Talk:Lost Worlds

The package rerouting and tracking feature sounds useful.

Perhaps the PDA could store the map too? (GPS system..)

Actually, it could probably be used as an UI for most features in the game (accessing body status through cybernetic implants, and weapon ammo statuses and inventory through bluetooth :P ).

--zzorn 23:04, 11 March 2006 (CET)

Of course, the PDA (maybe, depending on the actual world your char is on (or from) it could also be a neural implant) would be used for any data keeping, including the map. Which would (there's the UI) be displayed through some sort of combat armor integrated helmet display (which would open up the possibility of your char losing the helmet (or it being damaged) and then having to consult the map (and other stuff) manually (meaning putting a delay in).

Different factions with widely varying UIs? (Alien vs Predator is one of the sweetest shooters I know ;).

Thanks for the inspiration! :)

--Jae 23:52, 11 March 2006 (CET)

Oh, and the package rerouting/tracking... it's not so much the usefulness as the immersion that's the reason: I love WoW's mail system, but a "whichever mailbox you go to, your package is there" is magic, and fits in the WoW world, but isn't right in a technological world like I have in mind (even if it's pretty advanced).

By the way, I'm added a new private page, User:Jae/Various Comments, which I have just filled with mostly-unedited comments I dumped into mails as they came to me. "Train of thought" if you will.

--Jae 23:58, 11 March 2006 (CET)

Yep, saw them, added some comments.

Agreeing about the postal system, if transport and logistics should be a meaningful player driven game element we can't have magical post boxes.

--zzorn 01:56, 12 March 2006 (CET)

Comments on Conflict and Factions in TLW

Comments on The Lost Worlds:

The first worlds will open with a minimal population. A couple hundred at most per world. Active players, only limited number of alts. Storyline reason: settlers cannot be clones quite that fast (maybe due to the damage sustained). And the autonomic systems wouldn`t create thousands of settlers right away anyway, they're programmed to release/create a scouting force (damn, I'm missing the right term right now), and after that is successful, release more settlers in "batches".

That's a really fascinating idea.

There should be more conflicts around here in the game. Something for the players to get involved in. You can take the Alpha Centauri approach and have several ships or pods making planetfall in different places on the planet. Then have them built with different ideologies so that they fight each other. We'll continue on that topic when discussing factions

Factions

I have an alternate plan to the Hitchers-faction that might be a bit interesting and also allow for special powers and tweaks. You say some of the "goo" (the biosoup that the settlers are buildt from) were in a less shielded area:

Factions and Races:

(suggestion) During the collapse of the wormhole some of the biogoo were polluted by spikes of radiation hitting the ship. This means that some of the settlers came out changed. Some had mutations, others were missing limbs and several functions. (lets give the autonomic system that rebuilds the settlers from their DNA a name "Rebirth") The Rebirth-AI computer system have decided to compensate for the malfunctioning settlers by inserting experimental implants in their bodies along with making genetic modifications to their bodies. This means that there are two primary races. Norms and muties. The Norms are your ordinary humans while the Muties (mutants) are the "malfunctioning" products made by the Rebirth system. This creates space for conflicts between the races and special quirks and powers on the muties race. --Cablefish 21:46, 23 May 2006 (CEST)

Don't know where that "Hitchers-faction" comes from... but anyway, here are the comments by the Jae jury ;)

First off, thanks for the interest and the suggestions. I have something on my local wiki about factions, which I have to transfer.

The races: I had the biogoo in mind as something completely inert, and thus 100% impervious to any radiation. Whatever "races" (I prefer AO's term "breeds") will be there, I see as a result of the "system" adapting the colonists to the environment.

Keep in mind there might be some mysterious (and powerful) alien lifeform (or a whole race) behind the wormhole (maybe even behind the wormhole itself). They then might have modified the biogoo in some way (which only later (when the devs get around to implementing it) shows its effects).

Maybe is the key term here (I'd like to keep it vague... actually I do see a problem with fully-open MMORPGs and my ideas here: I'd like to keep stuff mysterious. Which means keeping the server stuff closed (not in the non-GPL way, but in the "mystery through obscurity" way ;)

Oh, and I'm (now that your suggestion has had a few minutes to sink in) against conflict based on physical differences. Conflict due to different philosphies (see the faction stuff as soon as it's up) is okay, but "hey, let's go gank these because they look ugly/are missing limbs/have artificial limbs" ain't. (See David Sirlin's "WoW teaches the wrong things")

(And go look at User:Jae/General Game Design Thoughts for a little illustration where I'm coming from, or what inspired/inspires this. Yes, I like a lot of things about AO, but I also seem to drift more and more away from it in designing (ha, let's call it "thinking about" ;) LW) --Jae 02:06, 24 May 2006 (CEST)