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

How on earth would offsprings work with a story driven RPG?

 

@rune_74: I can't see how it couldn't.

 

I quite like the model of limited housing, but it would be nice to have villages grow to towns, and towns to cities, and cities (perhaps) to a metropolis without affecting the availability of lots (and therefore property become more valuable, especially if more villages/towns are added to accommodate groups as has been suggested).

The way I envision that is city states, and citizenship/nationality to a village/town/city/metropolis. The difference between each of these would be determined as a function of the number of citizens.

Why would someone be a citizen of a village rather than a city? Maybe its taxes are cheaper, maybe it comes with PvP rules that are different, maybe its kickbacks/cost of operating for businesses or resources are better, cost of defense is cheaper, etc.

This of course opens things up to intricate inter-state economics/NPC relations/city state vassalship and even wars.

Integration vs. expulsion as well as emigration and immigration should be contingent on standing/virtues.

 

I want a robust renting system to help alleviate the limited housing. The ability to rent out individual rooms in a home with an automatic way of collecting rent.

It would also be nice to have additional vendor space to rent based on size of lot such as the following

Village: 1 rentable vendor space
Town: 2 rentable vendor spaces
City: 3 rentable vendor spaces

If my vendor is focusing on renting spell reagents, i could rent out space for someone to sell something else. That way more are drawn to my store and others without houses have more options

 

Someone else mentioned it, but I would also like to be able to buy/rent a room in an inn. It would be nice to have something between a bank box and a house.

I like what I have heard so far on the PvP, it got a bit ridiculous in UO for a while where you could not leave town without an army.

As much fun as UO was it lacked the story element of the classic Ultima games that I loved. I am hoping for a great single player experience with the addition of the online content.

 

As a player of the Ultima series, UO since 1997, and most of the popular MMO's of the last 10 years, UO was by far the best game I have ever played hands down. Nothing, in my opinion, has ever even come relatively close to it.

This game needs to be everything UO was, and then some. As I am sure most of us who played UO know, there are elements to it that are unique to it, but incredibly necessary in order for it to be successful in terms of an experience that will truly immerse. A Sandbox world (incredibly important dynamic that must exist for consistent successful PvP IMO), housing, looting, killing, breaking into houses, figuring out puzzles and mysteries, fast travel, stealing, a notoriety system, speaking in-game without the necessity of a chatbox (which creates a certain desirable social dynamic IMO), tangible items, traps (tinker traps anyone?), crafting, gear customization, working skills WITHOUT having to quest (for example: sparring friends or casting spells on yourself), I mean the list goes on, and if Lord British were to need an earful of reminders, I am sure that could be arranged. But it's these ideas that have already been carried out successfully in UO that need to be re-imagined, and reinstated. These ideas should be staples of the MMORPG genre, and used as a baseline when designing games. All or much of those aspects need to be included in this game. That's not to say that it needs to be a UO clone in terms of gameplay, although I probably wouldn't complain, but it certainly needs to have a whole lot of those aspects at a more evolved and fine tuned level, much like UO was for it's time.

To condense my thoughts into a few words: 3D world like Tabula Rasa, UO gameplay with your own new twists and innovations, but keeping the fundamentals. This is, in my opinion, what will make it great, and successful.

Glad to have you back Lord British.

 

When it comes to crafting items, a proper tech tree. I was pretty impressed by the character development tech tree in Path of Exile

 

Further thoughts/concerns in different topic of mine - https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=hopes-and-concerns

But to sum up, the main feature I want is massive play with a living world where everyone is there together, no fragmented by the "game type" choice. Also, I want meaningful side professions/activities besides battle/crafting, like fishing, treasure hunting, and sea travel (boats!).

 

I hope this doesn't get lost in the numbers.

What I would love to see is an area of the world that is really difficult to get to and requires a lot of traveling, something perhaps like a ancient city. Taking a game such as Skyrim as an example, while it is a big world with various cities, they don't take too much time to get to overall. For there to be an obscure city that takes a lot of time and skill to get to would be great, I know there is a dual scale map so perhaps you have to travel through various locations/areas before you can reach the city. Basically something that really recreates the type of epic trek across vast lands that you get in classic fantasy and SF books.

For reference, I'm just one quarter of the way through The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and the journey to the second city featured in the book, and the description of the city really made me think of this idea.

It could potentially mean that the people who inhabit the city are very hardcore players based on the time and difficulty of getting to the city.

Secondly, assuming you need to eat regularly, being able to exist on a vegan diet with in the game would be great!

 

a cat as a pet(I'm a cat lover)

 

@rune_74

I think I know more like what you might be asking, and that be the dynamics of bringing offspring into the world.

I'm not saying there should be sex in SotA, as I think that crosses the line. And I don't think there should be pregnant belly NPCs and PCs running around.

For all I could say, in SotA, storks really do deliver babies. For all I could say it's more like magic, babies pop out of thin air.

But I do think there should be some measure of romancing an NPC, or maybe in the case of two PCs then mutual consent, and then some time taking process (after all, in previous games like UO, even growing plants or breeding animals took some time and effort). A baby NPC appears. After time the baby reaches a child state of development (you might be offered the choice to halt age progression because you like having kids around).

After more time adolescence state. At which point, you could choose to claim it for a PC, or a tasked NPC (have your children running the store), or else wait too long and the child runs off to join the militia or band of brigands or even just to become fodder food for dragons.

I *LOVED* the ability to have children in the Sims. I always thought it was the one feature most missing from any role-playing game I've ever played.

Not to down-play romancing of companions, either. But I have begun to see game developers wisen up to in-game romance. Most games have wedding features, companion romance, flirty conversations, and etc.

But I've not found a single game that has children born out of role-play. It is so very missing.

 

Not sure if this may already be a feature. But in your demo all I saw was HUMAN characters. If I have the choice to pick between several different races, that are all distinct mind you, not just a different skin tone, I will totally back this with as much as I can spare!

-Humans ok... But more selection than just humans.
-Orcs, dragonkin, anthropomorphs, completely new fantasy races. More of this!!

 

^ No furries thank you!

 

I just upped my pledge from 2nd Responder to the new Immortal Adventurer. I am SO excited about this game.

What I really want is the ability to play or somehow meaningfully interact with the game from my iPhone. Reality of my life is a fair amount of travel and family balance, which necessitates getting in my games any way I can. That means I play more on my iPhone than anywhere else. Whether I like it or not. Gaming on an iPad is not going to do it. It has to be a phone for me personally. I know it's one of Richard's stretch goals, but I haven't seen it yet on the list. I love the music and taming goals, and happy with what has already been achieved, but please make mobile gaming part of the main development points.

A game like Lords and Knights has zero story, but I enjoy it because I can play on any device at any time, and I have a rich social interaction with members of my alliance. I would love to have a simple representation of the game world to allow me to interact with friends online, maybe do some crafting/farming/cooking, manage my inventory, decorate my home, etc.

I also look at a game like the mobile version of Civilizations, which I think does a good job taking a game that I would have normally never thought playable on a small screen, and makes it so I can game on my iPhone.

No matter what, I can't wait to see this game, but I know I'll have many more chances and hours to enjoy it if it is available on iOS.

Thank You,
Hygard

 

*Option for full time PVP (check box or better yet, sliding scale based on actions)

*Separation of PVP based acquisitions from PVE

*Player based economy (allow NPCs to buy from us, but limit their supplies on what we supplied )

*darkness and need for player supplied light

*things that go bump in the night

*no flight

*Option for full time open-loot with exclusive benefits and repercussions (if I am open loot, I can loot another character who is also open loot, but not allow normal PCs to loot or be looted)

*Earnable titles

 

I would like to see the ability to play with my partner and share the rewards from kickstarting. So we could share the house, title etc

 

Farming and a real trade economy. The ability to play as a civilian meeting people
and contributing goods to the adventurers.
Lore and educational material about the world. The ability for players to contribute custom creative content and sell it in world using in game currency.

 

I would like to see an updated version of:

1. Thieves! Being able to pickpocket folks, with the threat of being discovered and punished, was awesome in UO.

2. Houses should not be secured, unless you can secure them, i.e. locks of various quality, etc. House keys should be able to be stolen.

3. Open world PvP! I loved the PK's and fighting against them in UO.

 

I?m sure that I?ll have some particulars to contribute as the dev process progresses and more information becomes available but at this point I would just like to propose an investigation into whether Richard Garriot?s mission to space endowed him with telepathic powers. He sure seems to have read my mind in terms of what I want to see in SotA!!
? Story driven gameplay
? A rich RP experience
? A flexibility interactive game world
? Skill-based character development
? An innovative combat system
? Immense potential to personalize

And on top of all of that there is the potential for significant contributions from the player community. What more can I ask for at this stage?!

p.s. Richard, your promotion of literacy in the gaming community is laudable.

Edit: For those having trouble getting to the next page in the thread: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=features-youd-like-to-see-in-shroud-of-the-avatar-sticky&paged=11 -- cs2501x

 

There's quite a bit that I want, but I'm able to narrow it down to just a couple of main points that probably haven't been brought up that much......

1) Player-made books.

If you want my idea of how I say implement this, I made a lengthy post on the following page.....

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=feature-question

2) Player leveling through sources other than quests and combat.

I would really like for the player to be able to level in ways other than just killing enemies or experience rewards from quests. For example, by crafting and selling items, or by buying items in one location and selling them in another at a higher price. It would be difficult to balance this in a way that wouldn't allow for easy leveling, and that would still make fighting enemies and completing quests a better way to gain experience. I just think implementing something like this would keep people who want to craft items or work as a merchant type character from being extremely under-leveled compared to other players who have a similar amount of play time......

I'll admit that I haven't read every thread in the forum, (or even every page in this thread), so it's probable that these have been discussed before. In addition, I acknowledge that these aren't important to the main function of the game, and as such am not expecting these to be implemented any time soon. That being said, it never hurts to get these ideas out there early on.......