FIREFLY MMORPG Design Document - Thoughts?

[Ben_Wayde]

So... I was bored and decided to write up an 'alpha' design document or rather start one for the FIREFLY MMORPG which is currently in development by Multiverse.

I'm no pro, but 'rpg systems' just sort of come fairly naturally to me so ...
Please post any thoughts/cirticisms about the design document - I love constructive feedback. Cheers

PDF FILE with images: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=ABA5A49C016A07E9

TEXT VERSION


Firefly Online MMORPG Design Document - Alpha
Deacon Szabo

Here is my proposal for the Firefly MMORPG. Feel free to comment – I love constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy:

Game Design: No More Numbers! No More Clones!

Imagine a game where the focus is NOT grinding for those little experience points to add up until you can level. Instead, there is a more realistic driving force. Where role playing is rewarded and combat is action oriented. Where the driving forces are wealth, reputation and adventure. But of course the most important driving force is the simplest; good old fun.

I don’t know about you, but I’m bored of the tedium. Bored of chores and grinding boars. No more Kill X boars – instead, missions that matter and make more common sense.

Any and all calculations are done in the back end; that is out of the player’s view off in softwareland. Much like in reality, when I swing a bat to hit a baseball, my probability of a successful strike isn’t calculated before my eyes but I know that my practice has increased my chances of success. Not only would this leave the screen free of a lot of clutter, it would make the experience that much more exciting. Not knowing things for certain adds a level of danger and an element of surprise, making encounters more suspenseful and interesting. With the ‘numbers’ out of sight, they are out of mind allowing players to focus and enjoy the game.

CHARACTERS
-Creation: During this stage, the players would obviously create their avatar’s physical appearance most likely through sliders governing features such as body size and shape as well as many details for hair styles etc.
Step 1: Male or Female
Step 2: Define Physical Shape [Overall Body, Head, Face, Nose etc.]
Step 3: Define Physical Details [Hair, Eyes, scars, beginner clothing]
Step 4: Skills [Combat, Ship and Professional Skills. More on this in SKILLS section]
Step 5: Character Trait [Players may choose just one natural ability or endowment which aids the character. Some examples: Tough = Able to take more damage; Agile = Slightly better with weapons causing more damage to enemies; Charming = Convincing against NPC’s unlocking certain dialogue options; Intelligent = Professional Skills are slightly enhanced; etc.]
Step 6: Choose Faction [Players choose between ALLIANCE, NEUTRAL and OUTLAW factions. Those serving the Alliance are upholders of the law and the bounty hunters who uphold the law for profit. Outlaws are smugglers, pirates and renegades while Neutrals are mostly comprised of merchants and business folk who just try to earn an honest living and stay out of the crossfire. Each faction has benefits and drawbacks]
Step 7: Choose World [From a list of worlds affiliated with the chosen faction]
-Customization: After a character is created, they can feel free to further customize themselves by acquiring jewelry, tattoos [Which can be removed for a price], haircuts/dyes, visit tailors for clothing modifications, weapons, armour and even tools which all show on the character.
-Progression: While the focus of the game isn’t like in standard MMORPG’s where progression is a measure of Experience Points and Levels to show everyone how powerful you are, character progression does occur. It simply happens in a more natural and realistic way.

Now that your character is out and about the Verse, they will encounter many quests. Most of these quests will offer money, which is quite important to gain all sorts of character and eventually ship enhancements as well as all services. During the missions, you will more than likely have to use certain skills you have. Every time this occurs, your character is actually getting slightly better at that particular task.

Also, as you accomplish missions for your faction, you begin to build your reputation which then unlocks new content such as more missions with greater rewards, new secret locations and more.

The more renown you become, possibilities to join larger organizations open up. Members of the Alliance can join the Elite Agency of law enforcers and become agents of the Alliance. Members of the Neutral faction can join the Trade Federation and gain access to money making opportunities while enjoying the benefits of cheaper crafting resource prices. Members of the Outlaw faction can join the Syndicate which is essentially the organized crime network, gaining great influence and access to new heists and criminal missions.

At the same time, depending on the decisions made during conversations players can unlock the ability to join other factions as well or even become double agents within each other’s networks.

All of this information is recorded in your personal journal. Here you can keep track of all missions undertaken and even important choices made during conversations, as the book logs your adventure. There is also a section for you to write your character’s biography as well as a section for random notes of whatever you wish to write. The Map section of your journal updates constantly with all locations you discover, however maps for many areas can also be purchased. These maps, though detailed would most certainly be lacking in information and areas which must be explored to be found.


SHIPS
Starships are not cheap, and thus it is more than likely that a group of players will have to band together and purchase one; though it is possible to become wealthy enough to buy your own. Many ships can form alliances or ‘Guilds/Clans/Fleets’. Any player invited by a member of a ship may board that ship [Access list settings would allow the owner(s) of the vessel to define players who are allowed to enter the ship] however they would not be allowed to use the ship systems [Helm, Engineering and Artillery. More on these later in the Space Combat section].

Once a ship is purchased, it serves as a ‘home’ to all its owners whom have equal control and possession over it. Characters can ‘Return to Ship’ quickly from almost anywhere except from within instanced missions. Here, characters heal twice as fast as normally. A medic’s ability to heal characters is also doubled on board the ship. If a character is left behind on a world, they can simply ‘Return to Ship’ however they will not be able to return to the planet they came from in such a way. The ship must be piloted to a new destination to exit.

All ships available for purchase to players would be roughly the same size, allowing for a crew of no more than 6 to 12. Each faction would have ships of their own, but all ships would be further customizable in appearance and of course, upgradeable parts.


SKILLS
These skills are chosen during character creation, preparing your character to jump in and start playing the game right away. The focus is to have a fairly developed character that’s ready for adventure, rather than the same old Level 1 ‘Kill some Rats until you’re level 100’ style of progression. Instead, as you play and make use of your skills, they will evolve more naturally and over time become gradually better. As stated before, all the calculations would be done behind the scenes as you are meant to enjoy the game rather than worry about the math.

COMBAT SKILLS – Choose one EXPERT, one PROFICIENT and one NOVICE. Effectiveness and Speed of combat rate heighten with expertise. Here are a few examples of combat skills:
-Unarmed [Brawling, Trained, Martial Arts]
-Pistols [Expert allows Dual Wielding]
-Sniper Rifle
-Assault Rifle
-Explosives
-Blades [Expert allows Dual Wielding; blades cause deep wounds and thus cause opponents cut to bleed faster and lose health quicker. This is a bonus due to the fact that it is much more difficult to hit someone with these weapons during combat than firearms]

SHIP SKILLS – Choose one EXPERT, one PROFICIENT and one NOVICE. All players get these three skills, it’s simply a matter of what order they prefer them in. With these three skills, players can join any crew and automatically be useful in some way on board a ship.

-Piloting – Mobility [NOVICE pilots would experience difficult control while ships would respond very well to EXPERT pilots]
-Engineering – Repairs [Novice Engineers would repair very little while attempting to fix the ship while EXPERTS would repair more damage in shorter time]
-Artillery – Firepower [NOVICE gunners would do very little harm to enemy ships in combat while EXPERT gunners would cause greater damage]

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS – Players would choose a set number of EXPERT, PROFICIENT and NOVICE skills from the Professional Skills list. The below is a mere example of a few Professional Skills:

Negotiation – negotiation works for selling/buying
Medicine – Creation of medpacks and healing players
Armoury – Creation and repair of personal body armour
Weaponry – Creation and repair of personal weaponry
Stylist – Haircuts, Tattoo’s and piercings
Artisan – Creating instruments, Dancing, Playing instruments allows characters to make a small amount of money from locals with a cool down timer to avoid bots/spamming the ability.
Prospector – Allows mining and tempering of ores which can be used by armourers and weaponsmiths.


QUEST LINES – CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!
An element MMORPG’s need to adopt from single player RPG’s or even the old ‘Choose your own Adventure’ books, is choices. During your adventures, you will encounter NPC’s and situations where you must make decisions which will ultimately have an effect on your future. They will close some doors and open others.

An example of choices when speaking with an important NPC and having to decide. While conversing with an NPC, the camera view would pull in close and black fields at the top and bottom would appear [Letterbox View]. The top would provide NPC dialogue wile the bottom presents choices for you to answer with:

LAND GAMEPLAY
-Style : Default third person with aiming reticule as well as customizable ‘opacity’ allowing you to see through your avatar if you wish. Aiming reticule controls view direction/aim when Mouse button 2 [Right Mouse Button] is held down, otherwise it allows the player to look freely around the character. A 1st person perspective can also be toggled. The screen would show no signs of a heads up display [HUD] except the chat windows in the lower left and a mini-map of the near by area in the top right [Both of which can be toggled off or their opacity can be lowered].
-Missions : Speaking with the NPC’s [As illustrated above] would allow players to gain a variety of different missions [More on this in the MISSIONS section].
-Combat : Pressing Mouse button 1 [Left Mouse Button] puts the character into Combat Mode at which time the aiming reticule turns into crosshairs and remains as the active view direction while attacking. M1 also fires weapons when pressed from this time on, if there is a firearm equipped. Animations for weapon use depend on skill level. Combat Mode remains on until manually released by a mapped key back into Safe Mode, holstering or sheathing any weapons and returning the mouse to free look.

During combat, 4 counter bars appear. They will remain visible even after combat is done if there was any kind of depletion which occurred in the following four areas:

-Health Bar – Appears during combat or while hurt. When hurt, must return to your ship, a medical facility or seek aid from someone with medical knowledge.
-Armour Bar – Depends on the armour you wear. This absorbs most damage and thus depletes completely before health in most combat situations [gasses for example would affect health but not armour]. Damaged armour can be repaired by anyone skilled in armoury or an NPC amourer for a price.
-Combat Bar – Depletes with use of ammunition or ‘stamina’ in the case of melee combat [must have ammunition in inventory for firearms]. In the beginning of combat, this bar will always appear full unless there is no ammunition available. If there are only two bullets for instance, the bar will drain by 50% after the first shot is fired.
-Weapon Bar – Weapons wear slowly during use and there is a chance of them even being damaged. These can be repaired by a weaponsmith or an NPC weaponsmith.

A small bar for your health and armour counter over the heads of enemies, group members and all other players can be toggled on/off. Though this image is far from accurate, I made it quickly to help illustrate what combat mode could look like.
A medic’s effort to keep you healthy while your character is taking damage in a fight is greatly reduced [common sense]. If you are badly wounded in combat, you better seek cover or even retreat completely if you do not want to take the risk being incapacitated. When you are incapacitated, a medic can restore you. If a medic cannot get to you within a certain time, you will be ‘mugged’ for your possessions.

While incapacitated, you are given the options to ‘Retreat to Safety’, ‘Wait for a Medic’ or ‘Accept Death’. Retreating to Safety will take you to a medical center or your ship, whichever is closer; however you will suffer a healing penalty which will not allow you to engage in any combat for 30 minutes thereafter while you are in recovery. If you choose to wait for a medic, you could become fully healed and keep fighting. However, as stated before if a medic cannot revive you in time, you will be forced to retreat or accept death. If you choose the option to ‘Accept Death’, it will end and effectively delete the character [for the Hardcore amongst you]. When a character dies, all their wealth stored in their bank account may be claimed at the bank by any other character you have. If the money saved by the character which died is not claimed within a set time by another character which is currently alive, the money will be lost forever.

INVENTORY
Items which are being carried by a character have images which take up a number of spots to realistically limit carrying capacity. Something large like an assault rifle takes up a fair bit of space, thus allowing you to carry less. Below, you can see how the size of objects you carry affects your maximum holding space. This is a more realistic approach to item holding. Also, since the game isn’t about grinding for millions of little collectables, not as much space is necessary.


SPACE GAMEPLAY
-Style : All characters who are members of the crew are inside the ship which is a fully 3d environment complete with cargo bay and all, but can switch to ‘outside perspective’ and watch their ship flying by entering either the pilot’s seat, artillery pods or engineering.
-Missions : Could be combat, delivery, scouting and investigation, rescue, robbery, etc.
-Combat : Any of the three systems not handled by a player are handled ‘Automatically’ depending on the ship’s parts and their capabilities. Basic parts perform quite poorly while the most expensive parts can be as good as a skilled player]. Players can choose to view INSIDE or OUTSIDE view. The Pilot controls the ship while anyone in ARTILLERY PODS [Of which there are several, each capable of taking one player to control gunning] control guns and any Engineers [Also more than one engineering stations allowing the efforts of multiple engineers to work on restoring the ship even during combat] enter a form of ‘mini-game’ which is actually problem solving to repair the ship and maintain energy levels and hull integrity. Perhaps engineers can choose from several mini-games [which can be practiced at any time, just as piloting and artillery can]. Pilots must learn countermeasures while gunners must learn how to aim correctly as well as deliver missiles well.

No matter what view players choose during Space Combat, ship’s hull integrity and energy ratings will show in the top left.



IF you have managed to read all of that, thank you for reading. I apologize I know it was a bit much – took me about 7 hours of free time and passion for MMO/RPG’s to cook it up. Feel free to pass it onto developers for me

Obviously there are many things which I have not covered here but I think by now you understand the kind of evolution from the MMORPG genre I’m hoping for.

Thanks again for reading,

Deacon Szabo
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[Raztt]

Just some input and some of my ideas.

I like the no xp and invisible numbers, been telling this to people for years. ALthough i would like to see a skill tree like OLD StarWars Galaxies or the Bioware games where you just put skill points into almost random things that have no prereqs, a list of skills rather than a tree.

For character creation i would rather have skills and factions be determined during gamplay and be able to be changed by your actions. Like the barber and tattoist in game. And i also like the opening up of new factions through work from the basic ones.

For ships i really like the idea of using large ships as guild halls, but i would still want my own ship, small and cheap, a low class fighter? And considering the teleport to guild ship, i believe an item like a hearthstone in world of warcraft would fit in very nicely.

I would rather see skill selection during the game, that way you could experiment with basic skills, a combination of a few "classes" or skill trees. That way the player would be able to pick skills that they like or the AI recommends, considering their play style.

For the various skills, those would be a part of the skill tree or skill list that i have been refering to. Again i would like to see these choices in game. I like the categories though, probably need more artisan/crafting type proffesions, possibly dancing/entertainment which leads to companion training. Nothing graphic by the way.

Land gamplay seems fine, although i would want to see my skill bars out of combat, a simple interface option, makes everyone happy.

For inventory i believe you are talking about a grid inventory, like in diablo 2, only one i can think of. i like this idea but would like to see backpacks, satchels and the like which would add more room.

I like ship combat, would like to see some kind of boarding option, get some land style fighting inside ships.

Alrighty thats the longest post i have ever made. just some ideas, please rip mine apart also.

[wheelerdealer]

Awesome, it's nice someone has taken on board what a lot of people have said elsewhere and made a decent attempt at a summary. While I'm going to point out some things, don't let them take away from your effort at all .

1) I love the hidden numbers thing (which has been said elsewhere). Most of the time people refer to their character by level and class - it'd be nice for the character to be more than "My 42 Mage" as this instantly defines what roles you can and cannot fill. I like the idea of starting out able to do everything. As for character traits, your suggestion of choosing a natural ability is kind of like forcing you where to spend attribute points. For instance, choosing "Tough" is the equivalent of starting with high stamina. I think this may limit players somewhat, and a broader approach would be better. What if I want someone who is naturally tough, and good with weapons, but don't care if he sucks at being Charming or is stupid? I think being able to balance your attributes allows for a more diverse range of characters. Of course, if this one natural endowment doesn't limit your maximum proficiency in other areas, but merely provides a starting bonus, then it's a good idea.

2) The Faction thing is a bone of contention. I think maybe starting out neutral and working toward an affiliation is better than picking one from the beginning. Of course, your reputation/level of familiarity with a faction could be determined by your start location, depending on which faction controls it.

3) Ships: they shouldn't be vastly easy to get, and yes it should be easier for a group of players to go in together and form their own little fellowship. If a player wants to leave, then simple, they lose their share to the other players. Equally, if a player is no longer wanted on a ship, the other players can (together) buy them out. If anarchy ensues and no-one gets along, the ship can be sold and everyone gets their share of the ships worth. I love the idea of ship being "home", especially as that was such a central part of the series. Giving players the ability to easily teleport back to their ship is a bit of an easy shortcut. Maybe it takes a few minutes to launch, and players are notified so they have the chance to get from whatever they're doing back to the ship. Regardless, the penalty for logging out not in their ship should be vast. Hopefully, players that own a ship together will coordinate so no-one os left behind unless they deserve to. Maybe the ship can't leave until everyone is on board (unless the absent crew member expressly allows it)? This does throw up the problem of annoying players - but I expect you're not going to go in on a ship with people you haven't got to know a bit first. The more that encourages cooperation, the better.

4) Ship Skills: I like how everyone can do everything in your model, some people are just better than others. Again, rather than choose it, maybe everyone starts at some level and by their actions develops a proficiency in that area. Obviously no-one can be good at everything, so how do you draw the line? There have been suggestions that as you improve one skill, another decreases, however this means you can, given time, be good at everything at some point or other. I do see the benefit of starting with your speciality, you can jump straight in, rather than spend time building yourself up.

5) I quite like the "Choose your own adventure" style of quests. It could allow players to be presented with moral choices which alter the course of their character development. If you help stop a heist, and are given the option to make off with the loot yourself, it'll obvisouly payoff monetarily, but don't expect to take any missions from that person again. Or perhaps you can get it away with it, if there's no-one to witness you taking it? Assuming your character has the ability to lie and say you couldn't stop the heist in time.

6) Combat: From the way you describe it, land combat is a skill based fps, which makes the whole game more like Deus Ex than a classic RPG. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I can't decide whether an fps style or a classic simulated dice roll style is better. FPS is more exciting, but classic RPG combat resolution is fairer. Whatever happens, a player's natural FPS abilities should have a notably smaller effect than their skill choices. I like how you have to seek medical attention - potions & medpacks are magic bullet interventions that are too easy. You get shot, you deal with the consequences. However, the game still has to give us some tension, gunfights shouldn't often be over in 5 seconds. Permadeath? There's buckets on this topic, but I'm in the middle, I'd play the game either way, as long as it's (mostly) my own stupid fault if I get killed, and it's plainly obvious before I enter a situation that I will most likely die if I proceed. The ability to claim a dead character's stuff means people will still take risks. In fact (oooh maybe I'm being swayed on Permadeath!), remember how you felt in Serenity when Wash died? That should be how you feel if a member of your crew dies. But hey ho, they can roll a new character, and though it will take them time to get up to scratch again, they'll not have to worry about earning the credits/getting the gear again.

7) Inventory: Yes, you shouldn't be able to carry 17 different weapons around with you on the ground. In the room on your ship, yes.

8 ) Space Gameplay: I'm sure everyone is the same as me on this one, and in each and every one of our own heads it looks and feels brilliant. Players should have to run around the ship to access helm, or engineeering, or gun bays, or whatever. I love the engineering mini-game idea (yes, it was suggested somewhere else, like Puzzle Pirates I believe?). Anyone remember Pipe for Windows 3.11? The one where you had to get the green goo across the screen by inserting and rotating bits of pipe? Possible Power Reroute anyone? I believe this is part of the game that'll take some serious thought by people much more creative than I. The danger is that it could get boring, not many people want to be stuck playing tetris in the engine room. So maybe you man a gun until your skills in the engine room are needed, or maybe stuff is exploding all over the ship while in battle and you have to run around, prioritising what to fix. Notice I'm placing all of this in a battle context, and that's because I think this is where it's most important to get the balance right. If your crew is simply flying to another planet with no drama, the ship should be able to sit on autopilot while you all go practise your skills or check the net for missions.

PHEW! That took me the best part of an hour (I know you don't believe it), can't imagine how you felt Deacon. Good job once again mate. I like how your guide broke it down into categories, so everyone else can give their opinion on what should and should not be in that section of the game. Man I'm excited about this game .

**EDIT**
Sorry, I wrote this before the first reply, so forgive any similarities .

[Ben_Wayde]

First off thanks to both of you ï?Š Ok time for some replies:

Raztt

The reason I chose to have no ‘skill tree’ is because I wanted the game system to be very simple [because it’s proven people fear the complex :\ ] but at the same time give you the necessary skills from the get-go to jump in and play the game.

Skills and Factions determined by game play is cool, but for me it’s almost something a ‘newbie’ would require. It reminds me of the Elder Scrolls games where you’re asked a series of questions and it determines what you’re best suited for. Perhaps for those who are new to the game, they could establish this information through a Tutorial where every tiny decision they make affects how the character will turn out.

As for your own ship – totally possible to earn the money to get one – and of course upgrade it to the point where you need no crew [A Boba Fett sorta deal] where your ship systems are intelligent enough to handle aspects of running the ship. Starfighters would be awesome but are there starfighters? I can’t quite remember. Of course if you could have a starfighter there’s no need for a crew and all of the ships controls would rely on you. So if you chose ARTILLERY ship skill as your best, you won’t be the best pilot or the fastest and best engineer [Ship would self repair as fast] but your guns would be doing bonus damage.

The reason I’m not too much of a fan of throwing skills around is because people aren’t like that. You don’t forget one skill and learn a new one, in my eyes. That’s why in this system you would design your developed character and improve on things you know you like. Of course depending on WHAT you do during game time, you can develop other skills slowly as well.

See the whole deal is, you’ve chosen what you want to excel at… and everything else you can still learn but it will take quite a lot of playing and having to use those skills to get them to a point where you’re really skilled. Essentially, my system would allow someone to get better at every skill…. Over a long period of time rewarding players who put time into it but also not hindering the players who create a character and wanna be good to go.

The inventory, bags and satchels make perfect sense. Basically, I’m only against things which are really not plausible.

Boarding ships would be totally awesome – and dangerous! Take out a ships shields/engines/artillery… they are dead in the sea as long as you don’t ‘destroy them’ and you have a limited amount of time to fly over, board and battle for some sort of prize of course, perhaps a fraction of whatever is in that ship’s vault or even loot their ship items?


WHEELERDEALER

“Of course, if this one natural endowment doesn't limit your maximum proficiency in other areas, but merely provides a starting bonus, then it's a good idea.� – 100% the idea here. You can boost anything, this is just a ‘what kinda person is this character?’ Think of Jayne = TOUGH.

Yeah the factions thing could totally be swayed especially if you start as a Neutral. This is actually probably better than starting off on different worlds because this way you can take a huge, popular neutral world and have everyone start there with the majority of the missions. It’s much easier for a developer.

We’re pretty eye to eye on the ship stuff for the most part �

But for combat, I’d personally prefer more action but understand the uses of the turn based sit there and watch kinda games… I’m just very bored by them so I’d love if they played more like an action game with heavy tactics allowing you to duck, dive, peek out from behind cover and such.

I had no idea so many of the ideas I presented were already discussed elsewhere, but I’m very glad! Sick of the clones of horribly boring MMORPG’s. Someone needs to have the guts do evolve the game. If I were a rich man, this game right here would be made

Oh and for Engineering Mini-Games, you should know [I did market research for a while regarding online gaming] that mini-games, the little online free games are THE most popular amongst ‘gamers’ and make up for most of the ‘gamer population’. Mini games are hugely popular and they should be in MMORPG’s in the forms of card games with players sitting around a table and such recreation and for the engineering part there would be a list of several games so people can find ones they really enjoy which are addictive but still require a level of skill so they aren’t TOO easy but modeled so they are ‘engineering’ related.

DAMN… 2 pages for replies hehe. Thanks again for reading guys, I really appreciate you taking the time. Cheers
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[Raztt]

I understand the idea behind no skill tree/xp, as i would like to see something along those lines. the problem i see with that is that someone will want to see how they are progressing and new players will be lost, unless you are hinting at a predetermined skill selection plus hack and slash style game play, which would require no skill development after the character creation. personally i like the click and watch/push a skill play style over real time action, especially after playing galaxies like that, but that style does make the game a little boring at times, a possible solution would be a hybrid. Have the combat a click and watch but have the enviroment play a key role, being able to take cover, add reloading times and enemies taking cover and you might just have some interesting shoot outs.

Skills, they only way i can think to explain my thoughts are through example. Say there are 5 skills in the game (guns, melee, medic, engineer, and entertainer) and there are 3 tiers of mastery (novice, expert, master), you can only have 1 master and 1 expert. nothing is based off of character level because there is none. but there are skill levels, the more you use guns your gun skill goes up, etc. when you get your gus skill to x you talk to an expert trainer that will unlock the expert tier and same with master. unlocking new tiers will unlock new abilites associated with that skill. having a master and expert category will stop players from being able to do everything. i know this is against the no skill/xp idea but it's really the best way to go in my opinion, it lets you decide class after creating your character and becoming familiar with the game and should be new user friendly with the defined skill level.

As for factions, i agree with Wheelerdealer, start as neutral then work up your reputation with your desired factions and go from there, if newbies screw up their rep there should always be some type of missions you could do to regain your reputaion with a certain faction, unless you Really screwed up.

and by starfighter i just mean a small ship with only a cockpit, nothing special. maybe even dockable in a guild ship.

[Ben_Wayde]

PDF FILE Link now works

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=ABA5A49C016A07E9
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[Maphon]

I dont wanna sound like an ass, but you basically just turned KoTRII into an mmo...

[Ben_Wayde]

Hmm... you don't sound like an ass... but you also don't sound correct.
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[freakshow]

I like the reputation idea. I'd also like to see lots of User Generated content in this game, as in User Generated quests. And this is where reputation would be key. 1 simple math formula could increase your reputation after completing any quest, simply based on your rep. and the rep. of the quest giver.

I don't like the teleport to the ship idea, but it's one of those things where you can't get around it. I think teleporting to the ship midcombat/in prison, (being followed?) etc. would be a definite no-no. Still there should be a way for a player to pull a job on one moon while his ship mates are off running supplies. I know it would be possible to schedule a meet up but imagine if the people on your ship were logged off. Also porting to a ship when it's in the middle of combat wouldn't be ok.

Ship boarding. Hells yes. Sly Cooper 3 for PS2 had a decent system for this where you first had to cripple the enemy ship then pull up along side and fight it out with the crew. Or if you didn't feel like fighting it out you could just finish the crippled ship. If you didn't board a crippled ship after a certain period of time it sank. I'd say for this game your ship should sustain damage to it's 3 systems, helm,engine and artillery. Boarding could occur at anytime but would be easier if your Enemy wasn't moving or shooting. Damage would have to be repaired through mini games. Different ones for different systems. When people boarded your ship they would "fight it out" in the cargo hold or other "boarding area" If you died here then you would only be able to wait for a medic. If the entire crew died or surrendered (no real point in this). Than the boarding team would get to loot the ship. If the entire boarding team died or surrendered then the defenders would get a chance to board the attacking ship. Not all players would have to take part in the battle, one ship might choose to leave several people behind while boarding to guard their ship from a counter attack. Or the crippled ship may choose to leave a few specialists in the ship to repair damage. and then attempt to break free. These people could choose to enter the battle, but people in the battle couldn't leave.

I like your concept of combat, add the surrender option I mentioned above, so that at anypoint in time you may choose to surrender, you can no longer control your character (except to un-surrender), and you can still get shot. When all the fighting is over the victors can then loot your stuff, and either "capture you", kill you, or let you go. If you get captured than your captures get a simple interface that allows them to control you. You can try and break free if you want. The advantage to surrendering could be great, if you're fighting over one item you have it might not be worth taking the jump to med center penalty (especially if you think you can escape and reclaim the item), and resigning to death just sucks. People would want to capture you alive for various reasons:
1. Collect a bounty on your head.
2. Use you as a bargaining tool to get something from your friends.

The reason most MMOs rely on dice combat is because it requires less bandwidth. The simple solution is a hybrid, where you select a target (or if you're good enough multiple targets). And then calculate hits based on various skills, and modifiers (behind cover, sun in eyes, holding the high ground, etc.) This cuts out the need for tracking every bullet fired, prevents players for getting caught in the cross fire, allows players with a little slower connection to still have a fight, and finally allow players to do things like duck behind over, or pick their battle fields for tactical advantages.

As for minigames, as long as you can play Tall Card for ship chores I'll be happy.

I've said it before but I don't like the concept of player Companions, as Companions are few and far between I think they would better be represented as NPC's who give a sort of high level "buff" different companions would affect different stats, so you could sort of "collect them all" Whores would do the same but on a lesser level.

Just some food for thought

[Ben_Wayde]

Freakshow, I recon you and I would see eye to eye a lotta the time were we in charge of this game's development. Good post
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[sergeant_x]

I like the intent of the hidden numbers approach. Most of us, to some degree at least, seem to be fed up with the hamster-wheel, experience-point-chasing style of play. But I don't think merely hiding stats would do the trick. I've tried something like that on a couple of different designs and it didn't have the desired effect. Players were still preoccupied with progression. They just had to jump through more hoops to discern how they were doing.

The reason it doesn't work, I think, is that the problem isn't with the numbers per se, it's with the incentive structure. As long as 'progression' is a featured reward of play, people will keep track of it (with numbers or without) and it will be a prime goal of play.

I don't think there's any need to stick with simulated die rolls for task resolution. The computer offers a tremendous opportunity to replace such tedium with real gameplay. It doesn't need to be 'twitch' or 'fps', but it ought to be something more interesting and challenging than point and click die rolling.

[Cobalt]

This is mostly a good post, but there are a few things off.

[Raztt]

sergeant_x and cobalt hit it pretty dead on with what i was trying to say, someone is going to want documented proof of progression and experiece. although i don't believe that the teleport to ship part was about the technology they had, it was about user friendly gameplay. but if you want to get technical i don't think that multiple person ownership of ships is going to work out too well. it would be probable that a guild/crew leader will buy a ship, with his money or people that want to start a crew with him. along the way they would upgrade that ship, get a bigger one, maybe add ships to create a small fleet. it really all depends on the developer of the game.

[Raztt]

oh and while driving home i just had an idea for the teleport to ship controversy. how bout when you join a crew you get a shuttle beacon, and when you use it a shuttle comes and picks you up, hey fireflys have 2 shuttles and i don't think it matters if 5 people are in bound at the same time anyways.

/applaud me
yes i want a job

[Ben_Wayde]

LOL YES RAZZT lol... I would also love a job working on anything Firefly/Serenity hehe
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