Paying per compute time works for businesses looking for flexible cloud solutions, but as an individual this makes playing the game much less fun (because you're constantly paying attention to the cost).
In any case, the pricing model has changed and it is $9/month flat rate, so that concern is obsolete now.
This is $84 a year for the high-end subscription, including Steam discounts, which isn't really that much money. I don't know if the game is any good, but if you're the type of person that considers it to be, that is the sort of money that can be well worth playing for the feelings of accomplishment the game provides.
That's why games can have monthly costs that are similar to Netflix, with much less content - Netflix doesn't provide the same sort of sense of accomplishing something. (Let's ignore the fact that nothing in the game world might actually matter - it's the feeling that is important.)
People should be able to price at what they want to, without getting HN flak.
I purchased the game, 2 months of subscription, and have been using ingame-credits to fund my sub for the following 5 months ( I've currently got an additional 4 months of time in tokens that im trading on the market as well )
While it did take some time to get ramped up, and I am in a safe area with my alliance. A player can, with a little market interaction, not pay IRL money for the game. (you will have to survive long enough to get there, expect to get killed off a few times before you figure out defense)
Ever since then, any headline involving EVE player shenanigans and a dollar amount is derived from this one-way exchange rate.
it would also make the game cheaper if you figure out
les[s] computationally intensive algos to win.
While my O(n) solution maybe eloquent, they can afford O(n^n) so provided our _players_ make the same outcome the algorithmic complexity is irrelevant if you can afford it.
The game uses a soft turn based _ticks_ timer. So provided your O(n^n) solution can execute in 1 tick. Their is no difference.
I don't think you're giving your hypothetical shite programmer enough credit here.
Seems to model reality fairly well.
Screeps has a speech API?
It worked on you!
There aren't (yet) any public codebases which have a handle on endgame combat. It's still more or less competitive after 2 months of play.
CPU-Wise, if you pay the compute time is tied to your account level, with a hard-cap if you're level 30 (there are still only a few players that have achieved this, it takes many months)
Any algorithms that players come up with will almost certainly only be useful for playing the game.