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Some thoughts about, well pretty much everything. :)
Ok, i havent rambled in a while so here goes a lot of nothing. :)
DISCLAIMER: most of the following thoughts have not been polished. I have lots of things that i have been thinking about in relation to vendetta and this is a form of verbal diahreah to get them to stop floating around in my head while i am at work.
OK: New universe: I like the new universe orginazation, the new systems are awesome, however it is a tad repetitive. A few more stations would be nice and all, but thats no big deal. The main difficulty with it is lack of anything truly interesting to do, But i am working on the assumption that the devs are adding more mission content at some point before release.
New ship/weapon "variants": Love them. good way to get lots of additional ships out of the models availible. A good way to drastically increase the amount of equipment without having to create a whole lot of new art. The weapons are now more or less infintely expandable, just keep adding roman numerals and upping the stats by say 10% each time. :)
Missions/Skills: As i stated above, I'm working on the assumption that there will be additional mission content before release. At present the missions we have seem to be in the "training" category. They are simple and fairly basic, Good missions to keep around as a fairly easy way to level up to approximately level 8. After that the skill gain is too slow if all we have are the existing 4 skills. With more skills to work on the leveling increase would be just about right, since there would be more to bring up. You would then have a choice in spending the time on getting your low level skills up several ranks or increasing your high level skill by 1 rank.
Additional missions hopefully will add more interesting content. New things to do and bigger rewards will make the game much more enjoyable when it goes Pay 2 Play.
Bot placement & universe orginization: This is the area that I have been thinking about the most. I am not very fond of the way the bots are currently placed in the universe. It makes little sense to me that the home systems of the major nations have random pockets of completely hostile bots in them. I would envision a more likely pattern to be as follows:
Each nation has a series of "systems" that they police and monitor. these areas would have little or no bots, the majority of stations, and would have a sector or two in each system where drone type bots would be located. On the systems towards the outside of a nations area, you would find the "outpost" stations, some medium rank bots, perhaps some using teamwork.
Farther out in "unaligned" space you would find the harder bots, the agressive ones. A few small stations eking out a living far from the center of culture and civilization.
The idea behind setting the bots up in this fassion is to have areas that are appropriate to the different level of players you will find in a game. As you get higher in level, you will tend to congregate towards an appropriately difficult area because the rewards for being there are balanced to your level. Sort of EQish, except that i feel that anyone should be able to go to any area. if you are too noobish to survive there, getting your ass kicked will eventually teach you that. The nice advantage to a space MMORPG is that as players level up higher and higher, It's easy to add new, more difficult parts to the universe without compromising your existing storyline.
Serco/Itani war
In between the Serco and the Itani border I would like to see a contested system. each nation would have a border gaurd station by thier wormhole, defbots etc. Scattered throughout the system there would be capital ships instead of stations(what we know of as the frigate, i'll call it that even tho that model is really a battlecruiser). They would act as stations, being dockable, but only to players with a +750 or better with that nation. Each frigate would have a squadron of defbots, and be mobile. I know that at present the frigate isnt movable due to some mass problems with the game engine, but I suspect that it could be hacked to fly a patrol pattern without any deviations or course changes from its programmed course. Sort of a moving asteroid.
To avoid running into real asteroids the frigates would have to patrol in 'empty' sectors. Ideally it would fly something like a 3 leg pattern (5000m out, turn x degrees left, fly 5000m, turn x degrees nose up, fly 5000 m), jump to another sector repeat, jump to a 3rd sector, repeat, jump back to first sector, start over. If it moved at 25m/s that would give it plenty of time in each sector. It could broadcast a warning in some form of local teamchat 5 seconds before each course change and jump. Having these ships would allow "war" missions for serco and itani, these missions could be accessible at the frigates only.
Carrer paths:
This is one item that vendetta is currently lacking. When we get more mission content, I hope that the devs have added some form of carrers to it, or at least have soemthing of the sort planned.
It would be nice to be able to, say, join the military. you get your ships and weapons for free, but the only missions you can take are combat missions for your government. You can only get ships at a military base, and until you have a certain level each time you take a mission your ship is assigned to you.
Or:
take a job with a corporation. sort of like the cargo missions we have now, except with similar benefits to the military missions. your ship could be provided, but you can only take missions for your company.
The advantage to taking either of these carrers would be a steady paycheck, less out of pocket expense, and some faster reputation increase with the faction that employs you. Disadvantages would be limited mission options, possibly a 10% slower XP gain, and you have to use the equipment provided to you at lower levels.
Navigation:
It would be nice to be able to do the following things:
1. plot a course ahead of time, preferrably from the station itself.
2. bind a key to "jump" so that you dont have to be in the nav computer to sector hop. I kind of like arolte's idea of just making it the activate key by default. It's more idiot proof than most things since you cant possibly jump accidentally when you are docking or system warping as both stations and wormholes count as large objects.
On a more whimiscal note, I'd like to be able to do PM and GROUP waypoints. Have some command like /marker or something, when you type it into a PM than the person you are PMing gets a little indicatior of some sort on his hud when he is in the sector you "marked". If you type it into groupchat, everyone in the group gets the marker. You cna only have 1 marker at a time active, and if you leave the sector the marker goes away, but you can move around in sector once you have placed it. This would be ideal for showing someone secret wormholes, setting up meeting points, etc.
hmm well thats about 45 minutes of rambling. i think thats good for now. Later all
DISCLAIMER: most of the following thoughts have not been polished. I have lots of things that i have been thinking about in relation to vendetta and this is a form of verbal diahreah to get them to stop floating around in my head while i am at work.
OK: New universe: I like the new universe orginazation, the new systems are awesome, however it is a tad repetitive. A few more stations would be nice and all, but thats no big deal. The main difficulty with it is lack of anything truly interesting to do, But i am working on the assumption that the devs are adding more mission content at some point before release.
New ship/weapon "variants": Love them. good way to get lots of additional ships out of the models availible. A good way to drastically increase the amount of equipment without having to create a whole lot of new art. The weapons are now more or less infintely expandable, just keep adding roman numerals and upping the stats by say 10% each time. :)
Missions/Skills: As i stated above, I'm working on the assumption that there will be additional mission content before release. At present the missions we have seem to be in the "training" category. They are simple and fairly basic, Good missions to keep around as a fairly easy way to level up to approximately level 8. After that the skill gain is too slow if all we have are the existing 4 skills. With more skills to work on the leveling increase would be just about right, since there would be more to bring up. You would then have a choice in spending the time on getting your low level skills up several ranks or increasing your high level skill by 1 rank.
Additional missions hopefully will add more interesting content. New things to do and bigger rewards will make the game much more enjoyable when it goes Pay 2 Play.
Bot placement & universe orginization: This is the area that I have been thinking about the most. I am not very fond of the way the bots are currently placed in the universe. It makes little sense to me that the home systems of the major nations have random pockets of completely hostile bots in them. I would envision a more likely pattern to be as follows:
Each nation has a series of "systems" that they police and monitor. these areas would have little or no bots, the majority of stations, and would have a sector or two in each system where drone type bots would be located. On the systems towards the outside of a nations area, you would find the "outpost" stations, some medium rank bots, perhaps some using teamwork.
Farther out in "unaligned" space you would find the harder bots, the agressive ones. A few small stations eking out a living far from the center of culture and civilization.
The idea behind setting the bots up in this fassion is to have areas that are appropriate to the different level of players you will find in a game. As you get higher in level, you will tend to congregate towards an appropriately difficult area because the rewards for being there are balanced to your level. Sort of EQish, except that i feel that anyone should be able to go to any area. if you are too noobish to survive there, getting your ass kicked will eventually teach you that. The nice advantage to a space MMORPG is that as players level up higher and higher, It's easy to add new, more difficult parts to the universe without compromising your existing storyline.
Serco/Itani war
In between the Serco and the Itani border I would like to see a contested system. each nation would have a border gaurd station by thier wormhole, defbots etc. Scattered throughout the system there would be capital ships instead of stations(what we know of as the frigate, i'll call it that even tho that model is really a battlecruiser). They would act as stations, being dockable, but only to players with a +750 or better with that nation. Each frigate would have a squadron of defbots, and be mobile. I know that at present the frigate isnt movable due to some mass problems with the game engine, but I suspect that it could be hacked to fly a patrol pattern without any deviations or course changes from its programmed course. Sort of a moving asteroid.
To avoid running into real asteroids the frigates would have to patrol in 'empty' sectors. Ideally it would fly something like a 3 leg pattern (5000m out, turn x degrees left, fly 5000m, turn x degrees nose up, fly 5000 m), jump to another sector repeat, jump to a 3rd sector, repeat, jump back to first sector, start over. If it moved at 25m/s that would give it plenty of time in each sector. It could broadcast a warning in some form of local teamchat 5 seconds before each course change and jump. Having these ships would allow "war" missions for serco and itani, these missions could be accessible at the frigates only.
Carrer paths:
This is one item that vendetta is currently lacking. When we get more mission content, I hope that the devs have added some form of carrers to it, or at least have soemthing of the sort planned.
It would be nice to be able to, say, join the military. you get your ships and weapons for free, but the only missions you can take are combat missions for your government. You can only get ships at a military base, and until you have a certain level each time you take a mission your ship is assigned to you.
Or:
take a job with a corporation. sort of like the cargo missions we have now, except with similar benefits to the military missions. your ship could be provided, but you can only take missions for your company.
The advantage to taking either of these carrers would be a steady paycheck, less out of pocket expense, and some faster reputation increase with the faction that employs you. Disadvantages would be limited mission options, possibly a 10% slower XP gain, and you have to use the equipment provided to you at lower levels.
Navigation:
It would be nice to be able to do the following things:
1. plot a course ahead of time, preferrably from the station itself.
2. bind a key to "jump" so that you dont have to be in the nav computer to sector hop. I kind of like arolte's idea of just making it the activate key by default. It's more idiot proof than most things since you cant possibly jump accidentally when you are docking or system warping as both stations and wormholes count as large objects.
On a more whimiscal note, I'd like to be able to do PM and GROUP waypoints. Have some command like /marker or something, when you type it into a PM than the person you are PMing gets a little indicatior of some sort on his hud when he is in the sector you "marked". If you type it into groupchat, everyone in the group gets the marker. You cna only have 1 marker at a time active, and if you leave the sector the marker goes away, but you can move around in sector once you have placed it. This would be ideal for showing someone secret wormholes, setting up meeting points, etc.
hmm well thats about 45 minutes of rambling. i think thats good for now. Later all
I think the devs could learn a LOT about proper mission structure by playing the original and Override EV series.
I don't think that was "rambling" at all, Spell...I like and agree with everything you said. I would also like to see each of them "polished", as you put it.
How about it, Devs...has Spell touched on anything we can expect to see?
How about it, Devs...has Spell touched on anything we can expect to see?
I remember hearing people say you used to be able to dock with the frigate. Perhaps you could just have a Serco frigate as a station next to their wh into the contested system, and the same for the Itani. The frigate would only sell weapons, would only give out combat missions, and only allow high-standing players to dock with it.
I think this could be implemented with the current design without much trouble. I could be totally wrong, of course, but it would add an interesting dimension to the game with a minimum of dev effort.
I think this could be implemented with the current design without much trouble. I could be totally wrong, of course, but it would add an interesting dimension to the game with a minimum of dev effort.
We used to. However, the frigate's docking bay is approximately the size of a vulture (not exaggerating...), so it'd be damn near impossible to do while moving.
So leave it stationary. Not as cool as a moving frigate, but having it as an immobile defense platform is still cooler than your standard modular station.
I could be wrong, but I don't think that sounds like the direction the devs wanted to go in for the final product. Why put in an arbitrarily immobile cap ship if we're going to have fully mobile, player-run cap ships at some point after release?
Because we won't have a mobile cap ship for some indefinate period of time, and won't ever if the game doesn't take off. This is one simple and easy way of adding in some interesting content to ensure that the game survives long enough for the mobile capship expansions and the like. Once/if they figure out how to make cap ships mobile, they can have it move. Even then... having an immobile capital ship at a strategic place like a wormhole for some sort of defense headquarters isn't too far out there.
Maybe they can integrate it story-wise. Before the capships are introduced there is an inter-galactic armistice and all ships exceeding a certain size have been put into drydock with just a handful of unmoving sentry cruisers to watch certain zones.
Once the cap ships are implemented, an ingame war breaks out (or the armistice ends) and the fleets are launched! It would make sense since it would take some time before the 1337 players get seperated from the rest of the herd so military rank would become better defined if you give a little time lapse for the player base to become sufficiently stratified.
Once the cap ships are implemented, an ingame war breaks out (or the armistice ends) and the fleets are launched! It would make sense since it would take some time before the 1337 players get seperated from the rest of the herd so military rank would become better defined if you give a little time lapse for the player base to become sufficiently stratified.
I like all your ideas Spell, some of them need a lot of polish though. I would be interested to see them after you polish them.
On the cap ship thing. I am guess they will be insanely expensive so by the time ppl can afford them they should be available :D
A story line backup is a good idea though.
On the cap ship thing. I am guess they will be insanely expensive so by the time ppl can afford them they should be available :D
A story line backup is a good idea though.
<<<However, the frigate's docking bay is approximately the size of a vulture (not exaggerating...), so it'd be damn near impossible to do while moving.>>>
ahh but thats what seperates the pilots from the space debris. besides, if the frigate is puttering along at 25m/s docking wouldnt be overly hard. you'd just have to fly in physics so you could backpedal. (and i'd say the bay was closer to the sixe of a warthog than a vulture. only small craft would be able to dock tho)
<<<Because we won't have a mobile cap ship for some indefinate period of time>>>
That was kinda my reasoning behind hacking the frigate to fly a very simple course in empty sectors. no real AI, just a constantly updating station docking bay coordinate with attached graphic and hull. Even if the devs did have to leave it stationary, perhaps it could be made to warp to a random empty sector every <blah> minutes.
<<<I like all your ideas Spell, some of them need a lot of polish though. I would be interested to see them after you polish them.>>>
thank you durgia, I'm not sure i actually will polish them or not however, I mainly just needed to sit down and type them out so i could get them out of my system. I suppose i could have typed them into notepad, but i try to make a habit of posting things like this on the board so that anything useful in the rambling will be availible for discussion. :)
Anyhow all, feel free to continue to discuss/add to this thread.
ahh but thats what seperates the pilots from the space debris. besides, if the frigate is puttering along at 25m/s docking wouldnt be overly hard. you'd just have to fly in physics so you could backpedal. (and i'd say the bay was closer to the sixe of a warthog than a vulture. only small craft would be able to dock tho)
<<<Because we won't have a mobile cap ship for some indefinate period of time>>>
That was kinda my reasoning behind hacking the frigate to fly a very simple course in empty sectors. no real AI, just a constantly updating station docking bay coordinate with attached graphic and hull. Even if the devs did have to leave it stationary, perhaps it could be made to warp to a random empty sector every <blah> minutes.
<<<I like all your ideas Spell, some of them need a lot of polish though. I would be interested to see them after you polish them.>>>
thank you durgia, I'm not sure i actually will polish them or not however, I mainly just needed to sit down and type them out so i could get them out of my system. I suppose i could have typed them into notepad, but i try to make a habit of posting things like this on the board so that anything useful in the rambling will be availible for discussion. :)
Anyhow all, feel free to continue to discuss/add to this thread.
as for docking, you don't actually have to be "in" the docking bay to go in. I think you just have to be pretty close to the dock... if we expanded the range at which we can enter the dock, most ships can get in even if the frig is moving.
as for the frig moving... when devs fly the frigs, don't they put in a super-powerful engine with 100x normal torque? and then it kinda works? =D
as for the frig moving... when devs fly the frigs, don't they put in a super-powerful engine with 100x normal torque? and then it kinda works? =D