Neocron Reloaded

[General Crazy]

Please do not change the combat targeting, as it is one of the things that makes Neocron different then other games.

Here are a few thoughts for NCR

-Have a F2P web version with standard type F2P cash shop. But, have a client with a subscription model, with just visual items in cash shop. With subscription model get rid of Faction Supply Managers, and make all of the items craftable: other then rares, special drops, and quest rewards.

-Go back to using NC1 Player models(with Improved Quality), as the NC2 models always looked awful.

-Adjust some of the item names.

-Add sorting to vendors: by level, by type, and by name.

-Add option to show content of containers as a list view.

-Maybe adjusting faction sympathy a bit. Make neutral factions only really affect NPCs. Have it so killing neutral and enemy faction in PvP only result in soul light lose. Only lose faction sympathy by killing friendly faction members outside of warzones. As maybe make it so each faction has 3 friendly, 5(4?) neutral, and 3(4?) enemy factions.

[Doc Holliday]

Player shops vs auction House. Player shops all the way. Drachen and logan both said it right. it kills the player interaction and it would push any player shops out of business.

If some kind of cabinet system can be implemented with like a vendor where u click on it and look at the items you wanna buy and then it checks off the money you have and pays it out to the vendor this would work perfect. then you dont NEED to be online to run it but it will help. I could go on and say with a hi level hack skill you could "steal" the item but thats getting a bit OTT. nice thought but no.


Cash shop items. LOM pills with NO SI. i think any neocron runner whos played a while and wanted to make changes would agree to pay for that. lol. especially anyone whos experienced the LOL pills as i called them. you had to laugh or you would cry. (full loss of 1 level of your main stat. not just a portion of xp.)

slot enhancers also would be a good one. guarenteed to work on rares would be worth paying for even if its very small amounts. otherwise im gonna say cosmetic items would be pretty cool so long as they looked the part. i can imagine logan buying up some nice stuff to make the new "emporium" look like the Harrods of the 25th century.

Me personally. if i was gonna do something like that i would open a bar instead of a shop. in pepper park. Free for all runners to come and trade and do what ever they wanted to do. Have an area for consensual duels (with ppu support provided for after fight rez when it was possible.) A bar tender selling all kinds of stuff (drugs included. at a reasonable cost but marked up on what the players can make em for. cost vs convenience) A true Cyber Punk hang out. But thats me. everyone would be different. I would call it Poppas. (william im sure you will appreciate this idea) Yes i would be open to a bit of roleplay from time to time. it breaks up the monotony of killing people.

On the subject of reticle system. leave it be. Jaeons point about fog of war. Yes deffo good idea. indication of when your in a warzone would have to be in the rpos though.

Direction indicator for damage. yeah good idea. helps vs annoying snipers.

[Jaeon]

Here's another idea...

Scanner / goggles : with Thermal vision + Nightvision + Lifeform detection

(a small HUD with information appears, Predator style)

So, even if it's dark or the fog is dense, it would still be a way to scan the terrain and see beyond the veil.

Like personal injectors, there would be different kinds of goggles:

- the most basic ones would just outline the forms detected (you would know something was out there, but no level or information is given) Detection of Genreps. Lasts for 5-10 seconds.

- Intermediate ones would let you see a clear picture and the level (ex. 60/60) of what you are seeing + detection of genreps + gogo's. Lasts 10-20 seconds.

- Advanced one would show you the same as the intermediate as well as mob damage types, weaknesses to types of damage and possible rare drops. Lasts 30 seconds to 1 min.

Also another idea for Weapons modification:

- Overdrive Mod (Increases all weapon stats to 120%, but decays at twice the speed, and once item is worn it's junk: automatically breaks down to chemicals and weapon parts. Can only be used in rares)

[CMaster]

and remember, the point of the current targeting system is that it is very easy on connections and the server, meaning that 100vs100 opfights are possible, which are definitely NOT possible with normal fps targeting (not on unity at least )

Nope. Neocron can't handle more than about 80 people in a single zone at the moment. Meanwhile games like Planetside and ARMA2 have shown there's no difficult with having hitscan/projectiles all over the place. As far as I can tell, the reason for the original system was A: it's relatively straightforward to develop and B: it saved the servers a lot of expensive raycasting and collision detection calculations. It did also keep down data traffic, but that was more to do with NC being designed to be playable over dialup. None of those things should be an issue any more.

Of course, if you like the existing system (and I realise a lot of players still hanging around will) there's no argument to be made against that. Just remember that next time you rage about "clipping" that a: a lot of the reason you can't hurt them is nothing to do with clipping errors, just the current targeting system and B: if NC used proper FPS combat, there would be several ways to effectively counter abuse of clipping errors.

[Dribble Joy]

Scanner / goggles : with Thermal vision + Nightvision + Lifeform detection

I always though these should be available and for eye implants to do something other than just stat alteration.

- Overdrive Mod (Increases all weapon stats to 120%, but decays at twice the speed, and once item is worn it's junk: automatically breaks down to chemicals and weapon parts. Can only be used in rares)

I actually had a similar idea many moons ago (my apologies for the immature nature of that thread, I was young and stupid).

It would make all those two slot things useful.

-Have a F2P web version with standard type F2P cash shop. But, have a client with a subscription model, with just visual items in cash shop.

More or less what they are doing AFAIK.

[Brammers]

Player shops and auction houses. I'm with Logan on his points.

The interaction between players is what makes NC unique and great. You build up a list of trusted tradeskillers who won't scam you. Even I've been shot while selling a vehicle once. (Yes I made a mistake of trusting someone!)

Forget the auction house, the way it has been done by bidding on Trade NC has worked very well over the years.

However I would want a playershop, so I could have a big shop, where I would place cars and gliders to make it into a showroom, and have NPC selling some of the vehicles. Playershops was one item that was promised for NC2, but never delivered.

[CMaster]

I'll chime in with liking the idea of player shops over an auction house. Auction houses I always find, while easy to develop and all, are pretty useless unless you already know exactly what you want, and pretty soulless too. The idea of players being able to operate some kind of semi-automated store seems much better.

[Dribble Joy]

Can someone explain an AH? I have heard on them from FFXI and WoW, but don't actually know what they do as such.

[MadMeleeFreak]

Can someone explain an AH? I have heard on them from FFXI and WoW, but don't actually know what they do as such.

You go to a NPC/Terminal (whatever it is in the specific game that let's you acces the Auction House) then magically an interface appears in which you can look for things offered for sale or offer your own stuff. Most auction houses offer the option to post things for fixed price or start an auction like on ebay. Items you offer are immediatly removed from your inventory. When you win an auction or buy an item is added immediatly to your inventory. Basically it's pretty much an ingame ebay.

As someone said before: It completely removes the need for direct player interaction which I view as abad thing rather than a good thing. I also would like to see real player shops instead of an auction house.

[psychowar]

As someone said before: It completely removes the need for direct player interaction which I view as abad thing rather than a good thing. I also would like to see real player shops instead of an auction house.

I agree with you totally. You can choose if you want to trade with a runner or clan or not. That would be not possible with the other option

[nabbl]

Can someone explain an AH? I have heard on them from FFXI and WoW, but don't actually know what they do as such.

It is more or less like Ebay... in a game.

[r2d22k]

Nope. Neocron can't handle more than about 80 people in a single zone at the moment. Meanwhile games like Planetside and ARMA2 have shown there's no difficult with having hitscan/projectiles all over the place. As far as I can tell, the reason for the original system was A: it's relatively straightforward to develop and B: it saved the servers a lot of expensive raycasting and collision detection calculations. It did also keep down data traffic, but that was more to do with NC being designed to be playable over dialup. None of those things should be an issue any more.

Of course, if you like the existing system (and I realise a lot of players still hanging around will) there's no argument to be made against that. Just remember that next time you rage about "clipping" that a: a lot of the reason you can't hurt them is nothing to do with clipping errors, just the current targeting system and B: if NC used proper FPS combat, there would be several ways to effectively counter abuse of clipping errors.

Never played those games, but i bet they also use a hell lot of simplifications to handle that many players.

Again, in NC the basic problem is not the system, it is that the client is autoritive, not the server. The server should do the traces and decide whether a target has been hit or not.

Clipping... this is basically not a problem caused by the current aiming system, it is caused by a faulty interpolation algorithm. Interpolating linearly between two points without checking for collisions is simply wrong and that's what KK is currently doing. This results in players warping through walls, ceilings, floors, everything and then you can't hit/aim at them. Clipping will not be fixed by using a "true fps like" aiming/combat system, because players will still be clipping through walls, floors and such and therefore even hitscans/traces will not hit these players. There is only one thing needed to be done to fix a hell lot of problems with the current aiming system: a proper implementation of interpolation. To fix a hell lot of problems with cheating the server has to become authoritive in every single decision. But I bet, KK already knows about that

[Dribble Joy]

Yeah... Auction Houses seem..... boring?

[Brammers]

The clipping issue will be pain to fix. Looks like we need a combination of the sever and client sending more position updates and good interpolation code.

You could have a case where a runner is running towards a obstacle, and goes left to go around it. However the client could have only sent the players position for before he reach the obstacle and after he went around the obstacle, so it would look like walked through the obstacle.

Now how does the interpolation code decide which way the player went? Not an easy problem to solve without requiring more CPU power and more network bandwidth for position updates.

Fortunately today, CPU power is cheap to buy. However buying more network bandwidth isn't. Not sure what Unity has built in to handle pathfinding and interpolation.

[r2d22k]

The clipping issue will be pain to fix. Looks like we need a combination of the sever and client sending more position updates and good interpolation code.

You could have a case where a runner is running towards a obstacle, and goes left to go around it. However the client could have only sent the players position for before he reach the obstacle and after he went around the obstacle, so it would look like walked through the obstacle.

Now how does the interpolation code decide which way the player went? Not an easy problem to solve without requiring more CPU power and more network bandwidth for position updates.

Fortunately today, CPU power is cheap to buy. However buying more network bandwidth isn't. Not sure what Unity has built in to handle pathfinding and interpolation.

These problems have already been solved many times. No need to reinvent the wheel completely, it is just needed to adopt and make use of it.

First of all it would suffice to implement a collision check during interpolation. Then a player which initially would move through a wall would stand at that wall or move around it. That's really not that hard to implement. Don't confuse interpolation with prediction. I am not sure whether neocron in its current state makes use of prediction.

Btw: do not forget that interpolation was working better in former times (NC1). Removing the speedcap was one thing which messed it up, but I am not sure whether it was already faulty before the speedcap was removed.