The Ages of SH

[Code6226]

I just stumbled upon (via Gamer) an old Clan page of the "Cool Smileys" and another fan site: http://www.freewebs.com/smileyhouse/thenoobpage.htm http://www.freewebs.com/joshua368/index.htm

Part of the website seems to be about Age 4 (with a Mining chart; Mining was new to Age 3), but that page is about Age 2.

>Age 0 "Smiley Ring"
-A game / tech demo, where anyone could join (no login/register), and just bump into each other in a wrestling style ring. How you'd bump into each other determined who would lose more health. This was not very cleverly done.

>Age 1 "Smiley House"
The first "age". Again, no login/register needed. Just pick a name, join the single community server (ran MOO2, not hosted by puchisoft). It was basically a chat room where you could also walk around and fight each other. You started with the power to punch. By typing IRC-looking commands like "/fireball", you could swap powers. Then you could shoot fireballs. There was also a "/builder" where you could lay mines, but new people to enter the room would not see them. Many other commands existed, many of them secret, which players would try to guess.

There would also be one room master/king, who would have special powers readily available including health cheats. If he died, someone else would become king.

>Age 2 "Smiley House" / "Smiley House Online"
In hindsight, I should have picked a new name, but in Age 2 I decided to add RPG elements. Looking back now, it was kind of similar to what Call of Duty 4 does. You get exp, and then you unlock new weapons that way. It went further than that though, while style remaining all about PvP fighting.

There were 3 classes: Mage, Soldier, and Guard. Mage got Fireballs and such, Soldier got Handguns, and the Guard got shields. No idea why you'd want to be a guard again; There was probably a small thing I'm forgetting. Then by doing damage with those classes, you'd get Exp. Killing people gave money. Exp determined which weapons you were allowed to buy. Money would be used to actually buy the guns and their ammo. If you ran out of ammo, there was punching.

>Age 3
It's a little fuzzy to me, but then I believe came build113, which was huge. It added Bunnies, which meant you could fight these NPC monsters when nobody was playing. Don't think there was anything else, like cooking, yet. So you just got money and exp for killing them. I think it also added the arcade and electronics store, which had GameToys, meaning that it was the first thing you could do with other than fight stuff.

>Age 4
Now I wanted to really move the game beyond just being about fighting, so I added skills. With Build114, I really redid nearly everything. A lot of stuff in Build113 was client-side, which wasn't abused that much, but while I was working on the more secure Build114, I released my own "Hacked" version of Build113 (called "Build113x", I believe), which let you cheat, including letting people spawn buddies anywhere. This was only given to people who donated. (I think I also changed the log in code to block Non-VIP logins, clever me).

Anyway, Age 4 was actually started with Build114, which removed the old town (Hospital, SH, Info Center, Solder Building, Mage Building, and Guard Building) with extension to another outside room, and then 1 screen of forest. In this age, that one screen of Forest remained, but everything else was reorganized. Everything from the Town screen was integrated into a single building called "SmileyHouse", fitting with the historical core of the game. The forest was then moved underneath, but as a 3x3 grid now, with the old single forest screen remaining in the bottom right (far away from the entrance of the new forest).

So the forest was expanded in such a way that the beginning was now the end. So when you first enter the forest now, you didn't get the traditional first monster (the bunny), but instead got just an abandoned lake. The remainder of the forest had stuff, but only the bottom-right room and the one above it had the monsters, the rest had no enemies to fight.

It seems like quite a blow to the fighting part of the game, but it not really. It was done more to separate the fighting monsters part of the game from the new skills. This way you would not be bothered while grinding your skills, which including: mining, fishing, cooking, tree shaking, and skinning. Mining and Fishing were actually mini-games, which the rest was just based on Exp.

But while the monsters left you alone when grinding for the most part (later additions to mining would require you to fight slightly to mine certain things), other players did not. Besides certain starting rooms like the hospital, this Age, like the ones before it, allowed PvP everywhere.

The game was now largely about some players wanting to get very rich, partly motivated by them wishing to be at the top of the player food chain, allowing them to generously give away their riches in the form of the ever popular contests. I started doing contests at certain times, and the idea picked was picked up by clan leaders. Mostly it was just scavenger hunts to find very high value items, which the top players had hidden for the newer players.

Those who wanted to get rich were at conflict with those players who thrived on being mean to others. Economical players just trying to mine in peace were often disturbed and killed. This was part of the fun of the game. Different people with different roles, and conflicting goals. To put this into perspective, imagine playing a boring grinding game like Facebook's Mafia Wars, and then imagine someone actually coming up next to you and shooting you with a supersoaker.

There were also Mod and Admin players, which acted as more of the omega clan, rather than people who were actually trying to keep order. Some took their role serious and helped new players while keeping order, but abuses of power where not uncommon. I would sometimes have to step in and remove Mods/Admins when things got unfriendly. Mostly, it was all fun though. Annoying people and later being annoyed back could be a good time.

I do not keep the following a secret: I loved being the god-admin. I'd often be on the server console, chatting with people from the abyss, or faking messages, and generally causing trouble. Of course I'd help new players out, and keep order if there was real trouble, but messing with people was a huge part of my role. Similar to the cheat Build113x that VIPs had between Age3 and Age4, I had god-admin commands for myself, ranging from instantly making anyone drunk to mess with their screen and making them see imaginary enemies, to spawning boss enemies anywhere (including areas where fighting as disallowed). There were also certain items that only I could make, which I would sometimes either leak out to cause a lot of brouhaha, or I would have a contest. There was Tsu's Staff (inspired by dotHack) which killed everything in the room, at very little cost; and there were also Health and Hunger cheat items, which looked like a Floppy.

SmileyHouse had come to be about players messing with others who were trying to accomplish various things; the roles would change randomly, and great times were had.

Unfortunately, as the game's server-admin, I had way more ability to mess with players than anyone else. With SC, I want to level the playing field, by having anyone be able to really mess with people in the context of the game's rules. You can't just spawn boss enemies at whim, but who knows, if you work hard, maybe you can spawn a big dragon that kills the peasant's cottages... Trogdor!

The second issue I had with SH was the Mafia Wars-style money grinding system. The way to be an entrepreneur should not be so disconnected from the rest of the game. SH was kind of separated between PvP players and "play the mini-game a lot for more moneyzzz!" players. With SC's building and player driven economy and items, I'm hoping to merge the two worlds closer. There won't be a pop-up mini-game to get money, you need to play the actual game to get other players to give you money.

Players who want money open a Sawmill.
Players who want money sell their Logs to the Sawmill for 10c.
Players who want Planks (to build their own Money-making-Buildings) will buy them from the Sawmill at 15c.

Players who need space for their own building, will destroy the Sawmill.
Players who want a Sawmill can pay others to to construct it.