"-All items are UNIQUE. What do I mean by that? I dont mean as in every single item has some special power. I mean they all have a quality, a material, an age maybe, etc. Similarly to DF. No more 'all platemails have exactly the same modifiers and defense bonus'. An iron platemail would be better than a copper one made with the exact same design, and if the crafter is more experienced, he can not only make a better quality one but also add extra 'perks' in it. (see crafting below)" - Poltifar
Quality is to be accounted for. Don't expect to find Quality armor in a newbie-crafter's shop, even NPCs. We may be able to add to the AI feature, that when a NPC crafts a new item, it gets added to his shop. This would help with that problem you touched on up there.
"Crafting system as proposed by Vattic. Not just the alchemy, but other things too. Making armor wouldnt just be 'open crafting screen, scroll through plans that have been learned, click on the plan you want and have materials for'. No, it will be 'hmm, I've got these two pieces of iron ore. I put them in the smelter, put in fuel, lets see... maybe wait 3 ingame hours? Then I pull out the metal... seems good quality enough. I use my smith hammer on it. One hit? Two hits? Then, temper in water. Pull it out again. Woops, the metal piece broke... must have done something wrong somewhere in the process, its too brittle. Oh well, lets try again, changing the procedure a bit.' This is the ultimate form any crafting system can take. Experimentation would be the key, and any difference in any step of the process would affect the end product. The quality of the ore, the heat of the forge, the time of the smelting, the tempering, the hammer hits, the skill and strength of the person... etc. And once a smith discovers a great recipe, he become rich and famous, making the best swords in the land, unrivaled by any other. People would flock to him for his wares. Once he is old, he might give the secret procedure to his sons or apprentices, or take it to his grave." - Poltifar
This is an excellent idea. I'll be bringing this up at the next meeting, but, then again, there is the problem of somebody posting it in a Wiki, as somebody said above, and ruining the game. I guess that's where the player's skillpoints come into play, a variable on how well the player has handled the process.
NPCs do die from old age, so if a player switches to one of his sons and makes him an excellent crafter, he may then tell another player's son (who is also under control) how to do it, as an aprentice, before he dies.
Just an idea.
"-Magic would follow the similar theme, with experimentation being the key. There would also be many ways to exercise magic. Tribal witchdoctors might have to try to call on the ghosts of their ancestors (ghosts of dead players), and give them offerings to please them. Alchemists would need to try different regents from exotic plants, animals, and metals, and might even specialize in one type of them. 'Traditional' fantasy mages and wizards would have to develop arcane languages and symbols that allow them to control the flow of magic (or they would learn it from their teachers/masters or from ancient arcane tomes other players would have written long ago)." - Poltifar
Again, excellent idea. Witchdoctor's turn to archaeic prayers, alchemists travelling to the desert to find the Desert Rose (or something), Players needing to learn arcane languages and symbols before learning the spell (Such as, like taking a test before he learns it. "What does # symbol mean? Player has a list of options, etc, but on his own in a study, or, something).
"-Randomly generated HUGE world. Some people might dislike walking around, but hey, we need a HUGE world if we want it to be truly realistic. If its too small, there is no place for cities, farmlands, mines, hidden outposts, etc... How can you build a hidden base if any n00b can just walk around the whole world in under 1 hour and discover it??" - Poltifar
not going to happen. Well, the randomly generated part. I explained this above, but, basically, I have to hand-craft every inch of the game's graphics using Photoshop. So, generating it wouldn't work. But yeah, the Huge World thing will definetly be there. It'll take you at least a few months to see every inch of it.
"Of course, with the huge random world comes random resource and creature generation. No more 'you can mine anywhere to find the iron'. Maybe the far-flung town in the south is the only source of iron for your whole kingdom, and thus is a very important location. Maybe a vein of some strange unknown substance, or a rare kind of lichen ideal for alchemy, was found in the treacherous northern mountains. Maybe the last few black dragons are rumored to live in the swamps nearby, and a weird burrowing creature has been attacking caravans near the desert. Etc.." - Poltifar
Agreed (Minus the random part!) Don't expect to dig into sandstone and find gold - you may even hit a Larva tube, and cause an explosion. You'd burn, and it would spill onto anything nearby. Woe to any nearby villages.
Same for alchemic reagants, you'll have a tough job trying to find many of them, seeing as the world is so huge.
Creatures will be as diverse as I can afford!
"-Herding, hunting, farming, fishing, etc... all these also relate to the random generation system and the advanced crafting system. How many seeds of this plant do I plant? How much water do I use? What is the best fertilizer for it? Wow, if I add a smudge of pheonix excrement with the soil for this plant, it grows bright red flowers that glow in the dark! Maybe I should take these to the local alchemist to investigate?" - Poltifar
Herding? I hope so. Hunting? Yes Farming? Yes Fishing? Yes. Good example, I think you may have just expanded how we will be handling farming. Thank you!
"-No ultimate item/material/whatever. ALL MMOs up to date have an 'ultimate' of everything, one 'must have' for you to be anything other than a n00b. Just look at WoW. If you dont have THAT spell, THAT weapon, and THAT armor, you're less than dirt. There must always be something to get more than what you have, else the game has little meaing. Same goes for the skills, there must be no caps (although once you reach a certain amount, it becomes incredibly slow to learn more). Also, have different items and materials on the same power-level and have a reason to choose any of them, not just a specific one. Maybe maces are better than swords against the rock golems you are going to face? Maybe the fireball spell is more economic in your town than the iceball spell because the reagents are more readily available here? Iron is normally better than silver to make weapons of because of greater hardness, but silver is easier to enchant and is more effective against supernatural opponents, so, hmm, which to chose? Heck, even RP reasons: maybe its a tradition for all royal guards to wear black iron helmets encrusted with a single ruby on the front? Maybe you are a famous sword-master that has been using your old rusted iron sword that you inherited from your father for sentimental reasons?" - Politfar
As I said up at the start of all this, somewhere, I may remove the idea of skill-capping. With that, every increment in the skill increase the value and quality of that peice of armor, that weapon, etc. Therefore, there would never be the ultimate peice - there will always be room for improvement... This opens up a whole can of worms with uneven gameplay, but hey, i'll have to make it so it takes a month or two to increase the skill, past 100, by 1.
In Lineage 2, in certain grades, there's always the best Heavy Armor, best Light Armor, Best Sword, etc. This was a load of nullcrap to me, so, in MyWorld, players will be crafting their own wares and sending them out into the world. Maybe somebody buys it, gets a new one, and sells it. That is then set for sale (Maybe even in an NPC shop), which then gets bought, and so on.
"Now for the disclaimer: I do not believe such a game would ever be made, atleast not before we have quantum computers to run it and positronic brain AIs to help us make and manage it. And even if it WAS possible to make it, it would NEVER work as an MMO like WoW or others, because of the incredible emphasis on metagamming in these communities. Wikis would pop with theories on combat, item crafting, maps of the world, etc... within days of its opening. The only way it would work was with strictly enforced RP and with a small community (relative to other MMOs), like Fairy Tale Online is doing." - Poltifar
Well, yeah. If we do make this, it'll be awesome (MyWorld). But, because it's 2D, it may scare off a large portion of the audience (Impressionable 12 year olds and incomprehensive fools).
So, a Wiki-game-destroyer-pedia may not become too much of a problem. Mind you, you say a small community, yet DF is small (compared to many) and it has a Wiki filled with hacks and tips. Oh well.
Good post, man.
+++++++++++++
And now, I am going to get out of bed and eat, after 2 hours of writing this up... I wonder how big it is.
[Reply].
ha!
"The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (40000 characters)."
I just did a Wordcount, and I got:
Pages: 13
Worlds: 7,499
Characters (No Space) 34, 776
Characters (with space) 42, 052
Paragraphs: 245
Lines: 750
Awesome.