sorry for the grammar and etc, english is not my first language...
i have been playing this game for about a few hours, because this game is still beta, so it gives me an obligation to tell my gaming experience to the creator(or not)...
IT'S TOO EPIC
wow, from the reference i read, i can see that this game is very epic and very detailed in a lot of ways. And it offers month's of gameplay and forces the user to use planning in order to effectively proceed the game. But i think it's too far-fetched for a web-based game to offers fun and months of gameplay contents in the same time. I mean your target is to make the user enjoy the fun of the game but you also forces them to devote their time too much in this game (wait 35 days to see your monster's final evolution, the massive storyline, with massive quest, a lot of town to explore). But despite the epicness in the game, the largest portion of what i do is probably hunting and training which will probably bore most of the people in their first week of this game...
Actually the key for making an epic web based game is to have big solid community that plays on it so the people who plays the game doesnt feel lonely, your web based game in the other hand is epic in the game contents, thus making the final goal quite intangible/unreasonable/almost impossible to achieve.
IT'S TOO ECLECTIC
Well not only your game content is epic but the gameplay is no different. I find that you mixed the gameplay of several different popular breeding game(monster rancher : stats, priorities, digimon : evolution, pokemon : skills, town, town god, exploration system,a little bit of FF classical rpg system, typical PVP guild MMORPG, etc). This makes your game very rich on gameplay, yet confusing. It's like mixing a nice color like red, green, blue, yellow etc into one color(you can experiment the result). The genre is great because it stand for itself and i think it was meant not to be merged with other genre so abbusively. Maybe it's okay to merge 1 or 2 genre into one but this is just too much...
IT'S TOO "NOT USER FRIENDLY"
Because your game content is too massive, you need to explain lots of basic of this game so your. I even have the difficulty of starting the game because the are so many options in to click!! not to mention that the option give birth to another options that makes it more confusing. And the tutorial girls only give a little help(or none). Keep the complicated/confusing stuff hidden and give the simple and easy to understand stuff to the user. The proof that a game have a nice interface is that a new gamer can play the game without the difficulty of understanding the game mechanics based on their intuition of gaming not the tutorial.
IT'S NOT TOO WEB-BASED-GAME-ISH
Because you mixed the genre so much, the true genre of the game(web-based) is becoming very vivid. Now it's more like a pokemon game "with different monster than pokemon and you have to wait 35 days to fully evolve your monster" played on the internet. Actually if i want to play pokemon i can just download the DS emulator and the Pokemon Diamond, and Pokemon pearl ROM and play it offline. I think your game might have a chance being a popular web-based game because it gives monster-breeding as it's main gameplay, but because your gameplay is very similiar to pokemon so people will compare the game with pokemon not other web-based game(u got no chance if your game is compared with pokemon). But once again if your genre is web-based you might still have a chance to be on the same ground as the rest of the web-based game...
IT'S NOT READY TO GO COMMERCIAL
the amount of players playing this game is so scarce(even for beta) proofs that most of the players didn't enjoy the game like the rest of the players that enjoy the game. And the players that enjoy the game didn't enjoy the game enough that they want to reffer the game to thier friends(even though it's still beta)... It gotta meant something right??
i hate this game because i love it even more... believe me...
I think the best solution for the first point is to somehow fill up how someone spends their time. Either you add little quests here and there for people to do while training, or you limit the amount they can do each day to spread things out a little bit more. The second part kinda goes against the core idea of the game, though, so quests seems like the obvious solution.
I was thinking about that yesterday when Vael mentioned the Helloween reference quest, and I'm not saying we should have ten thousand quests, because too much isn't good either. But it would give people a reason to take their time moving on, instead of sitting down for a few hours and getting to Port Ceres in one day.
In terms of explaining the game, more quests could help. Instead of expecting people to read the reference, which a lot of people probably won't do, there could be little quests to explain each section of the game. "Have you talked to the realtor yet? Maybe you should see him about upgrading your flimsy barn to hold a second monster!" "Did you know that you can splice your older monsters together? Someone at the lab might be able to explain it better than I can, though." Add in a page like the story quest things to make a bit of a "conversation" and we've got a nice tutorial.
It is different from most web based games, which is a good point. It's not a Tribal Wars/Travian clone. It's not Torn City/etc. It's not The Ninja MMORPG/etc. It's not Marcoland/etc. These games all have tick/time based systems, which is more or less the standard for web based games, although there are some that get into a system where more time = more gameplay.
The problem is, a system like that wouldn't work very well in this. You get to move ten times every minute? How do you expect anyone to ever make it to a city? You have a tick every three hours, and people need to be online twice as often. If you add some sort of stamina system or something that refills at midnight, how do you do it without limiting the amount of time someone can spend in the game?
The problem is that the game's been around for a long time, and most of the people who used to play just moved on over time. The other problem is that not everyone would enjoy something like this, so that limits the number of people you can refer. I have a handful of friends who do play web based games, out of a very large number of friends. Of that handful, I can only think of one person who would actually play this, and he really doesn't have the time in his life right now to start playing another game. I would have referred anyone I could have when I signed up, but that number is limited unless you've got a huge number of friends you met online, since they're your best bet for referrals.
There's probably some stuff I should add, but I need to get ready for work, so I'll come back to this later today.
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
I see what you mean by the world not feeling very "alive". I wish I could keep the 'average joe' gamer, but it gets pretty hard for the game to do so. I've tried many solutions, and I think you've nailed it - the game is too damn big. It's too "epic", too detailed. I can at least say we keep a good enough amount of newbies, but nowhere what the game could get.
I think also a lot of people expect us to be a clone game, so when they join, they're either happily surprised, or just give up.
I'm going to go through it right now and take a look at what I can do to make it simpler. It really is a big mess. Also, about the adult form, (final form) that's kinda just how the game goes. If I could look back at it, I'd change MonBre so you would level the monster and he'd evolve that much, and splicing would only be done when his level is too high to be raising the stats well. (ie: you would want to do it for combat purposes) What do you think of that? It still is possible to change, as are all things.
I designed MonBre so that you don't "have" to log in, and in that, I think I've actually taken away some potential addiction. I need to find a balance where I can say the game isn't a chore (job) to play, but still at the same time, people would want to log in daily. Currently we have working, which encourages people to send their monster to work for the days they aren't playing. (thus they still log in)
Also, the game is not in beta anymore, where did you see that? We released in August of 2008. (but we might as well be xD)
Also: rakki, in about a week, maybe you should try to bring them over. I say in a week because I'm going to take Muriel's suggestions to heart and see if I can clean this mess up!
The evolution/splicing depending on levels sounds great to me, I was thinking about that while I was typing that up, but forgot about it by the time I got to the end of the post. You wouldn't want it to be too soon, though, seeing as my current exploring monster is level 242...
The way splicing works right now would fit perfectly with that kind of system, because SRP cost doesn't depend as much on the amount in the stat as much as it depends on level. If it worked differently, I'd suggest raising the splicing level every time the monster gets spliced or something, but as it is everything should work great.
I'll see who I can invite, let me know when you think is the right time. They probably won't be as active as I am, but then again I have no life, so it all works out.
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
Honestly I've been toying now with the idea of it being based on levels. I think that would be pretty cool after all... even though I spent like forever... >_____<;; making it...
One thing I can tell you now for sure is that we're going to see a rework of the employment center and the way the game stops you from exploring and whatnot.
I expect to go to a "24 hour" system with work. You send your monster to work, it works for 8 hours. (currently is for 3 'ticks', which can range anywhere from 13-18 hours realistically) Then the exact hour that those 9 end, you can send to work again. I would cut the working wages literally in half, to compensate for this. This allows people to have a monster who can explore + work in the same day. I am designing this with the high schooler in mind; when I would wake up in the morning it was 6. I'd play my shitty clone games, get my ticks done, come home and use them again. So I'd wake up at 6AM and be home for 3PM - 9 hours. It should be possible then, for someone to come home (with monbre) at 2PM and play around if they wanted to.
Muriel, I swear I'm going to give you your own statue or something, lol.
I kinda thought you could work again after a tick went by, I never checked it out though.
Every 8/9 hours would be good, 8 would be more even but wouldn't fit as well with the current ticks. I always tend to get up two hours earlier than I need to go anywhere, so if I was up at 6 I'd be on the computer from 7-8 then back home whenever. Then again, I also got home from school at 4 pm, so that'd be 9 hours there too.
Maybe have different lengths of time to work depending on the level of the job? Easy jobs might be three hours, give one job point and one stat point, tough jobs would take five and give one job point, two stat points, hard would be eight and two job points, however many stat points it gives now?
On second thought, though, that doesn't fit very well because then people like me are like "hmm I'm wasting time that I could be using to work here, I need to find a computer to go on for five minutes..." And adding easy/tough jobs that take longer seems like it'd defeat the purpose, but that could work too. In my head I'm thinking the sending monsters away in Monster Rancher, or the requests in FF Tactics/Tactics Advance/Tactics A2, etc. etc. You get the idea.
It works just as well for people who work, too, since shifts tend to be 7-9 hours, or 9-5 office job people, etc.
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
i'm pretty suprised with the change that have been made since i posted my complaints... nice job...(i actually have to update my posting draft a few times to catch up with the improvements )
ABOUT THE WHOLE GAMEPLAY
"I designed MonBre so that you don't "have" to log in, and in that, I think I've actually taken away some potential addiction. I need to find a balance where I can say the game isn't a chore (job) to play, but still at the same time, people would want to log in daily. Currently we have working, which encourages people to send their monster to work for the days they aren't playing. (thus they still log in)"
i think if there is someone addicted to this game, they will probably train,explore their monster 24/7, restless.It is possible because train/explore systems doesnt have a time restriction(the only option with a time restriction is just the working part), thus making the gameplay similiar to the traditional RPG.
Most of the web-based game have the "check the game once in a while" concept(this is what makes it very unique, it's like an evolution of tamagotchi or something), the realization of this concept is probably the stamina/energy/turn system. This system allows the player to keep up with the game even though they only check on the game once in a while(duh!). This is what differs web-based game from any other MMORPG game(if you still adopt the RPG gameplay stlye i'd just rather play A REAL MMORPG game like lineage,Ragnarok Online, Seal, and other stuff, it's kinda like the pokemon analogy in my previous post). That's why you must avoid the similiarity of gameplay with other giant competitor, coz it's not good for business. Even though you want to make it a RPG at least put a "web-based feeling" in it(like facebook's"perfect warrior").
Here's my suggestion about the game,some of it will probably change the total gaming experience, but once again it's just a suggestion...
ABOUT THE NAVIGATION SYSTEM
when i see the navigational system, i see three major split, the home option, the locale option, and the general navigation(the one on top). i think you should merge the locale option with the general navigation option on top, because it looks kinda confusing having two major list of options in a split view.As for the home option i think some of it should be merged with the locale option too and for the trainer status it's nice if you can put it where it can be seen anytime while i play the game(just like the facebook's mousehunt).
THE STAMINA SYSTEM
i think you must adopt the stamina just like other web-based game so your game can be uuh, "more web-based"??. here's what i have in mind. 1. every monster have it's own seperate stamina 2. you can make the monster spend their stamina in training, exploring, working, and other stuff. 3. if the stamina runs out the monster automatically turns into "resting state".
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE TRAINING SYSTEM
what i have in mind with the training system is just like the monster rancher training system, but every training will cost the monster some stamina. so the main purpose of the training will be increasing your monster stats..(monster rancher style)
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE EXPLORE SYSTEM
you can make your monster do the explore option and the monster will explore automatically and the player will be given the report about the monsters exploration(there will be a journal or something), the report will be given every 15 minutes(fighting monster, get an item, discover new things, etc)and it will cost the monster a few stamina if it runs out of stamina it will go to "resting state" automatically(mousehunt style).
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE EMPLOYMENT SYSTEM
it's the same system as the present system but difference is they will cost some stamina, and you should make it more variant of the jobs. and the jobs shouldn't increase the stats because it will make it more beneficial than the training system(you can get money and stats in the same time if you work). this will make an imbalance in the option.(mafia wars style)
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE BATTLE SYSTEM
as for the battle system, you must spend some stamina to engage battle (with the town god, or any other monsters). and the battle will proceed automatically. and the players will be given the result of the battle, after it's finished.
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE SKILL SYSTEM
you can set the % of the skill occurence in battle(for offensive skill), you can set at how much health will the healing skill being used(for healing skill), thus the battle can still be done automatically while you can arrange the strategy before the battle.
MY SUGGESTION ABOUT THE SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL
you probably must reconsider the school n the hospital option, because the contribution to the total gameplay is insignificant. if you really want to keep the school n hospital maybe you should increase the importance and the depth of these options.(example : hospital can make your monster more proficient in training by giving them steroid injection or something, school can do some research about ancient artifact that is found later in the game, after the research is done the artifact will become an uber equipment or something)
INCREASING THE DEPTH OF THE OPTION
increasing the depth of the option is different than compilcating the game content(what i mean by confusion caused by the massive game content is probably because the arrangement/composition is still a mess) it's more like a same function but have deeper level thus making it more expandable...
i'm getting bored with the sticks in the training, i think it would be nice if you make the training into several levels(if your monster met some prerequisite you can make your monster do harder training with much more benefits gained), so the training grounds will be used more often.(i know that the main purpose of the "training ground" is for the introduction of the game's battle system but if you just want to introduce the battle system you can do that in the tutor/reference or something, you don't even need to make the "training ground" option in the locale). this is to prevent the "training ground" from becoming a "useless" option...
it's the same with other option, like exploring, shop, splicing, etc. this will make the impression that the whole option is growing the more time you spend time with it(makes it more interesting)...
GRAPHIC ART
if you really want the game to go all commercial,a HQ graphic art,(the layout, the background, the monster art, the ) is a must.it will give the impression to the players that they are playing a seriously developed game, and makes them think the game is cool (but actually the cool one is the graphic art ). Even though you can say "don't judge the book by it's cover" but i can say "the cover makes the first judgement", that's why you should consider hiring professionals in creating the graphical art.
you can make a "create monster art competition" in the forums, so everyone can participate with the monster making thing(i know i will ), just give the monster description and graphic requirements, and you can sort out the results and take the best one.
the problem with the current monster art is that it's just not cool enough.
CLOSING...
sorry for the very long delay, it's because i have other things to do. the suggestion i made is by no means flawless so somebody probably can come up with a better idea or something(or somebody could say that my suggestion totaly sucks because it changes the gameplay and it have the risk to make the other players that already enjoy the game retires(but i think it's more risky if the game stays this way)).
Your suggestions strip away the soul of MonBre. You're basically asking for a new game to be coded, and that isn't going to happen. The tick logic is exactly the reason I didn't make the game with ticks. I don't want the game to be a chore for people. I would say 99% of browser-based games like MonBre use the tick system, I can't even recall one that doesn't, except for Hattrick and Popomundo. (they're both different games too) It's also not fair, you can spend 2 hours in a tick game and it won't show for it because you're capped at how much you can play, whereas in MonBre, if you like it, you play like you would any RPG. I am aware that it doesn't exactly act like a browser-based game without ticks like that, but it still is and people still treat it like one.
I don't know what the hell you're thinking with the exploring and battling, that's an absolute no. It seems as if you like the kind of game MonBre simply isn't, and it's too bad because you really gave me some great advice I used to make the game better last time. Simply clicking a button and saying "oh hey your monster did that" is not fun at all, and encompasses what I tried to get away from in MonBre.
The training is what it is - used to initially explain to people how to battle, and to get the monster ready for victory when they actually go exploring.
Actually, the school is going to be a sort of "get away" to train monsters very quickly, it's just not built yet. And the hospital will be here soon enough, it's going to add a more RPG feel to the game.
As for the art, I know I'm not exactly the best artist, but I wouldn't say it is bad. It's mediocre art and I feel what the monsters need more is some more uniquity, and I have in the past replaced whole monsters just because they weren't cool enough.
As I said, I see you're still in New Orsa, and it doesn't look like MonBre is exactly the best choice for your taste in games. I got tired of feeling like I "had" to log in every day to a game to increase some numbers, while getting more of the same. That was my main inspiration with MonBre, to be different.
Thanks for the feedback, anyway; I'm glad someone cares enough.
Just out of curiosity, where did the NPC art come from? I was thinking RPG Maker XP, but didn't have it laying around installed to check.
I'd write up a nice big review, but I'm kinda biased at this point to the way the game is now, but if I have the time I'll try to think about different things and how they could work better. I like this a lot though, I can sit around for hours on my days off and grind while listening to music, or I can hop on for ten seconds and work, then if I have time check the forums. Personally I'm a much bigger fan of games you play x amount daily, because they're a lot easier to fit into my schedule than *insert MMO* or *insert game that requires you to buy subscriber status and be on 24/7 in order to succeed*. Because, quite frankly, I have no real schedule. I might start playing a more time consuming game when I know I'll have more time off than usual, but then before too long I just quit because I can't accomplish anything if I'm not babysitting my character.
As much as it feels like a bit of wasted potential to read Watchmen all morning instead of grinding a bit before my evil monster kicks the bucket, I'm sure I'll get around to it within the next 3 days, and even if I don't it's no problem, because I can just splice him and not lose all my effort. Which is another good thing, there's content right there for me the minute I start the game, none of the "endgame content" bs, but at the same time there's long term goals and an actual reason to keep playing aside from being the best.
That being said, PvP. I know it's hardly the focus of the game, but it'd be cool if there was some sort of separate PvP level or something that would give you some kind of benefits, probably PvP related, or even just a bit of trainer experience for fighting other people. Or, some SRP for whichever monsters got to participate.
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
Yeah you know what, PvP fucking sucks. I have no idea what to do with it, it's this HUMONGOUS script so I'd end up just redoing everything to make it better.
I was thinking I could have it so it treats the PvP battle like PvE so you could use attack skills, but the PvE script is totally not like that and it'd just be even more of a mess than what we already have.
It sucks 'cuz I simply have no idea what to do with it. Even for GvG, the guilds are so unmatched that it's ridiculous to even consider coding a system for it.
i think the sugestions suck about the exploring and stamina thing.. that makes u less part of the game ..you just send ur monster out and it cums back and tells you what happend..pssh so wack like some myspace game or sumthin ..i like the game how it is ..the gameplays is fine..i like th pvp idea that wuld add alot to the game..like with tournaments with prizes and such idk ..it sounds good..tho..
Pick a monster to participate, battles would either be round robin (Monster Rancher tribute obviously) or whatever they call the whole system with different brackets... Either way, the way the Pok�mon tournaments go in the show XD
Or both, and have it say what kind it is. Run them every so often, give out a nice prize of some kind?
In terms of the plain old vanilla PvP, the way it works out is fine, I can't imagine forcing people to be online at the same time/making a little custom AI to do the fights a certain way for that. It just wouldn't work well here, I don't think. Although the custom AI thing for PvP wouldn't be too terrible.
But some kind of reward for PvP would make it that much better, I'm just not sure what you'd use... Respect Points in the same vein as the Training Points? I know I'm suggesting that a lot, but hey, it's an easier way to manage rewards than having some separate Trainer League Rank or something like that.
Not that that's not an awesome idea.
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
for PvP my idea is to have a setup so you can use abilities automaticly when ur hp and/or energy reach a certain level.. this could be used in other battle situations as well
for example, you can have a monster auto use heal when its hp fall below half or use a buff/status if its not active already
Yeah I was toying with the idea of respect, but this isn't one of those beat 'em up games. >______<; I'd imagine a horrible world where people just click your name and you get a stupid news post "HURRDURR49 BEAT YOU UP OMG GO GET REVENGE ON THE INTERNET". Solution? Have it be challenges like we do now. So then we'd have it that people would just beat the shit out of each other to farm respect points. >____>
But there's no bad side to that, and I always find it kinda funny when I'm challenged to a duel of massive proportions. But maybe a limit to the number of challenges/how often you can do it/you only get points from that one person every so often/some kind of limit in general.
As long as people can't farm the points, or it takes a huge amount to get anything worthwhile for an older player, then it's all good.
Exponentially increasing cost? Sure, you can send out a hundred challenges, but that'll get you enough for a +25 hp equip. So, send out a hundred challenges every day for a week, and maybe you'll get something worthwhile...
But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun.
)
). Even though you can say "don't judge the book by it's cover" but i can say "the cover makes the first judgement", that's why you should consider hiring professionals in creating the graphical art.
