Own browser - mouse path: the beginning
This story began five and a half years ago when one of the users turned to a simple hard worker of all xxxxxxxxxx regional provider Thxxxxxx Xxxxxx on the local network offering to raise an Ogame game clone on the xNova 0.8b RageRepack engine on the local network. At that time, Shhhhhh was actively engaged in creating its own resources — its own DCHub, its own Counter-Strike servers (licensed by Valve!), Its own WSUS, and even its own repository for the main Linux distributions — without mentioning those resources that may cause at the competent authorities. For why mention something that was not and could not be?
Worker thought seemed very interesting. An interesting resource on an interesting topic, and even quite unique within the region. Why not? The appropriate capacities were allocated, accounts were set up, packages were deployed ... Well, you have to imagine the accompanying mutoten even five years ago.
Soon it turned out a couple of unpleasant details. The aforesaid user understood the engine a little less than nothing, so the whole burden of the TP lay on the above-mentioned employee. And when it turned out that ... me ... "to monetize traffic" from users at that time was not possible, then the interest of this user disappeared very quickly. But - the damage has already been done. The aforementioned worker tasted the PHP poison and got involved ...
Five and a half years have passed since then. The provider's employee, Thxxxxxx, has long become a freelancer, while maintaining deep respect for the aforementioned provider. From xNova in the engine “Project 'SuperNova'” there was only a file organization left - and that has undergone noticeable changes. Almost all engine files have been modified, and some more than once. Virtually every aspect of the game has undergone processing, if not at the level of the interface or mechanics, then at the level of the underlying code or template.
')
From the height of the past years, the aforementioned employee had a definite opinion on the conversion of freely downloadable engines into something digestible to users. I would like to share this opinion in this post.
Just want to note: I will argue in the terminology familiar to me ogame-like clones. Those. "Planet", "ship", "fleet", etc. However, all these arguments are applicable to the rest of the terminology applicable to all other browser-based multiplayer strategy games. And that would not get up twice - all of the following is my IMHO, obtained on the basis of personal experience. It is through the prism of personal opinion that one should consider everything below.
If you stupidly put the engine “clean to make money” found in the internet, then you should understand one thing right away: success is possible only in special cases. These cases include:
- Expensive internet access. In this case, you become a monopolist. No matter how bad the quality of services you have, local users simply have no choice but to go to your server. Then it becomes completely unimportant the level of technical support, the presence of critical bugs and other minor nuances. Your players just won't have a choice. However, this is the path to nowhere. The emergence of cheap broadband access to the general Internet is a matter of time. After that, you will have to rely solely on the accumulated base of players. And if you didn’t follow the quality and stability of your server’s work, then when cheap access to the shared Internet appears, you will very quickly lose your players;
- Collusion with the provider. If your game is listed on the provider’s recommended links page - this is + thousand% online. But all of the above is valid for this case. Moreover, all of the above is aggravated by the free access of clients to the “shared Internet”. There, outside, there is already everything that is present in the local network - only bigger, longer, taller and stronger. Your only hope is a solid team of your players. People are by nature very collective and conservative. This means that if a clan of local players successfully plays on your server for a long time, they are unlikely to look for another place to apply their efforts on the global network. If these players know each other personally, then you get +100 against migrating to another server;
- Free resource. If the cost of hosting the engine for you is zero, you do not make any changes to the engine and do not spend money on promotion, then any cash flow from the players for you results in a positive balance. You can’t make a lot of money like that, but you can make money with “almost zero effort”. If you are not interested in the process of modifying the engine, and the income level “for beer” suits you, then perhaps this is your path.
I will not pretend that "all players are equally useful." Just because it is not, if you, of course, plan to reduce the balance to “zero” and do not plan to constantly sponsor the game from your own wallet.
Donators are usually more useful than short-term players. But here it is necessary to observe the measure. It should be borne in mind that donators come and go, and old players always remain. Moreover, the most powerful donators are usually interested in gaining an undue advantage over other players. Indulging them can lead to the emergence of gamebreakers - players at such a level that compares with them without investing a heap of dough is simply impossible.
Here, two traps await you at once.
The first trap - the first-placed donater (top) greatly reduces the motivation of other players. As a result, the effect may turn out to be strictly negative - the profit from the top donator may turn out to be less than the monthly income from the other high-level players who slowly donated to the project, but in such a way that they would have a minimal advantage over other players. Not to mention…
The second trap - a donator who has reached the first place in the rating, can lose interest in the game and leave. Yes, in the short run you will receive abundant cash infusions, but as a result you will find yourself at the back of the trough. You will lose the trust of ordinary non-gaming players - who make up the bulk of the server. Those players who provide basic online.
It is on the online potential donors are guided. What is the point to invest real money in the game, if the average daily online is a dozen players? To whom can a donator boast his fat wallet? Here is the same!
To cheat, too, is not worth it. For example, in ogame-like games, it’s generally accepted to count online by the number of players who performed an action in the last 15 minutes. You can, of course, artificially “grow” online, increasing this gap to 30 minutes or even 1 hour. Separate unscrupulous projects increase the cut-off period online up to a day or even more! Alas, this is a vicious way. A tsiferka "online players" will not affect the number of real players in the game. And it will open very quickly. If the “online” game is over a thousand, and there is no one to play with - the player will very quickly become disillusioned with the game and go to look for another server - with real indicators of activity.
For the same reason, you should not hide the real amount of online. Players are more inclined to register in projects with open and transparent data, and not where it is impossible to even estimate the occupancy of the server.
The same applies to the number of registrations. It makes sense to conduct regular database cleanup for inactive accounts. The reasons are exactly the same as those set out for the online indicator above.
I note that a small online and a small number of registrations are not always a minus of the game. If you have certain killer features in the game, or an active advertising campaign is underway, then a small number of registrations can serve as a definite bonus for the game - earlier registration guarantees previously registered players an additional advantage (all other things being equal). By the way, this brings us to the next item.
Any player with the appropriate skill must be able to overthrow the player from the first place. Yes, the path to the top may be long - but it must be achievable. Those. “You can become a top player in 200 years” is not an option. But "you can become a top player in half a year" - is already quite acceptable. Not everyone agrees even on this iteration of "reachability" - but the top players who have spent several years playing the game must be sure that only a skill can knock them off from a well-deserved place. And that brings us to the next point.
The game should not have gaming features available exclusively to donators! For loot, you can sell jewelry and additional functionality. For example, selling a super design skin for a game for loot is normal and correct. But selling a superfood mega combat unit exclusively for loot is very wrong.
Of course, there are some nuances too. I will not build hygienic - for the price of selling the server at the request of the donator, he can draw anything he wants. Naturally, it should take into account the price of its reputation and lay it in advance. But in fact - if there is someone who is willing to pay SUCH loot - then consider theboy the owner of the server to succeed.
For the rest, I emphasize again. For real money, you can sell only what requires real money from the server owner or something that does not affect the game mechanics.
An example of the first option - guaranteed sending SMS-messages about the attack on the planet. An example of the second option is a different skin or template. Or (as I have done) the possibility of advanced settings of the application menu.
Also, according to the second variant, all sorts of "process handlers" are suitable. For example - the possibility of "mass production" - a quick, easy and convenient way to build a certain unit (s) at once on all the planets. The same can be achieved with a little more time using the standard game interface. Ie this is a matter of convenience only.
There is a clear line between "convenience" and "automation". Automation is always convenient, but not always useful from the point of view of the owner. Yes, you can do, for example, a chip with an automatic rise of the fleet from the planet during an attack. Yes, it will be convenient in the game. But if this chip is available exclusively for real money, then this will give an unjustified advantage to the donators. But even if it will be available only for game resources, the result may be no less devastating! Being "cheap" in terms of in-game resources, the chip can almost completely make senseless attacks on other players (yes, I remember the "catch in returning the fleet" and other tactical tricks). And being “expensive” - it will become available only to high-level players. And this brings us to the next point.
Yes Yes exactly! Most of the players are newbies. If things are different with you - I must tell you: “Houston, you have problems!” If the influx of newcomers to the game has stopped or if the arrival of new players does not compensate for the outflow of old players, then you have big problems. What to do in these cases - it is better to ask the guru of advertising and godless CEO. I do not fall into any of these categories, so I will talk about the case when you still have a constant influx of newcomers
It is clear that it is very hard to keep a “fresh look” on the game when you have been developing it for half a decade. However, you still need to try to look at each innovation from the point of view of a new user. Will the new feature be convenient for a newbie? Will it help keep a newbie in the game? Will it make it easier for a newbie to play?
If there is no tutorial in the game, make it. If there is no opportunity / not enough time - write a FAQ-FAQ. If you can not and this - at least keep a log of changes. Even this is not enough time? "Congratulations"! The average new player will leave the game without even understanding the essence of your game!
However, it is not necessary to go too far. You do not need to rush to the replicas of new players (in a personal, in a chat, by email, etc.) and to crush the game for the sake of newcomers. After all, you have a pool of old, proven players! These are the people who came during the launch of an imperfect and (optional) buggy game that have stayed with you all these years despite all the changes in the mechanics and interfaces of the game! And from here it follows naturally ...
If your game is already more than a year old, if you follow the principles outlined above clearly, if you are not chasing money, then by this time you should have a small, but dense and welded pool of “old players”. They should not be underestimated. After all, these are people who have gone through the most difficult moment of launching the game along with you - and have remained faithful to you. During the year you should have made many changes and additions to the game (or at least patch the game according to the engine you chose) - but the old players are still in the game. This means that they share and understand your aspirations to a certain extent. This alone is worth it to listen to their opinions!
However, one must be very careful with the opinions of the Old Players. We need to clearly realize - this opinion is not the driving force of the game! This is just a balance and a counterbalance to your own desire to add new features and features to the game. Old Players are stapers. “Do you remember how good it was at the beginning?” - this is the leitmotif of their lamentations. As a rule, "AS GOOD" means a certain imbalance in the game, which allowed them to take a leading place in the game. And eliminating this imbalance can dislodge Old Players from their old place.
However, in the same way, one cannot immediately reject the opinion of the Old Players. Old Players - they are different. HOW THE RULE - these are old footers who oppose innovations. Just because of the inertia of human thinking. Even if the innovation does not relate to the balance of the game, the Old Players may be displeased only because the new is unusual.
Here it is worthwhile to dwell separately on the concept of "uncomfortable." It is to the Old Players that practically any innovation in the interface will seem “inconvenient”. There should be a certain hardness. If you yourself have tested the new interface on all reasonably accessible platforms, while SI continues to lament about how “inconvenient” it is, but at the same time mostly positive reports are coming from the “new” players - this means that the new interface does not "Uncomfortable", but simply "unusual." And SI just do not want to part with the reflexes accumulated on the old interface.
However, if the SI points to a certain imbalance in the mechanics of the game, then it is necessary to pause, stop, try to clear your mind of the dogma “EVERYTHING I HAVE DONE - THIS IS GOOD” and look at the changes with an unobservable look. There is a possibility that SI found a certain bug in your wonderful innovation. And if that is what happened, then you shouldn’t stand with a horn - it’s better to admit your mistake and roll back the changes. Ignoring your mistakes will cost you more in the future.
Wow! Post has already grown to 15k +! Therefore, at this Scheherezid ends the allowed speeches. If the post passes, it will be moderated and Habronarod will show interest - the next post will reveal the meaning of the title and give other recommendations for those who want to launch their browser.
Continued: habrahabr.ru/post/249705
Worker thought seemed very interesting. An interesting resource on an interesting topic, and even quite unique within the region. Why not? The appropriate capacities were allocated, accounts were set up, packages were deployed ... Well, you have to imagine the accompanying mutoten even five years ago.
Soon it turned out a couple of unpleasant details. The aforesaid user understood the engine a little less than nothing, so the whole burden of the TP lay on the above-mentioned employee. And when it turned out that ... me ... "to monetize traffic" from users at that time was not possible, then the interest of this user disappeared very quickly. But - the damage has already been done. The aforementioned worker tasted the PHP poison and got involved ...
Five and a half years have passed since then. The provider's employee, Thxxxxxx, has long become a freelancer, while maintaining deep respect for the aforementioned provider. From xNova in the engine “Project 'SuperNova'” there was only a file organization left - and that has undergone noticeable changes. Almost all engine files have been modified, and some more than once. Virtually every aspect of the game has undergone processing, if not at the level of the interface or mechanics, then at the level of the underlying code or template.
')
From the height of the past years, the aforementioned employee had a definite opinion on the conversion of freely downloadable engines into something digestible to users. I would like to share this opinion in this post.
Just want to note: I will argue in the terminology familiar to me ogame-like clones. Those. "Planet", "ship", "fleet", etc. However, all these arguments are applicable to the rest of the terminology applicable to all other browser-based multiplayer strategy games. And that would not get up twice - all of the following is my IMHO, obtained on the basis of personal experience. It is through the prism of personal opinion that one should consider everything below.
Point one - HERE FISH NO
If you stupidly put the engine “clean to make money” found in the internet, then you should understand one thing right away: success is possible only in special cases. These cases include:
- Expensive internet access. In this case, you become a monopolist. No matter how bad the quality of services you have, local users simply have no choice but to go to your server. Then it becomes completely unimportant the level of technical support, the presence of critical bugs and other minor nuances. Your players just won't have a choice. However, this is the path to nowhere. The emergence of cheap broadband access to the general Internet is a matter of time. After that, you will have to rely solely on the accumulated base of players. And if you didn’t follow the quality and stability of your server’s work, then when cheap access to the shared Internet appears, you will very quickly lose your players;
- Collusion with the provider. If your game is listed on the provider’s recommended links page - this is + thousand% online. But all of the above is valid for this case. Moreover, all of the above is aggravated by the free access of clients to the “shared Internet”. There, outside, there is already everything that is present in the local network - only bigger, longer, taller and stronger. Your only hope is a solid team of your players. People are by nature very collective and conservative. This means that if a clan of local players successfully plays on your server for a long time, they are unlikely to look for another place to apply their efforts on the global network. If these players know each other personally, then you get +100 against migrating to another server;
- Free resource. If the cost of hosting the engine for you is zero, you do not make any changes to the engine and do not spend money on promotion, then any cash flow from the players for you results in a positive balance. You can’t make a lot of money like that, but you can make money with “almost zero effort”. If you are not interested in the process of modifying the engine, and the income level “for beer” suits you, then perhaps this is your path.
Point two - appreciate all players
I will not pretend that "all players are equally useful." Just because it is not, if you, of course, plan to reduce the balance to “zero” and do not plan to constantly sponsor the game from your own wallet.
Donators are usually more useful than short-term players. But here it is necessary to observe the measure. It should be borne in mind that donators come and go, and old players always remain. Moreover, the most powerful donators are usually interested in gaining an undue advantage over other players. Indulging them can lead to the emergence of gamebreakers - players at such a level that compares with them without investing a heap of dough is simply impossible.
Here, two traps await you at once.
The first trap - the first-placed donater (top) greatly reduces the motivation of other players. As a result, the effect may turn out to be strictly negative - the profit from the top donator may turn out to be less than the monthly income from the other high-level players who slowly donated to the project, but in such a way that they would have a minimal advantage over other players. Not to mention…
The second trap - a donator who has reached the first place in the rating, can lose interest in the game and leave. Yes, in the short run you will receive abundant cash infusions, but as a result you will find yourself at the back of the trough. You will lose the trust of ordinary non-gaming players - who make up the bulk of the server. Those players who provide basic online.
Point three - ONLINE + REGISTRATION IS OUR EVERYTHING!
It is on the online potential donors are guided. What is the point to invest real money in the game, if the average daily online is a dozen players? To whom can a donator boast his fat wallet? Here is the same!
To cheat, too, is not worth it. For example, in ogame-like games, it’s generally accepted to count online by the number of players who performed an action in the last 15 minutes. You can, of course, artificially “grow” online, increasing this gap to 30 minutes or even 1 hour. Separate unscrupulous projects increase the cut-off period online up to a day or even more! Alas, this is a vicious way. A tsiferka "online players" will not affect the number of real players in the game. And it will open very quickly. If the “online” game is over a thousand, and there is no one to play with - the player will very quickly become disillusioned with the game and go to look for another server - with real indicators of activity.
For the same reason, you should not hide the real amount of online. Players are more inclined to register in projects with open and transparent data, and not where it is impossible to even estimate the occupancy of the server.
The same applies to the number of registrations. It makes sense to conduct regular database cleanup for inactive accounts. The reasons are exactly the same as those set out for the online indicator above.
I note that a small online and a small number of registrations are not always a minus of the game. If you have certain killer features in the game, or an active advertising campaign is underway, then a small number of registrations can serve as a definite bonus for the game - earlier registration guarantees previously registered players an additional advantage (all other things being equal). By the way, this brings us to the next item.
Item Four - SKILL> TERM OF GAME
Any player with the appropriate skill must be able to overthrow the player from the first place. Yes, the path to the top may be long - but it must be achievable. Those. “You can become a top player in 200 years” is not an option. But "you can become a top player in half a year" - is already quite acceptable. Not everyone agrees even on this iteration of "reachability" - but the top players who have spent several years playing the game must be sure that only a skill can knock them off from a well-deserved place. And that brings us to the next point.
Item Five - SKILL> DONAT
The game should not have gaming features available exclusively to donators! For loot, you can sell jewelry and additional functionality. For example, selling a super design skin for a game for loot is normal and correct. But selling a superfood mega combat unit exclusively for loot is very wrong.
Of course, there are some nuances too. I will not build hygienic - for the price of selling the server at the request of the donator, he can draw anything he wants. Naturally, it should take into account the price of its reputation and lay it in advance. But in fact - if there is someone who is willing to pay SUCH loot - then consider the
For the rest, I emphasize again. For real money, you can sell only what requires real money from the server owner or something that does not affect the game mechanics.
An example of the first option - guaranteed sending SMS-messages about the attack on the planet. An example of the second option is a different skin or template. Or (as I have done) the possibility of advanced settings of the application menu.
Also, according to the second variant, all sorts of "process handlers" are suitable. For example - the possibility of "mass production" - a quick, easy and convenient way to build a certain unit (s) at once on all the planets. The same can be achieved with a little more time using the standard game interface. Ie this is a matter of convenience only.
There is a clear line between "convenience" and "automation". Automation is always convenient, but not always useful from the point of view of the owner. Yes, you can do, for example, a chip with an automatic rise of the fleet from the planet during an attack. Yes, it will be convenient in the game. But if this chip is available exclusively for real money, then this will give an unjustified advantage to the donators. But even if it will be available only for game resources, the result may be no less devastating! Being "cheap" in terms of in-game resources, the chip can almost completely make senseless attacks on other players (yes, I remember the "catch in returning the fleet" and other tactical tricks). And being “expensive” - it will become available only to high-level players. And this brings us to the next point.
Point Six - MOST PLAYERS - BEGINNERS
Yes Yes exactly! Most of the players are newbies. If things are different with you - I must tell you: “Houston, you have problems!” If the influx of newcomers to the game has stopped or if the arrival of new players does not compensate for the outflow of old players, then you have big problems. What to do in these cases - it is better to ask the guru of advertising and godless CEO. I do not fall into any of these categories, so I will talk about the case when you still have a constant influx of newcomers
It is clear that it is very hard to keep a “fresh look” on the game when you have been developing it for half a decade. However, you still need to try to look at each innovation from the point of view of a new user. Will the new feature be convenient for a newbie? Will it help keep a newbie in the game? Will it make it easier for a newbie to play?
If there is no tutorial in the game, make it. If there is no opportunity / not enough time - write a FAQ-FAQ. If you can not and this - at least keep a log of changes. Even this is not enough time? "Congratulations"! The average new player will leave the game without even understanding the essence of your game!
However, it is not necessary to go too far. You do not need to rush to the replicas of new players (in a personal, in a chat, by email, etc.) and to crush the game for the sake of newcomers. After all, you have a pool of old, proven players! These are the people who came during the launch of an imperfect and (optional) buggy game that have stayed with you all these years despite all the changes in the mechanics and interfaces of the game! And from here it follows naturally ...
Point Seven - LISTEN TO OLD PLAYERS
If your game is already more than a year old, if you follow the principles outlined above clearly, if you are not chasing money, then by this time you should have a small, but dense and welded pool of “old players”. They should not be underestimated. After all, these are people who have gone through the most difficult moment of launching the game along with you - and have remained faithful to you. During the year you should have made many changes and additions to the game (or at least patch the game according to the engine you chose) - but the old players are still in the game. This means that they share and understand your aspirations to a certain extent. This alone is worth it to listen to their opinions!
However, one must be very careful with the opinions of the Old Players. We need to clearly realize - this opinion is not the driving force of the game! This is just a balance and a counterbalance to your own desire to add new features and features to the game. Old Players are stapers. “Do you remember how good it was at the beginning?” - this is the leitmotif of their lamentations. As a rule, "AS GOOD" means a certain imbalance in the game, which allowed them to take a leading place in the game. And eliminating this imbalance can dislodge Old Players from their old place.
However, in the same way, one cannot immediately reject the opinion of the Old Players. Old Players - they are different. HOW THE RULE - these are old footers who oppose innovations. Just because of the inertia of human thinking. Even if the innovation does not relate to the balance of the game, the Old Players may be displeased only because the new is unusual.
Here it is worthwhile to dwell separately on the concept of "uncomfortable." It is to the Old Players that practically any innovation in the interface will seem “inconvenient”. There should be a certain hardness. If you yourself have tested the new interface on all reasonably accessible platforms, while SI continues to lament about how “inconvenient” it is, but at the same time mostly positive reports are coming from the “new” players - this means that the new interface does not "Uncomfortable", but simply "unusual." And SI just do not want to part with the reflexes accumulated on the old interface.
However, if the SI points to a certain imbalance in the mechanics of the game, then it is necessary to pause, stop, try to clear your mind of the dogma “EVERYTHING I HAVE DONE - THIS IS GOOD” and look at the changes with an unobservable look. There is a possibility that SI found a certain bug in your wonderful innovation. And if that is what happened, then you shouldn’t stand with a horn - it’s better to admit your mistake and roll back the changes. Ignoring your mistakes will cost you more in the future.
Wow! Post has already grown to 15k +! Therefore, at this Scheherezid ends the allowed speeches. If the post passes, it will be moderated and Habronarod will show interest - the next post will reveal the meaning of the title and give other recommendations for those who want to launch their browser.
Continued: habrahabr.ru/post/249705
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/249625/
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