I’m not saying I don’t enjoy BS, it’s fun and I’m up in my 50s now so obviously I’ve gotten my feet a little wet, but I’m really wondering if focusing on the solo questing is really highlighting what makes this game fun.

Obviously all the successful FB games have the “treadmill” that you are on, getting XP for sweeter, more cool stuff. Ships/gear/etc. What I’d really like to see is BS turning into more of an Eve Online type game where the different corps can take territory, employ diplomacy with others, and dominate their corner of the world. Group PVP in this game seems really inconsequential.

One thing that you could do is tie in the new quest system with Group PVP events. Spawning opportunities that can be fought over. Like doing quests to build a corp outpost, or to make a new drill for a corp mine or something. These activities could not only give the player XP/stuff, it would invest them into their corp and better the corp. This of course could be lost or diminished by aggressive activity from other corps, etc. You could even introduce alliances and a corp leveling system (similar to Warhammer Online)

You have a lot of these hooks in place, a little more tweaking of them and there you’d be able to tie the player into a living world. Not by making everyone superman, but to make them an actual participant in the story of the multiplayer world.

.. A world where Scout Hawkslayer of the Dragoons saves the day by selflessly giving of himself and his ship to his Alliance.

Interactive stories are told by actors (players) doing things (activities) with stuff (ships/gear) involving other actors doing other things with other stuff.

In a truly immersive multiplayer world, players, corps and alliances would dictate world events, not a forced storyline we may or may not engage in. (or even read)

But that’s just my 2 ore.

Cheers

You can treat the entire game and what happens within it as part of the story, instead of treating the game as a sort of Haunted House. Have quests that can be resolved, but only 1 player can resolve the quest, much like Event Monsters. You can make the entire game your PnP RPG Campaign!

You can classify the quests between vague/general quests, which would be like Exploring but with unique events just for that Quest or maybe Fetch Quests where you need to bring something to someone, perhaps a *RARE drop from a *RARE NPC Encounter, etc, etc and then you can have your Unique Quests that affect the game world, the Event Monster type Quests that can be taken by many but solved by only 1 person. You can also involve players in quests to be part of said quests, like I used to do in my old PnP campaigns, not every bad guy or big boss needs to be an NPC.

Treat the game like a huge PnP campaign and the appeal will go crashing through the ceiling. I have many ideas on how to do this since I have already experimented with this myself for many years, let me know if you need any help with the specifics.

But how can you do this in a browser game that’s made with php, flash and ajax?
It just wont work I do not believe, I can possible see how you can do the story line, but it will get boring fast with just pictures and a little animation.

My ultimate thoughts would to actually make a game in c++ (Or something similar) and make a game combining the anime “Skyland”, it is a very similar plan, except for the magic ofcause.

-Michael.

For example, there could be a quest called “rescue the princess” and open for NPC recruitment. Players can sign up to be NPCs with a particular ship build and join a pool together with regular NPCs. There could be a 2-day sign up period and when the deadline is past, the NPC pool is randomly slected if the response is overwhelming.

When someone do the quest, he’ll randomly meet one NPC or player from the pool. When the player is picked, he’ll get experience from the encounter (maybe with 4 AP deducted each time so it’s not totally free? and it could be separate from the salvage status, so a player that’s sunk could still “defend” in the quest). It’ll make quests more fun and players will get more involved.

I agree. The underlying premise of BSv2.0 approach to storytelling is that every player is his or her own captain in the world of Sios. There’s a story going on, and various plots unfolding and developing around in the nations, and elements of a major conflict brewing, but the players aren’t directly involved in any of those in a special way. They can choose to participate in the ongoing story, or they can focus their energies on the clan wars, fort battles and island base building, all being made to fit within the lore of the world.

It’s probably ok to have some sort of story telling as a side project but it shouldn’t distract the development of the strategy and human aspect. Else, BS could end up like some other games which essentially die off once the story telling stopped.

The problem of personal storytelling vs. creating a game for the crowd is why I never got interested in MMORPGs. I’m an avid roleplayer, pen and paper and crpg when they bring out a good one. What’s missing from most pc games (and all MMOs) are personal consequences for choices. Fallout and Fallout 2 have so far been the best examples of doing it right, and the morality system in Torment was deeper and more fascinating than anything I’ve ever seen from Molyneux. The closest anything’s come since to either was The Witcher.

That said, I didn’t get into BS as an MMO. I got into it as a Diablo style hack and slash – WITH AIRSHIPS! If you’re adding storyline, though, it should be done properly. I don’t really see the problem with making every player their own Chosen One – multiplayer is already more or less limited to attacking other ships and taking part in clan war.

Give us choices that cut off options as well as granting others, please. Give us choices whose consequences crop up a couple of towns later, or reveal information on what we did earlier. That’s something games need.

Either way though, we did incorporate the random outcome idea for each particular quest. So a lot of the quest in the New BS will have multiple outcomes bases on chances and unique to the quest itself. Rare outcomes will of course confer better rewards.

The new system is a mixture of D%DTA, the old system and the more linear storytelling of Mafia Empire. More on that later.

One thing that D&DTA doesn’t have is enough variety on their events, but they could change this by changing certain letters and terms for the sake of variety. Using synonyms for words and changing word structure you keep the brain from becoming bored and capture more of its attention because the mind craves New Information, even if that information is not as relevant, such as they use of a synonym, i.e. in a description that says “You know going inside could be dangerous” it can be changed to “You feel that going in could be risky”.

So, the Quests become a sort of Exploration. An Exploration that features certain unique events only in that quest. Also, you can have some events be more common than others, with highly coveted *RARE events.

The randomness of the events could be used in a mechanic similar to Mad Libs.

This would certainly be hard work, lots of variables to go over and lines to write, not to mention the scripts and possibly art, people love to feast their eyes on good art.

Despite the hard work, I think it would be absolutely worth it. You get a story telling system that keeps things fresh and new for everyone, something the other games do not have, and once you have the prototype built you can use it in other games. That’s what i would do, anyway.

Hope this helps