Final Destination

[Wedge]

I\'m not at all familiar with MMO gaming, so I don\'t know if this would be sacrilegious to suggest, but I think you should be able to \"finish\" Planeshift.

Correct me if I\'m wrong, but the goal here is to reach the surface of the world, right?  I think this should both be possible in the game, and be a means to finish the game as well.  Making an actual playable world on the surface doesn\'t make much of any sense at all if you were to be able to get there.  

The thing is, reaching the surface could be the ultimate challenge for players.  There would be a massive final dungeon, that could take something like 50-100 hours to actually get through (of course there would be save points).  It would contain challenges of all sorts; monsters of legendary power, riddling gate keepers, Myst-like puzzles, labrynthal mazes, complex platform challenges, all the challenges that can possibly exist in the world at their highest difficulty.  I think it\'s best such a thing would be instanced as it could be a fairly straightfoward floor based progression (perhaps it\'s a great tower),  except the floors would be randomly selected from a master pool, only the number of floors you must pass remains constant.  

This is the kind of thing that would require at least 5 or 6 players that are the absolute masters of at least one skill set, and probably two, and of course each of them masters of different skills to tackle the variety of challenges.  I\'m assuming here the time to master that much would be a player with 1-2 years experience.  Theoretically one person could do this, but they would need to have mastered almost all the skills possible, which would take an insane amount of play time.  Lesser parties of maybe 10 or 20 players with 6-12 months experience could potenetially attempt this, but then actually getting everyone together at the same time to attempt something becomes that much more difficult.  What I\'m saying is this would have to be a highly organized and focused effort.  

The cool part of this all, is that the game would record the actions and chat logs of any party attemping this.  Then a team that reaches the surface would have a monument or shrine or something put up at some central area in the world where either a member of the team or one of the game writers would actually make their write their adventure out into a story that everyone could read.  If the characters that reached the surface could return to the game world, it\'d have to be in a non-interactive format, they could communicate with people and go places, but couldn\'t directly affect the world.  

This all makes sense to me, since all good stories should have an end; no one plays forever, but they could live forever like this.  The world here presents what I see as a perfectly logical oppurtunity for implementing this.  I don\'t know if I sound crazy for suggesting something like this or am missing some obvious critical flaw here, but it seems really cool to me.

[Saphire]

50 to 100 hours of play?

you are talking about a 3-5 day journy. I would think it would be a absolutle quest of a week or more, and the dungeon itself should be inter-woven with hazards and the things you described.

Riddles should be a somewhat big part of it... \"Need a tria take a tria, Got a tria give a tria.\" could seem to be useless at the time, but then a puzzle is put into the venturing party, and those seemingly privial phrases you came along so long ago could hold the answer.


However you always have the problem of someone actually FINISHING the ultimate quest... And possibly if they finish it they could give away the answers to a possible great-many puzzles; ruining the fun and intrigue for others. ;( Thus every time the final quest is completed the dungeon would have to be remixed, possibly ala Diablo; not every quest is available, and not every dungeon is the same. Its the only way i can see this working is that the dungeon would be randomized and new puzzles/rooms/entire levels put in secretly so you\'d have about [X] different combinations...

[Fanomatic2000]

This is not an ordinary adventure game, it\'s an ever-evolving (if we\'re to belive the devs ) game which includes a lot more than just plain adventure.
You dont have to be an adventurer to play this game. You could as well become a farmer, fisherman or whatever, and therefore completing the game wouldn\'t make sense since ordinary peasants wouldn\'t be able to complete the game.
Just because the adventures ends doesn\'t have to mean that the game does. New adventures, works, NPCs etc. will always be added, so the game will not end.

[Wormtail_]

Interesting idea. However, I agree with Fanomatic that you don\'t have to complete the quest for the surface. But I agree with the statues, shrines, monuments, etcetera being erected in their honor.

In fact, I am planning an area in the Cities Wishlist called \'Disnelyland.\' It is a lace where you HAVE to have fun or else-

Oops, wrong thread. Erm, the place is called the \'Hall of Heroes.\' Basically a hall that celebrates the memories of courageous fighters, powerful mages, inventive farmers, skillful statesmen, and so on. I planned on having such statues/shrines dedicated to great players as well.

Anyway, good idea. And I can imagine all that exploration experience coming in...

[Vengeance]

And then what?  You cannot play the character you just spent a year or two on?

That\'s as bad as permadeath.

- Venge

[Wedge]

Yeah I know that\'s the part I\'m not sure about, I guess you could go back still, that\'d be fine, just there wouldn\'t be much a life threatening challenge left in the world for you anymore, but I don\'t see a problem with it.  Actually that\'d be a good oppurtunity where you could retire from killing stuff and risking your life and take up other hobbies in-game.  It\'s not something you HAVE to do either, I was just basing the idea on the game\'s mythos and one of those quote thingies that said something like \"Who will be the first to reach the surface?\".  I\'m sure you could go become a massive agricultural tycoon and become far more relevant than anyone who reached the surface.  I just think having an ultimate challenge for the best of the best adventurers and warriors to do that would actually mean something to accomplish would be great.  And about answers being given away I did say the place would have to be a pseudo-randomly generated dungeon from a fairly large and/or modified pool, and probably instanced.  Really it have to be a (comparitively) small game within itself.

[Wormtail_]

Once people start reaching the surface, perhaps there could be a point where people start \'colonzing\' the surface, if possible. Or making it hospitatable for people to live on, anyway. This would require more skills than just fighting, though fighting skills will be needed to guard. Then after coloniaing an area, people would move on to colonizing more areas, forming larger cities and places, and then end up going to other palnets, take over the world, and then... That\'s too far into the future and is too unlikely to happen, in any case. But that\'sjust an idea.

I have another idea that I mentioned before, and as mentioned before, nobdoy will like it. It\'s called losing experience. I\'ll just explain it now, and for those who don\'t like the idea, then I have found a way to scare you away. Anyway, perhaps once you get to a certain point, or not do stuff for a reeeeeeeaaaally long period of time, then you start losing a little experiince with that. Not \'completely,\' just \'temporarily.\' Something like someone pretty much forgetting how to wield an axe, but regaining the lost experience would be pretty quick, twice as much as gaining new experience. Then, fighters turned into farmers would find life-threatening situations again.

But that\'s just an unpolished idea that I think nobody will like.

[icosiel]

Lol, you\'re right, the idea of losing xp is horrific, no offence meant, but on that note it is a good idea as it adds longevity, scares the pants off me though...

[Monketh]

Actually XP loss is a firm barrier against Uber players.  How long can you do everything at once?  I also kinda like the idea of a hospitable surface.

[sekhmet]

The stuff I read here makes me think of \"The Death Gate Cycle\" by Weis and Hickman, you might want to read these, excellent books. This deals about two races that fight each other. One has dropped the others in a magical labyrinth that they try to escape. This maze is a living killer. It\'s intelligent and try\'s to kill everybody. Even the envirement is mostly hostile, they need to pass for instance a rocky parts with razor sharp rock edges. The maze is vast and few reach the end after hundreds of years. Some people travel solo, others in groups. Their are different levels of the labyrinth each seperated by a portal they need to find and get trough. Often they find a trap at the gate and they need to fight trough. In their path they encounter various magical creatures, some can multiply if not killed in the right way (1 weak point). At the end of the Labyrinth is a portal thar leads to a place called the Nexus, here are various portals that lead to different worlds. In the book the gods split up the old world into 4 different worlds: sky, water, fire and stone. Each world is very different, sky for instance has huge floating parts of rock that make floating isles in the sky some bigger some smaller and on different altitutedes. It is also possible to return to the maze but inobody with a sane mind does that their horrified of it.
Now for PS something like this could be done, drop starting players in a Labyrinth, make it really big and confusing. People will need to find the portal to the next plane in their current level of the labyrinth.  Maybe randomize the labyrinth in some way. On the way they encounter different magical creatures that try to kill them. Some easy, some insane hard that require a group to take on, maybe the maze could have some kind of AI and amount of recources(enemies) to set up traps to try to kill people in the maze. Then also their can be some minor quests along the path. Maybe they encounter a town in the maze where they can study some skills. You could make every level of the labyrinth a bit harder. Then wen they reach the end of the maze and are able to get trough the final gate (this should really be hard) they arrive at a huge town from where they can travel to other plains. This way you can work with the dev team on other new plains and add them easily wen they are done. Also players can chose to go back into the maze and help newbies trough the killing machine. Or settle their and protect the passing trough travellers in his shelter/town. Where they hopefully can get a safe nights rest. Maybe these high level players could have the capability of training the newbies in their skills. Players could also settle in one of the other plains offcourse if their goals are not to help other players. Wen more people settle around a player they could become a clan. Each clan can expand his town and build his own guilds, if they have a player that is master in some form of skills they can build a Guild of ... where player x teaches ..., offcourse if their are more masters in the same town with that  skill they can assist in the same guild. In such case the clanleader could decide who is the head of a guild. Offcourse learning skills should be a slow proces even wen a master is training you. But I think each player should be able to teach other players his skills, offcourse how worse their own skill is and maybe his teaching skill the less the other player learns training witht the other player. This would make a really lifelike system, where you learn from other people and from using watever skill you do. Also a persones physical build should be based on some system that keeps track of how much a person uses/trains his physical or mental skills. He also would more easily learn in this area.
But actually this stuff should be posted under another thread, been thinking about some new skill system and need to elaborate more on that.

[SnowWolf]

Instead of having players abilities waver with time, you could have them have a limited life span. Exactly HOW one would implement this is another question. You could use the actually hours a player is online or how much mana they use, or both.

The key to this system not scaring pretty much everyone off, is having the system be really flexable. You could do this by having the characters life style affect their health or lifespan on factors like how many fights they get into and how well they treat their injuries. Spiritualism and magic could also be used to increase life span - stuff like this can actual get Uber Players MORE into the game as they will strive to stay alive - player that last longer would get reputations in the community, etc, etc - now the system becomes more attractive.

Also, what happens when characters do die? Lets refer to what the game wants to do when you die - the world of the dead - they want a labrinth or something that one would escape to come back to the world of the living and get their stuff back. You could build this into a whole different world where players could train, meet gods, and have all kinds of special events that you wouldn\'t get to do other wise.

If players earned it (exactly how, is yet anther discussion) they could have their bodies back - and if not they could be reincarnated into ANOTHER body - this would allow people to change their job paths that they choose at the beginning and start annew. Of course players would not have all their exp and equipment, but as mentioned in previous posts, one could determine the rate at which the exp was earned back - perhaps by what lvl the player was at before death - for instance a lower level player would notice almost no difference in the rate they gained experience, while a higher level would gain back the experience at a much greater rate. Thus allowing especially \"talented\" players to be arise through living multiple lives.

So, what do you think?

[Monketh]

That\'s not half bad actually, and very interesting to boot.

[Saphire]

I really do like this idea, but when i think about it i would still like to continue playing with the same character that had completed the task.

Maybe a title or badge or something could be awarded to the character that says \"[name] has been to the surface, and thus with [his/her] strength and wisdom [he/she] owns this medal, to comemerate [his/her] achivement.\"
 :]

That way you can still play the game, but players would know that you had reached the surface.

[Evanchild]

what is all this surface reaching bisiness?  i thought we were on the surface. or is it just another quest to absorb time.

[Saphire]

no, actually you\'re inside a giant, hollow, stalagtight where a crystal at the very ceiling and center provides light, it basically amplifies the sun\'s light somewhat and thats why you get night/day. consider the \"sky\" you see a reflection of the sky above ground, reflected in the crystal, and progected onto the ceiling.