Server First's and Secrets

I recently began rewatching Sword Art Online and it inspired an idea. While watching the show a character unlocked a secret ability that was only available to the first person who unlocks it. I recall Steven once speaking about server first titles and abilities, which led me to the following.

Would implementing hidden artifacts and easter eggs that unlocked abilities that were only accessible to the person who finds them something that people would be keen on having? Would it being character bound or bound to whoever has the item that unlocks it be better? What types of secret finds and items would be interesting for players to find?

My example:
A player is out exploring and finds a rune on a wall marked with a specific sigil. They realize it has the symbol that looks similar to the torch item. They wait for night time to settle in and return with a torch and a hidden passage reveals itself. The descend down the stairs to find a wall with a series of markings that appear to be a ritual. They then use emotes to recreate the ritual dance depicted. A pedestal lifts and has a fire rune artifact on it. The player takes the item and while it is in their inventory they have access to a fire ritual ability that increases fire damage by allies in a certain range for a duration upon use.

I'd love to hear other ideas and critiques.

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Comments

BigRamble

It's a nice idea but like royal mounts expect it would have a lifetime counting down before spawning for another to find and wield.

Daedrik45

Streamers would show everyone thus ruining the find and uniqueness in my opinion

Noaani

I prefer to have known rewards for specific actions, rather than random rewards for random actions.

Vhaeyne

I thought the whole thing was stupid when I watched sword art years ago. It made Kirito seem lame. He is only special because he happened upon a random advantage. I think Kirito would have been a better character if there was a hard challenge involved to earn dual wield, and others knew about it and could have fought over it. To me it means that anyone who is near him in skill without a similar advantage is actually better than him. It sort of makes him a mary sue in my eyes.

In terms of Ashes. I don't think having random secrets give people some sort of exclusive reward is a good idea. It seems like a bad fit for the game. Having the rewards be artifacts or unlocked abilities is even worst. You are giving people advantages for just happening upon random secrets. Unless the relics and abilities are so cryptic that it would take people years to figure out. I would never want to see anything like this. Even then I think the DEVs could do better things with their time that makes the game better for the entire player base.

Asgerr

I would agree that rewards for more puzzle-like secrets could be cool, and I do believe Steven said some of that will be present.

Quoting the Wiki section on Achievements:

Achievements will be across multiple servers, not just for guilds or groups.

World and server first achievements.
There will be leader boards.
There may be visible items on a character that relate to Titles or Achievements.
Certain titles will unlock special abilities or stats during sieges and events.

It kind of redefines what the players will experience in an MMORPG to come into a wilderness that is devoid of really any structure outside of what the community creates themselves; and then what can be created can be changed, if they want to experience a storyline that's been seen on another server, but you know you're fighting a dragon because you're near a mountain and the other server's fighting a Kraken because they're near the coast and you want to fight that Kraken because of its drop table. If you want to meta it or because you just want that under your belt: to be the server first to take out that Kraken and you have yet to develop the node there, you know it's incumbent upon you to manifest that in the game.– Steven Sharif

Dygz

"Best Friend Killer"

Bunkotown

I love the feedback so far. I do agree my example was quite basic and would not be as rewarding as a deeply challenging puzzle and easter egg hunt. I think the more hidden and secret the more rewarding the prize at the end would be.

szelesbt

Concept is cool. But dont give rewards that boosts performance in combat. Money, materials, consumable, achievements are ok. Stuff that gives permanent buff for abilities or even completely new ones are bad (too good) imo.

Kivek RhuKhan

If I pk you do I get the knowledge?

Dear God please don't let Ranger Track be a useless pve skill and sub par to pathfinding.

sry I was praying out loud

I have a teeth brush its for more than one tooth, now you know my secret.

Percimes

Sounds cool at first, then the Jedi mystery vibes from Star Wars Galaxies at launch begin to haunt me. Nope. It's been done, it wasn't cool.

Having to hunt for skills is an interesting idea, it's been well done before, in the original Guild Wars (if I remember right) and there was something of the sort in Shadowbane too, I think (didn't play it myself). But limiting the access to a first time discovery sounds like a big no no. Although the race to get these skills when a new server opens would be crazy to take part in.

latisullivan

The problem with this, if it's augments, skills, items, etc. and not things like a title, makes it so in a world of thousands of players, you find it, and now you're the only one. That is super cool, if you got it. If you don't, most people, would want it or would want to be unique too. They would have to keep adding these things over and over and over (new ones, so they don't lose the "unique" factor). Perhaps this can be done as timed events that won't repeat, so that means you get into the one you want, or all of them, or none, and you can have all the titles or just one or none.
To make it more interesting, these events would have requirements. You know how WoW does "pre-patch" before a new expansion? It could be new NPCs or new things appearing like 2 months before anything happened, giving certain hints of holding certain items, killing X mob, etc. so then only a select number of people get into the events. Otherwise it would lose the unique factor as well if anyone could participate all the time.

CriminalCupcake

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I thought the whole thing was stupid when I watched sword art years ago. It made Kirito seem lame. He is only special because he happened upon a random advantage. I think Kirito would have been a better character if there was a hard challenge involved to earn dual wield, and others knew about it and could have fought over it. To me it means that anyone who is near him in skill without a similar advantage is actually better than him. It sort of makes him a mary sue in my eyes.

In terms of Ashes. I don't think having random secrets give people some sort of exclusive reward is a good idea. It seems like a bad fit for the game. Having the rewards be artifacts or unlocked abilities is even worst. You are giving people advantages for just happening upon random secrets. Unless the relics and abilities are so cryptic that it would take people years to figure out. I would never want to see anything like this. Even then I think the DEVs could do better things with their time that makes the game better for the entire player base.

Kirito did accomplish something for the Dual Weilding though, it was given to the player with the fastest reaction time. Thats accumulated from all of his actions ever, compared to all other players' total actions giving an average. The anime did a HORRIBLE job explaining some things.

With that said though, I don't think Ashes needs secret/special/unique skills bestowed upon one or few individuals, lest the requirements for those skills allow for someone else to take the position, leading to the prior holder losing said skill.

But i do love me some Titles and server first accolades.

CriminalCupcake

Dygz wrote: »

"Best Friend Killer"

Lol laughed so hard at this.

codewarlock

Part of me really loves the idea of unique or extremely limited bonuses/items/etc. However, I think there will always be backlash and uproar against the notion. People get jealous, people blame others of no-lifeing, people blame luck or bad luck etc.

I think the compromise is respawnable events that happen on infrequent timers. RIFT had micro events that randomly popped up (merchant of death, dragon dueling), WoW has rare mount spawns and micro events, etc. This allows people to have something special and retain that unique-ness for a long time to come and even if the beans are spilled by online guides or through streams, the infrequency of the event timers plus random spawn points will prevent too much camping and frequency of completion.

McShave

I really hope there are hidden secrets and puzzles in Ashes, and it sounds like Jeff Bard is all on board for that, which is great. I would hate to see unique permanent character advantages given to those players tho. Maybe give a transmog item or some mount thing, but definitely not a unique skill or permanent combat item.

MrMilot

Sadly in this day and age secrets are not secrets for long. Perhaps new secrets can be added monthly for a limited few hours in random locations and and give a unique title.

Ragecon

A one and only perm flying mount, no lifetime and only one person can obtain it ever. Requiring a super crazy Easter egg type format. I like the idea of hidden items with the limit of one person ever being able to obtain it.

Roussynator

It's fun at a certain point to be unique but it'll never be like your precious anime, people are going to find out about it in time with streamers and stuff and it just doesn't work in real life to apply unique ability or weapon to only 1 player out of 10 000. I just don't think it can work.

Ragecon

Doesn’t matter if people find out about it, the idea would be the reward would be to the worlds first and would be exclusive to the one account only. World first rewards even if small little things would be cool

Asgerr

Ragecon wrote: »

A one and only perm flying mount, no lifetime and only one person can obtain it ever. Requiring a super crazy Easter egg type format. I like the idea of hidden items with the limit of one person ever being able to obtain it.

I think making it so it may be dropped upon death if said player is killed while corrupted, could create some interesting social interactions too.

People plotting to somehow get said person to be corrupted, and then hunting them down for a chance at his mount to be "stolen".

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