Ideas

coldark

Hey, lovely community of AoC!

I'm a long time fan of RPG and MMORPG genre and a hobbyist coder who tried his hands on gamedev in his time as well. Recently I've found out that I don't have much time left amongst the living and most likely won't be able to play AoC when it comes out which is a shame because hearing Steven talk about the game being inspired by my favorite MMORPG of all time - Lineage 2 really lift my hopes up for the game. Anyway...

As someone who's interested in game making I thought I might share something that came to me when I was thinking about what new can be done with the genre, as I won't be able to use any of that for myself. I guess what I was really looking towards is how MMORPG genre would evolve when BCIs would finally become a real thing, but that's a very distant and unsure future. Right now, I came to the conclusion that a lot of really great games are very flexible, they give people freedom to express themselves and be creative. I was thinking about games like Minecraft, Roblox or Rust which focus a lot on the user contribution to the world, so apart from the general "give people as much ability to influence the environment as it is possible" I think I came to the conclusion that there's something of that nature that can be applied to the lore itself.

I think there's no RPG game without some kind of basic plot. I believe a lot of us play these games because we want to experience a fresh start in a world with different rules, where we can be whatever we want, unlike in real life where our control is very limited. So firstly, not everyone wants to be a hero and yet it's industry standard at this point to put a player into a position of a Superman who's doing all these great astonishing things that move the plot forward. I say, give players more control over their fate and set up an environment in which (possibly the best) players can decide how the plot evolves. One practical way of doing that is to give some PCs sort of a NPC role i.e. by auctioning (or choosing by random) players that want to take these roles. These would be special accounts, with special perks and abilities. If a person abandons such role someone else can take over.

I carry more vague concepts but the general idea is as I stated above. This post is already long enough so I'll leave it up to the rest of you if you want to comment or express your own ideas. I'm sure Steven's vision for this game is really well thought-out but I also think that a bit more fantasizing about it won't hurt.

Wish y'all a fantastic day.

Cadror

One thing that could go in this game is a drunkard NPC in a neutral hub who gives a quest about his tale that only implies that he was abducted; whether the Player chooses to believe or dismiss the NPC is what will determine if it leans a hair's width out of the fantasy setting.