resource limits are coming

So I am not really happy at the moment with the way the game has turned into a bit of a "mine rush" to do certain things, like using all your energy on only one profession within minutes, etc.

I understand *why* people are doing this - totally. Thing is, I don't want it that way. It is a competition, I know... but I don't want it boring and to represent a chore. However, I don't want to take away from the flexibility of OfficeDebo. Forcing you to choose multiple professions to use your energy up, isn't flexible... and I want to encourage unique strategies.

In a few weeks I will be implementing a change, as a starting point, which will see fish and ores become a limited resource. On a turn-style basis, new fish will be spawned in our water fountain, and new ores will be brought to mineable depths by intermittent earth-quakes. You will still be able to fish and mine all your like - it's up to you when you do fish or mine, and the amount of fish and ores spawned will vary.

The resource will be limited on a global scale.

navigation system, player locations

We have been thinking for a while now about a method of making the game more interesting, maybe a little more tricky but mostly, a lot more fun.

We present to you a player location (x,y coordinate) system which holds certain information critical to the success of professions and also what players a fighter can attack.

The idea would be that on each hour, x,y coordinates would be assigned a profession location (there would be multiples) - that is, for example;

• 41,2 - 32,8 - 23,45 might turn into cubicle farms
  
• 38,2 - 25,8 - 21,43 might turn into basement entries
• 18,7 - 23,10 - 8,20 might turn into water coolers
  
• 27,1 - 35,1 - 30,12 might turn into kitchens
• Other locations could include special shops, NPCs for fighters to battle, random finds / drops, etc.

Those wishing to do their profession would need to navigate to a known (found out from someone else?) or otherwise locate a needed location to train. So, a farmer would need to find a cubicle farm coordinate to feed / collect from animals, for example.

Fighters / pickpocketers would no longer be able to just randomly attack / pickpocket someone from a giant player list. Instead, they would be limited to those currently on the square they are on. A technique for a fighter in this system might be to hang around hot areas, such as a cubicle farm of water cooler they have located.

Clicking on the left, right, up and down arrows would move you in the appropriate direction by 1 coordinate. It would require no energy to do this.

Clicking on the square (middle button) which holds your current location, would open the status screen... the status screen is the screen you would see after clicking left, right, up or down - which includes what is on the current location (cubicle farm, water cooler, etc) and any players on the square, for battling and pickpocket purposes.

Over time, we could phase other aspects of the game into this locational system... for example, trading, hard set locations for the bank, ammo united, gym, and other places.

This system could also see other cool add ons be put in place, such as tracking gadgets, etc. which you might use to find out / detect where certain players are...

energy costs and exp gains

Nordik and I have been discussing for a while now that while OfficeDebo is doing just fine, we feel the game needs to be re-calibrated, in regards to energy costs and experience gains.

The problem is that low energy costs mean two major things.

1. There is a whole lot more produce in the game... this means inflation / third world values.
2. Even more experience is farmed from professions and people level at insane rates.
   

The problem with high experience gains are.

1. Again, ever increasing level gains... not good.
2. People max out a profession, thus achieving better and more produce... worsening the above.
   

Many people have different views on all of this, good and bad. But as far as we can see it, these are the two main issues (produce levels and overachieving) that arise from the current calibration of the game dynamics.

Over the next coming weeks, we have planned for small changes to the energy costs and experience gains across all professions. It's our intent to make these changes subtle, hence the spread over a few weeks (instead of one big drastic change).

Some people may complain that the oldies have something over the newbies now... but thats not the case, the wall of shame (awards table) doesn't include the oldies in your younger age group.

exp catch-up system

Hello again!

I am currently throwing around the idea of some sort of experience catch-up system... The basis of the experience catch-up system would be to allow lower leveled / not so elite (probably considered as those not in the top 10 for a profession, for example) to play catch-up.

Perhaps someone sitting in the top 10 list for a profession can earn less experience than someone who is not... which gives others a chance to catch up.

Anyway - lets see what you think before we develop this idea any further!

referral system change

It has been suggested that the referral system be changed to work in a points system which you can redeem for prizes which are only available for referral points.

So I was thinking it could work like this;

When you refer someone you could instantly receive 1 referral point. Then, at every 5 overall levels that the person you referred gets, you could receive yet another referral point.

This means if you start referring a few people and they keep playing, you will start to tally up the referral points pretty quickly.

Some of the prizes you might be able to redeem for referral points may include custom avatars, custom chat name color, donator packs, etc.

Let me know your thoughts!

firm wars idea

When cubicle wars entered its initial development stages it existed as a birds-eye view of squares, otherwise known as cubicles. This idea has been scrapped and cubicle wars is now a 2D isometric world which is still under heavy development.

I was thinking about firm wars however... right now it's kind of boring. I was considering an idea where there would be a birds-eye view of squares which are zoned. Such as the financial district, weapons and armor district, the mines, the great lakes, farm lands, the dumps, etc.

The idea would be that firms would "duke it out" over ownership of parts of these districts. Owning more squares in a certain district would give the entire firm an advantage. For example, owning all squares in the mines would give all miners in your firm an advantage in mining. Owning just some of the squares would still deliver an advantage, only it would not be so strong.

Anyway, this system wouldn't be to hard however the "duke it out" process would need to change. It will need to have a lot to do with fighters, but I would like to see other professions give an advantage... perhaps in their related zones? So if your fighting for a square in the dumps, to give your thieves an advantage - having a firm with strong thieves will give you a better chance of beating the other firm for the space.

mining profession

Unlike my ideas for fishing (where fish move around in schools from square to square (coming soon) and its more of a lucky dip then a simple point and click) mining stumps me here as ores don't normally move around in a "school" of any type!

I'm thinking of changing the basement to suffer from very common earth quakes which make the ores move around (however much less frequent than fishing). That or we need to introduce some other types of controls. Such as a power meter you choose or a depth (how deep you thrust the mining pick)... something like that.

New ores are to be added into the profession, along with support for these ores in the smithing profession (new weapons and armor? edit existing?).

I'm going to be working on this next week. Let me know your thoughts and ideas so we can come up with something great!