I was thinking about how big the city is going to be and how much of it the players will actually experience. In CoX the exploration badges got players to visit some odd nooks and crannies they otherwise would never have experienced (especially in Brickstown and Faultline) But then badge hunters would just go to those known static locations and actual exploration was never really accomplished.
DCUO also had players searching for glowies that pop up all over the map, so players of that game actually became far more intimate with their city than players of CoX ever were.
This led me to wonder what sort of exploration City of Titans will have?
I like the exploration markers and historical markers that CoX had as a way of delivering lore and immersion and I like cruising the city on the lookout for glowies the way DCUO does. So I’m hoping CoT will have something to incentivize our player characters to cruise the city and become intimate with it.
[list=1]I have a couple suggestions:
[*]Have some exploration markers move around so players have to keep an eye out for them. For example, put a marker on an npc who has a patrol route, or on an airship or train car.
[*]Give some markers a number of places ithey could randomly show up.
[*]Put some markers behind locked content that can only be unlocked through exploration. For example, not until certain landmarks have been visited, an entire sewer system explored. Maybe there’s an npc vigilante who perches on rooftops and if you encounter this npc at a number of them, causing to move to another and another you can then discreetly follow the vigilante to her lair or something where the exploration marker is.
[/list]
[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.
Personally, I've never really cared much about badge hunting but for someone like me I can see the benefits of a great exploration/badge system in getting players in general to explore. I do enjoy exploring for the sake of exploring, rather than badges, so if they can find a way to make it rewarding/gratifying, even to non badge hunters, that would be good.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
I haven't looked in a while at how the exploration badges are going to be organized but I do think that some are going to be history badges. What we hope is more interesting about the badges in CoT is that the locations will have distinctive features that actually fit with the history or missions. In some of the other games it seemed like a badge was just placed at a random location and you might enjoy the story about what happened there, but there was nothing about the place that showed anything of the history. We have made with our landmarks, moguls, brand x locations, and many unique spots that we have made in the neighborhoods throughout the city into a 'scene' that just by looking at the location, it tells a story. Some of these locations are tucked away in spots that you would have to seek out, or would probably only notice if a mission brought you there. These location discoveries we hope to make the world seem like there is something to find if you look around the environment. And the badges hopefully will be represented by actual features in the world.
[color=#ff0000]Environmental Artist, PR Editor[/color]
@Red Warlock, as I was reading your comment, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps an exploration marker becomes an interactive object that proccs a mini-mission.
Such a mini mission would be to find the three other graffiti tags that show where this particular group has marked its territory, or maybe to trace the same path the convict used to escape from prison, or maybe just click three other objects around this old house.
In other words, if you’re going to use exploration markers to tell a tale about something, let’s really make sure the players really see that something, especially if so much creative effort went into making that something as unique and special as it is.
[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.
Perhaps looking at Star Trek Online as an example would be useful in this regard.
In STO, every character had a tricorder ... which when activated would spin a cone of light around until it stopped, pointing in the direction towards the nearest glowie. That way, you didn't need to have "markers" in the UI for where to go to find things (like mission doors) ... instead, you just left it up to the Players to choose when to "scan for stuff nearby" and let the pointer of light point them in the right direction. This UI function worked both in the ground game (2.5D environment) and in space (3D-ish environment), making it possible to put stuff (literally) "high and low" yet still expect Players to be able to find things that would otherwise be "lost" or "hidden" around the map. You had an On Demand Detector that you could light up AT ANY TIME that could tell you where to go.
And even better yet, if there was "nothing on the map" to go find, you would get a completely different animation/sound telling you that "you've already found everything, no need to keep looking for more" as verification.
Such a conceptual framework would be INSANELY USEFUL for anything akin to Exploration Badge locations THAT MOVE.
Instead of having a singular point to go find an Exploration Badge at, there's a collection of locations clustered around a particular point, and the Badge is randomly located "somewhere around here ... somewhere" in effect.
All you would need to do is set up a "Click to Point Me" UI function that gives a pointer to the Player aimed at the nearest Badge location.
That way, the Player just simple needs to get "close enough" to begin searching (*cough* EXPLORING *ahem*) and they use the "scan" function for the "Last 100 Yards" (or so) in order to be able to zero in on where the Exploration Badge [b]is for them right now[/b] using a pointer of light.
You could even set things up such that the pointer of light is client side only (so other Players don't see the pointer) to prevent immersion breaking for other Players.
After that, it's a matter of defining a collection of Exploration Badge locations within a specific volume of space and then giving the "scan" function a limited range of detection (so it won't point all the way across the zone), meaning you need to "get close enough" before it will start working usefully.
Can have two different animations for "no Badges within scanning range" and another one for "no Badges within District range" so as to be able to verify when you've gotten all the Badges in a district.
Set up the Badges such that once an Exploration Badge is found in a particular spot, that location despawns and there is a 1 minute recharge timer before it will randomly respawn somewhere else in the vicinity among a collection of preset locations.
That way, Exploration Badges spawn in "around here, somewhere" in particular regions of the map, the location is not "fixed" at the same point for everyone ... so a little exploration when you get "nearby" is needed.
And you can get all of that by simply borrowing the "scan for stuff" notion that STO used to such good effect in that game.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Redlynne, I'm not a fan of that Idea for two reasons. First, as far as I remember exploration markers were never marked in the UI in the first place. So what you are suggesting is a way to actually do that. In my opinion that makes it worse, because the player would be looking at their UI and not at the city when they wanted to find a marker. I say "worse" because the metric I am using is the measure of how much the player's eyeballs and investigative mind are involved with assessing their surroundings. In other words how much actual "exploration" is performed by the player to find the marker.
Static badges, which is the status quo, don't lead to much exploration at all, because people just go to known coordinates or they use a 3rd party map overlay like vidiot maps that puts a marker on the map UI. What you're suggesting is basically that. You're basically suggesting that MWM give the players something that requires less exploration than if MWM did nothing. Why would they do that when 3rd party and community will tell the players where to go anyway. And this doesn't even touch on the immersion-breaking point-of-interest locator.
Second, your idea basically requires that the badges need to be located in one of many locations "around here somewhere" for the player to be required to do any exploration at all. But there will be some badges that need to be in a single location because of the lore and because of the map-as-constructed dictates it. Sure, some exploration markers might fit well with the "it's around here somewhere" idea, but most badges that have a meaningful backstory and are in a meaningful location can't enjoy being discovered in several meaningfully different locations.
BUT. As you probably know by now, I refuse to poo-poo on others' ideas without coming up with a way to make them work because that's how cool things are created.
So to deal with the immersion breaking aspect of how does the player's character get a UI scanner. Lets say there is an NPC who is has a Psychic Readings shop. If characters go to her and select dialogue about wanting to know more about Titan City she will somehow impart upon the players an item or a mind link that notifies the player when they are near an area of "significance." Perhaps there is an NPC in every district that the players can go to for this and maybe it's not always a psychic. It could be all sorts of different NPCs with different immersive methods of imparting the information. For example, perhaps there's a tourguide and by listening to her speak (reading her chat bubble) to the tourgroup you hear about points of interest, so you follow her around and go to check things out. Maybe instead of a UI element some NPCs hand the player a sketch of a location instead and the players have to match the sketch with the scenery. (I'm thinking of you, ESO) or a mental vision. There are a number of ways to immersively tell the players "something of interest is around there."
But no matter how immersively we provide the aid to the player, such aid is more than what even the original game did. The original game just expected players to find it without any help whatsoever, so of course third party community help came to the rescue and told people exactly where to go with no exploration necessary. I can't think of a good reason why MWM would do [u]anything[/u] to make finding exploration markers easier for the players when the players will basically just ignore it and use the third party community shortcut to find the locations anyway.
[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.
WRONG.
You have completely misunderstood what I was describing.
You have conflated two things together that were not intended to be put together.
Start from wrong assumptions ... draw the wrong conclusions.
WRONG AGAIN.
... AND AGAIN.
So let me get this straight, because you seem to be contradicting yourself all over the place with where you're going in your assumptions.
You want people to:
[list=1][*]Actually explore the map
[*]With no idea of where any of the Exploration Badges might be at any given time (thereby forcing "exploration" in order to find them)
[*]You want the Exploration Badges to "move around" so they aren't always found in exactly the same spot (which enables the Vidiotmaps solution to the problem)
[*]But the Exploration Badges HAVE TO BE in the same spot every single time in singular static locations (because, lore is inflexible, according to you)
[*]Actually needing to SEARCH for an Exploration Badge somewhere NEARBY to a known reference point is ... "not really exploring the world"[/list]
The problem that you're already running into is that the Vidiotmaps solution to the problem already EXISTS.
Go here. Find THAT (screenshot provided).
The Vidiotmaps solution WILL BE PROVIDED for every game with a singular location to find things at ... such as resource nodes to interact with (think Herbalism, Mining or Fishing Pools if it helps) or an Exploration Badge marker to "find" in the wild.
This is not a new phenomenon.
There are plenty of Gatherer extensions for World of Warcraft (for example) that simply build up a database of locations where resource nodes have spawned in the past to help remind you of where they are to be found in the future by putting markers on your in-game minimap. It's not telling you that a resource node is THERE right now to be harvested, it's merely telling you that a resource node has appeared at that location previously in the past. Usually the location is added to the database as a result of harvesting that specific node location (the extension programming picks up on the interact command) and just adds an entry to the database.
The ESO solution of a scene sketch with an X Marks The Spot To Dig marker in the sketch was truly an inspired bit of immersion in that game. The thing is, which "sketch" for which buried treasure spot you received was a random drop (putting you at the mercy of RNGesus to get them at all) ... and without the drop the buried treasure locations "didn't exist" for you and couldn't be interacted with. In other words, the buried treasure "go find this" system was effectively gated behind drops. In other words, you had to "acquire permission slips" to be given the right to go search for buried treasures.
The closest you could come to for that kind of mechanic in City of Titans (I would argue) would be to use the Clues system that has been mentioned every so often, usually in the context of "assembling missions" in a Newspaper/Police Band kind of sense.
The way you would implement it is that you use the Clues system to either provide a procedural mission (like the Newspaper/Police Band) or provide a sketch of a location where an Exploration Badge can be found.
Exploration Badges DO NOT EXIST at their location if you haven't got a "Clue" for where to find them (that whole "permission slip" thing coming into play).
While such a system "works" in the sense that it does what you're reaching for, I would argue that any kind of "permission slip" implementation for Exploration Badges is also the wrong implementation to be going with.
So ... do what City of Heroes did, without changing anything ... while simultaneously changing it so ACTUAL exploration is necessary, rather than just loading up Vidiotmaps as the inevitable solution to the problem used by everyone.
[b][i]RIGHT ...[/i][/b]
I'm reminded of Bill Cosby's "Noah" skit for how to respond to that ...
[youtube]bputeFGXEjA[/youtube]
Look, the only way to encourage ACTUAL EXPLORATION to find Exploration Badges is to [b]NOT PUT THEM IN STATIC UNCHANGING LOCATIONS[/b] like City of Heroes did.
In order to encourage (actual) exploration of the city, you need to make [b]where the Exploration Badge is NOW[/b] [i]move around[/i] within a predetermined volume of space so it isn't always in exactly the same place.
The problem is, if you do that ... you're turning the "hunt" for Exploration Badges into a Needle vs Haystack problem.
Make the Haystack big enough (an entire 3D District zone!) and it becomes "too difficult" to find the Needle(s) that have been hidden there (especially if the Needle(s) move around so they aren't always in exactly the same place).
What you need, as a Player, to overcome the "this Haystack is too big" problem ... is a MAGNET ... to help you find the (hidden) Needle(s).
That's where the UI element of a "Scan On Demand" of the nearby vicinity comes into play.
[list][*]If there's an Exploration Badge that you haven't obtained nearby (within 100 yards, let's say, for the sake of convenience in illustrating the point I'm making), you get a BEAM OF LIGHT POINTING AWAY FROM your character in the direction of where the Exploration Badge is to be (currently) found, which only appears on your own game client (so you aren't seeing these beams of light popping up on other characters all the time).
[*]If there's NOT an Exploration Badge that you haven't obtained "nearby" (again, within 100 yards), you instead get a "spinning circle" visual FX and a very different sound FX, rather than a beam of light pointing away from you, indicating that there are no Exploration Badges nearby.
[list][*]If there are 2+ Exploration Badges in the District, which you have not found yet and earned, then the "spinning circle" visual FX is colored cyan.
[*]If there is only 1 Exploration Badge in the District that you haven't found yet, then the "spinning circle" visual FX is colored yellow.
[*]if you have already found all the Exploration Badges within a District, then the "spinning circle" visual is colored magenta.[/list][/list]
You will note that such a "Scan On Demand" game mechanic is keyed to tell you how many Exploration Badges remain UNfound by you within a District (cyan/yellow/magenta), but it doesn't clue you in on "where it is NOW" until you get close enough.
If you set things up for the Exploration Badges to work on a "somewhere around here" system of multiple spawn points (that switch around randomly after a Player finds it (and earns the Exploration Badge), you can do things (as a Developer implementing this) such as deciding on a specific Focus Point for where the Exploration Badge "nodes" will spawn around and then set up the actual spawn points as being within a 100 yard radius of that Focus Point.
Let me give you a concrete example of how this would work out so you can get a grasp on what you're (obviously) missing with this idea.
In City of Heroes, one of the Brickstown Exploration Badges was [url=https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Flying_Shark_Badge][b]Flying Shark[/b][/url] on top of The Zig.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/rPrALce.jpg[/img]
Now ... [b][i]WHAT IF[/i][/b] ... and I know this is going to blow your mind by saying this ... WHAT IF there were [i]a collection of places[/i] in this image where the Exploration Badge could have spawned, instead of just one?
You know ... [i]like this[/i] ...?
[img]https://i.imgur.com/KeTUTuP.jpg[/img]
If you thought it could spawn at only one place, you would probably miss where the Exploration Badge spawned "this time" after it was discovered "last time" by someone else.
Sure, you could just "check all the spots" it could be, but then you would need to know where all of those spawn points are (in this example, 7 of them) clustered around in a localized space.
That's starts getting ... unwieldy ... as a Vidiotmaps solution to the problem (not impossible, just less definitive and requiring more work).
But if, as a Player, I had a Scan On Demand solution, I could come up to this rooftop, stand (more or less) towards the center (orange arrow) ... do a Scan On Demand for Exploration Badges around this location ... the Badge has currently spawned at the orange star location, so I get a beam of white light pointing me (in 3D!) from my current location towards where the Exploration Badge is currently to be found.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/iu4dWfY.jpg[/img]
When the NEXT Player comes up here to find this Exploration Badge, it could be spawned in any of the other locations up here.
So ... once I get CLOSE ENOUGH to where an Exploration Badge is to be found, I can start "searching" for it and be given guidance on where it can be found "right now" ... which won't necessarily be exactly the same for everyone (so you don't have a "find once and everyone can find it there" because the Badge Point never moves or changes).
After that, it's simply a matter of WRITING the Exploration Badges in such a way that their location isn't TOO SINGULARLY focused on a singularly individual (X marks the) spot.
For example, if there's a badge for a particular roof ledge that a mildly famous super liked to perch on ... it doesn't have to be only a singular perch point. It could be a collection of them in a particular vicinity (so any of these ledges will do around here).
[img=1000x478]https://i.imgur.com/tueb0YJ.jpg[/img]
Exploration Badges, as originally implemented were basically "afterthought" Easter Eggs ... and the gaming community wasn't organized enough (yet) to do the kind of information sharing that is so commonplace as to be expected now as a matter of detault.
We have better ideas (now) than Cryptic Developers did (back then).
We also have better development tools than they had.
Asking City of Titans developers to "do it better without changing anything" is an inherently self-defeating Feature Request™.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Did you even read my original post?
[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'm actually okay with the original system. If it's not broke, don't fix it. And not every wheel needs to be reinvented or improved upon.
Just a side comment:
I've played STO and and their scanner wasn't for badges. They used it to find resource drops/stashes
That may be, but I believe Redlynne was referring to the scanner mechanic that STO used, and was putting forth an idea of how to use that mechanic to promote more exploration in City of Titans. And while I disagreed with Redlynne whether or not it was an improvement, I must admit that as a mechanic there are probably some other implementations of it that could be good for City of Titans. For example, I think using a scanner like this would be a great way to find a mission entrance door. There are infinite lore reasons how a scanner can lead to a door, such as a tracking device, following radioactive residue, a siren's song, or any other creative way to explain the "its somewhere around here" mechanic.
Another way we could use the STO scanner would be to find salvage ingredients for recipes. This would be like a gatcha game style feature. Lets say you buy a scanner from the cash shop (or get a scanner as loot from defeating something) and you use the scanner to find some random salvage ingredients. I like this much better than a basic gatcha box since it requires actually going into the game world and interacting with the environment to receive the prize. Furthermore, the randomish locations would aid in city exploration by taking people to areas of the city they otherwise may never have gone.
[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 just had some other ideas:
1. Along the lines of an NPC with a patrol route. I imagine there could be a cat who, like cats do, thinks it owns a neighborhood, and is constantly patrolling in a chaotic pattern, never the same way twice.
2. I imagine there is a smuggling route for some McGuffin and the players have to catch the mule to get the exploration badge. The thing is, the mule has several different begin and end points so players can't camp a single location waiting for it. There could be good lore delivery with this.
[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.