Players in an MMO are looking for some kind of permanance... it's one thing to duke it out in B8 every night, it's another thing to build a tangible mark on the universe.

To this end, I'd like to propose some very large scale guild-missions which generate turf wars between guilds and results in tangible changes in stations and the nav map.

A guild mission could only be accepted by the guild's commander or lieutenants, and would remain active for all guild members. A prerequisite for this, of course, would be stackable missions.

The objectives would be on the scale of something a group of 30 players could complete, and would probably be over a broad time scale (since an entire guild is never on at the same time, this gives everyone a better chance to participate). However, I would still like to see the objectives center around a particular station, reason for which I will discuss later.

Two obvious guild mission types I'd imagine are Trade Contracts and Blockades

Trade Contract

A Trade Contract would function like a retrieval mission, except that the time alloted would be a full week, and the cu to be moved would be enormous. If the mission is successful, all guild members recieve an appropriate standing, xp, and monetary bonus, and the Contract auto-refreshes with a new destination.

If the mission failed, that guild would not be able to re-take the contract mission at that station for a period of one week.

The reason I think retrieval would be a good archetype rather than procurement is that the guild convoys would then travel along more of a pre-defined route across larger distances, which may catch the attention of competing guilds, which would lead to interesting turf wars. Each station would only contract one guild at a time, and this would show up in the nav map, (e.g: oment orbital: contractor of The Guild of Free Traders) so if a competing guild wanted to win the contract at that station, they could blockade the station, disrupting trade convoys so that the mission fails.

Say a guild completed a trade contract mission at a particular station four weeks in a row... that station would be so impressed with the guild they would offer to make the guild proprietors of that station. Once this happens, the nav map is again updated, naming the guild as proprietors of that station, and a series of new missions becomes available in addition to the usual trade contract. In addition to receiving a huge price drop in items, the guild would have the option of taking over the roles of Station Guard and Strike Force for that station... but those missions belong in a later post. The guild would also have the option of taking:

Blockade Missions

For the more combat-oriented guilds, blockade missions would become available at stations of factions that are enemies with factions of stations undergoing a Trade Contract (might wanna re-read that a few times). The Blockade Mission succeeds if the target Trade Contract fails, and the responsible guild has a certain number of PKs on the guild fulfilling the contract (a token amount... say... 10-20). The mission would only be available to a proprietary guild, but the reward would be fairly large.

These two missions combined would generate awesome turf wars between guilds that led to tangible marks on the universe. Cap ships would almost be a necessity for fulfilling these missions; both freighters to move the cargo for Trade Contracts and warships to blockade. If a guild had the resources they could become proprietors of two or three stations... it would make sense to try to win contracts at neighboring stations to consolidate forces.. and it would be a risky endeavor to take a trade contract at a station which was next to the proprietary station of a competing guild.

If a proprietary guild failed its contract, it would lose proprietary status, but would have the option of immediately re-taking a trade contract mission which, if successful, would restore them as proprietors. If the trade contract was broken, the guild could not re-take the contract mission at that station for a week, freeing up the station for the next guild to lay claim to.

Perhaps being the proprietors of a station would unlock additional purchaseable equipment at that station (are you sure Sedina L-2 doesn't have sunflares? maybe they're just keeping them hidden :), giving the proprietary guild a stronger presence in that corner of space. The possibilities go on and on....

The reason this would be so much fun is it would create a real cause to go PvP, and the rewards would be visible and lasting.

Its difficult to create a mission for 30 ppl.

Other possibility is to open a new route for own trader. The entry to a wormhole is blocked by NPCs/members of another guild. If the guild wants to open the shortcut for own traders then they have to kill the old guards.

A more aggressive mission:
1./ The hive queen is hidding in an unmapped system. You have to kill/capture bots to dowload coordinates of new areas where you can safely jump. The bots remember only the coordinates of the last jump so you have to kill many bots to get a bit closer to the queen.
2./ undiscovered systems can be on the borders of the know universe. The guilds can break through the new wormhole, map and pacify the new system. And of course they can name it.

Regards

Darkwood

What I'm really shooting for in this suggestion is lending a sense of permanence to PvP. As blisteringly fun as the combat in Vendetta may be, this is designed as an MMORPG after all, not an FPS... blowing stuff up just 'cuz it's there will only last so long, there should be an underlying reason for it.

It's seeing your own mark on the universe that makes a game like VO fun to play... being able to look at something in game and say "I did that." Guilds have helped immensely in this respect by lending an RP aspect to the usual PvP festivities in B8. The player run websites allow people to plan strategies, trade stories, keep score etc. Guilds are probably the reason I've remained an active player for so long.

Since I see the Guild system as one of VO's big assets, I think guilds would be a great context for large scale PvP missions. It's great that players have taken it upon themselves to RP to the extent they have on the boards and fan sites, but it would be truly awesome to allow guilds to make tangible marks on the universe in game. I want to be able to look at the Nav map and see "wow, the IA is really expanding into Edras" or "I see the IGPK have a new contract going in Odia." Imagine the depth this would give to the current RP.

Yes, Phaser. That would rule. Let's hope once the stuff the devs are working on now is done, they add this in there...

The only problem is that people would be far more apt to take a blockade mission over a massive retrieval mission. Moving cargo is less fun that shooting someone, after all - for the majority of players, at least. Although I guess the dedicated trading guilds could hire other guilds to run escort.. which would be even better.

So yes to this suggestion!

So...

1. Make bots smarter. Includes NPC trader & escort bots. Let them dock a little more smoothly.

2. Finish mission editor. At first, only allow devs to make missions, but later on, players will be able to offer missions thru the station interface. Player bounties could be player-oriented missions.

3. Finish economy. Add different goods and widgets, possibly illegal goods. Make trade goods and prices fluctuate throughout galaxy. Allow players & guilds to rent space at existing stations. Create station A.I. to handle trade between stations.

3. Finish crafting. Give a reason for all of this mining.

4. Guild missions

4-1/2. Player pwned capships.

5. Guild- and player-owned stations.

6. Let simmer for 6 months. Test & re-test. Fine tune.

7. Start marketing. Make big splash in MMORPG world.

8. Guild gets to Retire?

Is this more-or-less it? [EDITED for Phaser]

Throw cap ships in there somewhere and I think you've more or less got it... illegal goods and player bounties (remember that feature?) would also go a long way.

I don't think player owned stations are an absolute necessity before the guerilla marketing campaign of DOOM(tm). Construction/player housing is a pretty advanced feature not a lot of MMOs have, and would require a lot of changes. I like the idea of "owning" a part of a station in some way, shape or form (Trade Contracts from one station belonging to one guild are along these lines) but realistically I expect actual player owned stations are a long way off at the current pace.

On topic:

There's a few specifics to this that would need some ironing out of course: in the retrieval mission, for example, I believe it's possible to lose your cargo, then to go out and purchase more cargo of the same type in order to complete the mission. Do guild convoys have the same option? Or does there need to be specific cargo from a specific station to complete the mission? If a moth gets popped and loses some of the mission cargo, does the mission fail? I.e. does 100% of the ore required by the contract have to make it on the first try or can it be re-purchased if lost?

I'd say yes, 100% of the ore has to make it on the first try, since it's far more difficult to set up an effective blockade than to run one, but there is probably some room for a grey area here.

Ideally these Trade Contract missions would be based on the supply/demand model of the economy redux; in essence player guilds would take over the role of those NPC moth convoys for a station when a Trade Contract was signed. Perhaps there would even be escort missions available for the player convoys, just like the NPC convoys.

Guild has my phone #. Remember to call before you think about the advertising push. :)

Guilds should also be able to purchase services at select stations. These could be available to those with Commander tags in the mission menu, or in a guild menu (when the gui is updated)

Repair Contract
Repairs to ships should cost credits again and players should be given the option of auto-repair or manual repair.
A guild could purchase a repair contract at a station so for 28 days, all guild members could get free repairs when they dock. Alternate approach could be the guild buys 100,000 units of repairs at a discount. Guild members who dock will get free repairs until all repair units are used up.

Ammo Contract
Guilds could purchase bulk ammo that would alllow the next (1000, 5000, 10000?) rounds of missiles/rails to be bought my guild members at a discounted price.

Guild Station Hold
Guilds could buy additional storage at a station. All guild members get a modifier to their storage allotmets (15%,20%,30%). If the guild does not renew the storage contract, the players must sell off excess storage until they reach the base size.

Guild Ship Mooring
Guilds could buy a mooring site for large, multi-person ships. Guild members would have to hail the ship and get autorization before they could dock. The mooring site would let you park your ship and get repairs. Moores would be located inside NFZ at selected stations.

Yeah. Plus if/when the players/guilds have their OWN stations, they can offer services/contracts to the other guilds/players. Would be neat.

*Thread necromancy*

Phaserlight: I love both the ideas to pieces. Perhaps not 30 people (come on, only the really big guilds have that many active members), but I like both missions. :D

- Tol Kerhys

The size of the trade contract mission could be based on the size of the station... Verasi I-9 or Dau G-10 would most likely require larger sums of trade goods, therefore a large guild could contract one of these successfully but a small guild would do better claiming a backwater station somewhere.

A possible way to have trade contracts without implementing stackable missions would be to have them take the form of mission trees. I.e. the guild commander or lieutenant takes the contract mission, which makes a series of missions available to that guild. If all missions were cleared within a week, the contract is successful. The missions of course would be based on the demands of that particular station ("we have recently purchased 1,000 cu of pentric ore and 300 ion cores from Oment Orbital, go there and retrieve it for us.")

Perhaps certain stations would offer certain types of missions... i.e. Skycommand would order military strikes on key Itani locations, therefore a Serco combat oriented guild would be better clients of that station. Mining stations would give guild mining missions, Orbitals would be trade intensive, Research would involve a lot of espionage and blueprint delivery etc. etc.

I whole heartedly agree with what you wrote, Phaserlight. It would give guilds some meaning, too.

*summoning thread necromancy powers*

mmmnnnwoorrrnnnnKZAP!

It's allliiiive!

lucifex's Military missions thread made me want to dig this up as a civilian corrolary. I also wanted to add a couple more mission suggestions:

These would only be available to members of a guild that is in excellent standing (i.e. the guild has completed four consecutive trade contracts) with the particular station at which the mission is offered.

Station Guard

This mission would basically allow a player to assume the role of station guard for half an hour. When a player accepts this mission, an NPC station guard would be recalled to the station and the player would take his spot. The player would have a [station guard] tag attached to his/her name for the duration of the mission.

The player would then be required to patrol the NFZ for half an hour. If someone broke the NFZ, the player would recieve a "<player x> has violated the No Fire Zone, destroy him(/her) immediately!"

The mission would end after the half an hour timer counts down to 0, with a bonus for each target destroyed/chased off. The timer would be put on hold whenever the player left the NFZ, so the Station Guard mission could be considered a type of "zone defense."

The mission would fail if the player destroyed a non-designated target, or if the player allowed too many people to get PKed in the NFZ.

Strike Force

The Strike Force mission would become available at the station for a short period (~5 minutes) after a KOS target was spotted in the sector. Unlike the Station Guard mission, the goal would be solely to hunt down and kill a single target wherever he/she runs. The mission would end successfully when the target is destroyed, giving a reward to all players in the same sector as the target at the time of destruction. The mission would fail after half an hour or individually if a player destroyed a non-designated target.

..hmm, I see a lot in common with some of my 2009 ideas, though I hadn't thought of using the mission computer.. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/13744#173157

..very nice :D

Leber you forgot one! Guild can't advertise this game until weapons are able to be carried as cargo!

Guild can't advertise this game until SHIPS are able to be carried as cargo too!