` nodes that are connected to `node detectors` and this has possible consequences. I also made an edit to it earlier to prevent the player getting stuck in one of the 4 rooms as well, so I'll go back in and see if the various mech nodes aren't saved with the wrong initial values.Wuzzy wrote:Box 312 seems to be buggy.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
I noticed this too on the right pattern but it never occured twice in a row.Wuzzy wrote: After I put in the same pattern over and over again, the door finally randomly opened!
This seems to be consistent, maybe I accidently connected a single block twice. It however only makes it easier.Wuzzy wrote: In the first pattern (from the left), the door already opens after just 8/9 blocks placed.
I am sorry you did not like it.Wuzzy wrote: Also, I think the memory room was just a chore. :/
Would better pictures make a difference or if the digging was faster?
It could easily be replaced by a system using buttons and lamps.
The change was not really necessary, the block is accessible from the initial platform.sofar wrote: I also made an edit to it earlier to prevent the player getting stuck in one of the 4 rooms as well
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
1 or more of the adders had an incorrect initial value. I fixed this by making an adder reset button.Gerald wrote:I noticed this too on the right pattern but it never occured twice in a row.Wuzzy wrote: After I put in the same pattern over and over again, the door finally randomly opened!
It's really barely reachable, though, but you're right. But the player can barely reach it at max use distance, so be careful to test this type of stuff and don't over do it since it is really hard to walk that far over a ledge without falling because sneak is disabled on the server.Gerald wrote:The change was not really necessary, the block is accessible from the initial platform.sofar wrote: I also made an edit to it earlier to prevent the player getting stuck in one of the 4 rooms as well
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Here is some good inspiration for a future box, in the form of a GZDoom mod that I discovered recently:
https://youtu.be/fMLAOxuNrS0
You would need projectile shooters, of course. Heck, lava could shoot projectiles as well. If you really want to teach players humility, then study that mod.
https://youtu.be/fMLAOxuNrS0
You would need projectile shooters, of course. Heck, lava could shoot projectiles as well. If you really want to teach players humility, then study that mod.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
I'm entirely lost what part of a 10 minute video of random digital violence I should look at, but honestly I didn't even bother watching the whole thing.Inocudom wrote:Here is some good inspiration for a future box, in the form of a GZDoom mod that I discovered recently:
If you have an idea, just write it down, and we can discuss it.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
I intended for you to watch that whole video, both for the action on the screen and the reviewer's commentary. But, I guess you won't do that...
Well, for starters, lava still doesn't have a sound effect, nor do bottomless pits. If something is powerful enough to pretty much kill the player instantly, then it should make a threatening noise of some kind, shouldn't it? Flowing water, trees, and flames all have sounds. On a much less severe level, furnaces, torches, nexus pedestals, and terminals don't have sounds either.
There are tools for digging nodes and torches for lighting areas, but there are no medkits for healing damage much faster, and there is no armor for reducing how much health is lost. There isn't even a personal laptop for taking both drawn and written notes (because some boxes really are that complex.)
In the video, there were monsters that could fire projectiles that would not only injure the player, but could also cause bleeding and burning, which of course would result in additional damage. Projectile shooters could be added to give boxes additional traps that could also cause bleeding and burning. Bandages could be used to stop bleeding and both environmental and bottled water could be used to stop burning.
I think that you should go and give the wonderful laptop mod for Minetest a look sometime and use it as a basis for how the terminals (and the aforementioned personal laptop) work when it comes to using them. The box called Terminal Trouble really shaped my head on that one.
Yes, if you add these ideas to Inside The Box, then people might be more interested in playing it. It would be more of an adventure as a result and have more life to it.
Well, for starters, lava still doesn't have a sound effect, nor do bottomless pits. If something is powerful enough to pretty much kill the player instantly, then it should make a threatening noise of some kind, shouldn't it? Flowing water, trees, and flames all have sounds. On a much less severe level, furnaces, torches, nexus pedestals, and terminals don't have sounds either.
There are tools for digging nodes and torches for lighting areas, but there are no medkits for healing damage much faster, and there is no armor for reducing how much health is lost. There isn't even a personal laptop for taking both drawn and written notes (because some boxes really are that complex.)
In the video, there were monsters that could fire projectiles that would not only injure the player, but could also cause bleeding and burning, which of course would result in additional damage. Projectile shooters could be added to give boxes additional traps that could also cause bleeding and burning. Bandages could be used to stop bleeding and both environmental and bottled water could be used to stop burning.
I think that you should go and give the wonderful laptop mod for Minetest a look sometime and use it as a basis for how the terminals (and the aforementioned personal laptop) work when it comes to using them. The box called Terminal Trouble really shaped my head on that one.
Yes, if you add these ideas to Inside The Box, then people might be more interested in playing it. It would be more of an adventure as a result and have more life to it.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Lava needing sounds makes sense. But too many sounds can lag out clients. Also, terminals do have sounds, keyboard sounds.Inocudom wrote:Well, for starters, lava still doesn't have a sound effect, nor do bottomless pits. If something is powerful enough to pretty much kill the player instantly, then it should make a threatening noise of some kind, shouldn't it? Flowing water, trees, and flames all have sounds. On a much less severe level, furnaces, torches, nexus pedestals, and terminals don't have sounds either.
Healing damage doesn't seem to be too important, as hearts heal quickly as it is, and there aren't many boxes if at all that need faster regeneration for hearts with anything. And a personal laptop? Why do you need that? A regular pencil and paper can do much more than a Minetest laptop could.Inocudom wrote:There are tools for digging nodes and torches for lighting areas, but there are no medkits for healing damage much faster, and there is no armor for reducing how much health is lost. There isn't even a personal laptop for taking both drawn and written notes (because some boxes really are that complex.)
That sounds extremely annoying. In my opinion, boxes should be puzzles and puzzles only. I'm fine with the occasional parkour, but projectile shooters and burning sound bad for Inside the Box and better suited for other servers/games, I think.Inocudom wrote:In the video, there were monsters that could fire projectiles that would not only injure the player, but could also cause bleeding and burning, which of course would result in additional damage. Projectile shooters could be added to give boxes additional traps that could also cause bleeding and burning. Bandages could be used to stop bleeding and both environmental and bottled water could be used to stop burning.
Sofar has mentioned before that terminals are "deliberate design elements" to Wuzzy when he suggested something similar. Personally, I love the terminals. They are easy to work with as soon as you figure out how to use them, which has become much more simple with the addition of telling how to do help <command>. I think that they should be added on to instead of dumbed down to a simple gui-based computer.Inocudom wrote:I think that you should go and give the wonderful laptop mod for Minetest a look sometime and use it as a basis for how the terminals (and the aforementioned personal laptop) work when it comes to using them. The box called Terminal Trouble really shaped my head on that one.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
They do. As a matter of fact all electromechanical nodes (mech nodes) including the pedestal, the terminal and things like pistons emit a 50Hz electrical hum sound that is always heard.nexus pedestals, and terminals don't have sounds either
The terminal also has typing sounds and on top of that emits a transformer switch sound when it is unlocked or opened.
I've spent a lot of time looking at lava sounds, but never found any good ones, to my frustration. I have no idea how a bottomless pit sounds except for an echo, but that isn't possible in the current game engine.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
This was done on purpose. Armor and healing items would suggest that the player needs to go "farm" some consumable, and this game isn't about farming. Each puzzle should be exactly as difficult the first time playing as the 100th time playing, so rewarding players with armor or damage mitigating items is counter to the intended gameplay, and as designed.There are tools for digging nodes and torches for lighting areas, but there are no medkits for healing damage much faster, and there is no armor for reducing how much health is lost. There isn't even a personal laptop for taking both drawn and written notes (because some boxes really are that complex.)
I like the note taking idea, that's interesting. I'll have to think about that.
We thought really hard about this but decided to entirely ban entities for several reasons: Performance and quality of entities are hugely lacking and require an enormous time investment to make something even half-decent, and we didn't feel that it was needed more than e.g. a really good set of builder tools, which is 100x more important than "a flying arrow". This sounds harsh because this project is driven by economy: my time is limited and valuable, and I don't get paid for it, so in the end stuff like this just can't ever make it in unless enormous other sacrifices are made, such as getting enough sleep and not neglecting my family, and I'm just not that type of person.In the video, there were monsters that could fire projectiles that would not only injure the player, but could also cause bleeding and burning, which of course would result in additional damage. Projectile shooters could be added to give boxes additional traps that could also cause bleeding and burning. Bandages could be used to stop bleeding and both environmental and bottled water could be used to stop burning.
Some of the ideas (fire periodical dmg) are potentially possible but I feel make the game more complex for very little additional gameplay value. Maybe when the code becomes available people may want to add something like it, though.
In general I like suggestions, and I like them best if they are discrete and well-defined. Most of your suggestions are still "pretty fluffy" and that's cute when it's a bunny, but for a programmer it's a nightmare. Even if I took your suggestion and made something like it, you might come back and yell at me that I ruined it because I didn't do it exactly like you expected it to be. So sending me a video with fluffy bunnies is about as useful to me as cat videos, I just can't do much with it. If you drill down to details and specific changes that are realistic and incremental, then I'd be happy to listen and do a feasibility check. I think that's fair?
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
This isn't a good way to get me motivated to do more work on new features, sorry.Yes, if you add these ideas to Inside The Box, then people might be more interested in playing it.
Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Posted this earlier on Google+:
- We've had almost 10k puzzles solved total
- which took almost 1000 players 40+ days of play time.
- it took the builders 35+ days to make those boxes in the first place
- only ~30% of the players makes it through the tutorial
- a completely average player would need 55 minutes to finish the tutorial
- the average puzzle takes a player about 6 minutes and 10 seconds to solve
- Some poor schmuck took almost 3+ hours to solve one puzzle
- we're getting about a new box every 5 days average
- we got a lot more in the first few months, so in the last month or so the average is 2-3 new puzzles per month
- We've had almost 10k puzzles solved total
- which took almost 1000 players 40+ days of play time.
- it took the builders 35+ days to make those boxes in the first place
- only ~30% of the players makes it through the tutorial
- a completely average player would need 55 minutes to finish the tutorial
- the average puzzle takes a player about 6 minutes and 10 seconds to solve
- Some poor schmuck took almost 3+ hours to solve one puzzle
- we're getting about a new box every 5 days average
- we got a lot more in the first few months, so in the last month or so the average is 2-3 new puzzles per month
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
*cough*sofar wrote: - Some poor schmuck took almost 3+ hours to solve one puzzle
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]
Just in case people are wondering "how much":
The server consumes 76MB storage space. Of that, the world map is 20MB. The Game data (boxes, player data, scores, etc) is 4MB. The player auth db is about 1.5MB. Half of the 76MB is used to store the music tracks.
The server process uses 670MB ram (virt) and sits at about 240MB (res). It idles at about 2% with 1 player connected.
That's even with GreenDimond connected.
The server consumes 76MB storage space. Of that, the world map is 20MB. The Game data (boxes, player data, scores, etc) is 4MB. The player auth db is about 1.5MB. Half of the 76MB is used to store the music tracks.
The server process uses 670MB ram (virt) and sits at about 240MB (res). It idles at about 2% with 1 player connected.
That's even with GreenDimond connected.
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