In GW2 you begin with an almost totally obscured map that you then need to go and explore to reveal the various areas. Once you do that, you open up Waypoints the allow you to teleport back and forth to the areas you've been to. You also get a badge for exploring the whole game map, as well as bonuses and treasure for finishing off any given zone (meaning do all the missions, get all the waypoints, reveal the whole zone map, pretty much exhaust the zone of content).
I've mentioned before how I feel like this is great to have for my first toon, and gets more and more tedious on all the ones that come later. That said, it does get people out there doing the outdoor stuff a lot. Also, the outdoor events that fire off every so often are lucrative, but some are more lucrative than others.
It would be nice if CoT had some way of rewarding exploration like that, even if there are no Waypoints to open and use. Unfortunately in a modern context, the idea that you wouldn't have the whole game map available to you up-front is kind of wrong, at least for the parts of it that are in Titan City. I mean, you're not totally blind to the lay of the land, as a character. Maybe for stuff in other dimensions or whatever, you'd have total map obscurement, but not for the outdoor world map.
I would have the outdoor world map pre-revealed for everyone and still give people some visual cues as to which areas they've been to and which they haven't, and I'd give XP bonuses for going to a new area you haven't gone to before. Maybe have a map that's grey-scale until you get to a given area, then goes "full color" when you explore that area. Not pixel by pixel, just break the map up into smaller areas that you can "color in" as you visit them, one sub-section at a time. Maybe you have to have a given area "colored in" so as to use your personal lair's travel options to get there, like the teleporter cant take you there unless you unlock it first (CoX had this).
That way, people can still navigate and refer to a map without having to have walked to that area before, but your travel options are still limited until you do, and you still get XP for exploring on every toon. Maybe every Exploration Badge should give a decent XP bonus (like 1-10% of what you need to get to the next level, depending on what level you are at). That way you could level a toon largely by just exploring the map, which in turn sets you up for when you want to get your lair working and get those travel functions working.
Just some thoughts.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'd like to see a fog of war setting creep into areas you haven't explored in a while also. If you haven't been to a neighborhood in a while, you've lost track of where the crackhouses are, the gambling dens, and the chop shops.
The homeless shelter you protected from the ooze virus three weeks ago is now used as a source of bodyparts for an evil surgeon's experiments today.
The upper story loft you set up as your teleport location is now occupied by a single mother of three screaming toddlers and her abusive boyfriend.
The street corner where the pimps and prostitutes were now has a newstand with an awesome kid who wants to make his neighborhood a better place.
You never know what changes could happen in a real living world. Sammy and his hotdog stand, however, are always in the same place by the stadium.
Whether or not this game actually does change like a living world is up to MWM, but a fog of war setting in which you lose visibility unless you actively patrol would be a good simulation of the effect that a living world would have.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Ehhhh - I could definitely live without this. It's not an RTS. And it's completely undone by a simple wiki (or even a pad and pencil - like how I marked where the stores were on the various zones in CoH before they appeared on the map).
Regarding the reward for exploration outside, how about generated missions that start from just helping some citizen against thugs or some other typical encounter. Defeat the group and you get a "Tip" about some other greater crime/score that you can ten follow up on that leads to a variable-length chain of missions.
As a general point, I would recommend allowing a player to "cash out" of a score mission or "Let the cops handle it" for a crime-prevention mission that will allow a player to get some reward for the missions they have completed without needing to follow a potentially 10 mission chain to completion.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
If I recall correctly CoH did have a feature similar to this anyway were you uncovered more of the zone as you explored it. Atleast earlier on in it's life. It wasn't quite as advanced as Guild Wars 2 map if I recall correctly but admittedly part of the reason why is that we get the advantage of having travel powers which most fantasy MMOs do not do.
Formerly known as Bleddyn
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCqnt88Umk]Do you want to be a hero?[/url]
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I would do it similarly to how CoH treated City zones, visible but greyscale map for the unexplored areas of the zone with color infilling areas you've been to. I would have each zone divided into a number of Neighborhoods which reveal the entire neighborhood once you cross into it (rather than how CoH did it, where it only "revealed" a thin strip along the route you traveled).
As a method of encouraging players to explore the zone you could use "Patrol missions" where the objective is to visit each Neighborhood of the zone, thus earning you some type of reward. This could also been broken down even farther, offering "Neighborhood Patrols" where you visit key locations, vistas, shops, etc all within a single Neighborhood, again for a reward of some type.
Yeah this game doesn't need a solid black "fog or war" like some kind of old-school RTS or roleplaying game - it's not like people living in this city aren't going to have access to Google Maps. But it might be cool to have a sort of semi-grey fog of war that would let players visually keep track of which areas of the city they have visited and like you said could be used for earning badges or other things that would rely on whether you've physically visited certain parts of the city or not.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The last thing I want is to have one tiny smidgen of map that I didn't TECHNICALLY reveal, but tha tI still can't actually see easily on my map because its so small I can't tell. I like the "cut it into slices" idea for that reason alone, and especially if completing the map unlocks anything later.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I like OathboundOne's take on this.
It always did seem ridiculous that people didn't at least have a 'Thomas Guide' map to the City. Now, with Google Maps, where we can look up information, pictures, and directions to practically anywhere? Blackout 'fog of war' seems silly.
That doesn't mean that everyone knows where the Up-n-Away Burger on East Street is, even with a Google Map and GPS, it's possible to get lost and confused. Let that be revealed when you get close enough to See it.
I tend to agree with the idea of revealing the map in chunks, by neighborhood, or by hex, rather than by the wandering 'footprint', like we had in CoH. Granted, that makes planting Easter Eggs, like that tiny island on the edge of Talos, with the palm tree and the skeleton, much less fulfilling.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I suppose the problem with communications is always that there are two parties, the listener has as much say in the message as the deliverer. I love how when I mention fog of war, people naturally think I mean the blackout of the map as if it were a RTS. I suppose that's what happens when I use a phrase like "fog of war".
That is not it at all. It would be absolutely silly to think that your map no longer shows where the city streets are, and I take it as an insult to my intelligence that anyone would think I meant that. I merely meant that the details you uncover become lost. Any waypoints or other content that unlocks because you unlocked a zone then becomes locked again until you re-unlock it, because you have no idea if your teleport pad has a dumpster on top of it now.
I'm not sure that's a totally good idea, though. It seems that the value of simulating a living world (and promoting character infusion throughout the world) would not overcome the hassle of having to rediscover something every month. On the other hand, the constant re-patrolling of neighborhoods could open up more opportunities for gameplay options if MWM wanted to take advantage of it...
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
No worries, I remember when CoH had 'Blackout fog-of-war', which is why I specifically described it that way. My comments were not directed at anyone else's comments, except in general support of what OathboundOne described.
Huckleberry's idea, of having that clear information from discovery, slowly turn Murky, seems quite clever to me. So, your map starts losing color and definition, when you haven't visited an area in a while. That makes perfect sense.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I would want the minimap we get in the game to be divided into subsections, where each subsection can be converted from grey scale (or black and white) to color by visiting enough of that area for a long enough time. Once that happens, you get credit for having explored that section. Maybe even have an Exploration Badge forf each subsection just to make the unlock function very obvious. Like, when you ge the Explorartion Badge, you get the map colored in. If there's a hidden passage to a hidden room, you only get THAT explored and revelaed on th emap if you go there and get the Exploration Badge, which I expect it to have, in all cases. Then, after getting a place colored in, you might also get, eventually, a map annotation feature that tells you what monsters/mobs you remember seeing there and what level they were, like the cheat map hack for COX had. Maybe you have to defeat enough outside world mobs in those areas to unlock that for each area. Then, if you have a lair or SG base equipped with a Trouble Alert Monitor, you can look at that as a more functional copy of the world map and see what has spawned where and is currently up and running. Not the usual purse snatchers and Circle of Thorns cultist mobs, but the events that have started, like Alien Invasions, Hami raids, where Jurassik is, Babbage, etc. That way when those events fire off, probably on timers, you can see the timer on the wiki page or something and you can see that actual event in real time on the monitor screen's map. Maybe when you do those events enough, your SG 's "Crime Computer" will have a database with tabs that tell you when a given event will fire off next, etc. I mean, it might be a little unrealistic to know when a guy is going to break out of jail or when the new super robot is going ot go crazy and start laserblasing everyone, but it will likely be on a timer, and if it is, you could know what the timer is at present by looking it up, if you did enough preliminary content work to unlock that.
Of course, to maintain that Trouble Alert Monitor map, you probably have to pay IGC or money or something. And to unlock its full functionality in all areas you might have to do content of some kind, like a "place the GPS markers in the right places" type thing. You might even have to launch a satellite of your own, which could be a mission against villains who try to stop you. You could even have to launch a new one when your current one has its orbit degrade and falls back to the Earth later. Maybe that's how the rent works on that, you either have to pay IGC to refuel the satellite you have, or it crashes and you have to grind content to launch a new satellite again. The new satellite launch might require you to rebuild your database of neighborhoods by placing new GPS markers again, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This reminds me of something I would like to see:
The ability to make notes to myself in-game.
Some suggestions:
1. The ability to put notation pins on my map with a short description. And the ability to share them with teammates.
2. The ability to keep track of my character's personallity and moral choices for RP continuity. (character bio would probably take care of this, especially if there is a private field for this not viewable by the public)
3. A strategic view of my powerset and what I want to accomplish, maybe even telling me where I want to take my build so I don't forget where I wanted to put my next skill point.
4. The ability to annotate my friends list so I know where I know them from, and why I added them to my friends list in the first place, what I like to do with them, etc.
I like this. It's a good IGC sink or a real-money consumer. It adds flavor, too and immersion. DCUO does something similar with generator mods and I think it works well but can definitely be turned into a pay-to-win in that game because of the rarity of some of the mods that affect actual character power.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I'd be willing to pay a monthly subscription fee for some of this type of stuff, or rather, I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee to buy my way out of all the grinding you have to do to get it for free. An SG is a thing you could support on the efforts of many people all contributing a little to the total IGC cost needed, possibly by automatically tithing the members as they play. You got an IGC drop from a defeated mob, the SG gets their cut right away, but only if you have the option enabled, which the SG will either require of you or not, and may kick you out if you don't. A personal lair might be more grinding for your own stuff unless you pay for a sub or something to create and maintain it. If the personal lair is enough of an optional luxury item with various QoL perks, I could see that. I could see donating Stars or real money to the SG for that too.
Edit: And the pay to win issue doesn't concern me here. The game is more cooperative than competitive anyway, plus this is mostly QoL stuff and bragging rights. You could have different IGC rent rates for different sized lairs, plus higher rent for having it in a better area, plus more IGC to maintain the various functions that it provides, like the monitor, the vehicles, added storage space, etc. All of that could be a way to sink IGC (both SG base and personal lair) and as such it could be payed for by grinding or by converting real money to IGC somehow (probably via buying Stars). Guild Wars 2 allows players to buy cash shop "gems" for real money and to then use gems to buy IGC, or IGC to buy gems, albeit at rates that make the idea of players making a real money profit off of the game pretty much impossible.
If you are apt to make the argument "What, they want money for that? Ripoff." remember that you may be able to grind for it instead, either via a direct unlock or just grinding for IGC and using that to acquire Stars somehow, albeit not terribly efficiently. Still, "free" in terms of no real money cost, is still "free" in the final analysis. IT just requires you to play a LOT and do a lot of content to get the needed IGC, which I don't think is unfair. you might find that you have so much SG and personal lair stuff to pay for every month that you cant possibly pay for all of it form IGC grinding, as there's no upper limit on how many SGs you can be in, so maybe you feel the need to pay money for your own lair just to take some of the burden off yourself and accumulate IGC for other things, like crafting.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
DOFUS is one of my most favorite MMO of all time. (combat is turn-based like Atlas reactor, and the quirky characters and pervasive sense of humor make it even more enjoyable) DOFUS guilds allow the guild leadership to set up how much XP the guild gets from each member. And members have the ability to adjust their own settings so you could donate 100% of your earned xp if you wanted to. Typical settings would be between 2 and 10%. I think that worked very well. The XP went directly to raising the guild level. if you set the rate too high, players would leave, but if you set the rate too low, players would leave because the guild wouldn't level enough to get the good guild perks. Guild size and player activity are considerations as well.
In our case, for CoT, I would think that a reputation tithe would make sense for supergroups. If you wear your SG colors (somehow, we have discussed this in other threads such as: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/do-super-groups-have-wear-same-colors), then a portion of the reputation you gain goes to your SG instead. This could get interesting when you have different members of the same SG farming opposite reputations. I could even see a donation of In Game Currency as well, like Radiac mentioned.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
In GW2, you have a guild window, you can only "represent" one guild at a time, but can join many. It has no effect on your appearance, and I think that should be how the SG works in CoT.
There were a lot of SGs in CoX that had their own uniform, and they devoted websites and facebook pages etc to helping members get the look right (one SG I was in, Fusion Force, had this). That went way beyond just picking two colors and a chest symbol, and it worked better to leave it upto the plyers to design the costumes for themselves, I think.
As far as XP and leveling your SG, I don't care whether they do that or not. After I get my toon to the level cap, it probably makes no difference, and I expect that to hit the cap in like a month, tops. After that, was I actually using the XP for anything anyway?
The IGC tithe is a different story though. That will be a thing people have to be policed on. I would let the SG leadership decide what they feel they need to require of their members, then have them kick people who don't meet expectations. Then give the players a "SG" tab in some menu that allows them to play with their SG membership settings. Maybe you can be a member of many SGs but only actively represent one at a time. Maybe the one you're repping at the time will get some amount of your IGC earnings automatically, and maybe you the player can adjust that on the fly. Maybe I want to give the SG 10% of my IGC as I get it. Maybe I want to give them 100% until I reach some IGC number, then start keeping it for myself. Lots of stuff is possible.
Maybe the people paying monthly subscriptions get the ability to make and maintain a personal lair and can start an SG, whereas those not paying a sub have to do a significantly larger amount of grining to do that. I'd be fine with that. I mean, you can still play the game without being in a SG or having a lair, those are just cool things to have, luxury items, and QoL perks really. You can still go into other people's lairs and bases for that matter, I would expect, if you;re teamed with the owner or a member in good standing.
My friends on GW2 started our own guild just to get a chat channel we could use to talk to each other on, since we all know each other in real life. I could see maybe having to do content to unlock that functionality.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising