Siwelmail's Uberthread of suggestions : Othor Games

Siwelmail's Uberthread of suggestions

» Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:54 am

Hey, I thought I’d use all the ideas of spoken to friends about, thought myself, and experience I’ve had in the several years I’ve played mmos and online games. (I’ve only played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, but very extensively at that, both of them being my favourite games I’ve ever played.)

I’ve come up with suggestions, which may, or may not, be to your liking. I think maybe I could keep a little tally of each idea you think is interesting, or worth developing further, or would like to input yourself, please say and I’ll edit the original post with credits to your added suggestions.

I’m writing all this on a word doc then copying it over, and I am doing it in 1 go, so I’ll end up slowing down a bit at the end, but I’ll come back then edit it to make it clearer.

Also do tell me if I’m breaking rules about privacy/talking about other companies or anything similar. (I’ll go with the thought that I can say ‘like in...[game name]’ and compare it to other mmorpgs)

I’ll just dive into my suggestions now:

Quests:

Every mmo I’ve played, and the 2 Fallout games I’ve had, have quests, of different sorts and sizes.

Main quests: Following the story of the played character, or faction/group etc, making your way to a distinct, but not totally finished, ending.

Side quests: Extra missions you can do to gain extra experience, unique/rare items, money, titles, or reputation to a particular group/faction. These don’t directly affect the main storyline but can aid the player in the main quest.

Unmarked quests: Yes, the unmarked quests I’m familiar with seeing dotted around given by strangers usually to do a small task for them in the F3/FNV worlds. These could be manipulated to be quests bought from NPCs and follow a short story for a title or item relating to the mini-quest.

Player made quests: When I wrote down my notes to type up, for some reason I wrote player made quests. If you have suggestions to this please do tell.

Last edited by siwelmail on Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Katie Louise Ingram: Posts: 3437; Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:10 am

» Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:39 am

Crafting:

Most games I’ve played have a system of crafting. This could be alchemy, making weapons, armour, ammo, healing items, or even buildings/building parts/furniture for player homes (more of that to come).

Alchemy: Usually potion making, or combining materials to make them more composite, so a higher selling price, or more useful item, probably unlikely on Fallout Online.

Equipment: The joys of a fully player-made set with set effects or added bonuses. These could range from +5 to science to extra defence to certain attacks.

Ammo: Fairly simple in Fallout 3, stick it in a machine, it melts it, and then you get bullets at the end. Little bit more thinking required in Fallout New Vegas, but recycling is an idea I like, maybe after picking up spent casings or something.

Food: The excitement when you brew your first Wasteland Stew. Then realise that you forgot the key ingredient: radroach meat. With the survival skill in FNV, it’s good fun to cook the raw meat you’ve scavenged (could also be a mini-skill/task) from the dead irradiated animals you find across the wastes.

Buildings: I’ll put this under ‘buildings’ but I speak broadly there, I mean furniture, lots of trees around without leaves could be cut to be taken to the local town engineer-turned-general DIY specialist and pay him a small fee to make a chair. Of Course, if you killed a deathclaw, you could use it’s tough skin as a leather substitute. Also buildings could be made, but this is more for faction cities/player made cities so I’ll leave that until later.

Factions:

I’ll call them factions. But in this sub-topic I literally mean any group that can be formed. Guilds on many mmos, tribes, alliances, bands, clans, parties, etc. I’ll cut them into 3 groups.

Large scale: This is your starter class, and then class city, note; city, not town, and maybe specialist group you decide to join further into the game to make your character more unique.

Small scale: These are your player made permanent groups, which aren’t as major as the entire super mutant playable race, possibly not species specific.

Temporary: Your old school party. Questing, grinding, chatting, it’s a group of people doing something, which isn’t a fixed bond (of course the small scale groups can be ‘left’, but the large scale ones you’re born into).

Last edited by siwelmail on Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.

gemma: Posts: 3441; Joined: Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:10 am

» Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:57 am

Trading:

The amount of times I’ve said to someone “click the lock shaped button” and they’ve replied with some other language I don’t know. Or just general dribble I don’t understand. This is why I think trading, and the economy of the world in general should be (without direct input) controlled/monitored.

Economy: The economy. In every mmo I have played, you’ll think of an item which is probably fairly abundant, but due to different times of year (real life, although ingame weather could come into effect), events, etc the price changes. Because this item is used a lot by players, they’ll want to, if they have abundance, or are a mech, want to sell high. The buyer, who wants to ideally buy low, will have to negotiate with the seller for the most reasonable price to buy their goods. This is how people buy and sell stuff, and I expect simple click, click, and you’re in a trade window hopefully.

Auction house: Several games (most notably, yes, Runescape) have an auction house, where people can put offers up selling their items, for a timed session, to be viewed, and bought by players. Now this is a good thing to play with. If a main, super city was in the game, then this would be the primary location for the Auction House to be, or perhaps a trade city itself, perhaps run by caraveneers, and taxed by the rulers of the town. Taxing could also be incorporated by an autocratic ruler of the town, who provides good protection for the travelling traders, but they suffer from the high taxation.

NPC shops: Every mmo has them. Either with an infinite spawns of them, and then say every game day the armour/weapon colour changes, or it’s fixed. Infinite money, can sell all your stuff there, easy stuff. But on fallout, we barter. Yes we; the shopkeeper/caravan with the Played character. I’m not sure how a mix of bartering and the usual mmo npc shops work, but I expect it’ll be a fiddle.

Traits:

I’ve played an mmo with starter traits. Basically gave 5% to a stat, and like 10% hp or mp, you get the idea, just a little boost to specialise yourself. Well on FNV we have them funny traits we can pick, which weren’t the best, other than good hearted because then I ended up with 0 in energy weps and explosives and I’m fine with that until higher levels. So yeah, I like the idea, but maybe more variety of choice. Eg affecting crafting, or perhaps lower taxes from towns?

S.P.E.C.I.A.L.:

What a lovely system.

Level up to level the skills you have, or with skill books, or grind it, or upgrade the skill every x levels, buy a skill scroll? Or is that too mmo-y, and not FOOL.

Perks:

Through levelling (preferred one each level on F3, but some of the FNV ones were nice)
They’re attainable through quests, or taught by npcs if your reputation (if implemented) is good (or bad?) enough.

Leaderboards:

Every game, has a leaderboard. Even if it’s frigging pacman.

A dense, highly populated, complex, but simple, Leaderboards showing the who sever who is best at everything. Most items crafted, best pvp rating, clan wars etc etc etc. It’s a must.

Housing:

Many different places these can be, in faction towns/’main’ city, clans, guild hideouts, totally player made settlements. Possibly pvp take over? Steal/break into? Many opportunities to play with there.
(As you can see I’m starting to get a little thinner with the paragraphs, I’ll add bits here and there but I’ve been typing this for a while now)

will continue shortly/tomorrow morning

Last edited by siwelmail on Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.