Useful Endgame Material for the Developers

Episodic but rare adventures.

There is another thread from many months back about a similar topic. I couldn't find it but I think it's worth revisiting because I think this could be useful for providing interesting twists for those who are finished with the storyline, and players in the middle of the storyline alike.

In D&D you could have awesome campaigns with a storyline that ties into the next adventure to the next and the next into a grand finale (exactly like SotA's 5 expansions). However there is also the D&D campaigns that are made up of a bunch of single standalone episode adventures.

I like the storyline campaigns the most because it builds and has a master plotline, like SotA. However you can still insert stand alone adventures in the middle of a well designed story line without causing a distraction from the main plot of the world, but still have it's own unique feel and isolated events. The possiblities for such adventures are limitless, and crowdsourcable. They don't even have to tie into the main plot, but can be equally interesting.

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This could also be crowd sourced stories or adventures created by the community to some extent. Also after launch and profits are made maybe Portalarium could hire a very creative dedicated designer just to create these adventures. Single adventure, or single dungeon random encounters. If say you guys could even just gather a list of 100 adventures, and say they can be queued up as rare events that come up randomly for players. Side quests or encounters.

For example somebody is traveling on the overland map and is fortunate enough to discover an odd colored hex or something new they didn't see before. It could tie into a bank of random rare premade adventures.

One could be a castle haunted by undead, or another could be to save the world from a radical sorcerer bent on Armageddon, and you are the only one around in time to stop it. Also since these could be rare events why not allow them to allow the character to find rare artifacts that are items that could not be obtained normally.

Artifacts like the orb of the moons that can open lunar rifts at will, or the ability to find an indestructible artifact of some kind, maybe even a weapon. Since these quests are very rare these items would be very expensive if sold, and would be prized artifacts to possess.

Either way having a system to deliver rare mini-adventures is another great way to create end game content between expansions, and beyond. Especially if it is a system that is randomly triggered, and it draws its adventure from a queue or random list of premade adventures.

EDIT: I was thinking it might be interesting if something like this exists in the game that a player might have to be max level before being able to find one of these mini-adventures, or if you're in a party there must be at least one max level player in the group. That way it keeps these rare encounters for epic level adventures/rewards for max level characters.

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ange-because-of-our-actions.7461/#post-128752

I've been hoping to see this in an online game for years and years now.

 

YES! totally! This is exactly the type of cool creative stuff that makes it worth having a hero type character. It isn't just the same world all the time. The possibilities are limitless. After you've leveled up your hero, why not be able to do some heroic stuff that isn't directly related to the game plot, or to PvP? This is exactly that.

 

I think part of the problems with an MMO is that it is hard to feel like an individual hero in a crowd of other players who are all the same.

Allowing players to shape the evolving, living world could make SotA something truly special.

 

Also you don't have to always win or save the day to have a fun encounter. Maybe just finding a great place, and messing it up and barely escaping would be a memorable experience. Or if you have a group and encounter one of these events, the experience could provide some real exploration and collaboration between party members.

 

Having these side quests that come up rarely and randomly I think would be great for the imagination, and keep that hero feeling going.