Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 4.7K All Categories
- 4.3K Life in Lusternia
- 412 Announce Posts
- 71 Event Posts
- 1.7K Common Grounds
- 589 Q&A
- 83 Combat Overhaul
- 1.5K World Library
- 86 Combat Logs
- 867 Event Scrolls
- 403 Mechanic's Corner
- 325 Ideas
- 314 Last Chance Trading Post
- 478 Life Outside of Lusternia
- 9 Forum News
- 275 The Real World
- 94 Meet and Greet
- 37 The Funnies
- 63 Mafia Hideout
Awesome features that will add even more depth
Let me drop a few ideas in this pool of creativity.
I know Lusternia recently got collection cards minigame (ikons). I also know they are only used for duels against players. Now how about expanding this feature, make it more popular and important? This how I see it:
Many NPC characters that reside in big cities can now be interacted with by "PARLEY" command. This starts ikons duel, like the one you do against other players. Every time NPC is severely hit by ikon (looses like 20% hp), he reveals a small part of story - it can be lore fragment or something interesting about game world. When player wins parley, he gets full story to read. Which story is told chosen randomly from big pool (you can use for this books from Libraries). If player looses parley, he cant interact with this NPC for one RL hour.
Now this where it becomes interesting. Every NPC is connected to one type of city leveler, and each of those levelers is responsible for diferent buff. When you win parley from NPC A, leveler A goes up while few others go down. When leveler A reaches its peak, everyone who visits a city recieves major buff for few hours. Same goes for leveler B, C, etc.
Why this is awesome?
People work together for one common goal.
Newbies can be useful even for high level characters.
You can tell all kinds of lore this way, and it is more interesting then just reading a book.
Players get buff. Players love buffs.
This is dynamic. You never know what kind of buff city has (all buffs should be equally useful, so people didnt just rush for one particular).
It makes ikons not just a minigame between players, but a huge part of the game!
Feature #2: Master goes, character stays
After logout characters disappears from the world. I know it sounds crazy, but what if they didnt? What if you could leave your character to keep working on your goals. And what if online players could somehow interact with those offline characters? This how I see it:
When you about to logout, you can choose to order you character stay in game and do something. He can earn gold by doing some work (online players will see description, that character is hardworking. And there can be all kinds of jobs, from sweeping the streets of Magnagora to feeding zoo animals), he can practice his skills and slowly progress them, stay as shopkeeper at his master's shop (and invite customers with roomwide shouts), he can go hunting or seeking treasures. Or random thing between all those.
Offline characters are marked, so everyone can distinguish them from real.
Those are not just mere AFKers. There is full description for every thing they are doing, and online players can see it. Offline characters can even do basic emotes once in a while.
Character stays in game for 24 hours after logout (then disappears, this will prevent overflood of left souls). Or until master comes back.
After player logs in, he can check what his character have achieved while he was away.
If offline character dies, player finds him where he died with a message how he died. This can happen only if master chooses to hunt or if character is killed in PvP.
Online players can interact with offline characters. For example, ask them for a lesson and if player allowed that, lesson will be given. Or play ikon game with them for money, if master allowed (used same type of AI as NPCs in #1). There could be many creative ways to bring this online-offline interaction.
Why this is awesome?
It gives players sense of progression even after they logout.
You can do what you like, when you're in game, and make your character do what you hate (but have to do), when you logout.
This makes population look bigger, world feel more alive. And with smart online-offline interaction, it will not be just for numbers.
Players can write reactions of their offline character on key words, and go very far with it. So far, that chatting with offline character could be as interesting
as with real person. And making offline character a worhy RP interlocutor becomes a new unique goal for players.
Feature #3: Rare mobs
I dont know if there are rare monsters in this game, but if there are not, its a good idea to add some. Basically rare mobs are mobs, that are spawn like usual species, but they have unique name, abit stronger, have like 12-16 hours spawn timer and have a chance to drop very good loot. Imagine joy when during boring hunting session you encounter rare beast which drops something special for you. You can tie achievements to killing particular rare mobs and add honour title for killing every single of them.
Why this is awesome:
During casual hunting you can meet rare creature, which suddenly makes hunting more rewarding.
Can integrate rare mob loot into crafting for better crafted items.
More achievements, more goals.
Feature #4: Big Hunt
Imagine that you're doing something and suddenly see a huge red warning, that something big spawned at <Zonename>. You go there with your guild/city comrades, and upon arriving see crowds from enemy city. Bloodbath follows, and the winners get the privilege to fight enormous beast (which can be only defeated by group or very very strong person), claiming the trophy. Trophy can be brought to the city, so that every citizen recieved benefits from it. It is attached to city walls for, lets say, 24 hours. Then it disappears and in random timeframe creature respawns again (shouldnt happen too often, so people werent bored with it).
Why it is awesome:
Cool PvP event, that brings group fights on regular basis without any hard work from GMs.
Participants fight for their city benefits.
You can attach rating, which city defeated The Beast how many times and leads the race. Competition is always a good thing.
Feature #5: Treasure maps
Again I assume this feature is not in game yet, since I didnt see it. But it could be a great addition. This how I see it:
Every NPC trader has a slight chance to offer a treasure map for sale. Player who buys it, must go through unique type of quest, where he has to figure the location of treasure chest in limited time frame. Chest could spawn anywhere in the world, even at enemy city. Treasure map is basically a series of clues that lead to this location. When you buy the map, you see the first clue. It brifly describes where you should go first. Description should not be obvious, but contain enough info for players to know where to go. When you reach certain room, you get second clue, and after you do that, final third leading to the chest. Best way would be to make everything randomly generated, so that people didnt just farm those quests (for those vets who know every bush in the world they will be easy anyways, but its okey).
Why this is awesome?
Gives more reason to learn all the wonderful places in Lusternia. Thoroughly read room descriptions, since this knowledge will help alot in treasure hunts.
New unique way to get gold or even credits, if devs are generous enough.
Possibility of awesome adventures if chest spawns on hostile territory.
Gives reason to pay a visit to shopkeepers even for experienced players (who I doubt ever visit them)
Thats it for now. Any kind of feedback welcome 
0
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Once every two weeks, a few of the villages go into revolts, which sends out an 'ahoooga, ahoooga' to all players. Then, you start what is essentially a village wide influencing minigame to try and sway that village to your side. Some of these villages may call down 'peace' on their borders, which means that you have to keep to the influence mini-game and the debating mini-game, others do not and it becomes a bloodbath as each side tries to keep out any other org that might be swaying the populace! The victor gets a temporary territory that tithes power and commodities!
Permanent "rare items" don't really work in a game of this sort, because items themselves on a whole do not give +stats, so there is no item that is inherently better than another; most things are crafted. About the best thing that can be done is temporary artifact powers.
Still, there are a ton of rewards that happen during events already, like that messaging cube, the snow phoenix curio, the solstice dragon mask and so on. Those are items that people can no longer acquire that were obtained with a quest during an event. Granted, the quests were pretty straight-forward and it was more a case of... repeat x amount of times during a month. Still, some of the rewards are pretty nice... the stocking comes to mind, which is sadly unobtainable anymore.
EDIT P.S.: Here's another reason having automated tasks happen while offline won't work. I know it's rather situational, but still. Presently, the ascension event is pretty much in full swing, meaning that any sealbearer will be getting randomly jumped by Kethuru mobs. Considering we don't really have a server-side auto-curing system, I don't see how some poor sealbearer won't end up spawning a bunch of those and randomly getting people (and themselves) killed while mindlessly producing gold.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Last year I had clusters of them numbering in the hundreds in my manse. It was a keth-bit-farm.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
new strategy: Fly above Celestia and spawn kethbits for hours.
I found it more amusing just to make a manse death trap.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Uh, yes, there are plenty from Celest. Any medallion from any year works.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.