Massive online game - competing for Bitcoins

[nsfsj]

I'm working on a project. A small game with a large world. A tiny, tiny MMO one might say. It plays out in rounds where a Bitcoin planet is hidden somewhere in space. The goal is to find that planet. The first player who finds it wins that round. You can not interact with other players as of now, but you can see them in the world. The cost of playing one round is yet to be decided but 0.1BTC sounds about right and the prize will be [number of players] x 0.1BTC x 0.9. It is in 2D and played in the browser so it will run on all major platforms including iPad and iPhone. To get a feel for the size of the world, the default speed is 100 units / s and the world grid is 100000 x 100000 units.

There will be ways of finding in game money which can be used to buy items. Speedboost and teleport are two that will be available from the start. The in game money will NOT be reset for each round.

I will soon start a closed beta (free, of course) with free prizes.

Do you think this will fly? Please share your thoughts. I'm all for being shot down

[1714059233]

1714059233

[1714059233]

1714059233

[nsfsj]

. . . the price will be . . . with free prices . . .

I assume you mean prizes?

Prices are what a player would pay to participate.
Prizes are what a player would receive if they win.

Yes, thank you!

[DannyHamilton]

. . . the default speed is 100 units / s and the world grid is 100000 x 100000 units . . .

If I understand this properly, that works out to a total of 10,000,000,000 locations to hide the prize, and at the default speed a player can search 100 locations per round? Each player has a 0.000001% chance of finding the prize in each round.  (1 chance in 100,000,000)  If you have a single player, he has a 50% chance of finding the prize in 50,000,000 rounds (assuming he can avoid re-checking locations that have already been checked. At 0.1 BTC per round per player, that means the total prize will be 5,000,000 BTC after those 50,000,000 rounds.

It sounds like a game some people might play, but you should probably either decrease the cost per round, or decrease the size of the play area (or both).  If the game becomes popular you better be sure that you can securely store 100,000 BTC or more for the prize.  You will have a lot of very angry people if the prize pool is hacked and stolen.

To make sure the game is fair, you probably need to announce a hash before the game starts that proves the location of the prize.  You'll also need to find a way to convince everyone that you aren't stealing the prize money yourself.

[nsfsj]

. . . the default speed is 100 units / s and the world grid is 100000 x 100000 units . . .

If I understand this properly, that works out to a total of 10,000,000,000 locations to hide the prize, and at the default speed a player can search 100 locations per round? Each player has a 0.000001% chance of finding the prize in each round.  (1 chance in 100,000,000)  If you have a single player, he has a 50% chance of finding the prize in 50,000,000 rounds (assuming he can avoid re-checking locations that have already been checked. At 0.1 BTC per round per player, that means the total prize will be 5,000,000 BTC after those 50,000,000 rounds.

It sounds like a game some people might play, but you should probably either decrease the cost per round, or decrease the size of the play area (or both).  If the game becomes popular you better be sure that you can securely store 100,000 BTC or more for the prize.  You will have a lot of very angry people if the prize pool is hacked and stolen.

To make sure the game is fair, you probably need to announce a hash before the game starts that proves the location of the prize.  You'll also need to find a way to convince everyone that you aren't stealing the prize money yourself.

Thank you for the feedback!

The total square units are 10,000,000,000 but the player speed is 100 units each second (not each round) at default speed. It plays very much like a 2d mmo (it is not turn based). There are speedboosts that will increase that speed. A round does not end until a player has found the hidden planet so the prize pool will never get near that amount of BTCs. I might need to make the world smaller, it all dependence on the amount of power up items available and amount of players. It will take one player 27k hours to search every spot at a speed of 100 units/s, which might be a bit too much.

The hash of the location will be provided but I'm not sure how to convince everyone that I'm not "finding" it myself. That is the hardest problem to solve. Providing the hash of the location is one way of making it harder to do so, but not impossible.

[PetraGeisel]

sounds interesting but i see another problem (beside the BIG trust issue)

what if i multibox with multiple accounts?
i could make a sweep without redundant lookups while the non-cooperating players visit the same locations multiple times --> unfair advantage

[Vladimir]

Satoshi dice sounds much much more exciting.

[PetraGeisel]

Satoshi dice sounds much much more exciting.

true

i think luck based games can only be successful if the addict player receives his dose reward instantaneously.

[nsfsj]

sounds interesting but i see another problem (beside the BIG trust issue)

what if i multibox with multiple accounts?
i could make a sweep without redundant lookups while the non-cooperating players visit the same locations multiple times --> unfair advantage

There are ways of preventing botting, so this will be quite hard. Although if you pay for multiple accounts, it can obviously be done. The advantage does not come free. Time is a much more important issue / advantage.

[baggyp]

masters of orion for btc? COUNT ME IN!