(10-06-2020, 05:01 PM)Haxus Wrote: Also, I was painfully reminded of one huge problem with free to play. It allowed griefers to drive players away without consequence. One of the most demoralizing aspects of developing a game like this is the spiteful people who willfully try to destroy what you have built, even making it their personal mission in life.
The way the game is right now. We don't really have griefers. We have undefined goals and no incentive to play nice with others except for fear being shunned by the community as a whole for being a bully (which likely won't happen ever).
The word "griefer" is poorly defined, it suggests that anyone playing against someone else is "griefing" the other. This is a MMO sandbox with little to no rules. You can't lose the game and you can't win the game. That means that some people will do what they consider fun, even at the expense of others.
I have been wiped out completely by a single guy that doesn't even remember why he started doing it. That isn't griefing, that is a player doing what they think is fun. The part that wasn't fun for me was how the game doesn't have any mechanics that force more fair war and possible defense. And then clear exploitation of mechanics that just enabled the attacker make recapture of occupied cities take forever or be plain impossible.
The "War Dimension" is named such because it allows for players to attack each other. There are no game mechanics to prevent or limit these attacks. You can have your empire attacked and wiped out for sport, or retaliation to an offence you didn't know you committed.
I know there were a few players that joined the war dimension because there is simply more players there and more to do. But then regret it after a while because they don't want to lose what they have built. I understand all that but I didn't come to terms with it lightly either, to the point where I now expect to lose whatever I make which takes some fun out of it.
We have discussed possible war and territory mechanics in the past, but we have actually lost a lot of the old war mechanics with the change from old-style to new-style buildings. Mainly I just want something that prevent complete destruction of all civilian infrastructure the same day the attacker enters the solar system.
See: (Idea thread) Conquest of Solar Systems
(10-06-2020, 05:01 PM)Haxus Wrote: There is possibly a technical reason to force a restart. I was toying with the idea of restructuring the universe so the pvp and pve dimensions each have 10 galaxies. It was encouraging to see similar comments from players. It's a lot of space for both dimensions and then it doesn't give the impression that the pve dimension is somehow less than the pvp dimension.
Maybe we really just need to remove the discontinuity between war and peace dimensions. Or at least make it one way. I see no harm in players moving from the war dimension to the peace dimension. It is mainly the other way that could lead to some issues, such as someone manufacturing giant warships safely in the peace dimension and using them to wipe out empires in the war dimension without fear of retaliation.
But as I mentioned before. I think it would be better if you just had one galaxy in each of the dimensions, then if/when one dimension starts getting overpopulated, you can add another galaxy to it. It is easier to add more galaxies later, than it is remove them. Never assume you know exactly how players would like to play your game.
All that said, I still think resetting the universe is a bad idea. I think you should instead consider asking people in those other galaxies if they would mind if you remove/move the galaxies. And if we want "an even playing field", just remove all warp >1 patents and refit all ships to have warp1 modules installed.