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

Actually, based on UO, which was a good model, each time your gear is repaired, it loses durability, and eventually MUST be replaced, even though it is repaired to 100% is has a durability of 1, and breaks beyond repair the first time it is used in combat. As such, it paid the smart warrior to replace all gear periodically.

Love of gear is the root of all evil. Make gear easy to replace, and you don't have to worry about replacing it often.

 

A Justice System dealing with PKing that makes it fun for everyone:

1) Player A PKs Player B.

2) Player B rezzes and reports to Guard C at Village D (at or near where Player B was PK'd). Player B can only report to one guard for each death (Implication: if Player B is continually harassed by Player A, then theoretically Player B can report to every guard in the city leaving the whole area unsafe for Player A thereby punishing harassment).

3) Player B data of being killed by Player A validated by Guard C, so Guard C and guards within Guard C's circle of influence can keep a lookout for Player A. If Player A comes within Guard C's circle of influence/ patrol then Player A is penalized/detained/killed by those specific guards within Guard C's circle of influence depending upon Level of Infamy (explained below).

4)
a)Level of Infamy follows that depending upon how many PK's committed by a player in a particular populated area, the number of guards on the lookout for that player gets activated, i.e. a murder in and around a village is more notorious than a murder in a city so a village watch would go on alert much sooner than a city watch. However, a village watch is fewer in number, under-equipped, and less trained than a city watch would be.

b) Level of Infamy for a village, town, or city is determined by how many PKs committed in and around that particular populationarea and is not uniform between the three types of dwellings (e.g. 10 PKs in a village raises the Level of Infamy higher and at a faster rate for the player for that village than 10 PKs in a city).

c) Not only does Level of Infamy involve the guards of one particular populated area but it invokes the Bounty System in which other players participate with rewards being adjusted upon the Infamy of the PK'r.


d) If a PK'r reaches a certain Level of Infamy, guards of adjacent/surrounding populated areas become activated and aware of the status of the PK'r. That is to say, a city on one side of the map will not know of the status of a PK'r on the other side of the map unless that PK's has been murdering folks on such massive scale and with such a long career without having been brought to justice. Loci of Levels on Infamy for areas affected, however, can coalesce and perhaps create a global notoriety. Players hunting a PK'r for a bounty, however, will not be flagged as PK'rs if the criminal is dealt justice in an area that is unaware of the status of the criminal because bounty hunters are flagged for having taken up the bounty ( shareable item such as a wanted poster with the particulars of the PK'r necessary to receive immunity for killing the PK'r).


e) Redemption of Pk status and reduction of Level on Infamy as well as the removal of bounty status is earned via imprisonment or fine (in which 'blood money' can be paid to the victim(s) of the player. Fines would be have to be meted out to all victims in order for total redemption. Fines should be based upon the number of times the PK'r killed a particular player which should punish harassment and not leave victims so butt-hurt.

 

I'd just like to say before I throw some ideas out there, that the Ultima series has been my favorite series of all time, and no other game has come close to being as immersive, fun, and 'open' as Ultima7/7.5/8. The games I've however enjoyed recently use "action RPG" elements not turned-based as in WoW, Final Fantasy and Ultima. I'd love to see a return of the Virtue system.

So that said, I've played a few other games that introduced some ideas that I'd love to have seen too. References to 'alignment' below assumes simple 'evil' and 'not-evil'

- All names should be unique, albeit this should be "as seen" not "there is only one Bob", eg the game will have "Bob the (title), (cosmetic gender/race/class name)" like "Bob the Treasure hunter"

~ Every NPC and PC
-- Must be killable (even as collateral damage,) lootable (the ability to loot or steal depends on skill, with higher skills being able to loot better items if they have them)
-- Must have their own unique schedule when not in your party. I loved this about U7, where I could tell someone to leave/go home and go pick them up again later.
-- No party size limit (MMO games have gone from like 10 to 8 to 4, now 3...) Perhaps some PC/NPC players internal "alignment" will have them refuse to join if you do evil things. Likewise there could be PC/NPC's that will join only if you've done certain evil things.
-- Unlimited inventory limited only by weight/strength... (However U7/U8's inventory was messy, Diablo's style inventory was "tetris"-like and aggravating, and "WoW"/U6 style inventory makes it confusing what item is what due to reuse of images, requiring mousing over every item to make sure you're not throwing away your valueables instead of vendor trash.) What I'd like to see is a sortable version of U7's inventory where you could click a "armor, weapon, food" button and it would bring those items to the top and hide the others, sorting them by what is best quality.
-- All NPC's and PC's must eat or they start losing HP and die. Unlike U7, the option to "auto-eat" any food in the party provided there is food. Certain food items could be marked as "eat first" or "do not eat."
-- Shop NPC's should have market economics. If they keep being sold the same item, the price they give should go down. If some items are not selling, the price should go down. Player shops could specify "will buy Z at X" and "will sell Z at Y" and NPC's could sell stuff to players.
-- NPC shops will not accept items stolen from their friends (eg other NPC's in that town)


~ World, locations
-- I love exploring, I love searching containers. For some reason only Ultima 6+ and maybe Oblivion has ever allowed for this. In MMORPG's this is almost a lost cause.
-- Bring back mimic type chests, they were in Ultima 1, also trapped chests that blow up and randomly destroy the items in them.
-- Camps. I liked being able to use the bedroll in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes monsters would interrupt you. Also randomly sleeping in strangers beds and having the NPC throw you out.
-- Being able to pick all locks (depending on skill), including other players houses. Players could buy better "doors" and better "locks", there could be enchanted locks (like in U7) that can only be unlocked with a magic spell. Also simply smashing in weak doors, or blowing up stronger ones can be done.
-- Recycle anything. A fun thing to do in U7 was to pick up loot and sell it to the NPC's that wanted it. This could be extended to -all- things. Like I could blow up the iron door to a NPC house, go to the blacksmith and turn it into iron ingots and sell those, or make a sword from it.
-- No "instancing", if a quest can be repeated, it should depend on the variables allowing for the quest to be repeated, not the other way around where accepting the quest makes those exist.
-- Fast travel of some sort. I liked the moongates (and every MMORPG has basically copied this concept), where as single player games have ventured into "auto-pilot" fast travel. Monsters and other players can and should interrupt the fast travel if not using moongates. If a player can fly (remember the magic carpet?) they should likewise be interrupted by flying monsters. Basically allow fast travel between cities and dungeon entrances if they've been visited. If a "good" and a "evil" character both fast travel to the same place, there should be a chance of them meeting. Or they could intentionally 'camp' the road and intercept all the fast-travellers.



~ PVP/PVE and death
-- In PvP, you have the option of "Duel-only","Open-PvP",and "Alignment". Duels allow dueling targeted characters if a reward is presented, and accepted. "Alignment" allows attacking only "Good" or "Evil" PC/NPC/animals/monsters, where as "Open-PVP" allows attacking everything.
-- FoF list (Friend or Foe list), on PC's this extends to a list of characters that they want to/refuse to party with. For NPC's this includes characters they will not accept items that have been stolen from. For Animals and monsters, they can internally "run/attack upon seeing PC/NPC"
-- Titles, players will have a displayed title indicating alignment in the color of their alignment. eg "Bob the murderer" would have "murderer" in red, while "Bob the bounty hunter" would have Bounty hunter in red (if evil) or green/blue(if good). The player can select which title is shown, but not the color.
-- semi-Permadeath? Under certain conditions, your character is incapacitated until other conditions allow for their revival. For example, getting turned to "Stone" would essentially be permanent death. The player would need a party member with a cure for that. If the party is completely incapacitated (eg all turned to stone) then essentially it's game over until other PC or NPC characters revive them, which could be never (in Ultima 7 you'd have the "fellowship" revive you if -you- die, but you may still lose your party members.) If a player is incapacitated (as opposed to "dead") they can not be looted or stolen from unless that item has that inherent status resistance. I'd advocate for permadeath if there is a way to maintain progress and banked items.



~ Other stuff
-- Hide the numbers please! I'm not opposed to seeing the numbers, but numbers don't really mean much if skill is involved. It would also reduce 'min-maxing' which is when players just dump all their points into the one stat that matters.
-- Players/NPC's should have character portraits or "zoom-in" enough to see their face while you are talking to them.
-- Internally use something other than just "Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity" to calculate damage. I'd actually like to see it based on skill (eg if I always use a sword, the combination of that "sword"'s experience level and "my" sword skill, would be the damage multipled by the sword's forge level and enchantments.)
-- All weapons can be repaired, but weapons that "break" cost more to repair. One game I play has a total crap-shoot for successful repairs or destruction (for repair or forging) and unfortunately this is a source of frustration rather than immersive play. I suggest something more along the lines of "better blacksmiths" or training your own blacksmith skill allows for cheaper repairs of more experienced/better-forged equipment.
-- Allow crafting anything that exists in game. (Either "try to copy this item" or "dismantle item to produce blueprints")
-- No junk crafting to train skills. This is a really sad thing to waste time on in MMORPG's, in order to train the skill, you must produce 10,000 of some item that you can't even sell to other players because everyone else is making those too. Instead 'training' the skill should be based on making better, harder items, and repairing said items.


~ Stuff I want to avoid (or "I hate this in other games")
- Avoid NPC's that are glued in place. NPC's should have their own (predictable) schedule, and change it if certain conditions are met. (eg X goes to hunt Y monsters at 1pm every day, if no Y monsters are found, return early and go to pub and complain about it)
- Likewise, avoid having monsters that "just rapidly respawn" in the same place, so that you can just camp them. Monsters should have a sleep/roaming schedule, so the player's have the option of sneaking up on them. If all the monsters are killed, then the monster "goes extinct" for some time until it is revived by a NPC or another monsters.) Monsters also eat, so they can starve to death if their 'food' harvested by players, and can become aggressive to players "stealing" their food.
- Avoid Vendor trash. Crafting is fine, finding loot is fine. Please don't make the game about collecting everything that isn't nailed down to make money.
- Don't grind to make things a pushover. The player should have to complete portions of the storyline in order to become powerful enough to defeat the monsters at that point in the storyline. Not the other way around where someone can just grind for 30 hours, then go push over every monster in the storyline.

~ Most importantly...
-- No ugly game models. I found playing Oblivion to be confusing and sometimes even boring as every character had exactly the same face and voice. Yes they all had names, but they all also looked identical within a race. This can be partially solved by making "Storyline relevant" characters have unique heads to begin with. Compare Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Final Fantasy/SWTOR where all storyline-relevant characters are unique and easily recognized.
-- Player characters must have selectable gender, hair and skin color. If this were a MMORPG I'd want to go a lot farther and make it so faces are unique, but this is a lot harder to do.
-- Completing the one game should allow for importing into the next. Do a cheat check to make sure that all the values are legal end-game values.

~ Nice to see, would consider it a bonus
-- Some alternative non-human unique interactive races, even if not playable (along the lines of the Gargoyles, Faries, and Emps in Ultima 7, or the Automations in U7.5), even more bonus if they can join the party. (I think I asked every single character to Join in U7 and U7.5)
-- Clever anachronisms. Ultima 1 and 2 had some Sci-fi anachronisms, where as Ultima4+ toned down or got rid of a lot of them. The fact that the Avatar came from another world meant there was some objects that came from "your world" that were useful. Even as a joke Like I'd love for there to be a 'tablet pc' object that can only be used for the first 8 hours of the game before the battery is dead. There could be some other objects that are OOAK but you had to have picked them up before coming to the world, and can't be repaired. (eg you could pawn off your jewelry/clothing to get starter weapons, or your starter weapon could be a kitchen knife with low durability.)


And this is probably a TL;DNR for most. Again I really love a lot of the concepts that were in Ultima 1 and Ultima 7 that I haven't seen anywhere else.

 

I can think of a hundred items I could ask for, and maybe I'll ask for a few of those later. All in all though, I just want a similar breadth of gaming experience that we had around the Ultima 4-6 timeline. (I didn't really play past 6, due to at the time my computer not keeping up with technology.)

I didn't mind having a notebook full of scattered quest snippets and clues, in which one questline might need visits to a dozen locations. Back in those days you couldn't just Google for answers, and I loved it at the time.

I love the humor that sneaked in with many character interactions.

I loved that one needed to experiment for some spells, and that some reagents couldn't be bought, you had to find out where and when to harvest them.

Housing and NPC companions are very much appreciated. It would be nice to have NPC relationships to a point, (No, it doesn't have to be too graphic). But even to just have some interesting companions, maybe some of whom will have their own quests this time, would be fun.

It would be great if adhering to good virtues opened doors for you, and I don't mind, (for those who want it), if darker doors opened for darker paths.

If you can recreate the experience of the old world games, mixed with a lot of exciting new things from what the new toys in game development offers, I have no doubt this game will be a richly rewarding adventure.

 

I would love to see player owned/run mines for harvesting resources, that grow in both depth & size the longer they are in operation, which could eventually run out of material (temporarily) causing the player to stake a new claim or to use geology to prospect for new ore/mineral/gem veins. Having to put supports up (made with lumber jack skill) would be essential to prevent cave-ins.

I'm a big fan of the idea to have natural disaster type events happen when cave diving, dungeon delving, exploring the wilderness, or sailing the high seas, and the possibilities it brings to immersion and depth of gameplay involvement for the player.

- Tradesman posting board for requesting/filling orders to other players for crafted goods (payable on delivery type mail/quest system) Example for this would be:
Player A needs new armor and approaches the Tradesman's board to post a note requesting a suit of *black steel plate armor* They select the pieces of armor they would like made from that set, enter an amount of gold they are willing to pay for it, and then hit post. Player B comes along, and being an enterprising blacksmith, decides to check and see if there are any requests that he can fill to make some extra coin. He spots Player A's request, agrees to the order request, and proceeds to craft the items. Once he has the items, he packs them into a shipping crate (attaches them to the order request) and sends them off to their new owner. Upon shipping the order, Player B receives the agreed upon funds offered in the request.

In addition to the posting board, it would be amazing to have a way to incentivise loyal, repeat customers as a tradesman of any kind. E.g. Buy two set of armor and get the third at 50% off.

 

I would love to see treasurehunting and i throught how cool it would be if the Players could hide treasures for others. Or something like geocaching, i know Richard is a geocacher and so am i. I thought about Special chest with a book in it so the Players stand in it who found the chest. And that you can only pick one Thing out of the chest and have to lay one in.

 

Is there a possibility to have players in game make a village/town/city newspaper maybe using scroll and some preset images that could be placed on scroll to simulate newpaper , announcements ect.. Rather than just text written on scroll/book. Eg like village name herald/times etc..

Then if possible some kind of container to hold these to keep past issues sorta like an archivist?

 

What I wish to see would be a control interface like in Ultima Online. Currently in the video it looks like the game will be controlled like WoW, with the camera fixed to the view of the avatar. I would like the option for an isometric camera perspective (and a control interface to support it).

 

PvP Opt-Out

Personal boats and horses like in previous Ultimas (I want my own boat!)

A hot air balloon or flying carpet like in previous Ultimas

Lighthouses

Shadowlords

Sea Serpents

A cat that ate a mouse that ate a key that opens the barn with the Magic Pitchfork +8 in it

Lord Blackthorn Zombie (I mean Lord Thornblack Zombie since EA is most likely Lord Blackthorn's Sugar Daddy)

Ambrosia

A Space-shuttle (Not really)

 

I wish to see Mark Recall and Gate spell

I wish Full loot out door PVP

I wish Hiding Stealth Stealing skill

I wish Drag and Drop loot in a BAG like it was in UO

 

I mentioned last night to Chris about limiting the Recall spell being a cheesy escape spell for PvP, and he agreed, and they will address that.

 

A couple posts back reminded me, will there be an NPC mouse named Sherry to run through mouseholes for us?

And no, we don't need that, but I just remembered it and thought it was one of the fun things about those old games.

 

Carrier pigeon/hawk that delivers mail and trade between players whilst out adventuring and also making you aware of ongoing events in the world like city sieges on your home. Maybe purchasable from tamers or the traders guild.

 

Reading through lots of the feature selections; I think some of these requests have been addressed over the past week of video updates. Thanks to those folks who have been relaying this information and others continuing to contribute. This thread is amazing; highly appreciated.

Please keep the suggestions coming, and thanks to folks for supporting the Kickstarter in addition to their comments here.

 

COW TIPPING!!!!!!! not sure but thought you couldn't recall when in combat if you could it should be set up only recalling when not in combat for like 1 min or something like that

 

Was watching the live feed liked LB's idea of white tower red dress Sorry here is the but would like it set up in a quest log or set up so it could be put in a journal easily. Reason being some people that will get the game will not be playing for long lengths of time due to RL Example: go to a town that has a white tower and talk to Lady wearing a bright red dress and ask about pearls! (clicks a save conversation button for journal) Remember all the people that are buying it are not all gamers. In UO we had crafters too that would sometimes game We need to follow KISS rules so we can get a larger community filled with all sorts of people. And old people like me are forgetful!!!!!!

 

Introductions system - players' names are displayed only to characters they have introduced themselves to (command: intro) - otherwise you may have clues only from their appearance, or perhaps from a skill 'assess' or 'gather info'. Partially privatizes level, hp, other stats. Could be very useful in balancing pvp. In the text based world of MUDs this greatly encouraged role-play. Only characters you know show up on your 'who' list.

 

Someone had a great suggestion in another thread and I thought I'd add it here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=1000-pledge-and-ships&paged=2#post-11041

Adding Gardens to houses that produce reagents, based on some kind of time-based event--moon cycles, or nightly, etc.

 

Movement speed affected by terrain/weather. Useful flight/levitation eq, 'boots of swampwalk' etc, also other eq/skill/attribute speed bonuses. sorry mistakenly in main wishlist tree

 

I'd like the ability to buy and sell slaves. Different grades of slaves would be extra good. Slaves specialized in different crafts maybe? A medieval setting without slaves would feel weird.