Its Pre-Alpha, there's still time...

So, the game is already engaging, and I'm in. It's also pre-alpha and I'm reserving most judgements.

That being said, I've been involved with MMO development for a long time, and I've been gaming a long time. Always been a one-game guy. First it was MUDs on BBS systems and D&D. Then EQ/UO, and on down the line. I consider myself SotA's exact demograph. Just a couple of really simple things can go a long way to be "different" and "classic" at the same time. Maybe some of these are already slated, maybe not. But I see them as nearly required, and certainly a proxy for making the game most of us (UO vets much?) are here for.

• Give everyone (at least) 2 character slots, and the extended slots for pledges scale from there.
• #1 depends on sharing skill point caps between adventure and crafting. Let there be crafting only characters. Go ahead and keep the experience separate, but make the combat v crafting a choice.
• Have 3 different "guild" types and let a player join up to one of each, and toggle their displayed affiliation as they choose. One for social/citizenry (PoTs and traditional guilds - perhaps hinge the functionality of citizenry from this?), one for trades/merchantile (a more realistic meaning of the world guild or union - perhaps route vendors through this?), and one for combat (PvE/PvP bands and "guild wars?") Put as much or little functionality into these as you like. Do nothing other than allow up to 3 "guilds" per player and the roleplay can take over from there, or expand the functionality for a more feature rich and immersive experience.
• Have item repairs have diminishing returns. As simple as each repair lowers the max by 10.
• Gear display (admit it, egos and envy exist). Inspect another's paperdoll? Gear dummy house decoration?
• The wildcard: adventure badges, aka "I've been to the bottom of the Ruins of Ravensmoor." Steam achievements don't count. This is a wildcard because it matters less and there are many ways to do this such as the Dragon Bone Throne!

That's it! That's seriously all it takes beyond what is already obviously in the works.

As a post-note, come release time, make sure to achieve the following (as obvious as they may be.)

• Non-quest content all the way through the levels
• Quest content all the way through the levels
• Something to do other than generic PvP and roleplay/player-invented content at max level for non-crafters (I admit, this can be hard to do)
• More than 3 balanced/complimentary PvP builds
• An art to combat beyond stats or staring at your ui. (Stats and ui are okay, just as long as there is art beyond such.)

Through my years this is what I have identified as the recipe. Notice I didn't mention anything about graphics.

Its pre-alpha, there's still time...

 

• Give everyone (at least) 2 character slots, and the extended slots for pledges scale from there.
  With higher pledges you can get up to 3 slots. It is implemented and a bonus.
• #1 depends on sharing skill point caps between adventure and crafting. Let there be crafting only characters. Go ahead and keep the experience separate, but make the combat v crafting a choice.
  Skill points are seperated between combat and crafting. If you are a crafter you level up only crafting as long as you wish. You don't need to level up combat to gain skill points for crafting, but it gives some from time to time.
• Have 3 different "guild" types and let a player join up to one of each, and toggle their displayed affiliation as they choose. One for social/citizenry (PoTs and traditional guilds - perhaps hinge the functionality of citizenry from this?), one for trades/merchantile (a more realistic meaning of the world guild or union - perhaps route vendors through this?), and one for combat (PvE/PvP bands and "guild wars?") Put as much or little functionality into these as you like. Do nothing other than allow up to 3 "guilds" per player and the roleplay can take over from there, or expand the functionality for a more feature rich and immersive experience.
  totally agree to that. There needs to be a town community you can join, especially for Pot with their own chat channel town wide not global. And I wish I could join a second guild.
• Have item repairs have diminishing returns. As simple as each repair lowers the max by 10.
  Planned, but not in yet.
• Gear display (admit it, egos and envy exist). Inspect another's paperdoll? Gear dummy house decoration?
  Not really my wish. but lets wait and see.
• The wildcard: adventure badges, aka "I've been to the bottom of the Ruins of Ravensmoor." Steam achievements don't count. This is a wildcard because it matters less and there are many ways to do this such as the Dragon Bone Throne!
  Nice but I don't like those achievements like in WOW. That is an Endgame mechanic I don't really like.

 

Just to add a couple of notes..

Multiple characters slots were a hot topic.. but Richard is pretty set on the idea of you playing yourself and not wanting players to feel they need more than one character. To this end, characters on the same account must share the last name and reputation. This is to avoid gaming the system and the excuse is that "you are still you".. that is you're meant to play yourself from Earth as an Avatar. I have my own opinions about the "lore" behind the mechanics but we don't need to go there. To simplify it a bit it's to help ensure your decisions matter. No playing one way with one character and another way with the other.. like having your good character benefit from your bad character etc..

That said.. there is no subscription so every account is a 1 time purchase. Get 2 or 3 accounts and play each however you like. Compared to other forms of entertainment, this is extreme cheap. 1 account for hundreds or more hours of entertainment.. or 1 meal at a nice restraint.

Also, since pledge accounts can now have up to 3 character slots, odds are good that there will be other ways to get additional slots for non-pledges post launch.. such as through the store or in-game means.

Now.. all THAT said.. the game will provide a means for a single character to explore all skills available. Right now this is done through respec, which I personally hate for many reasons we won't be getting into here. This will be fleshed out and more involved later

 

I'll concede the multiple characters/crafting choice concept. As you have both illustrated it isn't outside of playability with the current mechanisms. But it does hinge on what Bowen mentioned, that respecing is a no-go come launch. Sure, go ahead and respec. Your skill points start over at 0! Sure, being higher level maybe you gain them back quickly, but that's the idea. Your character should be a choice, not a can-do-anything, flavor-of-the-day. Where's the immersion or long-term playabilty/player interaction beyond that? A chat room? No thanks.

In terms of badges I more had SWG in mind. Still to this day I cant watch a Star Wars movie without saying "I've been there!" 200 times. I even had a badge to prove it, that other players could see when inspecting me, urging them to explore the far reaches as well. Sarlaac pits, Jabba's palace... Hours of rewarding, immersive adventure, no loot needed.

 

Respec won't reset your skill points.. it will be much more involved than it is now though as you'll have to run around and find different trainers.. but I've yet to hear a satisfactory design for how it would work and not end up being nothing more than a money sink you can throw your coin at to suddenly swap out skills.

Awhile back I suggested a hybrid system that would allow for optional skill decay and skill gains through use which would be more natural and not need a respec. but I fear it's wishful thinking.

 

The achievements in SWG were simply wonderful. POIs (Points of Interest) got people out exploring. Sarlacc Pit, Krayt Graveyard, Palace on Naboo...etc. Like you, every time I watch Star Wars, I can't help but think, "I lived on Tatooine." It is shame that the Devs *never* managed to take Ralph Koster's sandbox and actually ADD meaningful quests. It went out with a whimper when the NGE was released, but I'll refrain from whining yet again about how SOE broke my favorite toy...LOL!

You could also earn special accolades from devs, which surprisingly, I earned two for my architect on Wanderhome. One for her backstory and one for decorating. Themo Lock, Gaelis, and Edward Newgate have shown me that I'll have to up my decorating game if I want to compete with the big guns in SoTA

Finally, I actually preferred only having one or two character slots. I've tried being an alt-pig with numerous characters in other games, but it's just too hard to juggle so many. That said, for the people who like a lot of alts, I hope there is a way for them to add character slots sometime in the future outside of the higher pledge structure.

 

It has been noted additional slots will be sold on the add-on store.

 

Before Sony messed it up; SWG was awesome! I really loved the resource gathering system. Setting up a mining machine, charging it up and letting it do its thing while having to do my thing in the "real-world" rocked!

 

I played Wanderhome as well, from quite early on! Still to this day I have dreams that UO:R and SWG original had a baby that was born in today's gaming speeds...

 

I have to add that the way they fairly made jedi so exclusive, which in turn guaranteed an active player base of every profession was just brilliant. Obviously unique to the environment, but it worked. Quite well.

 

Yah, it's funny, but the things I loved MOST about SWG, are the things games nowadays have dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Your example, resource gathering:

SWG:
1. Spend time surveying to locate deposits. Water, gas, minerals, metal. You might have to travel the galaxy and survey different planets! Road trip
2. Avoid mobs. Example, Krayt Dragons, Tusken Raiders, Weequay Bandits on Tatooine.
3. You found that gas spawn you needed, but the harvestor has to be placed on flat ground. Oops, try again.
4. The harvester needs power at a minimum to function.
5. The harvester has to be emptied.

Other games:
1. Find a node, bang a node. All done.

---> Plus if you were a female Twi'lek architect like I was, your gender/racial modifier meant that you were WEAK and could not wear a full suit of composite armor for protection (unless you found a doctor to buff you). There were times I spent an hour dragging a Krayt Dragon into mobs that I could not kill...it was satisfying to see Tusken Raiders getting smooshed underfoot...LOL!

All in all, SWG was hands down the most complex sandbox game I have ever played. RIP SWG.

 

My favorite gaming memory of all time was before vehicles in SWG. All the rebels I knew hung out in Anchorhead. It was a 1-day experience to craft fambaa leather armor and fashion a bone into a weapon. Then 20 of us would take the... I don't know... 20 minute jog to Bestine Starport? And what would that get us? About 4 swings on a trooper before an At-At would blast every one of us down. Clone up back in Anchorhead, rinse, repeat. Also falling asleep at the keyboard during said walk and waking up later to myself jogging in place on an invisible wall on the edge of Tatooine. God bless, RIP.

 

So easy, it is, for a thread to digress into Original SWG talk. I am to blame, I started it... To circle back around I think we reiterated a couple of my original points: the beauty of crafting-only characters, exploration/adventure badge systems, and non-pvp/quest/roleplay - aka truly adventure - content available at all game levels.

 

Not to take this thread even further off-topic, but if you were a rebel on Wanderhome, what was your character name? My architect was Sienna Ra'ein. My other Twi'lek was Kidania E'Lenwa.

But back to the thread: Its Pre-Alpha, there's still time...

I agree 100%. Plenty of time to flesh things out as we go along. I am very much looking forward to this game. It is scratching that itch I've had since SWG went bellyup. Relief at last...lol!

 

Man, as sad as this is, I have been trying to remember. I so enjoyed the generated names, and my first character used one; making it hard to remember! (I have to admit I have been a friend of the Devil's Lettuce, which probably doesn't help :O ) I rolled a rifleman alt later on named Phe'Nix though, never forget that one! He eventually became my go-to.

 

Petrov. Petrov was his name. Boom.

 

LOL!!! Definitely good times! I totally agree.....best sandbox game I ever played!

 

Nice! I totally forgot the name generator.......I really liked it. I don't remember any of my char's names though
I do remember spending an hour clicking through names until I found one I really liked one time.

 

I don't think it is that off topic......I'm pretty sure it's the Devs goal to innovate away....which includes entertaining the best of the past.

 

Yes. I see a LOT of innovation here already, although I'll admit there are others who would completely disagree with me. I am wondering if people who never played a *sandbox* game really understand that a huge part of the equation is that players actually have to build a lot of it. Devs give us the tools and we have to use them.

For example, PoTs. Anyone who played SWG knows that there were player towns in the open world. I was a mayor for a whole year and I don't know how I survived or why I am repeating it as a PoT owner here in SoTA...lol. What one person sees as *pay-to-win*, I see as something else entirely. I see it as being there to build community...that and I *am* nuts.

SWG PoTs occurred long before there was even a concept of an addon store, although if you look at interviews with John Smedley, he was an advocate of the *velvet rope* idea as far back as 2007:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11sony.html?_r=0

" In general, Mr. Smedley wants to replace subscriptions with a combination of microtransactions, advertising and what he calls the “velvet rope” approach. All three concepts may come to bear in Free Realms, which the company hopes to release on PCs this coming winter and on the PlayStation 3 next summer."

I don't know if Smedley is the first one to come up with the idea of an *addon* store or not. But they are here and here to stay. If I had my way in SoTA, PoTs would not be something you buy, but something that you have to actually build up from scratch and then scout locations to place your city hall. With that said, I am happy that PoTs are even available in SoTA and it will be interesting to see how this process unfolds

I believe the Devs and the players in SoTA are in a symbiotic relationship to innovate and I look forward to seeing it unfold further!