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What the game might eventually be like.
Everybody knows by know that Vendetta is turning into an RPG, but few people seem to be getting their head around that idea until recently. This is my take on what the starting steps of an open ended sci-fi RPG with Vendetta style gameplay as its backbone might be like. There is a lot assumptions here and no gaurantees that the game play will be anything like this, but hopefully this will stimulate some imaginations and show the breadth of the possibilities if not the actual breadth of the implementation. I will interrupt the description from time to time to explain what is going on behind the story to some extent.
To begin with you design your character - in this case an Itani who selected 'merchant' as his career path, and after a cut scene the actual game starts at a 'talking head' NPC interface. There is a picture of an NPC and below it a dialog box and several options of how you can respond, typical of Fallout or any number of RPG's or the diplomacy interfaces of MOOII or CivII.
(There won't always be a picture for NPC's of lesser importance, and there will be a lot of stock 'heads' for common NPC's. If you had chosen a different career path or a different faction, you might start with a different starting NPC in a different sector, like a military recruiting officer, a professor at a university, a drill instructor, the patriarch of a powerful merchant family, a wicked but sauve pirate lord, etc. All of these NPC's are of course available to you should you find them and wish to change careers or start a new one, though the starting dialogue might different from the normal dialogue.)
Buddy starts off by explaining he's managed to rig you up a ship out of scrap and reconditioned government surplus. It isn't much, but it will get you started. The various initial dialog choices with Buddy give you background that will help a new player get started like 'What is there to do around here, Buddy?' or 'Where can I get work?' or 'How much do I owe you?' or 'Can I buy something from you?'
(In the case of 'How much do I owe you, Buddy responds '500 cr', but no rush. You can pay me back when you get you get the cash.' Buddy never demands repayment and you can go as in debt to Buddy as you like, but when and if you pay Buddy off, Buddy opens up the beginning of a very profitable mission path concerning ultimately some highly unusual salvage.)
After exhausting the possibilities with Buddy, you leave his 'station' (probably discovering for the first time that you are in a station) and are probably overwhelmed to find yourself in a massive 3D space city filled with a seemingly endless number of stations, billboards, and other vessels. After exploring awhile you manage to find out that you can earn 5 credits by being a 'taxi' for people wanting to get from one station in the city to another.
(A listing of passenger missions are available on the 'Jobs' tab in most stations. They vary from the simple as in this case, to the really difficult... "We need to get to Alderan and lets just say we'd like to avoid any Imperial Entanglements." Most are randomly generated, infinite, and repeatable as are most missions found in the jobs tab.)
The first thing you try to do is buy some better weapons, but upon finding the weapons store the NPC there is quite rude to you. He refuses to sell any of the good stuff until you acquire something called a 'Grade II weapons permit', and he won't sell you a Grade II weapons permit until you've taken a training course that costs 1,000 cr. You've only got 100 cr and so you leave is disgust.
Then you actually fire your ion just to see what happens, and what happens is an NPC police bot shows up and starts radioing you that you're in violation of local weapons code for discharging your weapon in a populated area, and will be fined 50cr. "Don't do it again.", the bots says bruskly.
(Unbenownst to the player, he's failed a reputation check and a legal 'saving throw' and thus his reputation just fell.)
Not having any other source of work, you shuffle a few people around and are surprised when you receive a message that you've just acquired a 'social skill point' which you can spend to improve your skills. You do so, raising 'negotiation' in hopes of increasing the fees you receive. Excited, you do a few more 'taxi' missions, but soon discover that 5 or 10 cr isn't a lot and after awhile you aren't receiving any more skill points for just being a taxi.
(The mission difficulty of 'taxi' missions is now lower than the characters experience.)
However, in the process you manage to get a good idea of the cities layout and have a lot of conversations with NPC's that give you some idea of what your options are. The first you try is buying a 'Used Mining Rig' and paying for a 'Mining Permit'. You spend some time flying back and forth from the sectors center to various chunks of ice and rock a few kilometers from the cities edge to mine - but after a few trips you decide that there must be a better way to earn money than 20cr per block of sand or water you are getting. You've spent a hour and just barely managed to pay for the mining rig. You do however earn you first 'mental skill point' which you put into 'Engineering' because you've always wanted to be 'Scotty'.
(Mining is potentially highly profitable, but the real profit is to be made mining rare minerals in distant sectors, not commonly available silicon and water 'roids. Still, every roid in the game is minable, since it really takes only a word length data to determine what you can mine from the roid and what quality it is. As the character spreads out from his starting point, he may find that mining rig increasingly useful.)
Eventually you stumble into an NPC that offers you a chance to ferry cargo to another station in a nearby sector in exchange for 5% of the net. That works out to ~100 cr for the trip alone which seems like big money to you at this stage. So you do that for a while and even manage to fight off a 'mugger' type NPC that ambushes you on one trip (basically what we now know as 75 bots, in this case spawned by a randomly generated Tiny Plot) and earn your first 'physical skill point' which you greedily feed to your 'gunnery' skill in a vain hope that the small ammount of extra damage will make up for your lack of piloting skills as a player.
(Unbenownst to the player his 'reputation' score with a sub-faction representing the NPC's corporation is climbing for every completed mission of this type. On the other hand, since they are in his inventory the player could also have chosen to sell the goods for several thousand credits of pure profit if he found a shady NPC buyer, but since they aren't 'owner flaged' this would have resulted in a major loss of reputation with not only the corporation, but with the Itani faction itself. Nonetheless the criminal path is open to him if he wants it.)
Upon returning from the fifth mission of this type your new boss opens up a new mission path (because of your enhanced reputation). He tells you he's so pleased with your work and wants to start sending you on longer runs, but that those runs are a good bit more dangerous than the milk runs he's been sending you on. He offers to pay half the cost of a Class II weapons permit so you can hook yourself up with some better weapons. Woo Hoo! In this case, the training course might be no more than being required to read about when its legal to use your weapon, or it might mean being required to hit a couple of unarmed drones.
(At this point, the player acquires the weapons permit, meaning that when a police bot scans him and he has a class II weapon on him, he won't lose a reputation point and potentially get himself in a nasty altercation with the local cops. Shortly after he gets blown up by a pair of pirate NPC's, and finds himself starting over with one fewer skill point that before. Live by the sword, die by the sword. He could however have come to this point by any number of other means. He could have made the money to buy the permit directly. He could have met one of several other merchants with similar mission structures. He could have met a shady merchant that would sell him the weapons illegally (at a higher price). He could have acquired sufficient forgery skill to make his own permit. He could have done a favor for a local government officer and received the permit free as a reward for service to country. He could have joined the military, and taken the consequences of no longer having the option of being his own boss for as long as he wanted the military benefits. He could have acquired the weapon as salvage from a pirate without the permit. He could have joined a rebel faction seeking to overthrow the government Etc. etc.)
And this is of course just the tip of a very big iceberg.
To begin with you design your character - in this case an Itani who selected 'merchant' as his career path, and after a cut scene the actual game starts at a 'talking head' NPC interface. There is a picture of an NPC and below it a dialog box and several options of how you can respond, typical of Fallout or any number of RPG's or the diplomacy interfaces of MOOII or CivII.
(There won't always be a picture for NPC's of lesser importance, and there will be a lot of stock 'heads' for common NPC's. If you had chosen a different career path or a different faction, you might start with a different starting NPC in a different sector, like a military recruiting officer, a professor at a university, a drill instructor, the patriarch of a powerful merchant family, a wicked but sauve pirate lord, etc. All of these NPC's are of course available to you should you find them and wish to change careers or start a new one, though the starting dialogue might different from the normal dialogue.)
Buddy starts off by explaining he's managed to rig you up a ship out of scrap and reconditioned government surplus. It isn't much, but it will get you started. The various initial dialog choices with Buddy give you background that will help a new player get started like 'What is there to do around here, Buddy?' or 'Where can I get work?' or 'How much do I owe you?' or 'Can I buy something from you?'
(In the case of 'How much do I owe you, Buddy responds '500 cr', but no rush. You can pay me back when you get you get the cash.' Buddy never demands repayment and you can go as in debt to Buddy as you like, but when and if you pay Buddy off, Buddy opens up the beginning of a very profitable mission path concerning ultimately some highly unusual salvage.)
After exhausting the possibilities with Buddy, you leave his 'station' (probably discovering for the first time that you are in a station) and are probably overwhelmed to find yourself in a massive 3D space city filled with a seemingly endless number of stations, billboards, and other vessels. After exploring awhile you manage to find out that you can earn 5 credits by being a 'taxi' for people wanting to get from one station in the city to another.
(A listing of passenger missions are available on the 'Jobs' tab in most stations. They vary from the simple as in this case, to the really difficult... "We need to get to Alderan and lets just say we'd like to avoid any Imperial Entanglements." Most are randomly generated, infinite, and repeatable as are most missions found in the jobs tab.)
The first thing you try to do is buy some better weapons, but upon finding the weapons store the NPC there is quite rude to you. He refuses to sell any of the good stuff until you acquire something called a 'Grade II weapons permit', and he won't sell you a Grade II weapons permit until you've taken a training course that costs 1,000 cr. You've only got 100 cr and so you leave is disgust.
Then you actually fire your ion just to see what happens, and what happens is an NPC police bot shows up and starts radioing you that you're in violation of local weapons code for discharging your weapon in a populated area, and will be fined 50cr. "Don't do it again.", the bots says bruskly.
(Unbenownst to the player, he's failed a reputation check and a legal 'saving throw' and thus his reputation just fell.)
Not having any other source of work, you shuffle a few people around and are surprised when you receive a message that you've just acquired a 'social skill point' which you can spend to improve your skills. You do so, raising 'negotiation' in hopes of increasing the fees you receive. Excited, you do a few more 'taxi' missions, but soon discover that 5 or 10 cr isn't a lot and after awhile you aren't receiving any more skill points for just being a taxi.
(The mission difficulty of 'taxi' missions is now lower than the characters experience.)
However, in the process you manage to get a good idea of the cities layout and have a lot of conversations with NPC's that give you some idea of what your options are. The first you try is buying a 'Used Mining Rig' and paying for a 'Mining Permit'. You spend some time flying back and forth from the sectors center to various chunks of ice and rock a few kilometers from the cities edge to mine - but after a few trips you decide that there must be a better way to earn money than 20cr per block of sand or water you are getting. You've spent a hour and just barely managed to pay for the mining rig. You do however earn you first 'mental skill point' which you put into 'Engineering' because you've always wanted to be 'Scotty'.
(Mining is potentially highly profitable, but the real profit is to be made mining rare minerals in distant sectors, not commonly available silicon and water 'roids. Still, every roid in the game is minable, since it really takes only a word length data to determine what you can mine from the roid and what quality it is. As the character spreads out from his starting point, he may find that mining rig increasingly useful.)
Eventually you stumble into an NPC that offers you a chance to ferry cargo to another station in a nearby sector in exchange for 5% of the net. That works out to ~100 cr for the trip alone which seems like big money to you at this stage. So you do that for a while and even manage to fight off a 'mugger' type NPC that ambushes you on one trip (basically what we now know as 75 bots, in this case spawned by a randomly generated Tiny Plot) and earn your first 'physical skill point' which you greedily feed to your 'gunnery' skill in a vain hope that the small ammount of extra damage will make up for your lack of piloting skills as a player.
(Unbenownst to the player his 'reputation' score with a sub-faction representing the NPC's corporation is climbing for every completed mission of this type. On the other hand, since they are in his inventory the player could also have chosen to sell the goods for several thousand credits of pure profit if he found a shady NPC buyer, but since they aren't 'owner flaged' this would have resulted in a major loss of reputation with not only the corporation, but with the Itani faction itself. Nonetheless the criminal path is open to him if he wants it.)
Upon returning from the fifth mission of this type your new boss opens up a new mission path (because of your enhanced reputation). He tells you he's so pleased with your work and wants to start sending you on longer runs, but that those runs are a good bit more dangerous than the milk runs he's been sending you on. He offers to pay half the cost of a Class II weapons permit so you can hook yourself up with some better weapons. Woo Hoo! In this case, the training course might be no more than being required to read about when its legal to use your weapon, or it might mean being required to hit a couple of unarmed drones.
(At this point, the player acquires the weapons permit, meaning that when a police bot scans him and he has a class II weapon on him, he won't lose a reputation point and potentially get himself in a nasty altercation with the local cops. Shortly after he gets blown up by a pair of pirate NPC's, and finds himself starting over with one fewer skill point that before. Live by the sword, die by the sword. He could however have come to this point by any number of other means. He could have made the money to buy the permit directly. He could have met one of several other merchants with similar mission structures. He could have met a shady merchant that would sell him the weapons illegally (at a higher price). He could have acquired sufficient forgery skill to make his own permit. He could have done a favor for a local government officer and received the permit free as a reward for service to country. He could have joined the military, and taken the consequences of no longer having the option of being his own boss for as long as he wanted the military benefits. He could have acquired the weapon as salvage from a pirate without the permit. He could have joined a rebel faction seeking to overthrow the government Etc. etc.)
And this is of course just the tip of a very big iceberg.
I like it.
*a thread of drool slides slowly from the corner of Genin's mouth, and down onto his keyboard*
So that's Itani. Would Serco, for example require that you start in the military, and acquire an honorable discharge to go into a merchant career?
So that's Itani. Would Serco, for example require that you start in the military, and acquire an honorable discharge to go into a merchant career?
I wouldn't imagine anyone would be required to start as anything. That wouldn't be fun.
You could start as any of the three factions, obviously. Then hopefully there would be room for 3-4 starting locations depending on a career path you choose. There would be a starting 'Itani Military' location, for instance, that eased you into the 'Itani Military' and gave you immediate access to the military missions. And you could start as 'Serco Merchant' or 'Nuetral Scientist' and go against the sterotype. After all, the Serco industries need goods too. The flavor would ideally be very different for each though.
Each 'race' would have advantages that would assist a particular career path (that part is straight from the dev's lips) and perhaps optimally a starting career path unique to that race. For instance, Itani might have a starting career path 'Diplomat', nuetral the starting career path 'Smuggler', and 'Serco' the starting career path 'Privateer' or some such. I don't really know the details of the factions, so I can't tell you what is most in flavor.
You could start as any of the three factions, obviously. Then hopefully there would be room for 3-4 starting locations depending on a career path you choose. There would be a starting 'Itani Military' location, for instance, that eased you into the 'Itani Military' and gave you immediate access to the military missions. And you could start as 'Serco Merchant' or 'Nuetral Scientist' and go against the sterotype. After all, the Serco industries need goods too. The flavor would ideally be very different for each though.
Each 'race' would have advantages that would assist a particular career path (that part is straight from the dev's lips) and perhaps optimally a starting career path unique to that race. For instance, Itani might have a starting career path 'Diplomat', nuetral the starting career path 'Smuggler', and 'Serco' the starting career path 'Privateer' or some such. I don't really know the details of the factions, so I can't tell you what is most in flavor.
What would be nice is that as your character progresses his physical look changes.
Lets say, you barely make it out of a ship explosion, your hair could catch on fire and it would look all burnt, then it would regrow, then your burn scars would heal.
Actually, think black and white.
Your creature gets really beat up in battle, he looks horrible with all these bruises and cuts, after time they heal but he has scars left over.
Lets say, you barely make it out of a ship explosion, your hair could catch on fire and it would look all burnt, then it would regrow, then your burn scars would heal.
Actually, think black and white.
Your creature gets really beat up in battle, he looks horrible with all these bruises and cuts, after time they heal but he has scars left over.
Except, as the FAQ says, your ship is your avatar. So there IS no character. :-\
Errm... that sounds like one of the coolest single-player RPG ideas ever. But where does to "MMO" kick in? I mean, this is MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER. New players are gonna want to get a "feel" for the community, and see that multiplayer aspect right away. I mean, getting ordered around by a bunch of NPCs is great, but what about interaction? What about the human element? That sounds really good, though.
Replace NPC's by humans over time as more and more humans choose that career path?
Exactly.... as more and more players join the game, more and more NPC's will be taken over by human roles. After all, if a human player can choose to be something as "menial" as a turret gunner, why not an instructor, an artisan, or a buisiness owner? In the FAQ there is that little blurb about players being able to "build financial empires" after all.
Roguelazer: I think when the devs say that the ship will be the players Avatar, they mean that the ship will be the means by which other players observe you. In other words, there isn't going to be any FPS style action within the stations. However, by having a "station interface" the devs have already added a gameplay feature in which you can *implicitly* get out of your ship and walk around. So while your character might not actually have a physical body with hair color/eye color etc. I'm sure that you will be able to interact with other players outside of your ship when docked at a station.
Roguelazer: I think when the devs say that the ship will be the players Avatar, they mean that the ship will be the means by which other players observe you. In other words, there isn't going to be any FPS style action within the stations. However, by having a "station interface" the devs have already added a gameplay feature in which you can *implicitly* get out of your ship and walk around. So while your character might not actually have a physical body with hair color/eye color etc. I'm sure that you will be able to interact with other players outside of your ship when docked at a station.
Regarding the human element...
I think it is dangerous to rely too heavily on the players to create there own story.
However, I think the design should allow players to become turret gunners, business owners, manufacturers, financiers, politicians, racers, mechanics, gladiators, bounty hunters, and well as many things as you actually have the time to support (which probably wouldn't be that full list). But the NPC background should always be there to take up the slack when the human element is missing. For example, you don't want tachyons to go missing just because no one enjoys building them, but you do want players to be able to (if they work at it) build a tachyon cheaply and undersell there NPC competition and still make a profit.
I think players if you feed them enough story will always end up creating stories of there own, but you have to provide enough structure that they care and enough hooks that they can always find something to do if they run out of ideas.
Suicidal Lemming: Don't you think that I'm putting a tall enough order on thier plate without asking them to make Quake, B&W, and Dance Space Bass Fishing 2000 at the same time? :)
I think it is dangerous to rely too heavily on the players to create there own story.
However, I think the design should allow players to become turret gunners, business owners, manufacturers, financiers, politicians, racers, mechanics, gladiators, bounty hunters, and well as many things as you actually have the time to support (which probably wouldn't be that full list). But the NPC background should always be there to take up the slack when the human element is missing. For example, you don't want tachyons to go missing just because no one enjoys building them, but you do want players to be able to (if they work at it) build a tachyon cheaply and undersell there NPC competition and still make a profit.
I think players if you feed them enough story will always end up creating stories of there own, but you have to provide enough structure that they care and enough hooks that they can always find something to do if they run out of ideas.
Suicidal Lemming: Don't you think that I'm putting a tall enough order on thier plate without asking them to make Quake, B&W, and Dance Space Bass Fishing 2000 at the same time? :)
I agree with that point... I think making a FPS inside the stations would be another 2-year project by itself and really wouldn't add that much to the space game.
What I meant was that the Serco probably does have a merchant class, but they don't venture much beyond the borders. Because of the intrinsically xenophobic nature created by a militaristic society, trading would be done at "barter posts" near the border, and all missions to these posts would be under heavy guard, and sponsored by the military. If you chose Serco, you would be in the military, and they would protect you. That's the nature of the race. The only way out would be to desert, and then they would be trying to kill you. I imagine that the system would occasionally put out bounties on the heads of deserters as missions for midlevel pilots, and the frequency and reward would vary with the social standing of the deserter.
*reads Celebrim's first thing and drowns in a puddle of his own drool*
Oh man, I really want that... It sounds friggin' awesome...
Oh man, I really want that... It sounds friggin' awesome...
I imagine to Serco to be much like ancient Sparta and the Itani to be like Athens. Sparta actively traded with people despite their xenophobic nature, they just didn't encourage others into their society. If someone did join, they were expected to be a part of the war machine. In that respect ctishman's post is right on the money.
But for the sake of the game I don't think Serco would get many people if they were so heavily restricted. How about giving the Serco government the ability to draft pilots. All pilots get military missions whether they like it or not, but due to the size of their military nobody gets them quite as often unless they volunteer to do more.
But for the sake of the game I don't think Serco would get many people if they were so heavily restricted. How about giving the Serco government the ability to draft pilots. All pilots get military missions whether they like it or not, but due to the size of their military nobody gets them quite as often unless they volunteer to do more.
now what you need is prize fights:) if your job sucks and you need money go to s7 and have big prize fights:)
Whoa! This all sounds great!
People say the human element is missing tho'.
What if the NPC's you are transporting in yout "taxi" is players?
If I needed some goods transported from sector 3 to sectors 15, 7, 12, 23 and 45, why on earth (in space?) would I do it myself if I can afford to hire some newbie to do it?
I'm sure I can persuade some newbie to transport 100.000c worth of goods for 1000c. I just need to tell him that if it does not arrive in time I'll put a hit out on him or something.
People say the human element is missing tho'.
What if the NPC's you are transporting in yout "taxi" is players?
If I needed some goods transported from sector 3 to sectors 15, 7, 12, 23 and 45, why on earth (in space?) would I do it myself if I can afford to hire some newbie to do it?
I'm sure I can persuade some newbie to transport 100.000c worth of goods for 1000c. I just need to tell him that if it does not arrive in time I'll put a hit out on him or something.
if he does that then im putting a hit out on demonen :D
way off topic post :D
way off topic post :D
suddenly this seems pertinent again, so i dug around and bumped it.
Judging my the list of improvements on the list for 3.4 i'd say you were on the right track celebrim. :)
Judging my the list of improvements on the list for 3.4 i'd say you were on the right track celebrim. :)