RE: How does IBT bring value to Steemit?
Are people having fun?
Yea, and me too, but I wish there was more interaction between players.
Is it a bit long, too short?
I think I wish Stages were posted every other day. Not sure though. I'm in a very different time zone. (PST)
Does it need more pictures?
Sure why not? Eye candy is always fun. Replay value will increase also.
Did you get easily confused, can we display instructions better?
-Not confused... level 3 seems unattainable though. Maybe it carries over to the next IBT?... that makes competing hard for new contestants though... yer probably not doing that.
-Is it difficult to keep track of players comments? I wasn't sure where to post my game instructions... Is one long continuous replay/thread preferred?
Were the Stages engaging enough or was it like a chore?
Not a chore.
Does a bot that partially work, make it to frustrating to play or is it tolerable?
No not frustrating. Confusing when an error occurred and I called two or three commands. I'm glad we have real life officiators.
Thanks mate - getting a sense it's probably not bad how it is. The key things I'm taking away:
-Clean up the instructions, front load the play instructions so a new person can easily see what they have to do.
-Try to make it easier/more intuitive for new people to play, might need to simplify some of the game play but not too much
-Think about the post release dates thinking one a day is ok, but i should aim for a consistent time so people know when to expect it - time zone is hard, but people play at own pace
-No one has spoken about prizes, so I'm gonna take that as a sign it's probably ok/reasonable enough.
SUMMARY
From what I'm hearing we might leave most as is. Run a mini game maybe, once a week for those interested, perhaps link it to the @wizardzap powerup posts some how vs. just doing posts asking for handouts and giving updates.
Running the mini-games is also a great way of getting the bot some practice :)
After reading the first couple of sentences, I had an idea. If we were speaking IRL I would have been rude and cut you off.
Anyway, I wanna make IBT a slow GIF that shows the basic step of game play. A series of images put into a gif that shows the progression of @lordnigels gameplay for example. It would be scroll looking.
"it's probably not bad how it is" very true. Lots of good stuff in there and I've noticed healthy improvements to. You have a great team.
Ok, i'm gonna read the rest now.
Mate that would be awesome! I'm asking some new players now if they'd like to help by sharing exactly what they got stuck on etc, so this should help guide it... biggest issue I've had with that is each new one changes a little as I'm struggling to know if it's a winning formula or not. So if you did do that, just need to know it might need a few minor tweaks each time as we tweak the game play. Certain things are set in concrete now in my mind. i.e. the prizes and how they work, the luckydip item system, the campaign map and item shop might as well stay as is. I'm not sure on the bot and attacks yet though...Will try to tease that out here a bit more. Like what do you think about merging all the player types? so instead of enrolling as a wizard, warrior or archer, you just enrol. Then you can use any one of the attacks across classes. Perhaps I could collapse the attacks down a bit? or tweak what they do, their odds etc...what do you think? or should it just be left now?
oh that is good to know, I'll approach it like that. My first instinct was to copy your game play thread from one of the IBT6 stages. What ever it is i'll make it adjustable.
I personally like the different character classes, but I'm not sure how necessary it is. It would inspire me to approach my character differently if I knew it was a warrior instead of a wizard. I understand the difficulty of balancing the attacks though. I can't say I have seen unfair class attack advantages, but it takes a while to notice that kinda imbalance sometimes imhe.
How necessary is the level up process? Maybe the !special attack is not necessary or maybe just that one attack should be the strongest and common one. Keep the !mysticzap, (!lessdamageing) attack character specific though (compromise). If it's necessary to keep level up process, then maybe just remove that attack completely and build a level up reward system into the store items (as is).
I guess it's hard for me to imagine the game without character classes. I kinda think it appeals to the Dungeons And Dragons/RPG crowd.
Yep I think your right - it's interesting to discuss though. I suspect most feel the same and the 3 classes are cool and help people invent their characters during enrolment. At this point they stay then :) kindda nice to lock some stuff in :)
Yeah the level up system is interesting..I think we could do something else with this...Maybe something like, everyone can do the !special spell as a last ditch effort and instead move the level up system towards the quality of items you can get....like maybe your odds of getting a great lucky dip item go up as you level up kindda thing?
move the level up system towards the quality of items you can get....like maybe your odds of getting a great lucky dip item go up as you level up kindda thing?
That sounds good. Especially if it makes your job easier.
"Especially if the grub gets better and bigger." says Angle Food.
I like the way you think.
Thanks, ditto! I like what you do too! IBT rules!!!
Agreed, clean up the instruction a little. Front load is a nice word to hear. (Not a donut joke.)
Maybe give player a more descriptive prompt for their accomplishments... specific instructions?
Like, "Your character made it to level 1. Stay lazy, don't read the instruction we put in the Instruction Post and please just type '!levelup' to graduate level 1." Something like that might be helpful. Maybe just a link in every post that take players back to your Game Play Instructions Post. IF nothing changes, it nice to have a real person making a presence (you and @doughtaker)
Yeah the timezone thing is hard and own pace is nice. Maybe just clearly express to people that they have until the payout date, or whatever "following days more" to complete the stage.
Prizes... more is always better. I never felt like saying too much about the numbers part of it all. I just assumed IBT was giving as much a healthy portion as possible in relation the amount that was being generated plus the donations for awesome supporters that I would give a donut to. (IBT seems to be kinda generously natured overall.) I hope you, players, and officials are all earning some booty for their time. (The SBD booty, not the peasant retribution upon Angel Food with a wand kind of booty.)
Further rambling that you don't need to respond to if your busy...
Having a three tier rewards structure is smart.
Maybe a grand prize death match/cage match between the three mightiest players?
Maybe more opportunities to win prizes during game play? Wacky prizes, like the things that happen when someone earns a place in the Unofficial Book Of Records. Or just rare/statistical things to attract the numbers-to-know-kinda-fun (gets sports fans friends into stuff, imho)
Even more rambling but this time about the profitability:
I think you should go back to requiring 0.01sbd if you want to keep the same item for each round. So, for this IBT6, Angel Food would have had to pay 0.01 each stage to have the grub item again, and then again at the next stage pay to keep the grub. (OR pay 0.05sbd to keep it for all six rounds upfront bargains.)
I thought !luckydip it was a health/motivating profit structure in IBT5, especially considering the usefulness of WizardZap as gracious upvoter for participants. As a fuzzy wannabe author, I saw lots of motivation in helping to build a strong VP for WizardZap. It's like another investment VIP status.
The mini game bot practice sounds great. Practice instead of asking for hand outs is awesome. (Serve the community kinda idea.) Practice and repetition is healthy for musicians too. :)
Nice, thanks heaps for giving your thoughts..this has given me a few ideas, in particular some different prizes throughout (perhaps a special random per stage prize). I'll get to work on developing them.
Just quickly - in terms of me making Steem...well really myself and the others sponsors make next to nothing. I make some good SP, but I also throw in Steem here and there into the prize pool ontop of selling 100% of the SBD each post makes. I do gain some followers I guess, but not heaps. Yeah I like the idea of powering up @wizardzap and everyone benefiting from his upvote - it's a good ibt community thing. Progress is slow so I also put some of my personal Steem that way to boost it along, not heaps but enough to keep it moving.
The prizes are great because Steemit is about making Steem, but the ultimate idea is build a small sub-community here on Steemit. If IBT makes a tiny following and people enjoy and spend time playing, then it's successful. From my point of view i have a reasonable personal investment in Steem and it's all in SP. I now need do my part to help the platform grow, attract and retain people (I'm not the best blogger, but perhaps I can make up for it with IBT :)). Of course I'd like more Steem and I'll make some through IBT, but mainly from my other blogs etc.
In this sense I don't think its best to ask players to keep making transfers etc to keep items and that..and it may become a chore. I reacon the Ibtluckydip system is probably just right now..but lets see what others think.
Yep the mini game bot is gonna stick I reacon..it might be trial an error at first, but lets see how we go.
Thanks again for your comments, certainly given me more to think on :)