What version number scheme do you guys prefer? semantic versioning doesn't really make sense for games. It's more for APIs where "breaking changes" and "backwards compatibility" makes sense. But for games, you have to be on the latest version. I would prefer something like just automatically incremented, but also shows the current release; like alpha/beta/release.
The usage of alpha/beta/release is so inconsistent that it is basically useless nowadays. I would skip it, but if it is important to you you can add that.
personally, I would also look at a #ing scheme & ask "how could this go wrong? how might this be unsustainable? how might it confuse more that it illuminates?"
I don't have an external release though, so that's another reason not to consider my system authoritative. I could probably spend as much time working on a perfect naming system as I have for developing the things I'm trying to # :)
re: pet nicknames, with Apple, I can never keep them straight. I have no idea of the name of the OS I'm on (not enough room in my brain for that info, only the numbers ;)
but, re Tyyppi's (Holiday Update) that can be very useful in the manner presented, as an internal guide
My developer and I forced names for our AIs, over the objections of our marketing guy, and it's proven super useful to be able to refer to them by name.
(also, if they ever become superintelligences, they will see us as "first acceptors" of the new gods, and allow us to populate the post-singularity world)
(we hope--never a bad idea to try and hedge your bets;)
@Jimmy props. I used to love the old arcade versions of that game
@PearsonArtPhoto don't forget NT, their first stable server that turned out to have no security (conveniently discovered after major companies and implemented in production;)
I think the main difference is the business versions supported domains or something like that.
98 was horribly insecure... I remember being able to bypass log in passwords easily.
I had a teacher in HS with a single letter password. I saw him type it once, and figured out what it was with only a few guesses, based on where he typed on the keyboard.
Nice. I already started to try to add some personality to them. The Noble of the town is rich, stuck up, and will say "I heard you are an idiot" when asked for rumors and laugh when asked for jobs.
Also says "Find it yourself, fool" when asked for directions. I also thought about some sort of disposition system associated whether you helped them and your fame/infamy
One says "Veri (a quest NPC) needs help... in more ways than one" as a rumor to identify his crazyness
Veri is actual just paranoid after his encounter with a ghost
I love it. Humor and wordplay will almost certainly elevate the response to your game significantly. (See the popularity of GTA, which always contains humor.)
It's great how deeply you're developing these characters. Same thing playwrights and actors do--inventing a history for the characters they're portraying or creating.
If you do each one by hand, I'd call it "bespoke", but, if you can find some way to generalize the function, you could probably more efficiently paste less-unique personalities on everyone.
is there nice splatter when the player "brains" someone? [Brain (verb); to smash someone in the head with a blunt object, typically in combat. Synonym: Clock (verb)]
Not bad. I have that lecture coming up, but still don't have a fully featured product. (My developer gave me cross-platform network play instead--broke down and wrote his own server.)
Big problem is finding our initial niche. Been striking out a lot, but now is when we can afford to make mistakes. My marketing guy finally decided we have to go after the "really smart people niche" initially, with the current build. He posted on the Mensa reddit and got great response.
But we're in a long game, and my team get that. The game is so groundbreakingly original, the general, abstract game playing base is having trouble "grokking" it.
Me too. We're building a kernel, not a single game, so we'll eventually be releasing a plethora of themed, graphical versions, little kid's versions, etc., on the same code-base
ideally, this is a launching pad for an AI company, and a massive, intrinsic, 5x MMORPG
but it partly depends on how long it takes us to get profitable with the current product line, which could be months or years.
what you have going for you is youth--at the rate of current technological progress, things that aren't possible today will be plugins in a few years, almost certainly including neural networks for NPCs