Racial Leaders and Capitals

I do love the sandbox ideas in the game and the node system leading to unique landscapes and cityscapes depending on what node is leveled and what is the major contributing race. However, there is something to be said about prestigious characters in the lore that serve as anchoring points for your character to establish relationships to the world (as a member of a race, who's leader is so and so) but also to give you the feeling that you are indeed just another adventurer and nothing like the big shot leader of your race.

It would be cool if racial leaders existed, stayed in their respective starting areas but then would move into (and establish as a capital) the first node to hit lvl 4 (and would thus move the capital to the first node that hits lvl 5 and 6) with their race as the major contributing race. This would give players more objectives during sieges and world PvP (trying to assassinate such figures). It would make the world feel alive and be another way the server reflects the collective choices/efforts of the players. It also helps along player-established factions and RP in a game with no pre-determined factions. To clarify, I don't want them to be quest givers or anything fancy, just characters in the lore and allow for player-created conflict around them. They can even 'evacuate' the node in sieges or boss events to avoid giving that node an edge over others and thus would only be open for assassination in 'open-world' settings.

Just a thought, I think they would add to the game and immersion in a game with no pre-existing lore for players to already be attached to. What do other people think?

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Dygz

I don't really understand the concept because it will be the players who are Mayors and run the governments.
Which race governs a Node will be dependent up on the race that contributes most to the development of the Node at each Stage. So one Node could change NPC racial population several times and could go through all 9 player races in the course of a year.

Also, there could be at least 6 Vek Towns on one server, so I dunno how a racial leader from the starting area would be able to cover all of them.
Players already have the objective from a siege of trying to get their race to be the one that governs the Node(s). Indeed, that is the goal for every push to progress the Node to the next Stage.

The world will already feel alive as the Nodes change racial ownership from Stage to Stage.

Khronus

I agree 100%. I spoke about this in another thread and firmly believe that racial leaders would ultimately lead to new IPs that we will all enjoy down the road. I have fond memories of a lot of characters from WOW and as much as I hate that company now, they did an INSANE job with their lore and characters.

We need characters to love and characters to hate. We're traveling to this new world to rebuild civilization.....only for each other? Religions/gods can easily lead us down a path.

Dygz

Well, yeah, I would love iconic characters.
I think I recently suggested that to Steven and Maggie.
That's a bit different in my head than a capital leader. I don't necessarily need the iconic characters to be "leaders".

Khronus

Dygz wrote: »

Well, yeah, I would love iconic characters.
I think I recently suggested that to Steven and Maggie.
That's a bit different in my head than a capital leader. I don't necessarily need the iconic characters to be "leaders".

You're right. We may not need "leaders" but Intrepid definitely should have named characters that make an impact. The gods can play a massive role in the world and don't really need to be the type of god that people believe in but you never see or truly "feel" their presence.

Especially considering there are areas that we do not build up. This is where you place those characters, wrap them up in story/quest lines and make us hate or love them. Reoccurring characters can't hurt the game.

We have sergeants and generals in Alpha 1 that we get quests from. There has to be some form of organization already in the works right?

neuroguy

Dygz wrote: »

I don't really understand the concept because it will be the players who are Mayors and run the governments.

They would not 'run' anything, they would be mostly ornamental like current European kings/queens. Their purpose would be immersion and creating anchor points for people to feel more attached to the game and IP.

Dygz wrote: »

Which race governs a Node will be dependent up on the race that contributes most to the development of the Node at each Stage. So one Node could change NPC racial population several times and could go through all 9 player races in the course of a year.

A node only changes its racial look based on the most contributing race upon leveling up so it would only change 'races' each time it levels so this would mean yeah it can become another race's capital replacing the old race's capital, not sure what's wrong with that, I think that's cool. Some races may not even have a capital beyond the starting gate if their race does not become the most contributing in a lvl 4 node or higher and that will be that race's legacy on that server, which is fine.

Dygz wrote: »

Also, there could be at least 6 Vek Towns on one server, so I dunno how a racial leader from the starting area would be able to cover all of them.

Yeah you can have a million Vek towns, I specified the first and otherwise you can just assign some trivial logic to it, so this is also not a problem.

Dygz wrote: »

Players already have the objective from a siege of trying to get their race to be the one that governs the Node(s). Indeed, that is the goal for every push to progress the Node to the next Stage.

The world will already feel alive as the Nodes change racial ownership from Stage to Stage.

This is not about the game lacking something without them, but they would still add to the game I believe for the reasons I already stated. I guess you disagree.

Dygz

See my second post.
LOL

neuroguy

Yeah so you agree with the idea just don't like it's implementation? Not sure how else you envision a major lore character being accessible to players while being in 1 static location in a dynamic world. Or would you just want them to be called 'generals' instead of 'racial leader' and that would resolve your problem?

ThexBlackxKnight

The lore is still mostly being held back , so there might some major npc characters to get to know. I think the premise of the game was the players themselves will tell the story through the living world sandbox nature of the game.

Dygz

neuroguy wrote: »

Yeah so you agree with the idea just don't like it's implementation? Not sure how else you envision a major lore character being accessible to players while being in 1 static location in a dynamic world. Or would you just want them to be called 'generals' instead of 'racial leader' and that would resolve your problem?

I don't think they have to be in a static location. They could be triggered to appear when certain Nodes reach a specific Stage and/or a specific service/building is constructed. Could be by race or region.
Doesn't have to be just the first Node to reach Stage 4.

I don't think they need a title. Gandalf isn't called Gandalf or Racial Leader Gandalf.
Bilbo isn't called Halfling Leader Bilbo.
I think you just have the iconic characters do whatever they will do in the story.
I've also been thinking the iconic characters might be played by GMs. (Ashes is supposed to have GMs).

But, I'm really just brainstorming.
Mostly "thinking out loud" in response to what's been posted so far.
Trying to see how it would fit with what we know of the mechanics.

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