The Hacker Project - a free online game

Ok I still don't entirely understand this - so I will give you a practical example. 

I have a special log undeleter v. 0.3

I set it to research say for 50 hours.

Halfway through I find a special log undeleter v. 0.5 which I joyfully download to my server.

I set that to research for 50 hours too.

Now I expect 50 hours of research to increase by 0.3 the level of my program so...

At the end what do I get?

a) One log undeleter v 0.9 (the *first* program + 2 x 50 hours of research - little waste of cash)
b) One log undeleter v 1.1 (the *second* program + 2 x 50 hours of research - best outcome, this would make me happy!!!)
c) Two log undeleters, v 0.6 and v 0.8 (research distributed evenly across both programs - big waste of cash!)

See my problem? Both are nominally "special log undeleters" both can be researched at once but I am uncertain of the results (btw - though the numbers are off something similar is happening to me, not sure if I should just kill the first research or continue with both or what)

This sounds interesting but I am not entirely sure what it means...  what does really happen when you run multiple instance of research programs? (And what exactly are multiple instance of research programs for that matter - does it have to be research on the exact same file or research on the same general program type i.e. multiple research of firewalls or multiple research on program "goofy firewall")

Don't look at it in moral terms. Hackers are about as amoral as they get ;-)

And don't fret about restarting. Not sure if you have done so already, but normally if everything went terribly wrong all you would need would be to reformat your hard drive - you would get a free IP change like that it is virtually as if you restarted but you get to keep hardware upgrades and any cash you might have gotten.

One tip - Don't sign your name all over the logs - it makes it very very easy to spot you. Signing all over the logs is for when you want to give a message, not something healthy early on in the game.

I don't believe that statement is entirely correct.

As the game matures, you will have more people above you. Those players which started with the game were competing on a pretty much equal footing with each other. Those who start today will have a few hundred players above them which in various ways, they will have to compete against or learn to live with or something.

I also felt that starting out as a newbie was a REALLY steep climb in this game, early on the main source of income seem to be missions but completing missions either leaves you bottom feeding low pay missions or gambling your small resources to try to complete a couple of longer missions. Neither option is terribly palatable.

Now I saw the value of the game and thought geesh... I like it but I don't have time for mucking around. I am lucky to be able to have dropped a bit of cash to get past the painful start. (Doesn't stop me from making stupid mistakes though! Hence all the time I have now to read these forums.)

But it did get me thinking.

I don't think increasing the initial stats of a server is a good idea. Because in fact many, if not most initial servers are going to end up being hacked and used by older players once newbies "quit" the game. Thus increasing the initial server specs would ironically favour the older players quite a fair bit. (definitely no need to compensate them :p)

It is though true that when you start out it is REALLY difficult to see progress. It may sound silly but when you are learning getting together 300 HPD to increase bandwidth by one is actually quite challenging. Doable, but challenging. I think it may be discouraging people from staying in the game because it is in fact such a steep curve.

Instead I would tweak the storyline - How did you get a hold of that first server anyhow? Maybe a friend set you up with some gear, or an old uncle or whatever... and maybe they still have some more gear lying around which they could get to you cheap...

Here is my suggestion - Have the first few purchases for starting players be at a lower than normal price.

If you do that you will need:

1) To make it VERY clear that this is a special situation. (Yeah mate, I still have an old drive and a bit of extra bandwidth you can use but after that you are on your own!)
2) To balance things carefully - this is something to be tweaked but I would go for a 50% discount on the first 3000 HPD worth of gear spent. Thus a newbie would spend 1500 but get 3000 worth of goodies. You can tweak the numbers but the key thing is that the gift the newbie gets (1500 HPD) is big enough that he can see some progess and is encouraged to stay, but small enough that it is not generating an imbalance, nor discouraging people from paying cash for HPD.

Ok I am too new here to comment on the technical details of the bonii involved and so on - but I do understand the storyline.

I (personally) don't think that corporations are meant to be moral. Giving them an alignment as in "Good" and "Evil" is neither realistic nor in fact needed for the system which you are proposing.

Having said that:

1) On bonuses - you may wish to have differential bonuses between "True Light" and "Coorporation" attacks. Hazuka for instance would NOT regard missions against True Light (who are an adversary, but not a competitor) in the same way as they would see a mission against Icarus (Both and adversary AND a competitor)

2) On penalties - Penalties on missions which you undertake against your own "Coorporation" are probably needed.

Final thought - Would working for a coorporation long enough get you access to some of those secret servers :p (e.g. if you were trusted enough you might get a mission to disinfect a secret server)

Thank you for your kindness Sir Emi, I am sure it will be rewarded...

Ah but it is nice to be known even in such a faraway place.


Btw Sir Robert, stealth indeed is often an advantage, but at times you may need to send a message. When I send a message I try to do so... in style.

Ok now this is something which may sound weird... But I suppose you have weird players out there.

I was trying to put in some fun ASCII art while replacing some of the logs (rather than simply just delete stuff... how... boring!)

And I found that I couldn't! I believe there is apparently a very restricted character set. I wasn't trying to do anything funny simply this:

                    />_________________________________
[########[  ]_________________________________>
                    \>

And yet it would not accept this simple character: >

Instead it gets parsed to :  >

Too much to ask? Too silly a request? I am curious though... maybe I'm the only one who likes to have fun with logs ;-)

 

Wanted to say hi and congratulations. This game looks and FEELS amazing.

It's all about outsmarting the competition... and you have the chance to do so even as a little guy... GREAT game... (and I've only been playing for 3 days... turned gold after only 90 minutes of playtime and gosh I feel I might have just lost the rest of my life!)