BidTu Blog

The time has come for another Fantasy theme sandbox game.  We haven’t had a true one — a good one — in so many years.   I’m playing Fallen Earth, thinking about UO and SWG and how fantastic elements of these games are/were and then I think about the themepark model and how I’ve been increasingly frustrated and turned off by MMO’s lately.  I would love to play a Fantasy MMORPG sandbox, and I have a big picture idea of how I would want it designed.  The problem with so many of the games trying to be Sandboxes today lies with how their systems are designed and implemented.  I’m not going to lie, these ideas are not entirely my own.  I am basing this heavily on Star Wars Galaxies (pre-NGE/CU) because I feel so strongly that a Fantasy game with these mechanics/systems would astound people.

Combat

Traditional is always better.  Age of Conan, Darkfall, and even Fallen Earth’s (even though FE’s isn’t terrible) combat illustrates that nothing is better than traditional.  For those having a hard time understanding, just think about the basics of WoW’s combat system or EQ’s combat system — that is traditional.

Progression

Entertainer Skill Tree

Let’s do away with levels for progression and go to a  skills system similar to what SWG used (pre-NGE because I have no idea what happened after), but not one like we’ve seen fail multiple times in the past few years.  Borrowing heavily from SWG’s system, skills would be arranged in a tiered tree system.  The system would be experience based meaning that if you used a sword you would earn sword experience.  This experience could then be spent on sword tree skills that you can purchase and move up the tree.  The tree system would be tiered with multiple paths to progress, ultimately leading to a “Master” tier at the top if you go up each branch.  Obtaining the next rank in the tree allows you to unlock not only new abilities but improvements to the overall use of your skill or other bonuses.

A Master Swordsman in this Fantasy Sandbox would have knowledge in the use of 1h sword, 2h swords, and other sword-like skills with bonuses and attributes matching a Sword user.  Such a skill tree would look similar to the Entertainer skill tree from SWG (shown on the right) where the Entertainer not only knows how to dance and play instruments, but also has become a specialist in entertaining (bonuses) and hair styles.  Imagine a Sword user increasing their finesse or something.  Similar trees would exist for Magic (offensive, healing, etc) and plenty of others.

There would be a limit to the number of skill points you can allocate.  Perhaps you can only “Master” 1 entire tree, but you could have points to go up a single branch in another.  This would allow you to be a Sword Master, but also be proficient in shields, or perhaps some healing magic, or buffs.  If you wanted to be a “tank” you could “Master” whatever tree focuses on the defense and go up the 1h sword branch in Swords (Or maces, etc).

Armor use would be incorporated into trees.  Anyone can wear simple cloth but to use higher level armors without immense penalties you will want to go up the branches in your tree that increase armor use.  The major defense tree may have a branch dedicated to alleviating the penalties of heavy plate, whereas the magic trees would have a branch dedicated to giving the player bonuses that make up for some of the shortcomings of just using cloth.  Regardless, armor will be important but not the end-all-be-all.  You may come across a Master Swordsman who kicks the crap out of you and all he’s wearing is Cloth even though you’re in plate.

Unlearning skills would be as simple as pressing a button.  However, you would lose all exp gained and spent on that skill.  This would allow people to feel like they have some ability to experiment and change what they want to be without always being stuck in one play-style, but at the same time give the community a sense of permanence where people aren’t masters of everything or bouncing around.  Investing time to earn “Sword Experience” enough to earn the top skill in a branch would be something you won’t easily want to abandon because you worked hard for it.

Crafting

Artisan Skill Tree

The beauty of the crafting system is that it provides literally everything.  The entire economy is player driven and based upon a principle of constant need.   To craft a sword requires resources.  These resources come from areas of the world/region that are particularly rich in the resource.  However, these resources would shift on a weekly basis making them harder to come by — again, very much borrowed from SWG.  Where the system would differ from SWG is in the automatic gathering.  SWG used harvesters that you placed and paid upkeep on that would extract the resources.  You simply come back and collect.  That doesn’t fit into a fantasy game too well, unless we stretch deeply into “magic”.  I would prefer the manual collection of resources in this setting.

Resources would vary in quality.  I might find Iron from a mine/rock in one location but it might only be of a .785 purity.  Testing the resources in another location, perhaps 20 feet or even a mile in another direction could yield a richer purity at .984 which means I have found a much higher quality.  The higher the quality, the better my ability to experiment with it during the creation process.  Crafting something would not only depend on the richness of the resources, but allocating experiment points and then succeeding when experimenting.  This introduces an enormous level of customization to the crafting process and diversifies the items crafted to the point that someone could have an Iron sword made by me and one by Bob and they could be extremely different.  We both might have even used the .984 Iron but based on how I experimented my Iron swords might have more durability and his might do more damage, or my Swords might offer you some other bonus (let’s not even get into how freaking amazing this crafting system gets when we introduce magic to the equation).

Crafting would not be on a single item basis either.  Bringing back Iron will take time and experimenting to find that perfect sword you want to make will take skill, effort, time, and more.  Each individual piece of the sword (hilt, blade, etc) can be experimented on thus increasing customization exponentially.  When it’s all put together and you have the template for the perfect sword it will take a long time to craft.   Why not create 3, 4, or 5 swords at once?  I see no reason why you can’t do this.   In SWG we could create crates of pistols sharing the same stats and the market flourished.

Gear would break and be gone forever.  Yes, it is necessary for the economy.  You’ll get a LOT of use out of your things though and this will create a necessity for full-time crafters.  As you use your gear it will degrade and you’ll lose condition.  As you repair your gear it will lose durability.  A weapon may have 100 condition but 10 durability.   Eventually it’s going to break.

Player Housing/Cities/Shops

This is key.  Players need the ability to set up their own buildings in the world freely (with the help of a player who is a construction crafter).  Not only can players have houses, but they can convert these into shops that have NPC’s in them.  Players can decorate their houses like this industry hasn’t seen in years with elaborate levels of customization (there’s a crafter for that).  Cities can develop around this concept with players coming together and electing a mayor.  Player cities won’t be like Darkfall cities that are all pre-determined.  They can actually be placed freely and the Mayor can place buildings and choose which ones go where, etc.

If I’m a blacksmith I may want to have a forge near my house/shop or in the player city that I hang out in.  I can have one made so that I do not have to travel to town all the time.  If I’m an entertainer (Yes, I want Bards to come back and the social aspects of the Taverns to live again) then I’ll want a Tavern built.  Imagine a player building his own Tavern off in the wilderness, perhaps near a popular hunting spot, and it turning into a thriving location for commerce, entertainment, and social gathering.  Not only has this barkeep succeeded in his accomplishment but he has created a place for someone who makes drinks (yes, with bonuses for players) to sell goods, entertainers to hang out and receive tips, and players who love combat to have a place to come back and receive buffs (from watching dancers, etc) and stock up on supplies (again, provided by actual players).

Dungeons

These would be a mix of open-world and instanced.  I’m not entirely against the idea of removing instances because they do have their place, however I do not see them as something that should be overused to compensate for a lack of quality open-world content.  You won’t find amazing loot dropping from your average dungeon (in some, but not all, and never better than what can be crafted), but you will find ingredients in these dungeons that you can bring to a crafter that will allow them to augment your weapons and make them something special.  This is key here.  If I kill a dragon and bring back a fang then I can have that fang used in the creation process of my staff and it will allow the crafter to create a staff with magical properties and stats vastly superior than had he not used the staff when creating it (even if he used a .99 resource with experimentation points used where you wanted them).

PvP

Oh yes, there will be PvP.  This is a key part of the game, in my opinion.  While the game will not revolve around it unless you want it to, PvP will be rewarding and a part of the game with fun content.  There will be sides (this won’t be a FFA PvP game — go away).  Think Rebel vs. Empire, Albion vs. Hibernia vs. Midgard, etc.  You can do battle with people anywhere in the world if they’re not of your realm, but there are areas of the world that are clearly designed for PvP content.  These would resemble the old DAOC frontiers with Castles to claim.

Why PvP?  Well, there would be a specific skill-tree (with its own limitation on points) for it that you could earn exp and allocate points into.  It would be very, very difficult to earn this exp but you would not lose it.  It would operate the same way the normal skill-trees do giving you the ability to remove points invested in something but lose the exp you spent.  These abilities would give you a clear advantage, but resemble the older DAOC realm abilities.

The additional benefits of PvP could include something along the lines of DAOC relics.

In conclusion…

I really think this would work well.  Obviously I have not gone into any details about the game world itself but I think it should clearly reflect a big open sandbox game world like we have seen in the past with Vanguard, UO, SWG (think of the planets being combined though..), and other games.  Ultimately the sandbox style needs to be all about setting the player free while providing structure without the player knowing it because that structure is being a tool in providing freedom (ie, items breaking giving players a need for crafters, giving people the ability to play a full-time crafter, giving the game a full-time player-drven economy, and so on.)

It’s a rough big picture outline, but take this idea and run with it.

Looks like a scene from Diablo 3

I’ve heard pretty much nothing about this game, aside from seeing it’s name pop-up here and there on a few news sites I frequent, and initially wrote it off as some obscure indie PC title that most likely wasn’t worth my time or money. However, after doing some research I discovered the game might be more interesting than I thought. Usually I would try to read reviews but there didn’t really seem to be many for Torchlight. After some internal debate I finally decided just to buy it. I mean, it’s only , right? Well, it turns out that this is one of the best purchases I have ever made.

I’ve only played for a few hours but I’m already hooked. The game plays like a spiritual successor to Diablo, which makes sense considering who made it. I really like how they incorporated a skill tree and learnable spells. Almost like they took the systems from Diablo and Diablo II and combined them. Another cool thing is giving you a pet to start with, the neatest feature being its ability to take loot to town and sell it while you continue adventuring. How awesome is that? Not only is the game fun, but it looks great. The art style seems similar to WCIII/WoW. Some might not appreciate it, but I dig it. Especially since it runs extremely well on my dated laptop.

From what I have seen thus far I highly recommend Torchlight.

Anyways, I need to get back to scouring dungeons. I’ll try to poke my head up later for more impressions.

The one thing that will keep me from subscribing to Fallen Earth is the horrific lag I get in cities/outposts.   I do not believe I’m the only one getting it, but from my questions in Help chat and the lack of response it appears that I might be in the minority.  Whenever I enter a city I am immediately hit with this horrific stuttering and lag.  I think it could be memory leaks but something else has to be affecting it.  I know that it’s not a problem on my end because the game doesn’t look good enough to lag like this on my rig and I get amazing FPS anywhere else but cities.  I’m also noticing that the game is a system resource hog and even more so after I suspect a memory leak has set in.

Aside from a few things I would have done to make the game better, this is my only real complaint with the game.  I believe the last time it was this bad for me was in SWG when I was bouncing around in Thede.  It’s bad enough that when I tap an arrow key my character will spin around and have gone several yards in a different direction.  Trying to conduct business in a town, pick up quests, etc. just becomes downright frustrating.   Relogging fixes the lag momentarily then it kicks in again.

This will definitely factor into my decision of whether or not I’ll be subscribing.  I have 6 more days to make up my mind.  Modern Warfare 2 being just around the corner, my itch to get to 35 in Aion, and other factors will also be weighed.

If any of you have found a fix for this lag please let me know.  I’ve tried the Nvidia tweaks and the usual tweaks to fix mmo performance that we’ve been passing around for years — none have worked.

Although our Blog was started in February of 2007, we like to use Halloween as a sort of benchmark for where we’re at each year.   2007 was spent in EQ2, 2008 was in WAR, and 2009 is being spent in Aion.

Halloween marks the end of a season, in a way.  When it comes to MMO’s, their launch schedules, and lifespans, Halloween always has a way of being important.  For many games it has been the dreaded day of death where subscription numbers begin to fall and others it has been a milestone of excitement.  Let’s hope that this next seasons (Halloween to New Years) is a fantastic one for everyone.

Where will we be in 2010? We hope that you’ll continue to stay with us to find out.

The Halloween event in Aion was a little disappointing.  I was hoping to see lots of decorations around Pandaemonium and a spooky atmosphere with some in-game events going on but the in-game Halloween celebration amounted to simply receiving treats sent in surveys.  I like the treats, especially the fantastic looking Pumpkin Head Hat, but a little more would have been nice.

Since I’m playing Fallen Earth as well, even as a free 15 day trial, I’ll mention that their event was a little lackluster as well.

My favorite Halloween events are from The Realm and EQ2.  Someone will hopefully top those one day.

Riding off into the sunset

Fallen Earth has really captured the deepest parts of what first attracted me to MMORPGs.   I’m constantly running into things which are totally unknown to me and the entire time I am logged in I never once come across anything that feels intuitive.  It’s the complete opposite feeling that I get when I play the WoW/LotRO/WAR/Aion model.  Time flies by because I am so engulfed by everything — I am totally immersed and lost in this virtual world.  I’m constantly brainstorming ways to improve the game because I want it to be perfect.

There are a couple mechanics/systems in Fallen Earth that I’ve been thinking over today at great length.

First, Durability.

I want to see items lose durability and eventually be destroyed.  Repairing them should lower their overall durability (perhaps a Condition/Durability system) and eventually they are destroyed.  Item wear is important in a player-driven economy and sandbox game with PvP/PvE/Economic elements.  Crafters need to always be in demand — always.  This means that players should come to crafters to buy great stuff, go out and use it, break it, and come back for more.  This keeps crafters continually working for business.  If items do not permanently break then even the happiest customer is a one-time customer.  Happy customers need to be repeat customers.  Everything should break eventually, even the best stuff in the game.

Second, Experimental Crafting.

Right now the crafting system is very similar to SWG.  You get the materials, you put them together, and wait.  Great!  It does indeed work.  However, I would like to see an experimentation system added to the game as well as resource quality.  For example, not all copper should be created equal.  Parts of the world should yield better quality copper and it should rotate like it did in SWG where sometimes better copper can be found here than there.  I might find copper with .99 quality and really want to make items that use copper because I’ll be able to experiment and make substantially better things than someone using .75 quality copper.   I should be able to experiment and increase the damage at the cost of durability or range, etc.  Allocating experimentation points while crafting could really expand the market and create a niche for the people who truly want to focus on crafting.  Increasing the quality of raw materials through a resource quality system and then allowing players to increase and customize intermediate goods will allow for customizing the final good to be exponentially more rewarding for the crafter and the customer.  I’d love to talk more about this if anyone is interested.

Third, Factions.

This is a part of the game that I am least familiar with, but one that I am very much interested in learning about and voicing my opinion on.  I was talking today with Bartlebe (friend playing) and we decided that we both think Factions should be a more permanent choice.  This idea that you can “play the wheel” and be liked by all factions turns the system more into a powergamer thing than something that defines your decisions in the game.  Killing someone of your faction or an ally of your faction should bring harsh penalties.  The decision you make to join a faction should really carry some weight because it should both reward you tremendously by unlocking vasts amounts of content but also lock you out from the factions you chose to forsake.  However the faction system plays out in the game, it needs to be important and it needs to have a feel of permanence and dedication to it.

My character is up to 55 Ballistics, 55 Science, and 45 Rifles.  I have a Shotgun, a Rifle (that I crafted!), some nice clothing (that my friends crafted!), and a brand new and improved Horse (that I crafted!).  I’ve spent most of the entire day just collecting resources.  It’s really quite impressive that I spent the whole day crafting yet at the same time advanced my character almost two levels, amassed a small fortune (then spent it), upgraded all my gear, and explored for the first time in a large radius around the city I’ve called home.

That’s all for today!  I’m sick again so I’m calling it a night.

Keen Dakeen in Embry Crossing

My adventure in Fallen Earth continues and I am now level six in Embry Crossing.  I finished up most of the quests at South Burb (a major crafting town) and decided to go join a few of my friends who have characters in Embry.  I’ve really been grappling with my decision of how to specialize points.  I think that I have finally decided to go for a Crafter / Rifle user build.  I’m going to specialize in the Tech faction and spend most of my time heavily crafting into the Ballistics and Science crafts.  I’ll be maxing out my intelligence and perception and pursuing a very lucrative career in cornering some much-needed market… I just need to find it.  It’s out there and I will find it.

My combat path will be Rifles.  I hear that they’re sorta weak right now, but I don’t really know what to think.  They’re rifles… they let you use machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, and all sorts of other things.  How can that suck?  The -60 melee defense is definitely bad, but I don’t really understand what makes it bad since you get such damage from such range — unless you don’t get the damage… then that’s another story.  Anyone here a rifle user and have complaints?

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to craft and figure out what to do.  I’m still a big time noob utilizing the Help channel every time I can’t figure something out — which end up being about once every five minutes.  I absolutely LOVE being so clueless.  It’s so refreshing to really have no clue what is going on.  Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve played a game that wasn’t intuitive from the start?  Years.

Halloween Zombies and me asking tons of questions

The Halloween event is where I spent most of today’s playtime. I had to kill 100 zombies to get a nice Shotgun. I also got my Ballistics and Science crafting skills 30+. I’m moving along slowly, but at the same time every little thing that I do seems to provide me with this immense sense of accomplishment.

There are, however, a few things that I would have done differently with FE. These are just things I’ve come across in the limited time I’ve played.

1.  I’d make the Skills screen a lot more polished. Spending points, knowing what you get for spending them, and outlining how your character will develop should be a bit more defined. It’s underwhelming right now and could be a lot more clear.  A nice outlined Skill Tree would be good.

2. Levels wouldn’t exist and AP gain/spending would be how you progress. You earn AP and spend the AP into skills. How far into your skills you are determines how good you are — essentially how it is right now, right? Whatever benefit levels provide right now could be dissolved into bolstering AP abilities and their influence and base stats could be altered to accommodate. I just don’t see the need for levels in the game and the way SWG did it would work just fine here.

That’s it for now. I have a few more things but I don’t know enough about them yet to comment intelligently.

So what exactly does pornographic film star Ron Jeremy have to do with classic fairytales, violent 3D action and buckets full of cartoony blood?
Not much, it turns out. The fairy story-themed action title is only adult in that it wants players to be as violent as possible. Players take the role of Snow White, Little [...]