Mission Boredom
Ok, many of us would agree that missions are a bit boring. Go in, kill anything that moves, complete the required task, rinse and repeat.
Yes, rooms are starting to have more variety, missions are now closer to mission booths, visually they are looking better and better every patch. But its still the same old cycle (see above). What missions need is some in-mission random events to ****e things up and poke that green-eyed boredom monster in the eye.
I can hear Funcom now, "ok, so what do you suggest smart guy?"
Well, I'm glad you asked. Here are a few of my suggestions:
1 - Helping an NPC of the same faction: You get a voice and text message from an NPC on your side who is pinned down somewhere in the mission map and needs your assistance. You see his location appear (big white X) on the map and make your way to help him out. As soon as you get there you see that he is surrounded by several of the bad guys (or monsters) and you proceed to help him wipe them out. If you manage to kill the monsters and he survived, he gives you something as a token of his/her appreciation (item or cash).
2 - Find the information. As you enter the mission you get a message that the previous person who accepted the mission did not survive and had some extra information that was critical to the mission. His corpse is hidden in a room somewhere. You have to find it to get the extra reward. One of the walls in one of the rooms is and illusion (and not an obvious one like the generic rooms in a mission).
3 - Active Terminals. Sometimes you would find an auto-booth (random), a merchant, etc that offer cheaper than normal prices (use it or loose it).
4 - Item Enhancing Machine. This item would increase any item you put into it by one quality level. It only has enough energy to do it for one item.
5 - Competition. You encounter another NPC of your faction also trying to complete the mission who demands that you leave or pay him for his trouble. If you don't, he will attack you. He would probably be a level or 2 higher than you to make you think twice about not paying him.
6 – Train! An NPC of your faction runs past you yelling something about a train coming. 2 or 3 mobs are chasing him and if they see you they will attack you right away.
7 - Game Room. You find a game room with an actual mini game that you can play with.
8 - Puzzle Door. You find a room with a door that can only be opened if you complete a puzzle lock on the door or near it. There is lots of room for a variety of puzzles here. The room does not contain any mission critical items but would have some nice loot.
9 - Monster Spawn. You find a strange device that will spawn a random number of Mobs in the room every time you activate it. There would be have to be a limit to the number of times you can do this of course.
10 - Clone Attack. Upon entering a room you are immediately scanned and an exact clone of you appears in front of you. It looks exactly like you, is the same level, has the same armour and weapons, is of the same profession and is VERY annoyed at seeing you.
11 - Gas Attack. Upon entering a room (or failing a bomb disarmament on a chest) it becomes completely filled with dangerous gas that will constantly damage you, like when you walk in toxic water.
12 - Cold/Hot/Gravity Rooms. These rooms are either completely freezing (like a walk-in freezer), hot (metal workshop?), lab using gravity manipulation, or an electrical generator rooms that reduce the amount of damage you do if you are using hot/cold/impact/energy dam weapons. In cold rooms, cold damage is reduced, in hot rooms fire damage is reduced, and in labs impact damage is reduced. I'm sure you could come up with other rooms for the other type of damages.
13 – Nano Suppression. Along the same lines of the previous suggestion, this room will suppress all nano casting. You cannot cast nano formulas in this room.
14 - Bomb! Immediately upon entering a room (or maybe failing your bomb disarmament) you get a message telling you that you have just set off a timer with a 10 second fuse. When the bomb goes off it totally destroys the room. If you get stuck in the room it just does normal bomb damage. This is more eye candy than anything.
15 - Mental Patients. Upon entering a room, all lights are turned off except for a few flashing ones, an alarm goes off, cells around you begin to open and the mobs or mentally unstable NPCs begin to attack you. This can be used for prison cells also. This would freak me out that’s for sure.
16 - Security Cam Hack. You enter the control room for all those security cameras you see in the mission sometimes. A successful hack allows you to see through them a-la Duke Nukem.
17 - Destructible Walls. Some walls can be destroyed by strapping a bomb to the wall (the ones you get from trapped chests). A successful roll sets the bomb with a 5-second timer.
18 - Drugged! Upon entering a room (or failing a trapped chest roll) you get hit with a poisoned or drug dart. The poison dart does dam over time, the drug dart screws up your vision (like when getting drunk in EQ) for a short period of time.
19 - Security Bot/Guard Dog. You manage to find a deactivated security bot or a caged guard dog. By activating it (letting him loose) you gain a pet til you zone out of the mission dungeon. The pet would be automatically set to guard you. No pet commands can be given. It will fight to the death to protect you.
20 - Buff Terminal. This terminal will give you a random buff (random in every mission but you would know what your are getting before you step in) and appropriate for the character level (no high level buffs but buffs from other profession nanos would be possible). This buff would still need to have the appropriate NCUs free on your deck to work.
21 - The Joker. You enter a mission where a madman or joker just keeps telling bad jokes and using your name as the butt of the joke (it's using the %t command). This very annoying person can be killed.
22 - The Gate Keeper. This person is guarding the entrance to the next room (blocking the door or entrance). He asks you 3 questions about AO or the history of Rubi-Ka, etc. Every time you do not answer correctly you get damaged. Once you get 3 question right (it doesn't have to be 3 in a row) you get to pass.
Ok, I'm just about out of ideas now. I'm sure I can come up with a bunch more once my brain has had a rest.
Anyone else have some suggestions for random mission events for Funcom?
Ack!
deja vu
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