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

I think auction houses ruin every game....they are a mess and out of hand....I personally like the old way of traveling vendor to vendor, EXPLORATION!

 

Would like to see many of the offerings Ultima Online had to offer....that was the best experience of my gaming life....and that was the one that started it all!

 

What I -would- love to see, though, would be something along the lines of advertising bulletin boards. Pay x amount of (insert name of ingame currency) to have your paragraph-long ad and location posted for y days. For an additional amount of Z (insert name of ingame currency), you will get 'priority' positioning for q number of days. This is realistic, easily programmable, and might help reduce the inability to speak at the bank due to the all-caps screamers. And a neat little goldsink.

 

It has been brought up elsewhere, but I figured I needed to repeat it here. Seasons. They would make the game so much more realistic. And if they ran on the schdule of January, May, and September being Spring, February, June, and October being summer, March, July, and November being autumn, and April, August, and December being winter, you'd get three different winters and three different summers each year, and you'd get both hemispheres with at least one month matching the season it actually falls in!

For that matter, if any of the truly major real-world American/Canadian holidays were to be imported, as so many games tend to do, many of them would actually line up by season to the season in the game, too.

 

I think this could work. My only concern would be if each major holiday (say a winter veil or christmas esque themed event) were to happen every four months, it may diminish the rarity (and the special nature) of each event. This could be avoided by having each specific "holiday" festival occur every three in game years. For example a winter veil or christmas "esque" themed festival would only happen every third in game winter (December but not in April and August). This would leave room for other winter themed events to fill the in game winter months of April and August.

 

That's what I was thinking. It would allow for 'winter-type' holidays, as well as holidays connected to the other seasons, which aren't in fact connected to the real world at all. I think it would open a lot of opportunities.

 

I think we asked about seasons during the KS campaign and it's something I hope they have time to do at some point. The change in landscape with the seasons would be great, so I'm not so much into it for holiday themes. Whatever they design though, I'm hoping they take into account that this is only the first continent with Ep1, with it being the center of a tic-tac-toe grid to represent where it lies relative to other continents in future episodes. No idea positionally where this first continent lies on a globe...

 

RUST.
When I think about how things must have been before the invention of stainless steel, I picture everything in shades of rust.
I live in a moist climate. Any iron-based metal begins to corrode (rust) within a season-spring, summer, autumn, winter-unless it is stainless steel.
Anything that isn't massive wrought iron begins to fail as soon as corrosion sets in. One can try to prevent rust by using wax, oil or painting the item, but as soon as a nick or anything breaks the coating, even on the microscopic level, rust begins and creeps under the protecting surface rendering the coating useless.

The only thing that protects iron from rust is GALVANISING with zinc. Perhaps a smith who has attained a certain skill level could perform galvanisation and offer galvanised goods and armour.

We need rust like we need a hole in the head, but it is a chemical reality of life and occurs anywhere, any time, there is iron and moisture.

 

No, we need rust like we need a hole in the armour, not the head....

 

I suspect equipment damage through use is going to be far faster than what rust would do. Just a guess, though.

 

Equipment damage/repairs incorporates rust corrosion, and I don't imagine players give it a thought, but rust must have been a very real aspect back in the day. Imagine chainmail links with their thin wrought iron wire rings, rust must have been a serious problem. I just thought I would bring it up. Iron = Rust

 

I would like to see "whirlpools" traveling the rivers/lakes/oceans gobbling up ships and taking them to fare away islands for adventures. Or maybe "waterspouts"(tornato over water) taking ships to other destinations.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned (this is a loooong thread >.>) but I would love to see player vendors that can buy as well as sell.

For instance, you can set them to buy silver ore at X price, up to Y amount. They won't buy everything, but you can give them a fund with which to buy certain types of items/resources.

 

I know we've talked about this in a video, but it doesn't hurt to have it in writing!
Great idea!
Thanks for suggesting it!

 

I brought it up in a thread somewhere at some point in time, but couldn't tell you where. Lot of expanded ideas where tossed out on it.

 

I personally as a Player Killer Killer, would love to have bounties posted for PKrs that if you are killed by a PKr you can put up a bounty for them id collect since that is my RP story line anyway to protect people, i may join one guild or another that has the same play as i do, With mechanics like that in place it would be alot of fun to rp my toon!

 

Id like to see
-a gambling house were i could gamble away my money
-the ability to place a picture of my face over my toons face (it would be fun)
-more involvment in game by game moderators (setting up littel quests here and there for RP peeps
-character ability to jump over or on stuff (jump up wall and grab on, leap over logs, swimming and underwater dungeons
-sea battles (pirate like) Im tired of being killed by pkrs on the ground only!
-boats with captains quarters to decorate and support housing when you cant find a plot to place a house
-weapons/arrows/bolts that glow according to what magic they have (blue -cold dmg, red - fire dmg, yellow - lightening and animation on the swords of that spell, and oh yeah dark purple crackling for life stealing )
-Axes/hammers that can be thrown (of course youll have to go get it! (Unless is magic of returning)
-Seasonal items always nice to have to put in your houses
-Town attacks by orcs, ogres and other vermin (special rewards for cleaning a town/or for pvp peeps taking over a town)
-Lots of stuff we as players can use to customize stuff/ our characters (thats i think is what kept UO around for so long according to most people ive talked too)
-Animation for casting spells (if as a magic user you have to jump back and forth and wave left to right to cast spells) same with paladins etc..
-Paladin toons should have a choice of holy symbols that either do dmg or increase, heal etc.. (same with Clerics) and have to have it with them for thier spells to work (non stealable)
-levitation and boots of speed (levitate and float around or move blindingly for a certain amount of second before it loses charges (make warm up times on the charges)
-More blood! (i want blood to drip from my axe or sword) of course needing to clean and re oil it with a cloth (or maby the victims tunic)
-Bar fights in taverns NPC instigated or player

thats all i can think of for now give me time ill have more!

 

Off the top of my head:

1. Commitment that all Single player versions of the game will not be neglected and offered genuine support and continuing input from the devs
2. Option for characters to walk if they wish to vs. running everywhere
3. Housing lots to be broadened to allow isolated cottages away from towns etc
4. Different reactions from NPCs if player is brandashing weapons and/or has a poor reputation and vice versa
5. Seasons and darkness being real darkness!

 

edit: whoops, didn't read the single line requirement. Sorry! I made clear list headings giving an idea of what it's about.

About player housing:

• Sub-leasing a basement room, with advantages and disadvantages:
  It would apply on a small room and one per basement (or one per basement story?), avoiding mass sub-leasing but would help a bit pay the rent of the main lease. There would be a tax above a certain number of sub-leased rooms. Sub-leasing decorated rooms would give the subtenant more advantages or opportunities (more storage slots, among other things). Once the subtenant terminates their subleasing contract with the main tenant, the subtenant would have to carry their items themselves (unlike getting a house back in our inventory). It could be seen as a temporary home, the contract with the same subtenant could be renewed only after a certain period to give other players a chance.
  
  The main tenant's house and basement items would be protected against theft and damage, the subtenant wouldn't be able to leave things around the main tenant's place except their footprints from muddy hiking/hunting. But the subtenant would have to take the same front door as the main tenant's house (or maybe via a small trapdoor behind the house?) and would need to go through all the rooms and stories to reach their rented room. The house would be locked from the early evening to the morning unless they subrent a larger more expensive room.
  
  Prices could have a minimum set by the game's average room leasing market and the player would decide of the rest of the price. There would be advantages and disadvantages in subleasing a room vs. a room in at the inn.
  
  Player interaction could happen that way, for new friends/guildies.
  
  This could be extended to gardens and outside tools or the vendor, however the tools or the vendor would have less advantage to the subtenant than to the main tenant (but more advantages than public tools).
  
  
• Writable books that you can put in bookshelves in your house:
  I'm mostly thinking of this for house inventory purposes and eventually search for a particular item without running around and opening all the chests. Even books that you just want to keep for no particular reason, poetry, novels, thoughts, etc. Small greyscale drawings could be included on the pages, as well as bookmarks.
  
  
• A place to generate income by hosting an event:
  The gambling house and bar fights that blaquerogue suggested made me think of this - players could host gamble games (and other activities) in a dedicated room of the host's basement and make a little gold this way. Of course, the host would have to provide the drinks and a specific in-game music. There would 5% of chance that an NPC enters, gets drunk, and trashes the place - the host would need to repair it before using it again (whether this is for storage, living, or hosting events again).
  
  This could as well be extended to the garden. If the host didn't plant anything, the garden could be turned into a training ground or an amusement place - darts? Mini-game? Am I going too far?
  
  
• Basement user-scripting for mini-game/adventure/puzzles/RP:
  Could be seen as the equivalent of Minecraft's Adventure gamemode and the Command block. One could create an adventure or puzzle mini-game within a basement, allowing the guests to solve riddles. The puzzles could last RL days until someone finds out, prizes could be awarded depending on the host's generosity.
  
  The host writes a simple script that triggers a narrator text when a player (house guest) picks up a note on a table, it gives them a user-created quest. The quest could - for a very simple example - ask in a form of a riddle to put certain items in a certain recipient (the items could come from the outside: forest, NPC loot, store, or other people/friends/guildies' basements), and the quest would be completed when the recipient (chest, bowl, pouch, etc.) would detect the presence of the required items. If not, it would create another action (spell, text, etc.)
  
  
• No wild fire inside wooden houses:
  Lamps (oil/fire into glass) instead of torches, please. I sure don't want to burn the whole basement.
  
  
• Seeing the outside of my house, from the inside:
  I haven't seen yet if going inside would unload the outside and load the inside, but if it would take too much resources, it could work in an approximate way. A list of players around the house (not necessarily inside the perimeter of the house lot) would be made and once inside, the view by the windows would generate only a few characters from the list, standing outside on a background - not the full environment.
  
  If there's a view on the garden, we would be able to see how's the stuff that we're growing on there, without going outside.
  
  
• Being able to position doors in basements, edit room sizes and shapes, make corridors:
  The possility of placing your own doors wherever you want on the walls of a basement story, or none at all, allowing us to organise the room in an intelligent way - other than having all the rooms connected to each others. Also, having a trapdoor going from one basement story to another, making the player fall, use a ladder against the wall, or use a rope ladder that the player would have to craft.
  
  It could also be very interesting (if I'm not too demanding ) to have a simple room management designer/editor: you start with the default placement of rooms and you can resize rooms to the sizes you want, make narrow dark corridors if you wish, place doors where you want them to be, etc. The editor would report how much free space you can still add or if you're using too much of your allowed space.

 

If no Aucions house map keys to show what vendors (NPC or player) are carrying what. Nothing worse running through a city trying to figure who has what and if they have anything new/different. Maybe even a inventory we can access from the map.