Missions and Static Dungeons
I am cross posting this as it's the more appropriate place for this message and will expound upon it a bit. I feel strongly about this and feel it's something AO desperately needs. Many other players in the past has requested some of these features in the past, those threads to deleted in the last 2 forum wipes, so once again I raise the issue in an effort to push Funcom to make AO the amazing game it could be.I did not care much for the Steps of Madness, it was ok.
Whispers of the Past, the newst of the static dungeons is supposed to be a cloning facility, in fact in the video (episode 3 and 4) we even see cloning vats right? Well I'm pretty sure I've seen every room down there and its mostly crates. [For fans of Old Man Murray, the dungeon would rank as one of the best ever due to the crate every 4 second factor].
This is supposed to be a super fancy high tech lab, its designed and decorated nicely but buts more of a big warehouse. Lots of dead ends with crates, almost no real "equipment", technicians, scientists how does anyone get any work done down there?! So many empty rooms and cooridors that just makes no sense. Why have an entire platoon of guards - guarding um, nothing? [Beside Crates - of the future!]
I would expect to see computer terminals and data displays and I expect to hack into them by shift right clicking my hackers tool on it. Then I expect to right quick and read some cool stuff that gives me hints and insight into the dungeon, whats going on and how it connects to the story.. And for each terminal I hack into, I get a little bit more and a little bit more - some sub plots develop, pieces of the main plot - not all the answers of course - but enough to make the trip worth it and get you thinking. Break into the npc's personal email etc.
There's a few big machines - I expect there to be displays and plaques readouts on the machine - the data that is revealed by right clicking on them might not be obvious at first - but might trigger a hint for something later in the game or even somewhere else in the dungeon itself.
I'd expect to find written documents or PDA's lying around to get more juicy tidbits of information,news, locations of rewards/items, security codes, messages again furthering the story line or hints of such.
And make all of the above hints/messages/tidbits randomized - i.e. theres a pool of 50-100 pieces of info or data that range from personal info, sub-plots, dungeon specific story or the main story in general and make it so you could run that dungeon 3 times in a row and not always see the same info every time. Your 6 person team could look at the same terminal by hacking it and not all see the same message [some would, some would not], I suspect your playerbase would find that "Uber" cool.
Let me give you an example of a killer senario. Your into the bio facility and there is a munitions room. [This place has 100+ guards with uber weapons and there is no weapons/munitions storage], anyways you find some fusion detonators in this room and you find a document. The document states that 1 detonator was requisitioned by Joe Blow the Security director. You find the security directors office in the facility and kill him. There is a terminal there you hack into, and you find non descript order to "plant the device" at some coordinates [which you realize is the coordinates of the bombed out building in omni-e]. The orders are not signed but there is an Omni-Tek personnel ID. You break into the HR office in the facility and in the files you match the ID with a name - It's the Doctor Eva was working with in the video.
Do you see where I'm going with this? How amazing cool that would be?
I'd expect to find security devices that need to be hacked/bypassed in order to get in [kind of expecting a Fixer on the team to do that].
"Dungeons" that are supposed to be manned facilities need to have furniture, offices, "innocent" npcs, computers, terminals, displays, etc etc. Otherwise you greatly hurt the suspension of disbelief. People come to AO because they want something different from EQ, make it so!
This kind of thinking would seperate AO from the pack in an extraordinary way and would ensure not just maintaining your player base but offering *aggressive* growth opportunities.
Honestly I've been pushing this for missions as well, and for the news and info terminals spinkled around Rubi-Ka currently as useless props.
This is just the shot in the arm that missions need. Face it, almost the entire player base moans about how awful the missions are but their good for money and leveling so thats why their done.
But not any more if the ideas above are executed. First of all hacking usually grants Exp, you might get a fair amount of Exp by breaking into terminals, computers, pda's, security systems etc.
Add named NPC's that are non-aggro non-combatants. You can talk to them and get info about the mission, maybe get an item [a keycard to a locked door, a security code, a juicy tidbit or random gossip], its a little different each time [again it works on a pre-made set of database entries, perhaps randomized a bit like the existing mission templates - with the occasional important storyline or story subplot bit thrown in once in awhile]. This goes on a branching tree "keyword" style dialog - say the wrong thing the npc might whip out a pistol, say the right thing and you get a cool item, info, news, whatever. Sometimes its just funny/humouris kind of thing. These named NPC's should appear in both missions and the static dungeons [the worker drones, civilians, etc].
The info found in regular missions would be more generic. It rarely would be related directly to the story line, but once in awhile you get a real "wow" zinger (1 in 1000), sometimes an interest tidbit and important (1 in 100) and usually its sub-plots and more important related to the mission type objective.
How many times have we killed the evil NPC with the PK machine. And how is it different people keep coming up with this legendary device [but never get it working in time]?? Well after hacking into the machines, terminals, displays, picking up documents, orders, and the like you will discover that its a network of terrorists - loosely connected to the dust brigade. The network acts in a series of semi-independant "cells" just like a real terrorist network. They have copies of the machines and safe houses the npcs end up at if they get sent to reclaim [ie you find out the terrorists sabotaged the reclaim to the npc doesnt really end up respawning in the insane asylum etc..]. The higher level you are as a player, the more likely the info found inside the mission will be something relevant to and potentially important regarding the current story line. Imagine players wanting to do missions beyond the leveling treadmill?? It will happen if you do this!
Imagine this, as a player I would fall off my chair.
I'm doing a mission, doing the usual clearing and of course the new addition of hacking terminals and such. I see personal messages about NPC A's love affair with NPC B, I see mission related orders and documents - But this mission has some borgs in it. I kill a borg and he drops a PDA. I hack the PDA and good god, there is info here indicating that at 23:00hrs on Jan 27th the borgs are going to attack Newland and Rome in force and even gives an objective. And sure enough on the 27th boom, invasion by borgs. How freakin incredibly awesome would that be? Of course that would be a 1 in 1000 info find, but it would be the shot heard around the world for MMPORGS and would drive players nuts trying to do missions to get that kind of info.
The code is already there for the most part, this is mostly database and content work really [and of course would require better planning by Funcom, planning events a few weeks in advance and actually giving them some rhyme and reason then enter that into the database and actually make it happen about the right time] but the ramifications would be astounding and would turn the game into so much more than it is now and you could do this WITHOUT massive game engine changes.
Avatarius
