The Hacker Project - a free online game

I am of two minds on this one.

I agree that there should not be an automatic success for a low version virus capture to hit a high version virus, I would not however make it automatically fail ever - and I would always leave a significant residual chance of success... probably at least 20% (which I would cap as a max chance of success at 80% as well). Why? Well because Virus Capture is a balancing mechanism, giving low level players with the guts to do it a chance to attack high level players. This is inherently risky business, making it nearly impossible to succeed makes it useless. If you make it exponentially more difficult to succeed without a cap it then fails to become a balancing tool as the low level players are incapable of hitting the high level viruses.

So... nerf it yes, it's very very powerful now but it should keep a minimum utility as a low level attack tool.

When I first read this, honestly I was in a bit of a hurry and my initial thought was - so what is being proposed here that is new?

I think that to make a valid proposal for groups you need to make a comparison to what can already be done today and then to be explicit as to how that would work in the same or in a different way for groups.

Of the above the only thing which cannot be done today is point 5 - insofar as handing over ownership of the group would in principle also hand over ownership of the group server (something implicit, not explicit) and it is to my knowledge impossible to hand over ownership of servers.

Point 1 - You can create a group by gathering people around - this is an administrative point have to look into the effects.

Point 2 - Again an administrative point - I don't need an in game mechanism for this if I want to have members working together.

Point 3.1 - Simple to do by telling members of the group who is in the group. On a related note I would say that I would NOT necessarily expect everyone to be aware of who is in the group. As group leader I prefer to decide who is a known member (known to other members of the group) and who is a member who is not known to the other members. There are a number of reasons for this but in a hacker world I don't see the imperative need for everyone within the group to know who is in the group.

Point 3.2 - I assume you actually refer to it being an in game message when similar to the [owned] tag which appears next to your own processes, something such as a [group] tag which appears instead when a process is owned by a different member of the group. Fair enough but a bit unclear - you can easily let others know (e.g. through an offgame forum) which processes you run where, though admittedly it would be a hassle.

Point 4 again - a question of organization. Any self respecting group would have out of game channels of communication which would allow all to be aware of the actions - though admittedly having an in game mechanism would be nice.

Basically - all I saw to your initial proposal was the drawbacks, not any advantages.

The basic question is how exactly a group server works. Today I can easily create a server, pay for it and give the IP to my friends, let them hack it and voila... group server.

The question is what can be done beyond that point in particular how does the server behave with regards to:

1) Expansion of the server (only the group leader? All group members? All group members but a different cost than normal expansion? How do you handle gold membership benefits on group server expansion?)

2) Research on the server - nothing was mentioned at all on this until the last post - Should everyone be able to research, only group leader etc. (If all can research you could say have 5 members do 5 research processes on the same program to end up with a bigger program)

3) Admin access to the server - All members automatically? Decided by Group leader? Members who hack get access?

4) Password reset on server - Do all members automatically retain admin access? Do they lose admin access? (related to the first question). Who can in fact reset the password on the server (aside from someone with a sniffer daemon  )

5) IP changes to group servers - is this even possible? Limitations on the IP changes? Who can start an IP change? How much would it cost? After an IP change are all members still automatically aware of the new IP or do they need to be notified by the Group leader (both have advantages)

6) Does a group server function as a normal server? (I would be tempted to say "yes" the only question is how much access to functions group members would have - for people outside the group it is simply "another server to hack" whilst for the actual owner of the server it is simply a server shared with friends, unless someone can see a reason why this should not be so).

Another question - is the group leader the only one who can create group servers? Can other members of the group create group servers too?

While I do have my own answers to most of the questions above, I simply want to put the questions on the table first - then to work through what is reasonable, what is needed and what is doable to see groups of some kind implemented. (hopefully  )

I find the idea of a group registry which can or cannot be hacked to be very interesting, but a bit premature as I am not at all sure what you (ZacQuicksilver) are suggesting for a group to be (I think you have a more clear idea, but it's not coming across quite yet)

I like this suggestion - there is a difference between an implementable suggestion and a vague wish... the examples above are vague wishes rather than implementable suggestions... (not saying that a suggestion should include all the details needed for implementation but there should be at least enough within it to allow for discussion of options)

The best way to ensure you pay up is to pay up front - if the mission is not completed you may cancel it after a given time (say a week) and recover the money.

Otherwise the idea is not bad... except that the IP changes make it very difficult for such things to happen in practice. (Unless you had missions such as virus disinfect on your own servers or tracking incursions on your own servers etc)

Ok so I have been working with this, I have a moderate amount of virii out there (around 50) so I admit happily that I am a bit small for this to be a major issue but I do have a couple of suggestions which would help players work with this better:

1) Would it be possible to have a counter which told you how much cash you could expect to collect if you collected all your virii? Of course this would be an approximation as some profits might have been nabbed by spyware or something but it would be really useful to know because sometimes I simply need enough cash, say for a hardware upgrade, to complete a research or for an emergency IP change. At times like that if I fall short it does get a bit frustrating having to wait longer than needed to get the cash in. (i.e. having to wait maybe 18 minutes when it only takes 6 minutes to generate the cash). At my level not a huge issue but I do see how it could become one.

2) Would it be possible to have an option to collect "adware" and to collect "file share" separately please? I am aware that the exact details of the situation would vary from player to player, but having this distinction would allow you the ability to rapidly distinguish between two sources of income if you needed a bit of cash quickly. The "ideal" option would be to allow players to define virii collection groups, though I am aware this can be cumbersome to implement/use.

Oh a final thing as this is really a suggestion should it stay here (as it is related to this topic) or be put in the suggestions board?

Ahhhh!!!! Thanks Kingdutch. I keep missing these little details. 

Is there some way to reconnect Lisa? Like neo alpha I was somewhat hasty... (and paranoid... can never be paranoid enough!)

Ok thanks that is reassuring. 

Don't suppose there is any chance I'll get some of the profits of the sale huh? 

Ok I just realised that...

One of my pieces of software has been stolen and put up for sale by those despicable software vendors 

Now I am cool about this...  but nonetheless I was wondering -

If someone purchases that piece of software do I still keep it or does it dissapear from my server?

(In all fairness, highly unlikely anyone would buy the last thing on that list but you never know...)

My own experience with this - I never knew I had newbie protection (I was always paranoid anyhow) I never knew I left it either... until I found out about it well after the fact!

While this in principle might add realism to the game (which it might) it would in fact simply slow things down for everyone (gosh have to spend more money upgrading servers...) without really increasing at least my enjoyment of the game...

However it could be that every month people would get an electricity bill based on their server strength :p now that might slow down the guys at the top if it was implemented in a non-linear fashion. (Which is how my bill works... the more I use the more I pay per unit!)

Ok thanks...

Pity though 

Just a thought ... I was under the impression that this would reduce the version of the Virii... not the version of the hide file used to hide the virii...

Of course the hide is capped by the Virii version but this would be precisely where I would expect to find a problem - reduction in the file version of the virii but not necessarily reduction in the hide version. (I don't know how it works but it is something which I would not trust help files on  )

Does the ranking take into account stuff stashed away in a gold ftp server?

Okies thanks it's all clear now!