Boneyards: An Old-Timer's Perspective

Some of you may have wondered at my choice of titles -- allow me to justify my position a bit. First of all, I've been lurking or actively participating in the online gaming community for many years. Though I'm no longer an active Kali member, my serial number is among the first five thousand members. I've been a chatroom junkie since that time. I've been a devout gamer that whole time, in one form or another. More recently, I was one of the first beta testers to visit Boneyards on the night it opened to the limited beta, and I've participated actively in bug-hunting. Hence, I feel justified in making some comments on how Boneyards has evolved of late, and some suggestions for its future as an online service.

As another point of courtesy before I get started, this article is written more or less for those who already have some Boneyards experience, and who know what Galactic Wars is and how it works. If you're not already signed on to Boneyards, get on over to the Boneyards site and get started! With that said, I begin...

Relevant Boneyards History

Boneyards went into active service for the open beta about three months ago. We started with the "Dirty Dozen," and slowly built up to about 50 testers. These were mostly prominent community webmasters, skilled or longtime players and several techo-geeks (like myself) with a knack for bug hunting. Galactic Wars was available from day one. At the time, we were hunting bugs first and foremost; playing the game was pretty far down the priority list. The result: the war was controlled by whoever happened to be playing at the time.

As more testers joined, the war became more popular. The first promotions to the coveted rank of Corporal came along; the war started to expand to most or all contested planets. But still, it was easy to "sneak" a win on a little outside planet by taking only one or two victories there, then deliberately ignoring the world until the map update. This tactic created some debate among the testers. What's to keep one side from establishing a winning record on the key worlds, then not playing the rest of the day?

Well, that theory worked -- for a time. As the Boneyards roster grew, more and more new players began slipping in and playing on those worlds people were trying to protect. That was when I began to establish some war strategy for the Core side. I had bugged Blackfrog into giving us full instructions on the map's update procedures; using those rules, we were able to establish some guidelines on which worlds were more important than others. Those were the worlds for which we fought. Using these tactics (and several other unnamed and unknowable factors) Core managed to sweep four sectors in record time.

Now, though, this theory is breaking down as well (And I finally begin to arrive at my point). Currently, the trend is for 99% of the total GW games on a given day to occur on only one world, aptly nicknamed the "lobby" world for the sheer amount of activity going on there. The rest of the worlds are usually decided by only a few wins. This trend causes the lobby world to fall, generally, to the side whose forces are more accustomed to playing that particular map. The rest of the worlds are claimed by those players who see the "big picture" and opt to take their battles elsewhere in the galaxy. I would like to challenge this trend, and if possible, change it.

The Big Picture

I believe that the "lobby world" phenomenon came about as a result of the structure of the existing online multiplayer gaming systems. Such networks are traditionally structured around an IRC-style chat, with a central lobby and several surrounding "rooms" for various private chats, popular groups, and sub-topics. The bulk of the players meet in the central lobby to talk and to set up games. It's natural for players new to Boneyards to seek out the world with the largest population and play there. When they learn about the ranking system, which requires gamers to play GW games in order to be promoted, these new players seek out GW games to increase their standing. And what better place to find a game than the most active planet in the sector?

Meanwhile, the war tacticians on both sides are struggling to find a balance in this trend. Those organizers seek out the better players of their side and request that they defend a certain key world or worlds. As the front evolves over the course of the day, those skilled forces are redeployed to various worlds in an attempt to secure as much of the front as possible. Meanwhile, the bulk of Boneyards' population merrily slaughter themselves on whatever unfortunate world was chosen to be the lobby for that day. The Boneyards veterans may resort to picking on newbies to tilt the war in their favor (This has proven awfully effective in claiming key worlds).

It's my belief that this lobby world phenomenon is defeating the purpose of Galactic Wars. In real warfare, generals don't win their fronts by establishing some gain, then ignoring or avoiding enemy confrontations. The war doesn't necessarily focus the vast majority of its energy on one particular point. Rather, forces are spread out and yet remain in communication. When one front is collapsing, forces are diverted from other points to assist. This is my vision for the war seen on Boneyards.

I would like to see the lobby world diffuse itself into the other various contested worlds around the galaxy. I would like to see a devoted training world on both sides daily, with veterans scheduled to be there during peak hours, distributing advice and assistance to any who will listen. I would like to see the newbie population of Boneyards looking at the whole map, and seeing a tactical war, instead of a bunch of red and blue pixels. I would also like to encourage a true command structure, involving periodic strategy and planning meetings among the high-ranking commanders, filtering all the way down to squadron-level control among the planets. It's a high vision, but perfectly manageable.

The Solution

The first step is for the veterans to encourage (publicly) that the newbies begin to take their wars to other worlds more often. As time goes on, things will spread out naturally, but I would rather encourage that spread. Never play on the lobby world if you can possibly avoid doing so. Ask newer players to find games on other worlds. Seek out chances to start up big chats on some of the less active worlds -- those chat halos are magnets to players seeking GW games.

Another thing we need to encourage is newbie education. Granted, the help docs are all there, and very solid at that. But they leave quite a few big holes in the introduction of a new player to Boneyards. Issues such as where to play, when to train, and when to fight, can't be addressed in a static document. That's the responsibility of the old-timers. As we encourage this "big picture" awareness around Boneyards, we'll see the war start to evolve in a different direction.

Note that I've not even touched on problematic issues like chronic newbie-bashing and padding. These are difficult evils to root out, and will very probably require system changes from the Yarddogs in order to discourage such dishonorable activities. But they will never truly disappear. I simply have to assume that the greater majority of Boneyards players will choose the decent path. And what padding does occur, is likely to occur on both sides. It's something we'll have to fight over time.

Meanwhile, let's push for a large-scale war, as opposed to a huge war on one front and a bunch of tiny battles. Let's actively evolve the war into a better representation of the battle between Arm and Core.

-- Flynn

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