GUI: World – the main screen

GUI: World – the main screen

World

Notification of world news

Notification of recent combat results

New Mailbox Messages (list first 5)

My ships – sort by: departure city/place, destination & ETA (or docked), curent storage / total, … (click on a ship to go to ships screen with that ship in focus)

My buildings – sort by: city, type, (production) current production / max possible production, (warehouse) current storage / total (click to go to city screen where building is located)

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

High Seas“Some quote about sea travel, trading, history, etc” ~ Joe Schmoe

(changes daily)

Mouse over cities to see names and some statsClick on to go to that city screen. Ship at city: drop down for go to city screen, or give ship orders to sail.

Ocean regions – mouse over to see names and statsClick on to go to ocean region page

Click on username to go to Account page

Oceans

* = unread mail

s

s

“s” = one of player’s ships. (replace with ship graphics.) Click on ship: drop down menu. 1. go to ships page with that ship in focus 2. set new destination (if more than one ship near click point, list all options for all ships near click point). Option to adjust destination by picking waypoints through different ocean regions??? (avoid high piracy areas, for instance)

Winter 1607 | User: yakinikuman | $2,534 | Forum | Help | Logout

Path finding – either implement simple pathfinding or pre-define the paths between cities … this would get pretty tedious. (X cities = something like X! paths – not quite that many, but a lot….)Idea: “hexagonize” the world, designate each as land or sea. Start out with straight line between cities, then adjust if land in the way.

s

GUI: Ocean regions screen

High Seas Winter 1607 | User: yakinikuman | $2,534 | Forum | Help | Logout

World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

Tile-ize or hexagon-ize the region maps? To make ship position easier to define and track.

Would probably want realistic ship speeds – if updates happen once every 10 minutes, then figure out how far ship would travel. Each ship calculates where to “be” at next update.

List of recent combat results in this region (what ship won, what ship lost), along with some stats on combat activity over the last game-year.

List of your ships in this ocean region

The Caribbean Sea

Mouse over: “Atlantic Seaboard” – click to go to this ocean region screen.

Mouse over: “North Pacific Ocean” – click to go to this ocean region screen.

s

GUI: Cargo Module


World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

In warehous

eIn city Buy Sell

Bar Iron 0 352 5 3

Bullets 0 954 2 1

Paper 0 13 200 150

Ink 0 4 500 66

Chocolate 0 445 42 30

Medicine 0 75 59 51

Sausages 40 881 30 29

Flour 0 145 20 15

Cloth 0 1 1050 1000

Hats 0 88 65 60

Guns 0 0 -- 2500

Books 0 0 -- 1853

Cookies 30 4 854 743

Suits 0 0 -- 2400

Basic Manufactured

151050Max

Some variation of this needs to be in:Ship screen (at sea)Ship screen (docked)City screen (if warehouse present)

Would be nice to have just one main module that works for all, or with slight modification.

GUI: City screen


World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

In warehous

eIn city Buy Sell

Bar Iron 0 352 5 3

Bullets 0 954 2 1

Paper 0 13 200 150

Ink 0 4 500 66


Medicine 0 75 59 51

Sausages 40 881 30 29

Flour 0 145 20 15

Cloth 0 1 1050 1000

Hats 0 88 65 60

Guns 0 0 -- 2500

Books 0 0 -- 1853

Cookies 30 4 854 743

Suits 0 0 -- 2400

Basic Manufactured

151050Max

These are buttons

Buying and selling direct from warehouse – only if warehouse is in city.

GUI: Mailbox screen

High Seas

Messages from other players

Messages from the game – ie, tutorial information for new players, pirate/navy messages

Messages on auction results – items won or items sold

Messages on expedition results – artifacts found

Quests! “A mysterious letter from a stranger…” Triggers: gold level, visited certain cities, X total ships, Y total buildings, Z combat victories, combat failures, expeditions taken, … Objectives could be to transport X of good Y to city Z by date D, send an expedition to ____ by D, etc. Be creative though … like Space Rangers 2… no “random” or generic quests, but all kind of different.


World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

GUI: Artifacts/Account page

High Seas

List of player’s artifacts, what ships/buildings they are equipped on

Unassigned artifacts – just sit here until assigned, or sold at auction.

Maybe some achievements could be “artifacts” – non-equippable, just for status

Could probably meld this with the “Account” page accessible by clicking on user name

(Should have a “Sailing Roster” page which lists all players on realm – can see their player page – drool over their Artifacts, buildings, ships, gold.)


World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

Artifacts

GUI: Ships screen – at sea

High Seas<

Swifty>

ReliantEnterprise

Crew 10/10 | Morale 24/25 | Seaworthiness 85/100 | Cargo 99/100Sailing in the The Caribbean Sea

Bound for New Orleans (ETA 3 hr 20 min)

List of artifacts attached to this ship

List of awards / achievements this ship has been awarded (ie 5 combat victories, 10 cities visited, …)

Link to region screen

On board Throw overboard

Ore 0

Gunpowder 0

Timber 0

Dye 24

Sugar 0

Cocoa 0

Tea 0

Spice 0

Meat 5

Grain 0

Silk 0

Cotton 0

Furs 0Click on “Ships” button from any other page – takes player to most recently viewed ship

These are buttons


Link to city page Basic Manufactured

151050Max

World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

GUI: Ships screen – on expedition

High Seas<

Swifty>

ReliantEnterprise

Crew 9/10 | Morale 13/25 | Seaworthiness 55/100 | Cargo 99/100On expedition in The Amazon | Set sail




On board

Bar Iron 0

Bullets 0

Paper 0

Ink 0

Chocolate 0

Medicine 0

Sausages 40

Flour 0

Cloth 0

Hats 0

Guns 0

Books 0

Cookies 30

Suits 0

Basic Manufactured

World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

Set sail: Links to world map, with ship selected and “where to?” ready

GUI: Ships screen – docked

High Seas<

Swifty>

ReliantEnterprise

Crew 9/10 | Morale 13/25 | Seaworthiness 55/100 | Cargo 99/100Docked at Singapore | Set sail

Rename Ship | Join pirates | Join navy



Click on a good in cargo: drop down menu option to buy/sell, textbox for amount | max.


Set sail: Links to world map, with ship selected and “where to?” ready

On board In city Buy Sell

Bar Iron 0 352 5 3

Bullets 0 954 2 1

Paper 0 13 200 150

Ink 0 4 500 66


Medicine 0 75 59 51

Sausages 40 881 30 29

Flour 0 145 20 15

Cloth 0 1 1050 1000

Hats 0 88 65 60

Guns 0 0 -- 2500

Books 0 0 -- 1853

Cookies 30 4 854 743

Suits 0 0 -- 2400

Basic Manufactured

151050Max

Visit Warehouse

Visit warehouse: “In city” -> “In warehouse”, “Buy” -> “Withdraw”, “Sell” -> “Deposit”. Link changes to “Visit Market”

These are buttons

World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

Become navy or pirate – only in cities. “Become pirate” disabled if any of players ships are navy. Likewise for “become navy” if any are pirates. If all ships are just traders, both options are there.

GUI: Auction screen


World

Cities

Mailbox*

Ships

Auction

Oceans

World wide auction (don’t see need for city-by-city auctions…)

List of buildings and ships (and cities they are in)

Also artifacts that haven’t been “equipped” on a ship yet

Click on building/ship for more information – basically a “public” version of the selling player’s building or ship page.

Auctions – run like ebay: listing fee, set end date, minimum bid

Winning – get a mailbox message. If artifact, stays “attached” to player account until equipped or re-auctioned. If ship/building, immediately becomes part of player’s ships/buildings.

Tools Needed

Python 2.6

Nevow Athena 0.10.0 – built on top of Twisted. Client-server interface.

For Path planning tool: PIL 1.1.7 (Python imaging library)

World MapScreen

GMClient

GameServer

ClientInterface

City Screen

OceanScreen

ShipScreen

MailboxScreen

AuctionHouseScreen

AccountScreen

ExpeditionScreen

GameClient

GM ClientInterface

ServerInterface

Mailbox

Player

AuctionHouse

MailManager

AccountManager

World

Cargo

ArtifactOceanShipBuildingCityExpedition

Maybe embed expeditions in ship screen

Warehouse

Lookup tablefor ship type, base stats

Lookup tablefor artifact type, color, stats

NevowAthena

Browser

Server

All Browser commands come through Player

Misc

Concern: if journeys between cities take multiple days, will new players be interested enough to keep playing? Maybe each player could start out with several ships?

Another concern: if ships are only bought/sold between players or by microtransaction, then player will create multiple accounts, sell ships cheap, then delete account

If only mechanism of ship transfer is through auctions, then player will have no guarantee of winning…maybe it’s ok. But end result could be too many ships on the market, brining down ship prices and ship demand

Fix: maybe restrict auctionhouse to players with net worth > $5000 or something.

No trading goods, buildings, ships, money directly from player to player … must go through auctionhouse

Server / Admin

Need to be able to run multiple “realms”

Could start them at different years?

Admin mode client

Add/delete/modify user accounts, ships, buildings

Add/delete/modify quests

Reports on prices, ships in transit, combat

add/remove cities

Change goods, change prices

Add/modify scheduled events

Change year or rate of time passage

Scheduled Events

Text file – each SlowU, the file is searched for the new date and any updates are executed

Makes it easy to add new events if needed

Events: emergence of new ship type; drastic (and likely to continue) population change due to war, famine, or disease; new resource (coal); closure of ports due to war/quarantine?

Timers

Start game in year 1600.

Slow timer event AKA turn timer

1 day = 1 game turn = 1 game season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)

Therefore, 4 days = 4 game turns = 1 game year

400 days ~= 14 months = 100 game years

Game downtime while server does SlowU events. (hopefully fast)

Fast timer event

Every 10 minutes, although this is not obvious to the player.

Therefore, slow timer event happens every 6*24 = 144 fast events (maybe fewer depending on how fast SlowU updates take)

SlowU

Take down server

Resolve any combat or user events in progress

Back up everything: end of day state

Ships: ratings, position, destination, cargo

Cities: number of goods, prices, population, supply/demand modifiers Population growth could be based partly on how well current demands

(goods) are being met

Perform update

Back up everything again: start of (next) day state

Set game timer to real time

Restart server

FastU

SlowU might just be a special case of FastU.

FastU update can start as soon as previous update finishes!

After update, make copy of world object

Update ship positions and combat results

Meanwhile, server is handling user requests: buy/sell goods, auctionhouse stuff, setting sail

Ships: user commands set sail – this just changes the ship’s state to “ready to sail”. Actually doesn’t embark until next FastU (might need to be 2 FastU’s b/c of copied world….)

Buildings

Different levels of buildings (can upgrade). Higher levels provide greater production rate.

Raw materials production buildings:

Small: 1 unit produced

Apprentice: 3

Journeyman: 6

Master: 10

Manufacturing buildings:

Small: 1 Ingred #1 + 1 Ingred #2 = 1 G

Apprentice: 2 Ingred #1 + 2 Ingred #2 = 3 G

Journeyman: 3 Ingred #1 + 3 Ingred #2 = 6 G

Master: 4 Ingred #1 + 4 Ingred #2 = 10 G

Make gold cost to upgrade building dependent on current value of good that building produces in the city. This will tend to make specialized cities – cheaper to build more production where there already is a lot.

Takes 1 SlowU to upgrade a building.

Can buy/sell in auction house, or buy with micro-transaction. Start out with buildings in each city owned by the gamemaster and on AH for credits.

Special building: warehouse. Can buy/sell goods like a ship can. (Need to be able to transfer goods between warehouse and own docked ship. Possibility: rent out warehouse space....)

Building options:

Buy ingredients at current price if none in Warehouse

Sell output goods immediately or store in Warehouse. (If no more room in Warehouse, goods will be sold immed, regardless)

Must have a ship currently docked at the city to build a warehouse there

Initial game state: make sure for the world as a whole, total production ~= total consumption. Standard_supply = initial world total / cities

Building Ingred #1

Ingred #2

Building:Good

Goods – types emerge over time – scheduled events??Intentionally left out: slaves, coffee, tobacco, rum

Foundry:Bar Iron

Armory:Guns

Basic (13+1)Each city produces X + rand(Y) each slow turn

Derived (10) Finished (4)

Gunpowder

Ore

Timber

Sugar

Cotton

Cocoa

Spice

Grain

Coal Doesn’t appear until 1800s.

Steamships use any coal in cargohold for massive speed. Revert

to wind power (ie much lower speed)when no coal in hold.

Furs

Magazine:Bullets

Paper mill:Paper

Weaver:Cloth

Pharmacy:Medicine

Chocolatier:Chocolate

Gristmill:Flour

Hatter:Hats

Printer:Books

Bakery:Cookies

Dye

Ink Factory:Ink

Tailor:Suits

Tea

Silk

Meat

Butcher:Sausages

Economic model: Supply/demand

Per Good

standard_supply: fixed for each good

standard_price: fixed for each good

demand_multiplier : affected by season, some randomness, historical events. SlowU update.

Prices updated each SlowU

demand = standard_supply / supply * demand_multiplier

If supply == 0, demand = standard_supply * demand_multiplier

sell_price = demand * standard_price

buy_price = X * buy_price

Tentatively set X = 1.5. Value of X could also fluctuate each slowU.

Consumption at each city (SlowU) uses up goods

Production at each city (SlowU) uses some goods and creates others (city owned buildings). Player owned buildings – goods used are those from player’s warehouse.

Each point of population uses Cpp unit (make adjustable) of each good every slowU

Cpp: consumption per population

Standard_supply and standard_price are global, per good

Demand_multiplier differs for each city for each good and flucuates.

PROBLEM: player could buy up all the goods in a city at a low price on one turn. Then the next turn, the price will be much higher b/c supply went to 0. The player then sells all the goods back and reaps big profits.

Ships

Ships: cog, junk, clipper, ... , steamer

Variations for pirates and variations for navy

Ship seaworthiness degrades over time. Affects speed and combat rating. Must pay to get repaired.

Ships and buildings – bought at auction house or through micro-transaction. Game master could inject new buildings or ships into the market via scheduled events (puts ships/buildings directly in auction house).

Putting ship up for auction – must have no cargo. ship remains docked at city

Combat

First time to 10,000 g – letters arrive in player's inbox simultaneously from pirate king and from navy admiral

Thereafter can assign any ship as navy or as pirates (can't have both navy ships and pirate ships at once however). Ship must have empty cargo hold to become navy or pirates … avoids cheating (could fill up cargo, become navy, and then get to destination without any change of being attacked, then become trader and sell)

Pirates patrol oceans and target traders

Navy patrol oceans and target pirates

Random chance combat will be entered

FastU: combat resolved; winner gets gold / goods

Bounty grows on pirates upon each successful pillage? Bounty could be mechanism for Navy payoff.

Navy salary – in addition to bounty. Flat fee paid per SlowU. Amount depends on ocean region (greater $$ for more dangerous regions)

Ship seaworthiness, # of crew, crew morale affect combat outcome

Ship loses in combat: Proceeds to nearest friendly city. Immune from further attack until city is reached. (Would need path-finding from point of defeat to nearest city?? Maybe easier to just proceed to final destination unmolested ………)

Navy ship: prefix “HMS”, Pirate ship: prefix “PS”? Or maybe just different colors – on map and on ship information screen (font) to clearly ID one way or another.

Combat 2

Ship stats

Combat – like NP weapons skill

Crew (size) – like HP / number of ships in NP

Or maybe Crew and Hull (strength), the product or sum of which is like NP # of ships….

Combat outcome calculated exactly like NP

Speed – how far ships travels in one FastU

Detection

Navy = chance to find pirates

Pirates = chance to find traders and avoid navy

Traders = chance to avoid pirates

Combat Entry

For each region

For each Navy ship, ordered from high to low Detection skill

Calculate combat entry odds, then random draw to determine if combat takes place (ie if pirate is found and engaged)

If combat, fight pirate in region with lowest Detection skill (he couldn’t avoid the Navy ship)

For each pirate not beaten after Navy takes turn

Same process as above, but the pirates are fighting traders

Incentives, etc

Navy: Cannot carry cargo. Each pirate ship has a $$ bounty based on that pirate’s pillaging

Pirates: take traders cargo. Pirates cannot buy goods, but they can sell goods. If pirate beats trader, takes all cargo it can carry; rest is dumped overboard. If pirate’s cargo full, keep most valuable cargo as determined by prices of port last visited by pirate.

Pirates, navy, and traders should be able to see ALL ships in any region, and their destinations. Then traders can see where to avoid (pirate heavy) or safe areas (navy heavy), pirates/navy can see where juicy targets are.

Options for navy/pirate:

Patrol region until _______ (time limit, ship wear and tear, cargo X% full …), then return to starting port

Chase ship _____ (pick from global list of ships) until ____ (date, destination reached). Navy uses this to defend traders (either own or contract out to other players via PM, forum, auctionhouse), pirate uses this to single out juicy trader target

Trader incentive: way to make the most $$; expeditions

Separate quest lines for pirates / navy

Players will probably have traders + pirates or traders + navy and not exclusively traders.

Artifacts• Assigned to a ship (or building); affect stats of that ship only.

– Permanently melded to that ship – “Bind on Equip”

– Only one artifact of each type per ship. Can put a new one on, but old is destroyed.

• Random chance to find on expeditions

• Can buy/sell on player market or buy with micro-trans (up to a certain level)

• Could have different “drop rate” per type for each expedition site … and it could change with time. Ie - “Go to the Amazon now, good drop rates for muskets”

Level

Type Boosts Broken Tarnished Sturdy Shiny Ancient Exquisite

Spyglass detection

Sextant

Compass Expedition success +0.1% +0.2% +0.3% +0.5% +0.7% +1.0%

Cutlass combat

Musket Combat

cannon combat

Sail Ship speed

strongbox Cargo space +5 +10 +20 +50 +100 +200

Poker table Crew morale

Grappling hook combat

Crow’s nest detection

Talking parrot

Whiskey barrel Crew capacity

Good production (attach to buildings)

Ship wear and tear

Expedition Ideas

First cut: just have a random chance every FastU that an Artifact will be found. Time spent exploring damages ship and crew morale, strength … limits time ship can explore before heading back to city to re-supply.

Varies per Expedition locale: rate of ship damage (higher to reflect more “difficult” expeditions), chance to find what type of artifact (higher chances to find better artifacts at more difficult expeditions.)

Idea 1 – collaborative fiction. Choose-your-own adventure, players can add a branch to the story. Amazon-type votes (“Like”, “Don’t Like”) used to refine story (give random # of choices). Strength of artifact won/found varies with how the voting goes

Idea 2 – buried treasure, grid map of area and choose where to explore/dig.

Design Decisions

Cannot change ship’s course once ship has set sail. If players could change course, you need to implement path finding, and players would want more finely detailed zoomable maps

Only change in course is due to combat defeat. Defeated ship is immune from further attack and will proceed to the nearest port.

Scrapped: being able to “see” ships within your ships’ visual range, but what’s the point if you can’t do anything about it (ie take evasive maneuvers)

Then people would want auto-evasive maneuvers, etc. …

Scrapped: using Google Maps, but there are issues with a for-pay site, and with microtransactions whether HS would qualify or not is unknown.

Scrapped: changing weather in ocean regions that would affect ship speed, combat entry odds, and combat. Seems unnecessary at this point.

Scrapped: any taxes (on buying/selling goods, or property taxes on buildings) – taxes aren’t fun. Can get same money-sucking-out-of-game-world effect with ship repairs.

Fun factor – why will people play?

Competition: trying to get the most $, trying to be most powerful pirate / navy

Publish lists: Top 100 Richest players, Most Notorious Pirates, Most Valiant Navy

Achievements/ “medals” – got $X, visited Y ports/regions, won Z combats ….

Problem with this motivation when player population is small … no one to compete with….

Social aspect

Be sure to add forums, PM

Customization

“paint” for ships

Different colors of artifacts: “Red/Blue/Green Tarnished Compass”, all have the same stats. But if you equip X Red artifacts, you get some kind of a bonus

Could have an RPG element, with player stats, portrait, age; can marry and have kids; when player character ages he dies and oldest son takes his place; can view family tree and each generation’s achievements ….

Exploration

Expeditions

Quests – historical and educational, but also with a sense of humor

Must be easy to get started and easy to log in for 10 minutes and do business once-a-day! Need clean UI, distinctive art style… Browser based game truism: “players need a positive reaction in the first 30 seconds”

Tutorial

Maybe have a very small map, separate from the rest of the game, where players start – complete a “prologue” that introduces the basic trading concepts. No combat, just trading. Maybe something like 3 cities on a lake somewhere. Accelerate passage of time when the player sets a destination. Quests: buy X low in city 1, sell X high in city 2; buy Y low in city 2, sell Y high in city 3

Storyline hook – orphan working for trader uncle, he sends you to the lake to do business. Then you join him on your first big journey, to some city (in the starter area). Then he disappears – you are on your own. (Finding out what happened to him could be quest subject)

After tutorial, maybe all players should start in the same city in a relatively safe region where there are a lot of cities a short distance away – ie Mediterranean or Carribean. Then the wait time for travel won’t be so bad.

Path Planning

Use high res map of world. Mark all water white, all land black

Get coordinates of each city

For each city i

For each city j

Use A* or similar algorithm to find series of waypoints that will go from i to j without treading on any black pixels

Save waypoints as the route between i and j

Above algorithm is all offline. In game, just access the database of waypoint routes.

To do

List of cities: world positions, sailing distances between them, goods production, population, base/starting demand multipliers

Ship types and stats; prices

(global) standard supply and standard price for each good

GUI: World – the main screen

Documents

Transcript of GUI: World – the main screen