Just finished Season three of Ultraman, and it reminded me of Season two as well. In it there are some really good ideas that can be used for City of Titans.
[list][u]Season 2[/u] had an alien species that needed to take the lives of humans in order to survive. The various alignments of the ultramen came into play with how they reacted to this news:
[*]Vengeance - Destroy the aliens to avenge all the human lives they've taken
[*]Justice - Kill or Capture the aliens, make an example of them publicly.
[*]Compassion - let the aliens escape and be free to continue what they are doing here or on some other planet
[*]Compromise - work with the aliens to figure out how to live together
[/list]
Of course, there are other details that can be worked in, for instance, what if all the human lives they've taken were merely put into suspension like a larder for future consumption and that can all be recalled back none the worse for it? What if they had been unwitting dupes in a scheme to support some other villains even more nefarious schemes?
The aliens don't even need to be aliens. What if they were vampires or some other earth-based parasite that had been here on earth all along?
Such fertile ground.
[list][u]Season 3[/u] was a plot to destroy the reputation of the heroes. With the CoT reputation system, this could be an interesting game mechanic turned into a plot:
[*]Someone is posing as your character and ruining your reputation with whatever faction your character has its highest reputaion with. Eventually you face off against this poser... or do you? maybe you join forces for a greater reward.
[*]If your character is a "hero" or "vigilante" there could be a reporter who writes stories all about the collateral damage caused by your actions. Your reputation takes serious hits with all "heroic" factions, but maybe some of the "anarchy" faction repuations see a raise. Do you try to silence the reports? Maybe the reporter is staging things to make you look poorly, or maybe someone else is? What do you do about it?
[*]If your character is a "scoundrel" or "villain" there could be someone doing good in your name. Allies of yours are showing up on the steps of police stations with your name on them. As a result, your network of informants dries up and you discover there are contracts out on you. Do you take this opportunity to live up to your new reputation as a good guy? Do you try to find out who is framing you and restore your reputation? ...or do you up the violence making sure that no matter what people may think, they should fear you foremost, perhaps sacrificing the reputation lost, but gaining reputaion with different faction(s).?
[/list]
The ideas just flow...
what are your ideas?
[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 regards to faction reputation and alignment, Warframe uses/used a similar system of A, B, C alignments where if you gain rep with A, you'll lose some with C and B remains neutral. Its not bad but it can be a pain if they've got a particular weapon locked behind a reputation wall and you're in the hole with them because you ground out a different weapon with an opposed faction previously. There's whole tutorials built around leveling the various factions effectively and I personally don't think it should be that complicated.
One thing that can certainly be annoying is if PCs are tossed into 'Us vs Them' situations, without any hints of how decisions will affect the result. You go through a mission, help the NPC because you think that's the right thing to do, and when it's far too late to change anything the NPC comes out with, "Muahaha, now I can enslave the village and force them to do my bidding!" Characters should be given a chance to determine which way the proverbial wind is blowing. Whether it's by stats you purchase or just some decision you make at character creation (or whenever), players should be able to decide whether their character falls into the "a sucker is born every minute" category. That shouldn't be a decision developers / mission designers make for the player.
Similarly, players should have the option to get an idea of the alignment decisions they're making. It's quite annoying to arrive at a choice and think, "Oh, this choice is definitely -Violence" only to learn that it's '+Vengeance, -Compassion'. It's quite annoying to be told, "Your decisions matter!" only to have it backfire, because what some mission designer decided matters makes absolutely no sense to you.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I couldn't agree more.
Often the authors of the game have a completely different assessment of the remifications than I do as the player. I remember playing SWTOR and disagreeing with some of the light-side or dark-side shift decisions. SWTOR did at least tell us before we made the decision whether that decision would shift us towards light or dark and even by how much, if I'm not mistaken. So even if I disagreed with the authors, I could at least make a conscious choice as a player whether to be true to my character or to farm lightside and darkside points.
So I would want it to be with City of Titans. If I'm going to be gaining and losing reputation due to choices made in dialogue selections or mission objective selections, I would like to know what those reputation changes are going to be as a player. Some players might want full immersion and so they could have a way to disable the forewarnings. That would be cool.
[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.