[Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

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firefox
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by firefox » Post

today i created my first box. yay! :D
i named it "Mermaid's Rock". it's very small and mostly decorative.

(edit: removed description, since it was giving away most of the solution)
Last edited by firefox on Sun Mar 10, 2019 18:36, edited 1 time in total.
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sofar
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

firefox wrote:today i created my first box. yay! :D
i named it "Mermaid's Rock". it's very small and mostly decorative.
Thanks, I'll review it later today. In general, I advise people not to give out hints too liberally, though, as this spoils the box for many of the players.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

There's a new mod on the server - `telex`. It allows players to communicate and send messages USING A TERMINAL to other players, and resembles the old `mail` command!

I will be using this mechanism from now on to provide review feedback, and you can use it to contact me as well.

Here's a short how-do-I list:

Step 1: right click any in-game terminal.
Then type your telex commands.

- list messages in your inbox: `telex list`
- read a message: `telex read 1`
- create a new draft message: `telex draft`
- edit your draft message later: `telex draft`
- send your draft message to sofar: `telex send sofar`

More help is shown by `telex help` and `telex help <subcommand>` !

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

It's been almost 2 years! Can you believe it?

Here's some statistics. Yes, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics. Make of that what you want:

Tutorial progression rate:

Image

We've had 3500 players complete level 1 in the tutorial and 700 complete the entire tutorial - this is 20%. Each tutorial level we see roughly a 20% dropout rate, but the biggest drop is level .. 2 and level 5. Note that level 2 is one of the easiest levels - it's clear that lots of people likely leave because they didn't know what type of server it is. After that, Tutorial level 5 seems to be the most difficult, despite it being nerfed already in the past.

A logical result of 700 players having completed is that there's only 700 players that can build boxes, and only 700 players can play the other boxes. Again, we really appreciate the tenacity of every player that finishes the tutorial - each and every one of them dedicated a chunk of their time into finishing it. The average player takes 52 minutes to finish it!.

A lot of the newer boxes have very little number of completed players. The lowest is... 5 players! As a matter of fact, only 40 or so of the 120 total boxes you can play have more than 100 people completing them! That means, on average, players only play about 1/7th of the available boxes! That's still around 18 boxes, mind you.

The average box takes a good 6 minutes to complete, BTW. Some boxes take way longer just on average! One poor person spent 3 hours and ~50 minutes completing a box! Can you guess the box number? select this > box125< entire line to see the answer! Yeah yeah you guessed that right, of course it's that one XD.

It may not seem much, but we're averaging well over 1 box a week! There's definitely still a lot of work going on, just look at the new in-game mail mod we've developed this last week, we'll be using this to send and receive reviews - just pop a terminal in your box and you can access the messages and reply. Also, there are a bunch of terminals in the lobby that you can use to check your messages as well.

We're at 867 commits in git! There's currently 14000 or so lines of Lua code, almost all authored specifically for this project and by nore and sofar.

Thanks to everyone for playing - keep coming back, and, feel free to suggest new things to add! We love hearing from players :)

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Wuzzy » Post

I think the drop out rate can also be explained by simply not all players are interested in puzzle games. Then you probably will have a lot of throw-away accounts and some accounts with lost passwords which might further skew the statistics. I have no idea by how much, however.
A lot of the newer boxes have very little number of completed players. The lowest is... 5 players!
Which one?
One poor person spent 3 hours and ~50 minutes completing a box!
Is the clock reset when one leaves a box because its too hard and returns a while later, then completing it (basically sleeping a night over it, or two, or three, …)? If yes, then many timing statistics are probably garbage.

Also, who are the top players measured on number of completed boxes alone? :-)

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Wuzzy wrote: Is the clock reset when one leaves a box because its too hard and returns a while later, then completing it (basically sleeping a night over it, or two, or three, …)? If yes, then many timing statistics are probably garbage.
You can certainly debate this a long time, and I know people will be mad either way no matter what (it's unfair! it's cheating! my way is the right way!) but in reality, it doesn't matter a lot, maybe not at all.

The server currently resets the clock if you leave.

It doesn't really matter if we change it or not. It doesn't really matter much if we would have _not_ written it that way up front. The simple reason is that *time* is only a small part of the total score/rank. And on top of that, it's totally expected that some players will leave and re-run the box anyway, and there's nothing wrong with that. The point is that most likely the amount of players re-running a box isn't wildly varying and it's only a small percentage of players, since most will just want to finish the box.

The biggest mistake we can make right now is to change it - we'd be forced to wipe out all existing scores, but, you can never unsee levels you've previously played, so it would be totally unfair to try and "correct" it. Much worse than your "probably garbage" assessment for sure.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Pudding » Post

I was testing box 534 when I found a way to get stuck. If you complete the ceiling puzzle while standing on one of the ends next to pistons you fall through the floor when the switch happens (slabs are removed revealing pedestal). This can be fix if a clay violet clay block is placed under the wall/slab (I forgot to place one there).

Image
Last edited by Pudding on Fri Oct 11, 2019 03:24, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Pudding wrote:I was testing box 534 when I found a way to get stuck. If you complete the ceiling puzzle while standing on one of the ends next to pistons you fall through the floor when the switch happens (slabs are removed revealing pedestal). This can be fix if a clay violet clay block is placed under the wall/slab (I forgot to place one there).

Image
I'll look/fix that.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Due to the insistance of some builders that they should be allowed to submit boxes that took longer to PLAY than to BUILD, I am instating an additional creator rule. :)

The goal of this rule isn't to block parkours, but we do want to make sure that most players are physically able to play most levels and in most cases parkours is reasonably doable because difficult jumps can easily be tried again. In some cases though, there is too much time spent recovering from a fall or multiple extreme jumps have to be made in succession. That is taking it too far and so this rule is meant to send a clear signal that if we spot a sequence in a box that exceeds these limits, we may ask you to modify it.

Code: Select all

14. Parkours rules

This server isn't meant for endless hardcore parkours. We will
accept boxes that are parkour focused but the emphasis should be
on puzzles and not jumps. On top of that, jumps must not be one
of these or further than these: 1 node up and over a 3 node gap;
across a level 4 node gap. 1 node down and over a 5 node gap; Any
jump should be reasonably doable. In doubt: if you can not repeat
the same jump 5x in succession without failing, it's likely too difficult.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Desour » Post

Imo hardcore parkours can be much fun (or at least more fun than boxes where you have to search for levers and co. (*yawn*)) (as long as there are checkpoints).
Would it be possible to categorize the boxes in their hardness. Eg. a box can be very easy in terms of searching but very hard (or call it "impossible", "insane" or whatever) in terms of parkour.
I don't think that I've seen many boxes that are real puzzles. Puzzle boxes should require the player to use their brain, which is not the case if you just have to search through the whole box, which can take hours and makes me give up because I can't find anything.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by v-rob » Post

DS-minetest wrote:or at least more fun than boxes where you have to search for levers and co. (*yawn*).
I hate those boxes, but it seems most boxes have that at some point or another.
DS-minetest wrote:Would it be possible to categorize the boxes in their hardness. Eg. a box can be very easy in terms of searching but very hard (or call it "impossible", "insane" or whatever) in terms of parkour.
I don't know how helpful that would be for most players, honestly. I feel obligated to complete every puzzle, no matter what. As such, I haven't been playing as much because some are so hard (yes, I'm looking at you, Emerald), and I'm rather proud and don't like to ask for hints.
DS-minetest wrote:I don't think that I've seen many boxes that are real puzzles. Puzzle boxes should require the player to use their brain, which is not the case if you just have to search through the whole box, which can take hours and makes me give up because I can't find anything.
This is true, but there are boxes that aren't either puzzles or parkours, but they aren't supposed to be. Often, those are very enjoyable.

Funny how Terminal Trouble took a player the longest to play (not surprising). I think it must have also taken the longest to build, clocking in at 19h10m45s, so I think that it's only fair that the players have to take forever, too :-)
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by GreenXenith » Post

v-rob wrote:Funny how Terminal Trouble took a player the longest to play (not surprising). I think it must have also taken the longest to build, clocking in at 19h10m45s, so I think that it's only fair that the players have to take forever, too :-)
Nope. Box 534 Dollar Shave Club is a 73 hour build, but takes less time (It's really fun but really annoying too!).
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Perks! Yes! We have perks!

Perks are special privileges given out to ... established builders. We currently have 2 obtainable perks:

- zoom. Player may use the `zoom` feature everywere, including in boxes.
- lobby sprint. Player may use the `aux` key to `sprint` in the lobby. Does not work in boxes or when editing.

The zoom perk requires that you have 2 accepted boxes. The lobby sprint perk requires that you have 5 accepted boxes.

These perks are not given out retroactively, but, when your box gets accepted, previously built boxes do count. So, you may just need to only get 1 box accepted to get the zoom perk, or even both perks!

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Wuzzy » Post

What will happen to the boxes when the server shuts down for good?

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Wuzzy wrote:What will happen to the boxes when the server shuts down for good?
Not going to happen. The server will continue to run. The person who maintains it might change, of course, especially if someone equally dedicated as me shows up to do so when I'm no longer capable of doing that.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Gael de Sailly » Post

sofar wrote:One poor person spent 3 hours and ~50 minutes completing a box!
[...]
Yeah yeah you guessed that right, of course it's that one XD.
Ah... I think I recognize myself !! XD
I spent a big part of a day tryharding this box, because I didn't understood how the switches were working and was litterally punching them randomly and then crossing the box to see the result, again and again... Anyway, the goal was to fill some time in a rainy weekend so it was kinda efficient.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Sokomine » Post

DS-minetest wrote: Imo hardcore parkours can be much fun (or at least more fun than boxes where you have to search for levers and co. (*yawn*)) (as long as there are checkpoints).
Parkours are no fun at all. Except if they contain only easy, relaxed jumps like "one block up" or "over a gap of two blocks". That's acceptable. The rest ought to be banned. Or at least labeled so that I don't waste my time with them.
Gael de Sailly wrote:
sofar wrote: One poor person spent 3 hours and ~50 minutes completing a box!
[...]
Yeah yeah you guessed that right, of course it's that one XD.
Ah... I think I recognize myself !! XD
Might as well have been me. Some boxes do take a long time to complete, but many are definitely worth it. I'm glad I'm not the only one taking a long time.
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Gael de Sailly » Post

Sokomine wrote:
DS-minetest wrote: Imo hardcore parkours can be much fun (or at least more fun than boxes where you have to search for levers and co. (*yawn*)) (as long as there are checkpoints).
Parkours are no fun at all. Except if they contain only easy, relaxed jumps like "one block up" or "over a gap of two blocks". That's acceptable. The rest ought to be banned. Or at least labeled so that I don't waste my time with them.
Depends on what you like. I personally enjoy parkour a lot, but I think most of the parkour boxes are poor (just a bunch of blocks scattered on the wall, most of the box being empty). There are only a few interesting, nice-looking parkour boxes, like number 332.
Just realize how bored we would be if the world was perfect.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Gael de Sailly wrote: Depends on what you like. I personally enjoy parkour a lot, but I think most of the parkour boxes are poor (just a bunch of blocks scattered on the wall, most of the box being empty). There are only a few interesting, nice-looking parkour boxes, like number 332.
That's not the most interesting one, because it largely is just parkour IMHO. The best parkour boxes are the ones where you don't realize that you're doing parkour...

And that's really what I want to promote with these new rules - not "blocks on walls". There are plenty of servers where that is easily doable. The mechanics of this server allow for much more freedom - and static floaty blocks is old and tiresome.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by TumeniNodes » Post

ehem... co-op... cough cough
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Kurtzmusch » Post

sofar wrote:A lot of the newer boxes have very little number of completed players. The lowest is... 5 players!
does this counter increase if the same player finishes the box more than once ? sometimes i play my boxes again to see if i can break them in any way after an update or when i think there is an issue... i just dont think one of my boxes got completed by at least 5 diferent people
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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Kurtzmusch wrote: does this counter increase if the same player finishes the box more than once ? sometimes i play my boxes again to see if i can break them in any way after an update or when i think there is an issue... i just dont think one of my boxes got completed by at least 5 diferent people
No, I counted unique players. Not repeats.

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Talk about luxury problems - 9(!) boxes in the review queue today!

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by Wuzzy » Post

I thought there was a private message system. Where is it? Or did I confuse it with something else?

Also, box 679 is broken. If you swim down the wooden trapdoor, you can never escape the hole again.

Edit: Woaaah, so many new boxes! I'm pretty hyped today! :D Thank you all.



Some thoughts about the disappearing torch bug:

- To refresh: You can destroy torches if the block that it sticks to disappears or is dug.
- I suggest: When the player digs the block on which any torches were attached, put all torches that would have been normally destroyed back into the player's inventory
- However, no idea what to do if the block was destroyed by some other means. Maybe drop the torch like a falling node and self-attach it to the ground? Sadly wouldn't work if the ground is a liquid or the box has no floor. :-/
- Also, you can destroy a torch if it was above a pedestal and you put a nexus cube on it.
- For this I suggest: Give back the torch to the player if the nexus cube replaced a torch

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Re: [Server] Inside The Box [Puzzles]

by sofar » Post

Wuzzy wrote:I thought there was a private message system. Where is it? Or did I confuse it with something else?
Yes, there is. You can access it by using any in-game terminal, and using the `telex` commands. There was a post in this thread a few weeks back that explained it. I'll copy that to the topic start so everyone can find it easily.

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