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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Ideas to Build Community
ArchivedUser
Guest
It has been my experience that games that include built-in systems besides crafting to foster dependency on other players are the most useful to getting players to cooperate, interact and rely on each other. Here are some of my examples, anyone have some ideas of their own?
1) Mobs drop locked chests of loot. There are three ways to open a locked box. One, a rogue picks the lock. Two, a warrior bashes it open with a giant club, a mage opens it with a spell. Since these boxes can be trapped, the rogue takes the spotlight because they can spot these traps and disarm them. The traps can yield various components that have value when disarmed properly, but can cause great harm or death if the disarm fails. Warriors and mages risk damage to the treasure or themselves if they open the boxes.
2) Mages can cast buffs on other players that last a reasonable period of time. Allowing people to join large groups to receive these buffs. This would typically take place in well known locations that players frequent and works really well to bring people together.
3) Warriors can make simple modifications to melee weapons to improve the performance of the weapon....such as blade sharpening or balancing of a mace.
4) Clerics provide spells to make weapons usable against undead or cast spells of protection similar to #2.
5) Warriors can in some way augment armor to make it fit better (perform better).
6) Rangers can find things in the wild that would normally be difficult. For example, maybe there are herbs for alchemy that are hard to forage or that can only be found by a ranger, so you find a ranger to help. Rangers could also have bonuses to horse breeding/capturing.
7) Bards could have musical skills that no other class has that would allow them to entertain the masses.It would be amazing if they could compose their own music that is playable in the game world.
1) Mobs drop locked chests of loot. There are three ways to open a locked box. One, a rogue picks the lock. Two, a warrior bashes it open with a giant club, a mage opens it with a spell. Since these boxes can be trapped, the rogue takes the spotlight because they can spot these traps and disarm them. The traps can yield various components that have value when disarmed properly, but can cause great harm or death if the disarm fails. Warriors and mages risk damage to the treasure or themselves if they open the boxes.
2) Mages can cast buffs on other players that last a reasonable period of time. Allowing people to join large groups to receive these buffs. This would typically take place in well known locations that players frequent and works really well to bring people together.
3) Warriors can make simple modifications to melee weapons to improve the performance of the weapon....such as blade sharpening or balancing of a mace.
4) Clerics provide spells to make weapons usable against undead or cast spells of protection similar to #2.
5) Warriors can in some way augment armor to make it fit better (perform better).
6) Rangers can find things in the wild that would normally be difficult. For example, maybe there are herbs for alchemy that are hard to forage or that can only be found by a ranger, so you find a ranger to help. Rangers could also have bonuses to horse breeding/capturing.
7) Bards could have musical skills that no other class has that would allow them to entertain the masses.It would be amazing if they could compose their own music that is playable in the game world.
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Water mages - AoE utility hydration spells when wondering the desert
Ranger - Extreme foraging skills to keep the rest of the team fed in even the most desolate wasteland.
Rogue - AoE refraction skills and distraction/illusion skills to throw off trackers and pass though dangers.
Fighter - Trap making skills, to ensure the party isnt ambushed.
.....I could go on all day.
BUT these are spoilers. I want to see what intrepid comes up with ;)
The point being, players that can't, or don't want to open their own boxes, need to interact with someone that does open boxes. You have to talk to people, get to know people. Rogues establish clientele.
It's like in real life, and you go out to eat. You might try a dozen different restaurants before you find that one that you want to go to a lot. Once you find that place, you get to know the employees and they you, sometimes you are known to the owner. You know? Community.
A side effect of a system like this can be that locks and traps can give exp and have difficulty ratings. Lock picking and disarming traps can become skills that a person can actually put training points into to be better at the job. The game can support lock picks of different metals and qualities and so on...
Also, it seems most people are looking for a slower and more meaningful leveling experience. For that to happen, you have to provide ways to slow the game down a bit. This is one of those ways. The chests need to have weight to them and encumbrance needs to be a thing. but the chests need to have quality loot to make taking them worthwhile.
What I would like to see is a respectful and active forum and server. Where people post server events, Discuss crafting and trading. Make alliances and (friendly) rivalries.
Some of my fondest memories from past MMOs were when 2 guilds or more would meet up somewhere and have even team fights 10v10 or 15v15. After a few bouts the winner would be decided by who won the most fights and they would part ways talking about how much fun was had and write up a RP story to go with the fight not spouting obscenities and name calling.
But this is really up to the players to decide, I don't think there is a magic solution to make people come together in a world with no real consequences. Some people will play this game to min-max their character where players are just a means to an end. Others will look to bully others by ganking/spamming/name calling. We just have to hope the vocal part of the server/game is also the nice part of the server/game.
The rest of your post I, respectfully, disagree with because to me you are describing competition, not community. The two are mutually exclusive in my mind.
This will be an interesting experiment. The developers are fairly close to my generation, but younger than I am, and I think they have a decent grasp of community, but I will be surprised if it pans out the way they think it will. I expect most players will want competition and not community.
Rivest, I agree with your last paragraph and freely admit I am pessimistic regarding the likelihood of a good community. I think it will be like every other game out there right now. Everyone out for themselves on the race to the top.
The rest of your post, to me, and I mean this respectfully, is a description of competition and not community. Community requires players interacting to achieve common goals and to follow like minded beliefs. That has little to do with competition with others. The competition with others is a side effect of separate communities.
I think that these devs have an idea of what community is based on games like EQ and newer games. Where that falls short is that those games are, in reality, where community started to fall apart. From EQ forward community became typically synonymous with guild. Games prior to EQ had communities that actually interacted with as many players as possible.
Like my sig says, I've been playing since the MUD days when the internet first came out. Text based MUDs had the best communities hands down, probably because there were no guilds that promote individualism and competition.