I am new to this forum, so please excuse the fact that I may be repeating what others have already discussed, I have read a bit of the forum but not nearly one tenth.
I have played Role playing games for almost twenty years, computer role playing for almost 15, and online role playing for 5. I still prefer paper and pencil 90% of the time though?but that is a different matter.
The first graphical online role playing game I played was never winter nights on AOL, the first I got into was Ever Quest and currently I play Dark Age of Camelot. The best design so far is Dark Age until the higher levels. But it is far from perfect. But I am stealing the best from all my experience and adding a bit.
I will separate My wish list into things I think should be in the game and things I long for a game to have, but understand why it?s not in there and or why it hasn?t been done or won?t be done.
I am sorry it became much longer then I expected if you want my to split it up as different topics please say so and I will
What I think should be in the game:
Chat based:
1. A limited shout radius: I don?t want people broadcasting a conversation across the entire zone so that it is just SPAM across my text box.
2. Chat channel: I can open a chat channel for me and others to converse in regardless of location on the server, like tell command but for multiple people.
3. Multiple speaking tabs: so I can be in group chat by default and use / commands to have other conversations.
4. Clickable Friends list: I have a friends list, I open it and click on a friends name that is online and it automagically populates the name in my chat bar with the correct command as /tell. This would be helpful so that names like Sorryloserboyoftheforgottenwind don?t have to be typed each time I want to send them a tell, specially is they misspelled something.
5. a reply hotkey such as r so that when I need to reply to somebody like Sorryloserboyoftheforgottenwind and I am in battle I don?t have to stop and type it.
6. have the attack hotkey on the function key bar: So while chatting I don?t attack a friendly NPC by accident.
Melee Based:
1. Have combo styles: Combo styles or forms are basically setups and would function like so, I setup my skill 200 combo form to be 5 attacks and I sacrifice the first two attacks damage for a damage bonus on the last 3 attacks, the kicker is If I miss a single attack I only do base damage for the final 3, this would simulate me getting the opponent in position for some hard hits, another version could be a combo of 5 attacks with only the 5th doing damage, but it would do 15 times a base damage attack.
2. Have defensive and offensive stances: providing bonus to attack at a penalty to defense, or visa versa.
3. have a /stick command equivalent: what /stick does is make you follow a mob (monster or such that you are attacking) and stay in attacking range to the best of your characters ability, so if the mob attacks the mage who is running in terror you can follow it as if you where a monster following a PC
4. have a ?target same as? command: So that I can target the same creature as the puller in the party
5. Have a guard command: if I place the mage as my guard target and he is in a close proximity to me I will act as a shield to him.
6. Have a protect command: similar to guard but the attacker attacking my protect target automatically becomes my attack target (I would probably have the same guard and protect target but I might have a mage as my guard target and the Cleric as the protect target, also the names are interchangeable)
Magic Based:
Magic is a hard issue to tackle without knowing the rules of the game, but here are some basic things I would like.
1. Multiple magic types: and I mean more of a difference healing, fire, water?I mean AOE attack spells, DOT attack spells?
2. each magic type should have multiple subsections: and they should have subsections: So if I follow the ?Elemental line? I can be all round or I can focus on Earth, Wind, Fire, Water. Or two of those, further I could focus on Water Attack spells, further I could focus on Ice attack spells, further I could focus on Ice attack blast spells.
3. Opposed to 2 or in conjunction with it: if I have multiple lines of spell knowledge I have access to odd spells, for example spells that do earth, wind and fire damage ?Searing Sand Blast?
4. Mind control spells that mess with the victims display: instead of fear making the victim run away it should appear to lower his health bar and have flashing lights as if it where a more damaging spell, it should also lower his attack and defense abilities. (this would solve a couple of things mainly when fear is cast the player still controls the character, but he thinks he is more hurt then he is, and if he knows he is being affected by fear he will assume that he is still in good condition so he will continue fighting, so the lessening of the attack defense stats are so in reality there is good reason to not fight. Another example could be Heroes False Pride this spell will look and act as if it heals and improves the characters stats, it will also seem as if the character is doing more damage and taking less, in reality it will lower his stats and really lower his defensive stats, when the spell wears off or before the character may already be dead.
Game play issues:
1. Death: getting your body is a pain in the rear, I like the tomb stone concept better but taking it out all together is best, I think it would be better that in most cases you are knocked out, and someone can heal you back to the land of the living, or you regain consciousness, no EXP loss no body loss just a lot of time. If you don?t want to wait or the monster is eating you or you took massive damage, you can release to a bind point, you suffer no exp loss but a stat loss, to regain your lost stats you must pay coin, based on level or top combat skill level it costs more per stat point, this is so no abilities or spells are lost to death and you don?t feel as if the day has been a waste since you played 10 death free hours and then on your way to another city you died 10 times.
2. Resurrection: given my view on death this will become a teleport to me and big heal spell, my death idea is not implemented and or death carries an exp loss this is how resurrection should be dealt with, first rez should be gotten by most spell casters and all healing types early on, (freebie spell) all it does is put the receiver at 1 hp at the location of the rezzer and cost almost no mana or magic points, why, well people hate dieing but they hat getting back to where ever they are hunting more. Higher end rezzes come later to healer types and they bring them back with more exp loss, or more hit points, but can only be cast once every 20 seconds, and the rezzed guys attacks are weakened for a minute, this is so no one rezzes their group back in seconds so they can continue fighting the same monster.
3. money: should not weigh a thing. And automatically convert.
4. Food and water: don?t need it but you could have positive things come from having it, and even better things from better food.
5. Main back pack should have many slots, and small thing should stack, hell most things should.
6. Player made items: should be better then store bought, or the stuff off of most monsters. Quest items should be better and very rare drops should be better but only slightly epic and such are much better of course that is it.
7. Player crafts: I feel that all crafts should give a slight profit or be even from cost of parts to finished product, and as an added thing I think the primary craft should be able to be bought up, as in my guy is primarily a weapon smith, I want to raise his weapon smithing by 500 points, I have 1 billion in gold, well the computer calculated the cost of all the items needed from 500 weapons smithing to 1000 weapon smithing and figures it would cost at least 10000 gold pieces and then adds 10% to that, so I now can spend days online raising my main skill or spend 11000 gold pieces and get it to where I want it. I would vote for all craft skills to be this way but that would mess up the economy, the rich would get richer?with only one craft skill being raised this way many high level items would need multiple skills to create so those have to be raised the old fashion way.
8. binding should be easy and accessible to everyone, though not equally, there should be bind points where any body can bind and some casters should be able to bind people to places.
Wishful thinking.
1. thief types should have a ton of special abilities and should have a quest driven exp system so that they can quest the whole way if they want, different type of game, they should have a better sound awareness engine and be able to hide in shadows but not in light, some can get weird spells that phase them or make them run faster, the poisons should be deadly to most but over long periods of time, their thieving accomplishments should only be noted by other thieves, but every time they are caught they are marked for it?5 marks for stealing and so on, and everyone should see that.
2. Bows and their like: they should be in the game, but they need to be done right, bows should be the equivalent of a single target spell but they do only piercing damage and possibly poison or fire damage over time. They should take time but less then most equally ranged and damage spells, archers should be melee types so they get cool armor but not heavy.
3. Variable spells: spells should have a degree of variability so a person specialized in that type of casting can customize it a bit, I need a fireball that does more damage but has less range, I need a healing spell that is quicker to cast but uses more mana, I need a shield spell that costs more mana but lasts twice as long, I need a call lightning spell that is resisted less but does less damage?
4. Classless gaming: no classes you just put points where you want them.
5. semi realistic masses: I want it so the most powerfull experienced PC fighter can be overcome by 100 newbie fighters.
This is longer then I had expected I\'ll end it here.
Paxx
