Official Mys v1.4.0 Ideas & Suggestions Thread

[Kyttias]

• Normal currency is obtained from usual site activities (levelling up dragons), etc.
• Special tokens may be rewarded from playing games or solving puzzles to buy special items at a special store that only accepts that currency.
• Cash currency that people buy with real money via PayPal. You may wonder why we need a "cash shop" and why we can't just let users buy virtual goods directly with PayPal - not everyone can use PayPal, but they may purchase an amount of the currency and then send it to their friends as a gift. On many sites, items bought with real currency may be monthly or seasonal items that will never be seen again for sale, making them highly sought after.
• Forum participation points, possibly to be converted into ordinary currency, possibly to buy special items at a special store.
• Item drop currency (we can already sort of do this) - as your pet grows, it may have a chance of shedding something cool, like magical dust, shiny scales, or slightly glowing feathers (or whatever). If you gather enough of it, wouldn't it be cool to trade it in to a special store that accepts that item as a currency?

[Zyraph]

For my site, I was planning to implement multiple types of currencies. For example, different colored dragons can shed different colored energy, depending on what their color is. A red dragon gives red energy, a blue dragon gives blue energy, etc. This can be made to create specific items with different traits. Red can translate to flame, which can (eventually) raise the attack stat of a dragon. Blue can translate to water and raises defense.

Using this as a basis for multiple currencies, I can then create different types of items for different dragons, which raise different stats, which allows for a more dynamic battle system other than "Oh, my adoptable's level is 100, it'll beat anything 99 or under." It allows the creation of a "dragon type" system, a multi-tier crafting system, a stat change system, and a less predictable battle system, all because there's more than one currency.

One issue that could arise from this is if someone only has one dragon that produces one color, but there could easily be a currency exchange that can be put into place to prevent that. Of course, there should also be a way to prevent certain currencies from being exchanged (no ultra-premium currencies for common currencies unless they're in massive quantities, for instance).

Just by having multiple currencies, the game feels a lot more immersive. It can also be possible to have a common currency, one that people can change any other currency into, in order to change it into something else or spend it on things that only take that currency (like forum purchases or something). Does this make sense?


Also, as far as the MCP things, I'd take a look at some of the things implemented by different forum systems. Things like finding IPs for account banning (usually if there's extreme abuse of the system), an account warning system (which a mod can use if a user is being unruly), a report feature (so the mods don't have to watch every single little thing and users can report odd behavior/users breaking rules)...basically, things like that. I'd recommend making IP banning something that admins can do and not just moderators, since an IP is something that should never be leaked.

Other MCP abilities that could be included would probably involve account correction for certain things that didn't work as intended. For example, if a user tries to complete a quest or event and was never credited with their reward, maybe a moderator could have a means for making sure they get what they need. However, this could easily lead to abuse of the game, to the point that it's unclear if a user is being truthful or just wanting more funds and trying to lie about part of the system not working. I'm not entirely sure how to prevent such a thing, though...it'd be up to the discretion of the mods/admins for that, I suppose. I would recommend any action on that logged so that an admin can review such things and ensure there's no abuse of it.

Just my thoughts :3

[squiggler]

That's a good list, Kyttias! I'd also like to add loyalty currency- from logging in everyday or from being a member for X amount of time. It's a great way to encourage users to come back everyday and that way, if you update your site frequently, they'll see the new features. Plus, convince them to just come to claim their token- just 5 seconds- and you have a chance to interest them in something else! *evil laugh*

Here's an example from Kingdom of Knuffel:

Troth Tokens are a reward for regular members and can be claimed daily.
With Troth Tokens you can buy exclusive items in the Troth Tent.
The longer you come to Kingdom Of Knuffel for several days in a row, the more Troth Tokens you can claim per day:

Day 1-7: 1 [Troth Tokens]
Day 8-14: 2 [Troth Tokens]
Day 15-21: 4 [Troth Tokens]
Day 22-28: 8 [Troth Tokens]
Day 29+: 10 [Troth Tokens]

Once you don't claim your Troth Tokens for a day your count goes back to 1 Troth Token.

[Pear]

^The reason why I would really, really enjoy a multiple currencies system is if I could make it so that there was a currency option that someone could purchase, so that it could be used to fund the site's server costs and such. c: Using the normal currency to do that is pretty much pointless if the site allows money to be earned through clicks. c:

Edit:
Woah..One second I was looking at a different post, and when I posted there are a billion posts before mine. xD

[Hall of Famer]

I see, very nice explanation. I will consider making the multi-currency system into Mys v1.4.0, or at least release it very soon as a Mod after Mys v1.4.0.

[Zyraph]

That reminds me...I don't believe this was mentioned before, and would probably be kinda tricky to implement, but what would be nice might be a url shortener embedded in the script. Or at least an option to allow us to shorten urls from the longer ones that tend to be generated once a dragon hatches.

For example, I plan on using a custom url shortener which has its own API for link generation. If we could have a place to put an API token/secret into our installations, we could have shortened urls which would make sharing on different sites (like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc) a lot easier. Plus, a lot of forums tend to have a limited amount of characters we can put into signatures. This would most likely solve that problem since we would only really have to link the page and the image in the code, and it would show the rest.

The biggest issue I can think of is generating a link for each image. If the shortener has to generate a link for every individual image, it might get a little chaotic, but the individual pages should be fine. Although, if we allow hotlinking for different images of adoptables anyway that others can select, then it would probably be easier to just make it so that it only shortens the page links and not the image links. Or maybe have a "master link list" of the individual adoptable images that aren't customized by the user, have those shortened, and allow the user to shorten their image links on their own if they feel the need.

Just a thought :3


Also, I've noticed I've made a lot of recommendations...I tend to get carried away with these kinds of things, I hope it's not too much ^.=.^;;

[FRivArt]

Because I don't see it here, I want to ask if, besides multiple alternates, will there/would there/could there be the option for gender dimorphic images? Not that alt 1 is male and alt 2 is female, but that there's alt 1 with a female image and male image, like in DC, ToD, etc...?

[Hall of Famer]

Originally Posted by FRivArt

Because I don't see it here, I want to ask if, besides multiple alternates, will there/would there/could there be the option for gender dimorphic images? Not that alt 1 is male and alt 2 is female, but that there's alt 1 with a female image and male image, like in DC, ToD, etc...?

Well I do have plans for gender-based alternate forms/images. With the way I've coded so far, you can choose what conditions the very alternate form will apply. Gender is one such option, we use binary field with 0 = female, 1 = male, if you leave it blank(Null value) it will apply for both genders.

[FRivArt]

Wondering, since it wasn't an option in the current one, would there be an "evolving" description or a mod for this? Just its getting updated as the creature levels.

[Hall of Famer]

umm what do you mean by evolving description? Something like adoptables description changing with level?