The police need your help to solve a crime. Mistress Madale's House of the Eldritch has been broken into, and you as powerful wizard are the only one that can solve this crime. You would get the quest through your mail and start by heading over to the scene of the crime.
I'm really not sure how this mechanic should work in detail. There are games with similar systems such as LA Noir and Batman Arkham City, but I'm not sure how applicable they would be to an MMO. I just know that this is an aspect of crime fighting that isn't being explored, and it would make the game a lot better. Do any of you have any insight to how such a system would work?
How would this differ from the radio/newspaper missions or the planned [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/650323]leads[/url] system?
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That's very interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I'm glad they are looking at these alternative game designs. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Doesn't sound like it would, actually.
When I saw the title of the thread I thought it would be more about putting disparate clues together to find a solution. This was suggested in another thread, and I think it would be fantastic. Secret World has missions where you actually have to do (minimal) outside research to decipher clues. Some are a bit obtuse, but the concept is terrific. Even DCUO has Riddler missions that lead you along with riddles instead of outright showing you the thing you have to click on to progress.
I would love to have a mob drop a matchbook with a nightclub's name or phone number, then do a computer look-up to find the place. You know, actually go through some of the detective steps myself rather than have it tossed to me in exposition dialog and get a new map pointer. But I may be odd that way. Goes back to immersion and roleplaying, as opposed to just "running a toon". And hey, if I can't figure it out myself, I ask around or join a team.
I would love to bit of crime solving as a hero. Not just "click on glowy and automatically understand the clue".
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
The Secret World has lots of this kind of stuff. Some of it is obscure and tough to the point of being more annoying than fun, but a more straight-forward version of this as parts of mission arcs would be a BLAST.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
STO has a searchable lore database, though it's used in a rather boring, grindy manner - you are limited to collecting one lore piece per day, and you can get a daily quiz mission which seems to be the only way the lore is used.
We could use a hybrid of this and the TSW system, where mission clues seem to hit a dead end, prompting you to do detective work in a searchable City database. Some parts of this database would be public knowledge (e.g. list of major chemical distributors in Titan City), while some is only unlocked after collecting the right evidence or completing a certain mission (e.g. you learn that ChemLab CEO Mark Fenric is being blackmailed), which then unlocks your ability to search his history to identify possible enemies.
This leads to mission(s) to investigate those people in more detail; with alignment and gameplay choices (break in to their apartment unnoticed to search it? Interrogate them? Once you find the blackmailer, how do you resolve it? Should Mark tell the truth to the public? Do you kill the blackmailer? try to take over their organization?). The choices you make here could be similarly recorded as database entries (like supplemental logs in STO or souvenirs in CoH) that are only visible to that character, and could be used to drive NPC reactions to you in other mission arcs (as seen in Praetorian arcs).
This "detective" system might be an optional thing, or if it's built in to a large amount of content, have a sort of progressive hints system (a button to "show next hint" if someone is stuck or not interested in the detective aspect right then). See www.uhs-hints.com for an example.
If done correctly and lightly--not as heavy-handed constant as it is in TSW--it could really be fun.
Not too often and not too brain-bustingly hard and with some kind of "guidance" like a STO style City Database like Scott said or requestable clues where you click on them if you want "and you notice..."
Hey, what a great way to educate people about the game lore--again, if not overdone.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
This idea I like. I think such missions should be optional (perhaps a subset of radio/newspaper type missions?) or rare, or at best largely restricted to one or two factions. As Scott Jackson points out, this does assume the availability of a sufficiently complete database of City of Titans lore. Although I believe any information that is not available in that database should be mission or story arc specific and not applicable generally, say to some other mission or story arc. I generally much prefer to read or search for information through a website (or application) conceived for that purpose rather than do it in the game, so I'd not like to see a lot of necessary information being accessible only when I am in game.
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