Dragon's Tale - a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG/Casino

[grendel25]

I just found this thread and it reminded me of when I played DAoC and then WoW.  I always used to think it would be cool if there could be profit or loss of actual money mixed into the game instead of an annual or monthly subscription fee. 

So I went to the website... just my luck, it seems to not load or maybe it's down or maybe just me.  idk but my interest is piqued.

[melody82]

I just found this thread and it reminded me of when I played DAoC and then WoW.  I always used to think it would be cool if there could be profit or loss of actual money mixed into the game instead of an annual or monthly subscription fee. 

So I went to the website... just my luck, it seems to not load or maybe it's down or maybe just me.  idk but my interest is piqued.

Me too this sounds really interesting.  I would check it out if you could get in for a low payment.  It sounds like the kind of game where newer players are fed to the wolves, I I would expect to lose it all.  Not a problem if I can play with small sums like .05 or something.

[fox19891989]

Last I saw a thread says one player won 82K btc on DT casino, is that real or fake?

Have you paid that gamble guru??

[tspacepilot]

@grendel25, try it out, it's not really a website, you just need to download the client and then play.  They have the client for linux, (and I assume windows and osx).  You can have a lot of fun and it's possible to win big.

@melody82, it's free to try.  You can log in and just hang around and do nothing.  You can pick up a few ksat for free to gamble with but obviously you're not going to get  alot of free money.  If you buy in, you can gamble just like a normal casino.  The difference between this and a casino website is that you have an avatar and you can walk around and chat with other players and watch what they're playing, etc.

@fox, that probably happened, but probably about 3 or 4 years ago.  DT has been around a long time and it was around when bitcoins were worth pennies.  Nowadays, 50mBTC jackpot sets off fireworks and you see a system message.  Just the other day, I saw a guy win about 50 BTC, but that was pretty extreme.

[tspacepilot]

Heya!  Two years later but it's done!  Thanks for finaly fixing this (below)!

Dragons tale is cool!

The explanation above wasn't quite right; we have several machines that serve resources; one of them had an old file on it that pointed to a different compute server.

Everything is now running smoothly- sorry for the downtime.

Teppy

Indeed, the game is up again.  In re "smoothly" there's this which I'm hoping you can fix sometime this year (it's been this way for 2 years...):

Code:

tspacepilot@citrus:~$ ./eClient/elaunch &
[1] 1075
tspacepilot@citrus:~$ libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile

And so on, for thousands of lines, as long as the game stays up.

The interenet tells me that if you simply link to a libpng from this decade when compiling that these errors go away.  Wanna test it?

[tspacepilot]

Hi Teppy,

This is tspacepilot from Dragon's Tale Casino. If I understood you correctly in today's chat, the problem you want to address is that students have an incentive to choose the highest mentor possible.  You wish that they would pick mentors closer to their level in order to "improve the culture" and to aid mid-level mentors in finding students.

Right now, the mentor gets the difference between a student's DT rate and her own DT rate so students have an incentive to pick a mentor with a high level so that that difference is high.  My solution is a little like an automatic DT split implementation, but it reverses the incentive a little.  Consider this:

Let d be the percentage difference between the student's DT rate and the mentor's DT rate. 

d=mentor_dt_rate-student_dt_rate

Right now, the mentor gets the entirety of d.  But what if you split d between student and mentor based on the closeness of their level.

Let l=mentor_level-student_level

Distribute d between student and mentor based on l:

   student%of_d | mentor%of_d
l=1:    50%   | 50%
l=2:   40%   | 60%
l=3:   ...   | ...
l=infinity   0 | 100%

This proposal is basically like the DT split scheme that we've been seeing regularly for situations where l=1.  So, if you choose a mentor that's only 1 level higher than you, you get what would currently be known as a 50% DT split automatically.  If you choose a mentor with a level infinitely higher than yours, your mentor gets the entire difference between your DT percentage and her percentage.

This is just an idea, but I thin it addresses your problem directly and avoids making unenforceable rules, it strengthens the incentive to have a mentor and it helps out lower-level and mid-level mentors more than it helps really high-level ones.

[HappyScamp]

So, big discussion just now in the game itself with the developer/owner of the game and the players, this regarding the idea of changing rules about DT splits, specifically, banning them.

Di said that he would post his concerns here so that we could respond to them in an orderly fashion, as opposed to the chaos of a chat room.

Ostensibly, if I understood correctly (and I may not have), is that 'mid-level players (which I will arbitrarily define as players at levels 5, 6, 7) do not get enough students, that students tend to migrate to the highest level of mentor. (Full disclosure, I am a level 8 player, but also, I refuse students for several reasons: I am not there enough. I don't know enough about the game.  Students can be a PITA.  And then there's the book-keeping.)

So there are all sorts of assumptions to look at here.

The first is the assumption that they should.  That assumption is invalid.  If you go to school and you have a choice to be lectured by a grad student, or the illustrious professor, which would you choose?  There is no reason that a level 5 player, standing next to a level 10 player, can justly claim an equal right to the student-supply.  The level 5 player has just a fraction of the experience of the level 10.  The level 5 player has invested much less in the game.  To put it quite frankly, the level 5 player hasn't anywhere near the class of the level 10. Period.

Second: It is not at all clear that eliminating DT splits would change this dynamic.  Just because I don't get money back, why would I then choose to go with an inferior mentor?  In fact, why would I choose any mentor at al when there are several very competent players in the game willing to help any civil player that comes along, gratis?

Third:  Enforcing such a ban on DT splits would be a logistical and strategic nightmare:  If instead of a direct in game payment my mentor shoots me btm though an account on Seals, for instance, who's to know?  Or if he says to a new player "I'm busy, ask Scorp to mentor you", does that constitute a payment and therefore a ban?  There are too many ways to say "Thanks for being my student", many of them unimpeachable, but any of them can raise doubts, and it also implies that the mentor can never really engage in ANY kind of transaction with the student without leaving both open to charges of collusion.

Fourth: PR-wise, it would piss a lot of players off.  "I was getting DT splits from my mentor. Now I'm not. Therefore I hate Di."  That's what you will get.

Fifth: Players that are in favor of the idea IF the funds go into soldiers or parties or freerolls are players that never bring much to the table at any rate, so no benefit to anyone except the people that show up with nothing.

We are expecting Di to post here shortly just what it is exactly that he is trying to do, as well as specifications for solutions, at any moment.

There probably IS a solution set that most people will find palatable, but let's get the problem clearly identified first.

Scorp~

[tspacepilot]

The solution I proposed above merely attempts to get at the root of what Di says is a problem in a much more direct way than what he's proposed so far.

In my opinion, Happy Scamp/Scorp's points 1-5 above are basically in dire need of addressing before making any changes. 

[HappyScamp]

Hi Teppy,

This is tspacepilot from Dragon's Tale Casino. If I understood you correctly in today's chat, the problem you want to address is that students have an incentive to choose the highest mentor possible.  You wish that they would pick mentors closer to their level in order to "improve the culture" and to aid mid-level mentors in finding students.

Right now, the mentor gets the difference between a student's DT rate and her own DT rate so students have an incentive to pick a mentor with a high level so that that difference is high.  My solution is a little like an automatic DT split implementation, but it reverses the incentive a little.  Consider this:

Let d be the percentage difference between the student's DT rate and the mentor's DT rate. 

d=mentor_dt_rate-student_dt_rate

Right now, the mentor gets the entirety of d.  But what if you split d between student and mentor based on the closeness of their level.

Let l=mentor_level-student_level

Distribute d between student and mentor based on l:

   student%of_d | mentor%of_d
l=1:    50%   | 50%
l=2:   40%   | 60%
l=3:   ...   | ...
l=infinity   0 | 100%

This proposal is basically like the DT split scheme that we've been seeing regularly for situations where l=1.  So, if you choose a mentor that's only 1 level higher than you, you get what would currently be known as a 50% DT split automatically.  If you choose a mentor with a level infinitely higher than yours, your mentor gets the entire difference between your DT percentage and her percentage.

This is just an idea, but I thin it addresses your problem directly and avoids making unenforceable rules, it strengthens the incentive to have a mentor and it helps out lower-level and mid-level mentors more than it helps really high-level ones.

TS's approach would work, imo, but the assumptions behind the whole idea are ghastly!

Arrrggg!  What's with the assumption that choosing a mediocre mentor would 'improve the culture' (whatever the heck THAT means in this context).

If 'mid-level' mentors want students, let them show that they are WORTHY of having them!  Forcing mediocrity on students can not have a good result.

If you want to mix the mentorage up a bit, that's fine, but select other less noxious ways:  Require students to pick a new mentor every month or two, for a year or so, and after they have had a good sampling, let them choose who they will.  That should relax that whole dynamic a good deal.  If you like you could institute a Mentor evaluation & tabulation.... such that a student can broadly rate a mentor with whom they have just spent the last month. (By Broadly, I mean something like "Rate you mentor as : A) Fantastic in every way!; B) Was really helpful, but improvement could be had (see notes);  C)  Pretty good but I'm not in love (see notes); D) Would not choose this mentor again.

You can do a 'mentor of the month' based on those... they should be fairly legit input for evaluation.  I think that there are several mid-level mentors that would do very well in that sort of competition.

Scorp~

[HappyScamp]

Dialing it back to a Marxist perspective, this kind of problem is exactly what you would expect from the attempted commoditization of something (here, mentorship), that is inherently incommoditizable.

If that were taken as square one, then, it follows that NO funded mentorship solutions exist: Let whoever would mentor whom do that and let it be its own reward. Most real mentors do it because of their social disposition to do so, and do it freely (GreenGremlim and Hezaza, Cheep and others have been a great help to me, for example, and I have treated them in return with parties and drinks etc... and so the flow actually goes in the OTHER direction).  Phoney mentors leave you fishing in the dark, running up bets ( as per my second mentor, who I will leave un-named).  

You could take the resulting funds and channel it back into herbs (which, unlike parties, freerolls and soldiers are not just give-aways.  Players have to work and compete to get them, and that is a somewhat egalitarian solution.  Not perfectly so, in that, say, people with less than perfect vision, like me, have a hard time with herbs).  Herbs may not be the answer, or just a part of the answer, as to incentivizing play and participation.

Separately, it is interesting to speculate what would happen to the whole 'family' meme in DT were all compensations for mentoring discontinued.  It would probably disintegrate.... and that would probably degrade the whole tone of the game and possibly the bottom line as well.  Maybe something along the lines of guilds as in atitd, but they would have to be purpose driven.  Guilds themselves could also conceivable have a leveling system~


I'm not saying that I totally agree with the thoughts in this post; they occurred to me, so just sharing them in the style of the old "brainstorming groups".

Scorp

[hacker786]

Hello there:)


Hacker here me and some other player agree on a monkey roulet tourny which can help in increasing the newbie incoming and keep them busy with game the idea is

we need a board of monkey which can be playable with tokens so a newbie can practice on it and play for free

i can suggest a 50 btm total tourny 10 btm tourny for each 2 hours

cause of this if all newbie will stick to the game they will eventually end up playing the game and it will help the community as well as di

[tspacepilot]

Hello there:)


Hacker here me and some other player agree on a monkey roulet tourny which can help in increasing the newbie incoming and keep them busy with game the idea is

we need a board of monkey which can be playable with tokens so a newbie can practice on it and play for free

i can suggest a 50 btm total tourny 10 btm tourny for each 2 hours

cause of this if all newbie will stick to the game they will eventually end up playing the game and it will help the community as well as di

Hacker, you seem to be talking about how to get new players.  But you haven't shown how this is connected to Teppy's proposal to disallow mentors from sharing with their students.  Take a look at Happy Scamp/Scorp's points 1-5 (post #348 in this thread).  IMO, Teppy really needs to address those points before telling folks that they're not allowed to share money with their students.

[hacker786]

He asked for a proposal which can replace this split thing..and this whole discussion is going on because newbie dont stick to the game..if we dont fix the basic thing all thing will be screwd up at the end and di will do these kind of things and make shitty rule

[hacker786]

And There are some points i want to tell which i think are not right

1)The basic need wht game require is we all need something to do..which is not there like almost 90% player stand at bar wait for someone to come and do shots and other stuff no one do anything cause there is nothing to do beside lossing the money on games..herbs was a way which he first reduce when BTC hit 1k usd from that time they are in ksat well it was still good cause least we had something to do back then but now he reduce it to very minimum like almost nothing the player who have done that task you can ask them..most player dont even care to look for them..we need herbs lic and herbs back

2)Soldier..soldier were good back then each pay 20-30 ksat so it was good least for new players (iam not a hot shot big money guy so i use them really)..they are dead i didnt even care to look on them from like 6 month now...they pay like 3 ksat now and he want a newbie to play game with it..well now he introduce the mineral water concept..newbie getting good now they can play but wht abt mid lvl player (no herbs )(no soldier)...we need something here to keep them going also

3)The third thing i think is his affiliation program that is lame (at 50 btc bet the affiliated player  get 1 btc from him)..this is just lame and on the other hand he dont make much affiliators..i will suggest he give 10 code per person and make affiliation (5 BTC per 100 btm)..that way the more affiliated player the more they will try to bring the newbie to game

4)His absence to game he just come up with an idea in a month or two and want us to accept that most player have request which are not done from long they message and message him no reply no nothing he say our community sucks but common we are doing at our best at least iam trying

5)The biggest problem are odds of game NOT a single damn game show odd
i had try to convence many mod of gambling site to come to game they come and say wht are the odds of this game and that game so i have to tell them manually that this work like that and this work like that..we need a odds showing on each game wht are the chance of win and wht are the chance of loss one more thing we need to attach a info colom to each game so a new player can click on it and read how that game work (i have like 4 player under me who want to discover the game on there own but they dont know wht are the odds )...another thing is if a newbie enter a game he collect money from soldier and drink (he try to play element fire at the other hand i say its a bit low varience..he loss 10x in a row i mean whtf who gonna play a game where low varience are lossing 10x streaks)...sorry for any bad word or if anyone get hurt that was my points else you are the game master if you ban split nothing gonna happen there are more then 10 ways to send split to a student..ty for reading:P

[teppy]

I have a radically new idea, would like to discuss with anyone that does not care for the "no splits allowed" proposal. Call me at 412-973-7914. If I don't answer it's because I'm already taking to someone else.

Teppy

[hacker786]

you can mention it here..i will consider it or try to consider it:P

[iram91445]

I have a radically new idea, would like to discuss with anyone that does not care for the "no splits allowed" proposal. Call me at 412-973-7914. If I don't answer it's because I'm already taking to someone else.

Teppy

why you need people to call you can you do deals just here as they might have to pay a lot for it

[tspacepilot]

I have a radically new idea, would like to discuss with anyone that does not care for the "no splits allowed" proposal. Call me at 412-973-7914. If I don't answer it's because I'm already taking to someone else.

Teppy

why you need people to call you can you do deals just here as they might have to pay a lot for it

imram91445, this is a mmorpg casino and the gamemaster is proposing changes to the game, it's not a "deal" that he wants to do.  I'm guessing that he want to talk on the phone because it's easier than typing out a long discussion for an idea which is just emerging.

In any case, I hope he will type it up (either here or in-game) once he's thought on it a little more.

[I-Am-not-A-Mule]

How about this for a solution to your DT split problem.

A mentors DT will be the difference betweeen the students DT level, and the DT level at 1 mentor level higher than the students level.

e.g.

* for L0 to L4 students, the mentor DT for all mentor levels will only be the difference between the student DT level and L5 DT.
* for a L5 student, the mentor DT at all mentor levels above this will only be the difference between the DT level for L5 and L6 DT.

and so on......

This will have an automatic split with the student every time a set ammount of DT split is to be paid; this could initially be a fixed value of 1 btm, but player could be given option to choose a differing fixed payment level, or possibly even have this added directly to their own DT instead.
The split will be as follows: If mentor is 1 mentor level above student ( e.g. L5 mentor with L0 to L3 student, or L6 mentor with L5 student ) then split will be 50% to student, if 2 mentor is levels above the student than split will be 30 % and if 3 levels above split will only be 10%, above this student gets no split.

Split will continue to ripple upwards to mentors mentor etc.. as at present, but mentors mentor DT would also only be the difference between 2 mentor levels, and would have the same 50/30/10/0 split.

This would be an incentive for all players to have a mentor that is 1 mentor level ( 2 at most ) above any of their students.

If you really want to ensure new mentors get students than you could make it so new students get automatically assigned to a Level 5 mentor unless they have opted out of having students ( i.e. mentor get asked if they want to mentor the student ). Some sort of sharing code would be needed for assigning mentors based on the number of criteria such as current number of active students the L5 mentor has, if they have 1 btm funds so they can demonstrate to a student how to play the games needed to reach level 2, and how long it is since they were last active ( so students do not get assigned to AFK zombies ).
 
You could also add in a mentors option to not give a split, but students would need to
be given a warning about this, and if they then chose to change mentor because of  this they automatically get their remaining DT split earned up to that point.

Any left over DT goes into a free-roll pot.

[tspacepilot]

I think that what I-am-not-a-mule said is essentially a restating of what I proposed on the previous page. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1392.msg11527966#msg11527966)

Still looking forward to hear about Teppy's "radically new idea".