Features you'd like to see in Shroud of the Avatar

Murderers, and treacherous criminals that are killed by guards should be resurrected in a courtroom to stand trial.

Give them an opportunity to defend themselves, and even make some reasonable objections to the prosecution's case. (Upholding the virtue of Justice)

Some penalties can be "restraining orders, returning stolen items, or even being thrown in a nearby dungeon for their crimes"

 

Considering ill die a 100 times just to see what's on the other side of the road, I'm not sure Id want people to see my count *chuckles* - a neat idea though, and I bet it wouldn't be that hard to do. Just tie a counter to your account info.

 

I like the idea of in-game stats in some fashion, death or otherwise.

 

You saying instead of having an external web-based database of information that can be accessed, it should have an in game view of that information? I like that too.

I would like it if guild's also could have a statics page as well to see PvP win vs loss ratio and other stats, and also view the stats of other guilds, and possibly a ranking of guilds per stat type thing. Ranking for number of people, PvP rankings, etc etc...

Not that I like grinding for rankings, but at least have the option. For those it matters to it would be good, and for the rest of us it's cool info.

 

I'd like to see magic items that have an emphasis on functional properties that carry a cost/benefit dilemma. Say for instance you have to drive a magic pin into your beating heart in order to get something like a physical transformation that also carries a benefit, like cat eyes. The cost would be that this item is difficult to remove, and it seriously impacts how other humans act towards you. Another example would be a crossbow that consumes mana while equipped and uses blood as ammo. I think that prefixes and suffixes could be used as stepping stones for the direction of these items, kind of like how it was done in Diablo.

It would also be nice to have procedurally generated dungeons with a variety of rule sets so that it doesn't fall into the same pattern of rooms to explore, fodder to kill, and then a boss with good loot at the end. Randomness is fun!

 

Cat's eyes sound cool. A cat like race would be awesome.

 

I thought that would be cool as well. But actually playing a cat creature in Tera I found annoying. Really fun as a companion but it seemed weird to see "me" as this big furry thing.

I'm sure that's where WoW got the pandas from. It wasn't fun there either.

 

That's odd, I was actually thinking of you when I posted this, and almost mentioned you by name when saying this because of your avatar. Well if you don't like cat races then maybe I should reconsider my post.

 

Taking control of the mouse in Ultima VI was a lot of fun. I hope there's that equivalent. Or play a "crazy cat lady" witch. (This cat is from the human summoner in Lineage2.)

I could see a thief like character who turned into a cat as well.

I really like the idea of a human like main character who can take other forms and / or there are companions you take control of like the Ultimas.

One of the basically problems with very non human creatures, esp with fur, etc., is that gear just doesn't look as good. If you want people going crazy for the best looking gear, give them female human avatars. You can see this in WoW or LoL or frankly any game with re-skinning.

 

Anywhere, actually-just the ability to see milestones and information. I also like the idea of re-skinning to a point; definitely customisation aspects are a major plus, I think, and I think tentatively they're said to be included? Colours and such.

 

I wonder (and hope) it's possible to create a high contrast character even if they are still human. For example make the skin as pitch black as a black widow spider, and have bright red tattoos, red hair, and red eyes with Caucasian features.

 

I want a great amount of movements and gestures to express myself not only with words.
I would like to run, to walk, to stroll, to sneak around, to crawl on the ground, different styles of swimming (regarding to skills), diving (diffenret from swimming at the surface), to sit on the ground, sitting on a chair, sitting at a table, reading book, writing, dancing, singing, to giggle, to laught loud, to kneel down, holding hands, waving, to shake hands, jumping around, to levitate (as mage), sleeping outside, sleeping in a bed, kissing on a cheek, kissing, hugging, facial expressions for anger, joy, love, sickness and many more which I forgot now.

 

This was mentioned in the Markee Dragon interview with Starr Long.
And I think it could be taken even further then it did in UO.
Being able to wear armor that makes us look like one of the creatures in the game.
http://www.1t1t.com/uo2/manhua1/11.htm
And if we don't have names over our heads then you might have to be careful what you wear.

 

I know some folks have expressed interest in having 'whatever you see on the paperdoll as potential loot' as an option. If someone has a torch, there will be a torch on their corpse--or a basinet, or a sword or whatever. It might do well for improving overall game feel and encouraging selective attacks and such. It might also be pretty challenging technically. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

Should that include town guards attacking you if you're dressed the wrong way?

 

Wearing the enemies clothes is not a good idea, unless maybe you are trying to sneak in to the enemies camp.

 

I don't know that I can agree with this completely. I like the idea of having a very favorite "set" of gear that kind of defines your character. Finding incredibly rare armor, and then giving it incredibly expensive enchantments so you have "your" set, or "your" look. These stats might not give you a remarkably large advantage in the battles, but the customization of your look is a big part of the game.

I like the original design of your armor wearing down, and eventually "breaking" if not maintained, but that you can never get it to peak performance, even with a maxed Armor Repair skill, I disagree with.

Here's another idea I had that I doubt they'll be able to get around to implementing: Breaking a weapon or armor doesn't necessarily mean it's unusable.

Picture this: You're in a battle pew-pewing with your favorite mage's staff, and then the enemy comes in close. You run out of mana, and start braining him over the skull with your staff. Since you're not using it for its intended purposes, the damage you're doing to your staff is significantly increased with each hit. Then, your staff breaks into two, maybe as many as 4 pieces.

Now those PIECES become lesser weapons you can use in the battle. Maybe some of the pieces fall to the ground, and you have to quickly pick them up, but say it breaks into 3 pieces:
1 piece is a completely nonmagical "club" hunk of your staff,
1 piece is a "sharp" part that can be used as a weak dagger, and still retained some magic so it can be used as a weak wand.
1 piece is also "sharp" but long enough to be used as a bow weapon, and still has a bit of magic so is still a weak magical staff as well.

Each of these weapons, of course, can be broken down further, eventually you just get, "Broken Pieces of YourFavoriteStaff" that aren't randomly weaponized.

Now, bring all of these pieces to a skilled "broken weapon repair" player (different from a "weapon repair" skill), and depending on how many pieces you broke your staff into and their repair capability, they might be able to put the thing back together for you.

Same thing could happen for armor. If you allow your armor to get into a state of disrepair, you could have hunks of your armor flying off during battle. Hunks that you'd have to collect up at the end of battle, and take to a "broken armor repair" player to have your armor put back together.

Not only does this add two more skill trees to the game, but imagine the questing implications here. Very, very little effort would need to be put into creating a severely broken hunk of armor (from a Quest Dev point of view, that is), then stashing its various pieces throughout the land with a simple text questline to find it. Heck, players could do this themselves, putting together their own scavenger hunts.

In the inventory, you'd have the "usable" pieces: "Dagger Piece From Broken YourFavoriteStaff" and "Broken YourFavoriteArmor". Then associated "10 Pieces of YourFavoriteArmor" piles. Mousing over the "Broken" piece would tell you how many total "pieces" you'd need to fully repair it, so if any of the pieces get lost, you gotta just trash it. (I think the repair mechanism would be weakened by allowing two pieces of unrelated "staff" to be merged to create a new one).

But without seeing how the weapon's system is currently designed, this could be entirely too ambitious to shoehorn in at this stage of the game.

 

I like this. What if each NPC "faction" had a specific "reputation" that you kept with them. Let's pretend that reputation is from -100 to 100 with 0 being neutral. So for a specfic faction, you'd start out as an "enemy" of the faction with a reputation of -10. However, putting on the enemy's armor, depending on the RANK of the armor (a private would be worth 10 points, an officer worth 50 for example) would add that many points to your "popularity" with a faction. Thus, put on a private's outfit and you're back to being "neutral" for as long as you're wearing it. In other words, nobody looks at you close enough to recognize you. This allows you to put on the right gear to maybe start questing for a specific faction in order to neutralize your "enemy" status with them, or sneak about to accomplish missions against them.

Perhaps each piece of armor is rated individually? Or do you need the full uniform to gain the faction bonus? Maybe even killing one of them has no effect on your faction rating so long as you're not SEEN doing it by any other NPCs? Lots could be done with this.

 

I like the customization and look part of your post. However I agree with Owain in regard to weapons and items. The problem with the gear focused games is that you get focused on accumulating ever increasingly powerful gear and I have to agree with Owain when he says that type of game play is sociopathic or whatever...

I hope there are plenty of customizations that make your guy look unique, but getting attached to gear leads to making a bad game. It loses the skill and character focus that we had in the early ultima online experience. Which in my opinion was the best online game I ever played. Nothing has yet come close to that feeling of freedom, and satisfaction of learning PvP "Techniques" and your character's "skills" were also key. Eventhough there was no story line, no quests at all, and no gear grind it was the most satisfying and fun online game experience I've ever had. I wouldn't be here on these threads if that wasn't the case.

I'm seriously hoping to find some of that magic that was Ultima Online, also with the addition of the ethical dilemas, quests, and searching for the purety of being a hero of the virtues found in the early Ultimas. I've been waiting for this game. If you want gear grinding games choose ANY other game on the market and you'll have that. I hope SotA chooses the Ultima way of doing things!!!

 

"Incredibly rare armor" is a symptom of 'love of gear' and the soul killing gear grind that I hope SotA avoids. I'm hoping that the best gear will be available from the best crafters, and that the style and appearance can be modified cosmetically in order to give you 'your' set or 'your' look. But please, no endless raid groups to kill the boss mob, with everyone waiting for their special pair of pants to drop.

Entropy. Everything should eventually wear out, even in a game that includes magic.