User:Jae/Scratchpad

Login/Offline Info

Related to Character Homepages. There needs to be a way of checking the location of a char w/o actually logging in. For example, AO's login screen shows this... but only partially. If your char is in certain locations, it just says "UNKNOWN". Not good.

Jokes and Humor

I love AO's nano crystal names ("magic spells" in the usual fantasy setting... or rather, spell scrolls). Especially the bureaucrat ones. ([1] for reference). "(Lesser) Blizzard of Red Tape" for a movement impediment "spell" for example. Or the "Demotivational Speech" debuff auras. "Demotivational Speech: Let's Make a Committee".

There's just too little humor in games. How about a "Board of Education", which, when you hit someone with it, increases some int/learning stat (for a little while). Something Orks or Trolls would use, of course. :)

Client-Side Character Data Dump

Related to Character Homepages. I prefer a data dump by the client, in some usable format. This way, there's no need to copy data off the web for personal use, this being a waste of resources since the client has this data anyway, so why fetch it twice.

And it would also put this "homepage creation" in the hands of the users. Distribute the load, baby! :)

Team Missions

If a mission is a team mission, it has to be designed/structured in a way so it is impossible to do solo. Good examples are some of the City of Heroes missions, where you have to activate 2 or more switches at the same time, impossible with just one char in mission. Variations could be:

• Bring 2 or more special items to some NPC, and only then is the mission finished. Maybe as many as there are chars in team (decided the moment you roll the mish, or the moment you enter the mish). These items would be "unique" as in no char can carry more than one of them (make them extra-heavy, or emitting radiation that would be life-threatening if you carried more than one)
• As in CoH, activate multiple "switches" in parallel.
• AO has a special dungeon that needs 2 or more people to enter, you have to activate 2 switches in parallel for some doors to open.

Other ideas welcome :)

Char location

There needs to be an easy way to find out where your chars are, without having to log in. If they're in some building, there has to be some indication of where this building is. I'm thinking of AO's launcher, which names the zone a char is in, but if the char's inside a building, it just says "Indoors Playfield" (and if in a dungeon, it says "UNKNOWN" or similar).

Minimap & Compass

Minimap stuff (for LW, of course):

• The minimap (PDA/Map Reader) is freely positionable (no idea about Ember/Sear), and resizable.
• Minimap can be zoomed in/out.
• Waypoints/Markers: Mark spots on minimap (and big map), annotate
• Arrows/markers at the edges of the minimap (and in the compass) that show the direction to active waypoints/markers.
• Send waypoints/markers: Send a data package with waypoints/markers (either "physical" or through "email") that the recipient char can upload into his/her PDA map reader.
• In buildings or similar structures, show a path to your destination (provided the PDA contains a map of the building and the location of your destination).
• Show which way your char is facing (AO's directional arrow, but better (it's often hardly visible; maybe a marker at the minimap edge. OTOH, the same info is in the compass, so...).
• Some coordinates display (problem: screen real estate is limited ;)

Some of these might be map upgrades a char had to obtain somehow (shops, crafting, looting off PCs/NPCs)

Offline Notification

Taking the short idea on the main page, and expanding it (born from EVE's offline training, and AO's perk reseting, which both work on real time).

A system that notifies players about in-game event, both IC and OOC. Like

• people on your friends list logging on (and maybe off too, if you want to avoid someone :P)
• character-related events like "A perk reset is available" (AO's perks) or "your character has trained to rank in skill".
• world events, like "your org HQ is being attacked" or "someone is trying to break into your org offices in some city".

Notification needs to be able to use email, instant message, SMS, and/or a system tray game accessor (for those using Windows or desktop environments on Linux). An easy API for the client would be nice (to facilitate creation of plugins for different tray systems on Linux). And a clean, simple interface from the server side (so it's easy to plug a new notification service into the server).

Kudos

http://cities.totl.net/cgi-bin/game has a nice idea in that you can give other players "Kudos". Something like that, for intangibly expressing one's gratitude, would be nice. Maybe tying with making special engravings into weapons and stuff?

• Did you know that in cities you can fatten up pigs by feeding them acorns? That was a nod to the early worldforge game...

Marking/Tagging Items

I like WoW's "Created by charname" on crafted items. I expand on that in that you can do custom markers. Engraved plates on weapons, for example. And just generally mark stuff, so, for example, you can mark anything that was loaned to you by a friend, or your org, or whomever. Good to keep track and not accidentally sell something.

Crafting

Example, weapons, guns. Every gun is an assembly of parts. Each part can (within certain parameters) be replaced. So, put in a better barrel, that makes higher projectile speed possible (which translates to more damage in game-mech terms). Or replace the stock with a better one, maybe a fitted one. A custom-fitted stock gives a bonus to the char it was fitted to, and potentially a malus to everyone else.

Important: lower "levels" (those with lower skills) have to be useful. There has to be ways they can do useful things, maybe helping more eperienced chars in needed ways. Not like WoW's crafting, where what a starter char can produce is 99% worthless, so they have to do crap until they're high enough.

Skills

Physical / Mental

Skills are separated into two "realms", the physical and the mental. Skills in one realms can/do influnce skills in the other, though if, how, and in what way, depends on the skills involved.

Skill memory

On dying, the physical skills reset to 0 (or to a certain level depending on the clone used... there may be different qualities/types of clones available). The mental skills stay the same. The mental image of a char does, however, retain a "memory" of their physical skills, which makes retraining them to their former level easier.

Skill learning/forgetting and Max Skills

Skills can be learned to any level (skills will be point-based (but not readily-accessible to players), and level-based (for example, a "Master Weaponsmith" could have 754 points in weaponsmithing, due to his points being above 750). Both scales will have a function.

If a skill isn't used for a certain time, a "forgetting" sets in. In the case of physical skills, it could be said to atrophy. The higher the skill, the more one would forget per day if not used (each skill has a grace period after last use in which it doesn't go down).