There is too much chatter about there not being enough ships, not enough weapons, not enough ability to shape the galaxy, not enough story. Some of these concerns have merit, but most of them are just because people are bored. We're not missing much of anything in the galaxy except one thing.

We have preciously little Drama.

Have a voice narrating the story and missions to add some drama. I think the story is very, very good, but no one wants to sit and *read* all of it. Reading during missions kinda kills immersion, too. A narrating voice and maybe a talking head or 2, would do a lot for player immersion. Having to suffer and work a little for more of the story wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

There's a very big difference between a mission and a quest. Knowing that going exploring will help me find new weapons, ships, or other crap would keep me much more motivated without having to add new content. I keep finding the same ol' crap all over the galaxy. The only thing that's a real mystery is the going rate of ore across the galaxy and if I'll run into an actual player somewhere. If I can poke around everywhere and find new stuff, the crap I find would be new *to me*.

Hey! I blew up a Serco convoy traveling through Itani space recently and it dropped a few crates of important-looking corpses. Or weapons. Who were they going to? I wonder if anyone knows what's going on?

Also, I'd like to see more reasons to meet up with other pilots. I need someone to help me 'X' while I 'Y', or THING needs to be done on 3 different systems at the same time in order to 'Z'. Nation-specific racing centers would help the newbies (me) not fear going out into greyspace for the fun stuff. I know I don't have the levels to defend myself out there should something happen.

Why not add a race with someone else to collect, say, 60 Orun Ion Blasters in one asteroid field teeming with collectors. You'd have to jettison them near a cap ship or something in the sector. You can even have playerbots nearby waiting to play. Winner gets some xp bonus, or cash, or letting you install some weapon that the stations won't allow you at lighter levels. More importantly, Winner gets a trophy and BRAGGING RIGHTS. Winners get to play at special tournaments in other sectors and, ultimately, the capitals (in the same sector?).

Hey! I'm the hottest racer at Xiv Planet, wanna race?

Or how about a mission sends you to one station, which in turn sends you somewhere else, which in turn has you meet a guy ELSEwhere that drops something very cool? Or he only drops it when you kill his bodyguards. Why do I do a mission, only to end up back at my same station? Send me away among the stars, give me cool things, tell me fascinating stories! I should be in a much different place and be a much different player than I started.

The key is that you'd have to *do something* to *get something*, other than just leveling. Storytelling has a lot to do with drama and emotion; drama and emotion have a lot to do with catharsis, identifying with other players (even NPCs), and playing for a long time before you know what's gonna happen.

Oh- and voices. There nothing like hearing terror, sadness, or evil in a voice hailing you. I *know* that sending sound files would be a big deal, but you could download the SoundPacks separately if necessary. It would be very cool to hail people and *hear* something, especially something custom.

There is TOO MUCH CRAP for sale at the stations. I shouldn't know about SuperMegaPlasmaHomingMissileLauncher because it's for sale at every station. That only tells me that I have to go farm DenTeks for a week before I can have it. Now, if I know that they sell it at these couple of rouge-ish Barracks, and that I have to fight alongside their pilots for a while to even dock there- I would EARN it.

The ships thing has been discussed to death. The number of ships is fine. In fact, we may have too many; but they all should have the level of detail of the Revenant. Also, the great majority look too much like planes. I would like a ship that looks more like a bug, more vertically oriented, or other style ideas. The Centurions have a killer back-end, but if only their front-ends didn't look so much like a primitive in 3D Studio Max. What would be cool would be able to earn or buy more small and large weapon slots for existing ships, but I know that is coding crazy-talk.

Don't worry about the ships, no matter what people say. The ships are [mostly] fine. They're just too widely available.

Focus on the quests. Give me a reason to fly around other than shoot bots for levels.

Quest Ideas:
I *know* these don't go along with the story! They're only examples of how similar gameplay could be much more fun than the current mission system.

[*] Who the hell *did* kill Karun, anyway? The old Itani King Geira Rutilus, whose System fell to the Serco long ago, knows the story. He lives among the asteroids in the rings of a planet with a Hive Queen defending him. You've had to do a *bunch* of things so that damn pirate at Divinia would tell you where he was hiding (at least he split 50% of the loot and gave you MegaBlasters). The king will tell you the story if you'll escort the prince to do lots of stupid stuff all over a bunch of systems. Buying, Mining, Selling, Killing Enemies and then Allies. Your own faction standing hangs in the balance. Do you run and tell his father what he's doing or do you support the son? Does King Geira have a hand in bots becoming self-aware? What was *his* role in the Itani-Serco War? Does it have anything to do with why his system fell?

[*] I like the mentor points idea. I would add one more level. I think that 1,000 good mentor reviews should earn you your very own capship, free of charge. Of course, you'd need to go pick it up at the Capitol or somewhere. And you can't just pull out a new capship; you'd need at least 3 players with you to fly it out. There should be a lot of fanfare on a Tuesday night (What *is* primetime for VendettaOnline, anyway?) and everyone who was *anyone* (bots?) would be there to watch you accept it. Then, your mentor points would be deducted 1,000.

[*] Do enough escort missions and you can work for CEO SomeGuy. If he likes you, you get promoted to Escort Fire Team Leader and get 3 crap EC-Buses that follow you everywhere and shoot at anything close to you. They're dumb and they die a lot, you need to collect a bunch of scrap metal to rebuild one (There's a mission for that). Once, you escort something SECRET for him to somebody unsavory, and something's not right. Your escorts keep saying weird things. On your way back, your escorts are ordered to kill you! You need to fight your way to his stronghold to learn the truth.

[*] The old Armorer of the Serco now works for hire- if you can find him. He'll ask you for money without so much as a guarantee and then send you off to find/buy/steal a laundry list of hard to find materials, ore, other weapons (he needs the barrels), and just crap. It'll take you forever to find all this crap. When you give him everything, he'll work for some time and then jettison a single crate containing ...um.. whatever the almost most powerful weapon is right now. Make sure someone doesn't run up and steal it, you better be ready to defend it. He'll produce a different weapon based on your skill level.

[*] Similar to the 'Explore the Galaxy' mission, have a few small ships guide you around to many different stations, conflict areas, bot nests, racing games, or meet other players.

[*] If you place top 5 in the All-Galactic Racing Tournament, all nations would admire you. You'd be a celebrity, and able to travel all of space freely. Then new people coming to look for you for special dirty escort jobs, or combat missions. These may affect your standing with various factions and make you take sides.

Why not have more 'celebrities'? Who is the Captain of the IDV Onasis and what has he done, why is he a great Captain? Please help me identify with or admire him. How about a famous Pirate Captain we can all know and secretly root for?

Why not include more wormholes between systems? Open up another front between Serco and Itani? Then you can have mutual engagements you have to run back and forth to.

Anyhow- those are just my thoughts. I love this game and haven't yet tired of getting my ass kicked by Apu's. I just feel that all of the concerns players have may be better served by storytelling enhancements. I don't think we need more ships, more weapons, or more toys- we just need to present them a lot better.

Great game, though- I love it!
-Pets

P.S- Notice I deliberately left out any mentions to actual games; past, present, or future. This is so that the reader can imagine these concepts on their own, without thinking about them in terms of another work. I encourage you to keep any discussion on this low on examples of games and high on concepts and elements that work. Also, if you mention an idea that will take a lot of work, please mention that you gave some thought to how hard the idea would be to implement.

Welcome, n00b. Soon, you will realize this is SpaceQuake and not Multi-Player EVN; you will become bitter.

Until then, you may continue, in your eager zeal, to explain what is wrong and how it can be fixed--this amuses Us.

That's Dr. Lecter's way of saying, "I'm a cynical bastard but deep down I really agree with you and share in your dreams"

I'm a cynical bastard but deep down I really agree with Petskull and share in his/her dreams.

Sadly, Lecter is correct. There's no-one available to write the content, since all 4 developers of this game are working on nuts-and-bolts stuffs.

And I'm online way too infrequently to inject drama. Try asking the [TGFT] or [ONE] guilds for some drama.

Or, create it yourself by using this handy "Instant Guide to Drama in Vendetta." Just pick one of the handy topics and start asking questions about it or pontificating.

1. Mention EVE and how much better it is than VO.
2. Start a platform war! Make an off-hand comment about how much the Apple MacBooks suck or something.
3. Ask why the Centaur ship looks like a winged phallus.
4. Denounce Akan (The Itani war criminal) while Jestatis Bess is online.
5. Talk about how much the [BLAK] guild sucked arse, specifically if Miharu is online.
6. Ask ElvisClone to sing some Sinatra tunes.
7. Steal LeberMac's tequila. Usually just the mention of tequila theft is enough to drive him into a frenzy.
8. Claim to be a n00b who was station-killed by a notoriously "good", upstanding player, like Ecka Estenk, or Moda Messolus, or Slime73, or maybe Eldrad or FiReMaGe or A1k0n. Stick to your farsical story even when pressed.
9. (Failing that, claim to have seen tumblemonster.)
10. Befriend peytros.

There's 10 things that should get the conversation going and the neutron blasters firing.

Glad I could help.

I want a talking read to read his post aloud to me.

hahahaaa leebs cracks me up.

I would direct Petskull to the PCC.

http://vendetta-online.com/x/pcc

Write those missions for us.

While I don't agree to be running all over the universe for a mega posi, I do think the missions need more depth.

kernel.panic

All this game needs is a little purpose behind it. As it stands, nationalism is not that exciting as there is nothing to gain. Both sides stay at an endless stalemate. Trade is not that useful as the economy doesn't really need the players help to sustain itself. Infact, there is an endless supply of any amount of items at each station at overly cheap prices. There are no shortages that could require player help. There is no way to cause significant harm or aid to an economy. Commodities mean nothing in general to the player. You can't build ships or weapons with them. You can't feed a character or keep a starbase functioning. You can't build any fortifications to take claim to systems, and the systems do not require your help to stay at optimal functionality.

Roleplay, an engine that usually can bring great immersion, is rare here. Infact, the roleplay forums are littered with OOC comments and thread derailers, making it hard to actually get into it. The lack of backstory and defined culture also makes it difficult to roleplay. There simply isn't that many elements to go with.

In essence, if you were to quit tomorrow, your effect on the universe would mean absolutely nothing (save of course to the players you meet). Really, the only way to create drama is to be a pirate. At least that way you are immersed in the player community, largely as a KOS to many. And considering the few friends you may have, it is a lot more exciting. You actually have to watch your back, and you give other players the joy (no matter how much many of them take it for granted) of having to watch theirs.

A talking head, Whistler? Like in Fallout 2?

I tend to disagree with you to a certain extent Tseng. There are loads of ways to make drama in the game even if you are not a pirate. The biggest problem is lack of participants in VO as a whole and in the roleplay in particular. And when people are on they tend to put their own person into the character which makes it even harder to rolepay as it becomes personal whenever you "attack" their character. People respond to roleplay with OOC stuff and that kills a lot of initiatives. The recent posts by Ryan Reign and the responses are cases in point. Whether or not you like the posts, their content or their form, they are roleplay and should be treated as such. However they are not.

Dr. Lecter is, as he often is in his own vitriolic way, right when he says that VO is not a RP game at present, it is space quake.

However, with time and effort hopefully the game can gain that element as well to the benefit of all of us! Even if it is hard to do...

Hortan, proud other member of IPA, proud owner of Ye Olde Sloth Moth XXIV and producer of Helio Mists, 65% proof single malt whisky

Whytee man you are exactly right about the roleplay element. It annoys the hell out of me looking at that forum, reading roleplay threads and seeing people respond in OOC. We need more people who KNOW HOW TO RP; and there needs to be some rules in place by moderators to prevent people from derailing an RP.

As for the pirate thing well... I'll agree to disagree. What's the alternative really? Doing the same ole carebear routines in B8? Meh...

We need more people who KNOW HOW TO RP; and there needs to be some rules in place by moderators to prevent people from derailing an RP

In addition to not being a multiplayer version of EVN, VO is also not your goddamn Dungeons & Dragons club. So enough with the geek anal retentiveness.

First off, I don't play dungeons and dragons. Second, there is a thing called a "roleplay forum" here for a reason; and some would actually like to do that. If you don't like roleplay, then you don't have to participate. You don't have to go to that part of the forum and you can go back to playing the game like a mindnumb shooter. Either way, its a game and you can play it however you want. I don't give a fuck. But to those of us who actually enjoy bringing a sense depth and life to a game, do us all a little service-- though I know this will probably be really hard for you.

PISS OFF.

actually the good Dr. is a quite good little anal retentive geek when he wants to:). Just don't let him get to you, he is very very good at what he does....

You don't have to do violent stuff to roleplay. I have a pacifist miner who is scared of moving out of Helios. He has, in the course of time, had a relationship with a notorious pirate (The Huntress.... MY QUEEN!!), been involved in a nasty trade war, dealt with terrorists and all while never owning a gun. Hardly the stereotype you'd find in space quake. There are people who run medical services, people that run escorts, people that chase others down and eat their livers (or subject their clones to unheard and previously unthought off horrors). The only problem here is the lack of players and especially lack of support from those that DON'T roleplay. I have no golden solution I'm afraid, I'll just keep loggin in as the paranoid pansy miner on pills and uppers:) I hope you log in as your RP character and ignores the idiocy on 100 (which IS kinda funny at times.) Know that the channel for RP is 300 and use that one instead.

-Hort

I dont feel like role playing i feel like being me!

Tseng, I've contributed more to VO's RP aspect in the past several years than you are likely to contribute ever. And I've done it without being an annoying OMG WE HAZ TO STAY IN CHAR ALL TEH TIME IN TEH SPECIAL RP ROOMZZ!!!! twit.

You should give it a try sometime. Right after you get a scrip for some Prozac or something. Damn.

I share your vision, Tseng.

Hey! I play Dungeons & Dragons! Well, OK, I used to. Like 25 years ago. It was fun! I had this multiclassed Elf Ftr/M-U/Thf who once...

anyway;

I heartily enjoy channel 100. In fact, channel 100 is probably the single most entertaining aspect of the game for me. Because I can't taunt people in channels they don't monitor. I don't use channel 300 for the simple reason that no one else uses it, either. So, if I wanted to roleplay to myself I suppose I could use it. But I hear if you do that too much you go blind.

Roleplaying is essentially "pearls before swine" at this point in VO. Don't hurt yourself trying to herd cats into your view of RP, Tseng. There are too few players who appreciate it, and too many who will just as soon interrupt just to be dicks/think they're funny.

I know, I've done both, been on both sides of that.

Essentially, Tseng: We agree with you. But lighten up.

Uhh, the original post seems to mostly talk about missions, not RP and whether people stay in character or not.

Getting back to the original poster's goals, I agree that we need more dramatically-driven and story-driven missions. I push for that kind of stuff with the PCC, whenever possible. (As mentioned previously, our Player Contribution Corps is a great way to construct these things yourself).

I don't have the funds or resources to come up with a lot of voice talent making audible mission data. So, text will have to do for now. But, even within that, there's a lot that can be done.

Excellent first post, good ideas, the only one I would disagree with are the mentor points example... mentoring shouldn't be a way to get a powerful ship or weapon as much as a way to earn recognition.

I think that many of your ideas are already in play via the PCC, just not to the scale you imagine. The mission editor is extremely versatile and powerful (I think I almost broke the game twice with it) and it's waiting for players like you. If you want to tell a story then get yourself versed in VO lore:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/storyline.html
(edit: scratched the PCC thread links out...)

And come tell us a story already! I'd love to see any of the plots you describe in game and I think that most of them could be given a good treatment under the current mission editor.

People who aren't in the PCC already, can't see those PCC threads, Phaser.