Giving everyone more tools aside from different colored text boxes will be useful. Less powerful tools than the apprentice GMs get but something that will make it so creating their own stories will be fun. I'm not sure exactly what tools are needed but I'm sure many folks have ideas of what they'd like to have.One of the general weaknesses of player-generated stories has been dissemination of a story. Sometimes word of mouth works, but sometimes it doesn't. Players should be able to learn of ongoing stories within the Clan Lord world without relying on external sources (such as Thoomcare, for example). Koppi is a good example of sharing information within the game, but Koppi is better served for news than developing an ongoing story.
What tools could help a player spread a story? One obvious idea would be a dedicated story NPC, something along the idea of Koppi. A player could speak some lines of a story script to the NPC, and that NPC could repeat those lines – either sequentially or randomly, at the choice of the player. But the problem with NPCs is that they can not be created on-the-fly; there needs to be a predetermined number of them. How many story NPCs would Puddleby need? One? Ten? Thirty?
This lead me to think: instead of NPCs (which need to be created ahead of time), why not use monsters – which may be created on-the-fly? If you have ever encounter a T'rool then you probably already know that certain monsters possess the ability to hear and repeat phases. Why not create a new type of monster to assist with role playing and story telling?
These monsters – I'll call them Story Genies – would be something along the idea of a portable pet. My caveat is that I have given this idea minimal thought, but in broad terms, I envision that story genies would behave thusly:
- The player would obtain a genie bottle from an NPC within the fairgrounds. Each bottle contains one genie.
- The player may name the genie, like "Timber Arm, Darshak Mate," or "Gh'rgh, Summoned Orga Warrior."
- The player may select the genie's appearance by touching the bottle to another mobile (such as a monster, another player, or NPC). Other methods of defining the genie's appearance could be to chain a corpse to the genie NPC in the fairgrounds, or to simply hold a stuffed trophy while holding the bottle.
- The player may speak their story lines into the bottle, and the genie will remember these spoken lines. I imagine support for standard actions, such as ponders and growling.
- The player would carry the bottle to a location and release the genie.
- The genie would wander around within its released location, speaking its story lines for the duration of the Chaos Storm.
- Story Genies would not attack players or other monsters, but could be killed by other determined players.
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i think it'd be useful, actually very useful. there'd of course need to be steps to make sure determined players dont use it as a source of infinite vanqs or spawn a ton of them to block access to buildings ect. but it would be a great way to get your story out there.
ReplyDeleteQ. how would the power of the story genie monster be determined? maybe it could have the rough amount of ranks of whoever spawned it.. all in something basic like evus.
maybe an option if you want its stats to be from a few categories (wuss/brute/defender/zerker/ect).
I feel like this could tie in well to an idea the great Hoggle & I were talking about. (Hoggle's idea, wish i could take credit for the concept but i can't)
What if players could earn the right to spawn invasions on a point system.
lt went something like this:
Player gets 1000 points to start with. basic trool/shak thug would be like 1 point. something like a greater death would be like... lots.
anyways as this player generated & guided invasion force moves and attacks town they could get more points to get more units "renforcements" as it would be like: take the brewery, 200 more points, take TC 1000 more points, take over all town 1000 more points, ect.
there of course would have to be some limiters like: there must be X players clanning to start said invasion and other players would have to have some sort of /report log to report any griefing should somebody decide to do something like spawn a greater death on a bunch of helpless noobies.
there reports would be reviewed in theory every storm & a player could totally lose the right to start invasions if they abused their earned invasion privileges.
the use of this idea + story genies would be 100% win & good for clan lord.
players could start their own somewhat minor invasions & RP driven battles.
how one could earn this right i'm not sure of, maybe a basic submit your application for review by the staff. people with a history of being a snert, sorry you need not apply.
another function of the /report could be players giving the invasion/battle a thumbs up or a thumbs down. this feedback would be in theory available to the player running the invasion via in game mail (located in the fairgrounds) So that the invasion runner could get a good sense of what people found fun v. frustrating.
it'd probably be a hassle to add (like most awesome ideas) but it could liven up the world a great great deal.
maybe a, now this my blow your mind, so hold on;
ReplyDeleteA HISTORIAN! (way to complicated i know, right?)
where players can submit story's of them self's and can submit the history of CL
Mikey asked: how would the power of the story genie monster be determined?
ReplyDeleteI imagine that story genies would have the strength (and slaughter levels) of something like Earthzu. They would be mobile and wander, much like the April Fools Day portal, so they could not be used to block an entrance. And like the portal, they would be confined to the snell in which they were released.
lame...
ReplyDeleteSome extremely simple (but simple to implement) ideas:
ReplyDelete1) Up the time limit on player-placed chests from 30 minutes to the full 3 weeks (one chaos storm), and cut the price - I think they're 100c now. Player-placed chests are one way of allowing players to set the rewards (of items, at least) in player-initiated 'quests.' However, they currently have an extremely short duration, which makes them actually useless for that purpose. I also don't see any downside to putting the time limit very high - it's not like it's going to block people, as the first person to find it is going to get the item.
2) Allow player-crafted signposts. 2 wood + 1 copper (for the hinges), lasts a week or at least a few OOC days. Issue becomes that they can 'block' things, but I think there is a solution to that (use a can-go mask instead), though there may be other issues.
3) Allow player-made 'marks.' Footprints, symbols, paths, ashes, lines - a select set of images that could be made on the ground where-ever a player (with this marking tool) wants. Has no actual effect, just a picture clue, basically.
Now sure, these won't make RP happen out of the blue. But they'll be additional tools for people *when* RP does happen.
And on the story genie... since it's not going to attack, I'd probably up the histia to something very high (so rangers don't accidentally one-hit it, etc), with no defense and slaughters to *everyone* (like zu). That way it *might* have a little more permanence before someone decides it just 'has to go.'
To add to Xepel's list - I'd really like to see items that could store text e.g. books or pieces of paper. Especially if these could be dropped somewhere for a full update.
ReplyDelete-Feodoric
That last idea - which is also a great one - seems awfully easy to do, at that. There are already things that can hold text - like music folders (that hold many pages!) and music sheets (which can transfer notes to people). A 'journal' plus 'note sheets' would be awesome.
ReplyDelete