Jump to content

SingSong

Writer
  • Posts

    319
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    9

Everything posted by SingSong

  1. I got another look at #3 and now that looks pretty cool. It's a chick coming out of its house. Clever.
  2. That's actually pretty cool. I like your logo.
  3. Hey. Welcome! Whether you decide to be a lurker or a poster in the future, glad to have you here!
  4. Hi. I know that there has been some talk in past about things that were included on sites that are offensive. For example, Marapets' Mental Costume (http://www.marapets.com/petcolours.php?do=colours&id=Mental) as well as other pet colors on that site and other sites that depict different cultures like Native American and Chinese. There have been some people that dislike seeing pet markings like tribal patterns that are inspired from existing cultures. Additionally, some words like "Crazy" and "Gypsy" and (I had never heard this one was offensive until a few years ago) "Spook", among others, have upset people. My question is: how much do you worry about offending people with different things on your game? And to what length would you go to appease your userbase if they become offended by something?
  5. Read your post. You bring up some very good points. I actually wrote a blog post years ago on VPL titled "Why browser games don't make good games." and it had to do with the fact that there is no "end goal". You're basically left to play the same features over and over, which don't offer stimulation to your mind anymore (some features are rather mindless "click" activities to begin with). It astounds me sometimes that people can play on sites like Subeta year and year when after playing for a couple months and seeing the holiday events, there's nothing new to encounter. I remember someone saying something like, "I see no problem with the holidays being the same every year. In real life, we do the same things every year, too, after all." But real life holidays and online events shouldn't be set up the same. Holidays in real life have to do with spending time with family and friends and getting out of the routine of working and instead being able to relax with the people you care about for a moment and reward yourself and others with something fun. But online, these events should require some challenge and skill and teamwork (on top of the community getting together for a moment), and it shouldn't be the same every year, and it shouldn't involve collecting items that appear on your screen after a screen refresh (this is an event I've seen on multiple sites). It should be something designed with creativity and thoughtfulness geared toward an adult audience that is capable of completing difficult tasks. Continuing on that thought, sites tend to reuse the same kind of functionality used on other games without altering it to fit their game or improve the feature in any way. I think that in some cases, these features are seen again and again functioning one way and when designing a game, it's hard to look at that feature with new eyes and really question if that's the best way for the feature to be. But when thinking about it, shops and the restock system, health and happiness bars being raised by food and toys, or the inventory and "daily" features, as you mention, are all things that should be up for revision, because not only will differences in those main features set a game apart from others, it may potentially lead to a more interesting game. One idea you mention, a backpack upgrade, that does this for the inventory enables feature-to-feature quick stock without backpack involvement.. eg; 'Gallery' directly to 'User Store'" is one of those things that seems like such a simple change for the better but is constantly overlooked. (I love this change, by the way). And this just goes to show that there is so much more to change and improve upon these kinds of games that hasn't been done before. I'm not sure how you plan to set up multiplayer games, but these are a couple examples I've seen on browser games and both seemed to work pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5nVjQBgtYc And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLsUCN0DAt4 You can of course change the human avatars to whatever display avatars you plan to have on your site and simplify these in some ways, but being able to chat with others while playing and choosing "rooms" to play within are the main things that work well from these two examples. I'd like to see your multiplayer example when you have something ready. And now that you mention it ("Many pet games these days have a "send score", leaderboard or "see if you can beat X Player's time of xx"), I agree that it would be wise for new games to possibly change that system of gameplay in some ways. There's so much more you can do with a few changes. "...we are developing the story in such a way that users can go back to experience different segments of the storyline many times over, perhaps even make different decisions, completely altering the outcome during their second, third or twelth playthrough! More info on storylines to come in the future" I like this and am interested in learning more. (Sorry that I keep coming back, haha, but these topics of conversation that you bring up interest me.) Any news on the art portion of your site?
  6. On the topic of unique names, has anyone considered having unique names for pets but allowing users to have nicknames for the pets (similar to how some sites will have you create a username but allow you to have a display name that's different)?
  7. Well, the other thing to note about Kickstarters is that they're most likely to be successful if you have a following for the project already or if you have someone on the team that has an existing fanbase. It may be hard to find many people to donate when you only have a few months to advertise before you want to go public. The difference with something like Netflix is that that hypothetical competitor would essentially offer the same service (i.e. you could watch the same movies under a different service company), so yes, you may consider using that new company instead. But with something like a pet site, each one offers its own experience. So someone willing to pay for a premium account for whatever benefits they gain from it can't just take their money elsewhere when someone has a cheaper model for premium. Regarding your comment about how you would pay for Runescape's premium account if it would be like you describe, I don't disagree that more users would pay for a premium like this. However, would the amount of additional people that are willing to pay for premium even out the amount of money you lose from members that were willing to pay for the older style model in which every day regardless of whether they play or not is counted against them? It's debatable and would require some testing. Good luck with whatever you decide to do here. It would be interesting to see if changing this makes a big difference or not. I like the idea of making these items more difficult to obtain when they become available to everyone. If these will only be rewarded through difficult or random means, I can see that being enough of a hassle that some people may be willing to pay for them beforehand. I have never personally seen a problem with this model. Looking at this from the perspective of a game owner, is there a problem with your users becoming instantly rich? You are right; this is a possibility. But you have to consider: 1. If your players play the game long enough, they will eventually become rich. Does it matter when this happens? If they want to buy their way to success, why take that away from them, especially when it will benefit you and your game because you'll make money from it? 2. Your players becoming rich should not impact your game negatively because it should be set up in a way that requires things like skill or problem solving or completion of quests, too, which prevent players from excelling in the game with virtual currency alone. Well, I hope it works out for you. I'll be following this project.
  8. Welcome! Thanks for joining TGL. I hope you like it here.
  9. Hi, everyone. This topic recently came up for discussion with a couple people I know. How much do HTML5 games go for? I'd like to hear the opinions of both sellers and buyers. As far as base prices go, what would you consider for these types of games? A sidescrolling platformer? A match game? A snake game? A match-three game like Bejeweled? A memory/Simon Says game? A game like Bubble Witch? Obviously, the more complex a game is the higher the price would be. If you were to instead pay for time, how much would you say is reasonable to pay hourly to an HTML5 game programmer? As an HTML5 game programmer, do you think it's more profitable to sell unique game scripts to individual people or to sell licenses for a game to multiple people for slightly less money?
  10. It's good that you already know people that you like working with. I hope that works out for you. If you need help proof-reading or want an honest critique of sorts, I can help you with that. I can give you input from a writer/editor perspective as well as the perspective of a pet site player and be able to tell you whether you're going in the right direction or not. So you don't only travel back in time, you're also able to alter the present by past actions? Interesting. I would like to see this come to life. Very cool. If you're able to make it happen, I'll be a player for sure. Pros: Extra money, helps build up hype for your game, gets people invested financially (so they'll hopefully stick around). Cons: -Some of the Kickstarter rewards that do best will negatively impact your game long-term (i.e. Kickstarter-exclusives or other limited items). -You will need to spend time creating rewards and tiers because these will make or break your campaign. This time could potentially be put to better use. -Even if your Kickstarter is successfully funded, you may end up being in the hole financially. This happens if you set up rewards without much forethought. And example of this is the Evocality Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evocality/evocality This Kickstarter raised $8000 out of a $5000 goal, but the owner stated that even after that they didn't have enough money. Why? Because the money they earned had to be spent on the rewards themselves. If you look at their tiers, you'll see where this all falls apart. At $30, you'll get one custom dog. At $50, you'll get 2. At $75, you can design two items with an artist, plus get both the customs. Everything above that tier is another reward of designing items and getting customs. This type of system of rewards will make money in the Kickstarter but as an owner, you have to consider that not only will these customs take artists' time away from other parts of the site, every piece will need to be paid for, which reduces the overall profit. -Aside from offering customs or Kickstarter-exclusives, what rewards can you offer that are appealing and will not be detrimental to you or your site over time? Again, this takes a lot of thought. -Lastly, considering that the amount you'll make is rather small (about 2k-10k on average for these kinds of games), would it be better for you to make the game public first and focus on later cash shop items instead? After all, if you make cash shop items rather than Kickstarter-exclusive items, those items can be sold indefinitely and continue to make you money over time. What do you think the profit potential actually is for a system like this? If you end up having 800 active monthly users, let's assume 50 will be willing to pay for a premium account (so 6.25% of users, a little less than 1/10 people). If you charge $10 a month (which is pretty high for a monthly subscription because you're competing with other subscriptions like gym memberships, Netflix, etc), then you'll make $500 a month, minus fees. If you charge $5 (which is more in line with the price of these "gold" accounts on pet sites), that's $250, which is small change for any active site. Now consider that you will also only have people pay for the days they are active. Only a small portion of your active members will log in every day, but I'll assume that the majority of the people that want to buy a premium account are active daily. Let's say that 30 are online every day (so they pay $5 a month for premium), but the other 20 are only active on average for 15 days a month, so they don't pay on those days. In two months, the 30 active people pay $300. The 20 semi-active players pay $100. That's $400 in two months, which sounds all right, but again, this is assuming you have about 800 active monthly users when most sites probably have 100. Anyway, you'd lose $100 in this hypothetical scenario just to have it so people only pay for the days they're active? How does that make sense from a business standpoint? If someone pays for a monthly subscription, it's up to them to use it as much as possible. "Eventually drop into the free pool and are then available to everyone." What you're saying is that there's little benefit in buying these things. You as the site owner either have to rely on people's charity and willingness to support the site, or you have to hope that people are interested in having things before others so much so that they're willing to pay for it. That kind of "hope" is not helpful in having a successful business because although it may work for you, it may also fail. I like this idea of "Content Packs". This is unique and interesting. I think it could bring in some money because many people on these sites like to collect things. However, "purchasable using real money or in-game currency": Again, although it is "nice" to allow the option to buy these with in-game currency instead of real money, you're going to lower your potential for profits. Why not, instead, simply allow cash shop buyers to sell and trade their purchased packs? That will give people another reason to buy them (because even if they don't want the pack themselves, they can sell it for site currency to someone that may want it).
  11. Welcome. Thanks for joining!
  12. Welcome, Dracula. Happy to see you here, and I hope you use the marketplace; I love browsing through your work.
  13. Haha, your avatar is beautiful. Welcome.
  14. I've read your concept, and I like it. Once upon a time, I wanted to create a time traveling game as well. But as you've noted, the idea is very art intensive. Not only do you have to find an artist you like but one that also creates everything you need in a timely manner at a price range that doesn't drain your pockets. What amount of pets, places, NPCs, and other art do you plan on beginning with? Even if you had someone devoted to this project full time, it may be hard to reach that deadline, to be honest. That's five months to build a world from scratch. And not just a world but a world with an entire history. In addition to the art, there's also writing, and for a project like this, writing will be especially important, because poor writing, typos, and inconsistencies will take away from the believability of the world. Plus, if you want to do the "time traveling" theme well, you'll want to include a build up in your writing, foreshadowing the tragedies that are to come, and you'll also want to make little connections between the present and the past, referencing things that have happened before. Tying it all together well—that's the work of an experienced writer. The other thing you should deeply consider is how you plan on monetizing this game. It may not seem like a big deal to pay out of your pocket initially for an idea you really connect with, but after months or years of doing that (or having to pay in hard times financially), it may be more than you bargained for.
  15. I am glad to hear that things have been working out with you and PaulSonny. I also saw him making updates in the Kasaria bug forum regarding which ones had been fixed and thought that was pretty cool.
  16. I've never really understood this argument. If you can name your pet whatever you want, how does the name of other people's pets affect that? If you want yours to be unique, you still have the option to come up with a less common name. If you choose a name like "Kitty" or "Shadow", your pet never had a unique name, because those words have been used to name pets for ages. In fact, you can be more unique if there are non-unique names, because then you can have a pet named something like "Shadowly" and people are unlikely to take that name because they've all picked "Shadow" instead. Think about it, I doubt no one on this forum has a unique name. But does that actually matter? No. We are all unique people. A name is simply used to make it easier to describe people in conversations or call out to them. If your name is Tom and there is another Tom in your class, do you think anything of it, besides, "Hey, that's cool. We have the same name."? I actually find it strange to see this mentality of wanting unique names spring up from sites like Neopets and others that follow suit. Didn't anyone realize what a nightmare that became on Neopets? I don't want to have to name my pet something like "Mezerdia" because all the typical names are taken and then some. Not everyone wants a fantasy-sounding name for their pet or a name that reuses letters like "Jekkylll" because that was the only fitting name for the person's pet and now they have to go around all the taken ones just so it sounds and looks similar to what they actually wanted. Can someone really tell me what the fun in claiming names is? Do you really feel like that gives your character/pet more meaning? Why does what other people have matter so much? Or is it the value unique names have on these games? The fact that you can trade them and look "rich"? Wouldn't you rather your account have value from something other than stumbling upon an untaken name? Shouldn't the value of your account be built by actual playable features on the site? I really don't get the draw of unique names and "low IDs". Sometimes I wonder if it's just a goal to have on a site that lacks other goals for users.
  17. Welcome! Thank you for joining!
  18. Interesting. I'll try it out while I work on other things.
  19. Awesome! Let us know when you have more. I'm certainly interested in seeing your other games.
×
×
  • Create New...