Thursday, February 9, 2012

mystery where for art thou....



i remember it quite vividly. I was swimming deep under the ocean in rift exploring the lustrous ocean and looking for artifacts and treasures. suddenly words appeared on the screen : "whispers from the deep calls to your mind", or something of the sort. It was the beginning of a water zone invasion and those words was meant to be an indication to players of what was to follow. But i didn't know what it was for or what it was about, and it was awesum ! It was a mystery to me. I luved the fact that things were happening around me that i did not understand. I luved the fact that there was something greater going on. Something mysterious and subtle. In mmos we need much more of that. We need to constantly experience a sense of wonder and mystery when dealing with the world and events. We need to not understand every little thing about how a weapon works or its stats, about the magic that we wield, about the mmo world and about mobs.

Why do we need to know everything about a dagger that we have picked up ? wouldn't it be better to have to use it to see what it does. To learn the magic and history and power of an item with use and time.

Using magic should also have many ramifications for a player. after using magic a player should fall under an increasingly more powerful effect from the different effects of the tree of magic that the wielder has chosen to wield. For instance : using faerie magic on a stray forest wolf should infuse the caster with the essence of faerie, having different effects on his stats as well as his actions and appearance and even his long term personality and future story arc.

what better to have an intelligent monster lurking in a cave instead of a mindless mob sitting there in pain waiting to be killed. Would it not be oh so much kewler to defeat a boss that is actually busy torturing his prisoners or plotting with his lieutenants or feasting or sleeping than to just simply to walk up to a mob that just stands around, waiting to bleed. I'm sick of stupid bosses and guards and mobs and wolves. Let them all have lives and wives and houses to go to at night and friends to visit and work and personality. SWTOR must be the first game where this is more of a reality.

If i walk in the forest at night : Do i want to see many wolves or other mobs just lounging around aimlessly. Or would it be better for them to have a huge wandering area, a den, a migration pattern, a hunting cycle when they are hungry and a brain. If you object by saying that how then would players carry out their quests if you don't have these aimless mobs to grind on, rest assured that players are sick of those quests anyway and no one wants to collect 15 wolves tails anyway. Capturing and taming such a beast should be a huge undertaking and a event in itself.

certain parts of the world should be shrouded in mystery and magic. You should not be able to get in there quickly and should be severely affected by it. Mist should envelop it and parts of it should be deadly. There should reside beings of limitless power en might and mere mortals should not venture there. legends and wives tales must abound for such places and a lonely traveller would be best to avoid these places altogether. Players should spend many days unraveling the mysteries of these areas and not just say, oh I've been there, done quests, moved on. These places should constantly change and surprise you with great treasure or death lolz. One day a being would be there and the next day somewhere else entirely. Again fill it with being of intelligence and power.

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