Badges

[Calberd Ofarrel]

This is probably not a very feasible idea, but I figured I'd bring it up anyway. I think it'd be cool if we earned like badges for certain accomplishments in 7seas. However, I don't know what those accomplishments would be. The badges could be worn on say a jacket or sash. I guess I'm really thinking of somehow adding goals in fishing. There's the HOF of course but would be cool to see implementation of other goals in 7seas. Thankfully there will always be customs and new 7seas fish to catch, but if there were like secondary objectives of some sort that would be cool.

[Seven Shikami]

I play City of Heroes, which has badges in a similar style, but there's two problems here.

1. What do you award them for? The game is, at the core, really simple... catch fish, earn XP. There's no data being collected beyond that. If you're gonna add some new thing being tracked it'd need a database backend component and a lot of new code in the rods.

2. Retroactivity. Unless you were mining for data that already exists (and none exists beyond XP and bait) you can't retroactively award anything to someone. Let's say I had a badge for 100 SURs caught. We institute that and the folks who caught 100+ SURs over the span of their careers wouldn't get it since it wasn't being tracked. (This is arguably less of a concern; people are usually willing to accept that they won't get retroactive awards.)

I do like the idea of wearable badges, though. I've been brainstorming prizes for the Bounty Hunt and Wheel of Fish games I'm developing, and trophies don't see much use. I could make those prizes be wearable badges.

[Barbara Schwarz]

(removed)

[Seven Shikami]

Possible, but we'd either have to issue them manually, or patch all the fishing rods to deliver them automatically. Both are fairly ugly options.

Maybe later this summer when things calm down (we STILL have folks coming out of the woodwork with 2.0 rods and older looking for 3.2 upgrade help!) we can look into this.

Meanwhile, the Contest Expansion Pack will DEFINITELY be using wearable medals for Wheel of Fish and Bounty Hunt prizes. Shiny, shiny medals... the kind you wanna polish up and click on, maybe.

[Barbara Schwarz]

(removed)

[Seven Shikami]

Aha. Now, THAT is a workable plan -- especially since the 3.2 rods include a "Coded Boast" that I can hook into to upload your XP into your badge.

Although I have a ton of other stuff ahead of it in order of importance, this sounds like it could be fun. We'll see what we can come up with. Meanwhile, start collecting those contest medals... you never know...

[7Seas Sass]

Seven -- that reminds me of the old "Level Fish" concept I remember you all discussing a while ago, too. A fish that displays your level basically. (Not just hovertext, could be on a flag or whatever.) Not quite the same as a badge though!

[Pywicket Twin]

The possibilities are endless.........medals to be worn as necklaces. Titles that can be seen.......*laughs* 7 Seas Master Baitor!! Special trophies to place in your homes ... rings......watchs......so many possibilities.

[Kitsune Zipper]

hmm, Scripts can update on-the-fly I have heard, if the fishing servers were to tell the rod to update a certain script you plop in there for badges eg: catch 20 bounty fish, then next week earn 4000 xp and another week catch 40 custom fish that might work out for the better.

Those are (probably) possible with some tweaking here and there

[Seven Shikami]

On the fly script updating is spotty and weird at best. You can only do it by rezzing an updating object nearby, which then has to have PIN codes and other permission checks passed. Given the trouble we have getting people to follow even simple update procedures (delete old, rez new) I don't think frequently issuing new things like this will work out.

Plus, if one update adds a counter for 400 customs (which isn't possible anyway, but I digress) and then another adds one for 40 sharks, the old script which had the custom count gets deleted and replaced which wipes out your progress. On top of that, scripts frequently lose their variables anyway just from wearing/unwearing them -- "rod amnesia" was one of the main reasons we started storing your XP and Bait in our servers and pulling them into your rod each time you wear them, because the scripts kept rolling back your variables.

In short: No.