Discuss the massively-multiplayer home defense game.
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So, is this feature out for good as far as we know? It seems like a shame. It must have taken some effort to code.
What if there was some way to bring it in again partially?
For example, what if maps could be made by players actually walking around and exploring houses. You could scout out a house, then go back to your home, and review the blueprints while considering what tools to buy.
If there was some kind of market made available you could even sell maps. I imagine that detailed maps of high value houses could be quite a hot item.
+ Add lighting [Lamps] - By using these an illusion can be made by focusing what the robber can see, alluring them into traps and taking their attention away from what they should be looking at.
Lighting seems a very good idea. I can imagine that lights could be hooked up to circuits, so that the player could be cast suddenly into darkness. If you cannot see anything, you are in very serious trouble.
A flash light tool could be made available that lights up a certain number of squares before you. It could have a battery that will last a certain number of steps. For example, a hundred or so.
A problem is that while having a house completely dark and then making people rob it with a flash light makes some sense thematically, it is not so convincing if you consider that the wife and children are home and are hardly likely to be sitting in pitch black. So, perhaps make lights relatively cheap to place, and mandate that your family are on lit up squares. Although, if lights require a power source then this effectively mandates that all people buy one, and they are pretty expensive.
"So the question is for now, will this be enough utility to encourage wife defence?"
I think it is not just a question of the utility of the wife but of how easy it is (or not) to protect her. One of the reasons I don't want to be bothered with even attempting to protect my wife is because she needs a clear path to the way out. No doors in the way. I like how she doesn't start running now until she sees the robber, but I still think you should be able to put her behind doors.
Great to see an update!
The bounty idea seems very cool to me. This could certainly move people towards making more interesting houses.
My concern with the removal of salary payments though is how it will pan out in terms of possibly restricting the flow of money into economy. I guess that has to be seen in time.
That would be really appreciated.
Nice to hear you are back!
I played this game quite a bit eight months or so ago, and have been keeping tabs since then. Good to know it hasn't been abandoned.
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A really interesting concept. I especially loved setting up exactly those kinds of "trap" houses that make for interesting video tapes. My favorite was to make a giant box in the middle of the room that had doors on four sides. It was a big chihuahua powered combination lock that you had to circle around in exactly the right way for the correct door to open and lead you into the safe. Screwing up would open the doors to the layer of pit bulls, but not right away. People would circle the mystery box first (after doing the entrance dance). When the doors opened and the dogs came out, it was already too late. I liked it because it was not a perfect lock, and it was not a certain death machine. You could be clever and break through into the heart with the right tools, even if you didn't know the combination. Eventually somebody got lucky and figured it out, which was fun to watch.
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Anyway....
A thought about possible future directions. But have you considered alternatives to the giant open work space everybody current starts out with? What if there were several different home layouts of varying sizes? You start a new game with a relatively small house, and can purchase a larger one with more money. This adds something to shoot for. Meanwhile, by "layout", I mean what if you started out with an actual house (walls, doors, furniture?) pre-built that you then can modify/destroy according to your own plans.