Susan Ivanova
14-08-03, 05:38
This is a rough translation of my thread (http://neocron.jafc.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71679) from the german forum that got moved into graveport. Since the policy on moving threads to brainport got loosened a bit here I hope this will spark some discussion.
I recently had the chance to play Anarchy Online (http://www.anarchy-online.com/). A few concepts and ideas caught my eye and could be probably ported to Neocron without much effort. This is not meant to be an AO vs. NC thread by any means. I just want to suggest what ideas the developers could shamelessly steal from Anarchy Online. :)
Links in chat
Trying to sell or show somebody an item in AO you just need to drag&drop that item into the chat window. A link with the name of the item is generated in the chat and clicking on the link displays the properties of the item. This would eliminate the cumbersome trade window if you just want to show something to someone.
tuning items
Ordinary or usually worthless items can be improved with some special treatment. Here are some examples (http://www.anarchyarcanum.com/weapons.html) how this is done in Anarchy Online.
map upgrades
The mini-map in Anarchy Online can be upgraded with some useful features. Initially the map just shows the players position as a small dot. By upgrading the map the position marker can be changed into a directional arrow showing the facing of the character on the map. Additional upgrades provide markers for machines, players and mobs.
NPCs wander around
NPCs in Anarchy Online don't stand around like glued to the ground. They wander randomly inside some predefined area. This makes it a bit harder to find them.
faction alignment is not obvious
Only the name and the name of the clan (if clanned) is publicly visible over the characters head. If you want to know more you have to take "a closer look". F6-RP becomes harder but not impossible.
loss of experience on death
Dieing in Anarchy Online means losing all experience points you earned at your characters current level. (An example below will make this much clearer)
team levels
The longer a team exists the higher the teams level is. A higher team level means higher experience and better offensive/defensive values.
items with different quality levels
Unlike in Neocron there are no pre-set levels for certain items. (I'm talking about non-rare items). The quality level (similar to Neocrons tech level) defines an item's damage/requirements. An assault rifle at QL 1 could have very low requirements and therefore do only little damage. With increasing quality levels the requirements and the possible damage increases accordingly. (The AO items database contains only few fixed entries for items. All other quality levels are interpolated from those fixed values)
missions
Accepting missions in Anarchy Online means getting handed out a key to a certain building/entrance. Only the owner of the key can access the mission area. The mission area itself is randomly generated. It usually consists of several rooms with some mobs placed inside them. Inside this mission area you have to fulfill the mission which can be killing a certain person, finding a certain person or item. Team missions are different as there are several levels inside that mission area. The highest level always contains a boss which is just a normal mob but with much more health.
items with additional bonuses
Some weapons/armors/items can have some special properties. An armor can give additional health and a rifle can improve your aiming. There are 2 classes of those items. The first ones are just normal items with random additions. The second ones are special items with predefined additions. (Diablo 2 players will probably remember yellow and golden items)
So how could that work in Neocron?
Assuming that I want to sell my beloved Tsunami assault rifle. I just write "Selling " into the chat window and then just drag&drop my rifle into the chat windows. The name of the rifles appears in the chat underlined. Pressing enter will send that text to the channel. Everyone listening to that channel will now see in his chat window. (Note, I was too lazy to create an translated example so you have to just replace "Verkaufe" with "Selling")
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/chat_link.png
The name of the assault rifle is a link just like in an ordinary web browser. Clicking the name will bring up the details window just like you would have seen it when right clicking on the item and selecting "details" in the menu.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/link_clicked.png
That way any given number of people can see the details of my weapon without me having to show it to everyone of them in the trade window.
AFAIK Neocron already has an unique identifier for every item in the game (which was probably introduced to prevent duping). This unique identifier could be used to reference a given item
I think the examples on the Anarchy Arcanum (http://www.anarchyarcanum.com/) page show the concept pretty well. The existing recycling system could be used extended to allow this.
The current position marker on the mini-map just shows the current position. Your facing can only be be deduced by looking at the compass.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/map_locator.png
Unfortunately some people's sense of orientations is comparable to a mole :lol: and on certain background the compass is very hard to read.
A mini-map with a directional arrow could look like this.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/directional_arrow.png[img]http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/directional_arrow1.png[/url]
Additional upgrades could show other players inside your local radius as dots.
Lets take that NPCs in front of the Crahn church in Pepper Park 3 as an example. Instead of standing there like nailed to the ground they could wander around in front of the church. This would make them appear more lively. Or lets take the NPC at Tawkeen village who's handing out those power cloaks. He could wander around at Tawkeen village. This would take quite some predictability out of the game if you find the NPC wandering inside the church.
This has been discussed several times. That's how it could work in Neocron. Above a player's head I only see his name, the name of the clan he belongs to (if clanned) and his rank (only symbols). To find out more about that player I would have to right click on that player (just as I would do to trade him or to add him to my direct/buddy/team). The pop-up menu would have a additional entry that would allow me to see this players combat and skill rank as well as his faction.
This is how dieingin Neocron could mean losing experience.
Lets just assume that 10,000 experience points are needed to read level 10 INT (or any other attribute). To reach level 11 you need 11,000 points of experience. Having achieve 10,563 points of experience my character dies and uses a genrep. After stepping out of the genrep I have 10,000 points of experience again. I lost all points I have achieved at the current level. Anarchy Online additionally offers the players a kind of "insurance". If I walked up to a genrep with my 10,563 points and saved my characters current state I would have come with exactly that 10,563 points out of the genrep. Any excess points would be lost (unless I had gained enough points for the next level). When you look at the description of the genrep you will see that this would quite fit into the game and would appear logical.
Team levels in Neocron could affect the distribution of team xp. The longer a team exists the better characters get to know each other and and profit more from the experience of the others. This would encourage players to keep teams longer alive and PPUs would profit much better from team xp.
Take the Tangent assault rifle as an example. Instead of quality (artifact/perfect/cool/...) we just have a quality level. An ordinary Tangent assault rifle (TL 44) requires DEX 44 and R-C 78 to use. The same assault rifle at TL 33 would just require DEX 33 and R-C 59. Of course the damage would be just 25% lower . That way there wouldn't be just 3 assault rifles but arbitrary numbers at different tech levels.
When accepting missions at the terminal the player would get an address and an apartment code. At the given location the player would find himself in a hallway with doors. Behinds those doors are rooms with mobs. The map would have to be generated randomly to prevent people from running strainght to the boss. The rewards (money, sympathy, soul light) should be significantly higher than the current rewards because such a mission takes much mire effort to finish.
This could be a little difficult in Neocron because Neocron has a fixed database with items. It would be really cool to find a rifle with a "smart-link" or a "motion compensator" improving rifle combat or weapon lore respectively.
I fear that this can't be done in Neocron without major changes to Neocron.
What do you think about those ideas?
I recently had the chance to play Anarchy Online (http://www.anarchy-online.com/). A few concepts and ideas caught my eye and could be probably ported to Neocron without much effort. This is not meant to be an AO vs. NC thread by any means. I just want to suggest what ideas the developers could shamelessly steal from Anarchy Online. :)
Links in chat
Trying to sell or show somebody an item in AO you just need to drag&drop that item into the chat window. A link with the name of the item is generated in the chat and clicking on the link displays the properties of the item. This would eliminate the cumbersome trade window if you just want to show something to someone.
tuning items
Ordinary or usually worthless items can be improved with some special treatment. Here are some examples (http://www.anarchyarcanum.com/weapons.html) how this is done in Anarchy Online.
map upgrades
The mini-map in Anarchy Online can be upgraded with some useful features. Initially the map just shows the players position as a small dot. By upgrading the map the position marker can be changed into a directional arrow showing the facing of the character on the map. Additional upgrades provide markers for machines, players and mobs.
NPCs wander around
NPCs in Anarchy Online don't stand around like glued to the ground. They wander randomly inside some predefined area. This makes it a bit harder to find them.
faction alignment is not obvious
Only the name and the name of the clan (if clanned) is publicly visible over the characters head. If you want to know more you have to take "a closer look". F6-RP becomes harder but not impossible.
loss of experience on death
Dieing in Anarchy Online means losing all experience points you earned at your characters current level. (An example below will make this much clearer)
team levels
The longer a team exists the higher the teams level is. A higher team level means higher experience and better offensive/defensive values.
items with different quality levels
Unlike in Neocron there are no pre-set levels for certain items. (I'm talking about non-rare items). The quality level (similar to Neocrons tech level) defines an item's damage/requirements. An assault rifle at QL 1 could have very low requirements and therefore do only little damage. With increasing quality levels the requirements and the possible damage increases accordingly. (The AO items database contains only few fixed entries for items. All other quality levels are interpolated from those fixed values)
missions
Accepting missions in Anarchy Online means getting handed out a key to a certain building/entrance. Only the owner of the key can access the mission area. The mission area itself is randomly generated. It usually consists of several rooms with some mobs placed inside them. Inside this mission area you have to fulfill the mission which can be killing a certain person, finding a certain person or item. Team missions are different as there are several levels inside that mission area. The highest level always contains a boss which is just a normal mob but with much more health.
items with additional bonuses
Some weapons/armors/items can have some special properties. An armor can give additional health and a rifle can improve your aiming. There are 2 classes of those items. The first ones are just normal items with random additions. The second ones are special items with predefined additions. (Diablo 2 players will probably remember yellow and golden items)
So how could that work in Neocron?
Assuming that I want to sell my beloved Tsunami assault rifle. I just write "Selling " into the chat window and then just drag&drop my rifle into the chat windows. The name of the rifles appears in the chat underlined. Pressing enter will send that text to the channel. Everyone listening to that channel will now see in his chat window. (Note, I was too lazy to create an translated example so you have to just replace "Verkaufe" with "Selling")
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/chat_link.png
The name of the assault rifle is a link just like in an ordinary web browser. Clicking the name will bring up the details window just like you would have seen it when right clicking on the item and selecting "details" in the menu.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/link_clicked.png
That way any given number of people can see the details of my weapon without me having to show it to everyone of them in the trade window.
AFAIK Neocron already has an unique identifier for every item in the game (which was probably introduced to prevent duping). This unique identifier could be used to reference a given item
I think the examples on the Anarchy Arcanum (http://www.anarchyarcanum.com/) page show the concept pretty well. The existing recycling system could be used extended to allow this.
The current position marker on the mini-map just shows the current position. Your facing can only be be deduced by looking at the compass.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/map_locator.png
Unfortunately some people's sense of orientations is comparable to a mole :lol: and on certain background the compass is very hard to read.
A mini-map with a directional arrow could look like this.
http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/directional_arrow.png[img]http://camelot.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/~fastjack/neoshots/ao-concepts/directional_arrow1.png[/url]
Additional upgrades could show other players inside your local radius as dots.
Lets take that NPCs in front of the Crahn church in Pepper Park 3 as an example. Instead of standing there like nailed to the ground they could wander around in front of the church. This would make them appear more lively. Or lets take the NPC at Tawkeen village who's handing out those power cloaks. He could wander around at Tawkeen village. This would take quite some predictability out of the game if you find the NPC wandering inside the church.
This has been discussed several times. That's how it could work in Neocron. Above a player's head I only see his name, the name of the clan he belongs to (if clanned) and his rank (only symbols). To find out more about that player I would have to right click on that player (just as I would do to trade him or to add him to my direct/buddy/team). The pop-up menu would have a additional entry that would allow me to see this players combat and skill rank as well as his faction.
This is how dieingin Neocron could mean losing experience.
Lets just assume that 10,000 experience points are needed to read level 10 INT (or any other attribute). To reach level 11 you need 11,000 points of experience. Having achieve 10,563 points of experience my character dies and uses a genrep. After stepping out of the genrep I have 10,000 points of experience again. I lost all points I have achieved at the current level. Anarchy Online additionally offers the players a kind of "insurance". If I walked up to a genrep with my 10,563 points and saved my characters current state I would have come with exactly that 10,563 points out of the genrep. Any excess points would be lost (unless I had gained enough points for the next level). When you look at the description of the genrep you will see that this would quite fit into the game and would appear logical.
Team levels in Neocron could affect the distribution of team xp. The longer a team exists the better characters get to know each other and and profit more from the experience of the others. This would encourage players to keep teams longer alive and PPUs would profit much better from team xp.
Take the Tangent assault rifle as an example. Instead of quality (artifact/perfect/cool/...) we just have a quality level. An ordinary Tangent assault rifle (TL 44) requires DEX 44 and R-C 78 to use. The same assault rifle at TL 33 would just require DEX 33 and R-C 59. Of course the damage would be just 25% lower . That way there wouldn't be just 3 assault rifles but arbitrary numbers at different tech levels.
When accepting missions at the terminal the player would get an address and an apartment code. At the given location the player would find himself in a hallway with doors. Behinds those doors are rooms with mobs. The map would have to be generated randomly to prevent people from running strainght to the boss. The rewards (money, sympathy, soul light) should be significantly higher than the current rewards because such a mission takes much mire effort to finish.
This could be a little difficult in Neocron because Neocron has a fixed database with items. It would be really cool to find a rifle with a "smart-link" or a "motion compensator" improving rifle combat or weapon lore respectively.
I fear that this can't be done in Neocron without major changes to Neocron.
What do you think about those ideas?