Faction-Wide Research

[Nurvus]

I've been thinking about researches in-game.

WoW has the dailies in the island, for the shattered sun offensive.
Players grind dailies everyday, and the server advances to next phase...

Well, they did nothing close to the great things that can be done.
And to think they did Warcraft games... Don't they learn from their own work? xD

What if the players help provide their faction with resources to research all kinds of stuff?
What if miners kept providing their faction with minerals for study, to help create new and improve existing alloy.
Or develop new energy types, engines and weaponry.

So 1 man grinding has a limit.
Server-wide effort has a meaning.

Players involved in upgrading their own society.
Including developping (unlocking) new skills for them to learn.
In WoW, this would mean druids researching Cobra Form and whatnot.

This would require 2 things:
- Faction-wide contribution
- Individual contribution

Individual contribution would be required to be able to enjoy the benefits of the whole faction.
No pain, no gain.

What is the point in this?

A comparison:
In WoW, players have to build reputation and grind their butts off to get long awaited epic gear, and learn recepies from trainers.

What if those recepies were unavaliable from the start?
Imagine players find recepies and deliver them to their faction, and that recepy becomes avaliable for everyone in that faction (to learn).

There is alot that can be done to connect players to one another. To make the effort of one count to the whole.

Sorry for this messy brainstorm, and I hope you can take something good out of this.

[Intro]

Sounds like a great idea but there would be some problems mixed with it one which is grinding to get the items but i see where your coming from. I think Roleplayers or someone who enjoys pve would love it but for someone who loves PvP like me wouldn't enjoy it to much :(

[amz181]

i really like in depth player run faction options, and that fits in well.

[reddo]

I give this suggestion a three thumbs up (I'm "borrowing" a zombie's) for the good stuff. But I'd rather not grind for the reputation, and instead keep it as an amount that grows along my journeys. Something similar (but not super similar, emphasize on super) to Zu Online's rep gaining. Never becomes a burden, so long as the game is played correctly (i.e. no hacking for insta levels)

[Damon]

Great brainstorm here. We have something like this thats going to be implemented.

[Nurvus]

@Intro - That can be limited as research only runs as fast as the researchers, no matter how much material is brought.
So no matter how much you grind, you might fill the "resource deposits" of the faction, but you'd still have to wait for results.

In a way, there would be a certain daily objective to meet, anymore than that is welcome but unnecessary.
Both the needed and the extra would provide something, like payment and reputation.

What I mean is, all that can be balanced, so there's no real need to think it the worst way all the time xD

@Damon - Can't wait to see =)

[Nurvus]

@Intro - That can be limited as research only runs as fast as the researchers, no matter how much material is brought.
So no matter how much you grind, you might fill the "resource deposits" of the faction, but you'd still have to wait for results.

In a way, there would be a certain daily objective to meet, anymore than that is welcome but unnecessary.
Both the needed and the extra would provide something, like payment and reputation.

What I mean is, all that can be balanced, so there's no real need to think it the worst way all the time xD

@Damon - Can't wait to see =)

Here's a new idea:
Just like resource is gathered and handed in to the researchers, so could other factions try to pillage another faction's resources, and maybe even the research results.

This would, however, require skills like stealth and decent spy abilities as well as reasonable ways to counter it.
But I may be going to far in that =P

Just a concept of World PvP.
Nothing new, but largely unexistant in any game out there.

[EDIT] -> Delete the post above this one please. it was a mistake.

[Intro]

Gotcha ;) lol sounds fun and worth while Nurvus

[EDB700]

Sounds like a great idea but there would be some problems mixed with it one which is grinding to get the items but i see where your coming from. I think Roleplayers or someone who enjoys pve would love it but for someone who loves PvP like me wouldn't enjoy it to much :(

Yes, but PvPers could also do some research regarding fighting styles, skills and weps. This way the faction will benefit from the input of players that are good at whatever they're doing, without forcing all the players to follow just one way in order to get more rep or fame in game. It would also be great if such efforts in the benefit of the faction/community would be rewarded with faction or community points, putting the contributors in an upper position in the faction/race scheme or maybe even some financial benefits (like lower taxes for selling/buying items, crafting, etc - thus making the whole idea of sharing info & research worth. Such points would be important in deciding let's say who would be the first players to own a personal house, or which guild to be favoured in getting a guild base.
Imagine going to war with a different faction/race and discover they've just got some brand new improved weps, skills or armors due to their researchers' good work - that would also spice up the fights and also stimulate others to cooperate and explore the game world further.

[Nurvus]

Exactly.
As a warrior interested in melee abilities, you'd want to provide material to develop skills and gear you can use, while a spellcaster would provide materials for developing new spells and spellcasting tools.

So this would encourange a certain "class community" to help each other.
It was said there won't be classes, I think, so this is just a conceptual example.

[Shiv]

If we are playing soldiers in an actual war than anything we find as players would go to our faction to help win the war. There is no I in war what it should not be like is WOW where everyone all plays as individuals and is forced to buy their own equimpent and training. In a real military you don't buy equipment or training it's provided for you. If the game plays more akin to a real military then people will be forced to work together toward a common goal.

[Nurvus]

If it is like in war your purpose is defined for you. What you do as well xD

As long as there is creativity there is individualism.

The challenge of any nation is to develop individualism without losing sight of the whole, and vice-versa.
-----

I agree there should be some gear provided by the military, but at the same time, you use it as property of the military. So you use it for military missions, not personal missions.

So a good idea would be that you'd start out as a soldier, and you would be supported by the military corps for anything you do for them, but you can also work extra to get stuff for yourself.

Remember that not all technology can readily be provided for everyone, because economy limits it, so one can work extra to try and provide himself as an individual.

So WoW is not wrong where people work as individuals and gain gear for themselves alone.
It is wrong where it does not provide faction-wide military gear.

But then you could argue that quests do that with their rewards xD poorly, though.

[Shiv]

I wouldn't argue that is a challenge of a nation it isn't the job of a government ot baby-sit it's people. Civillians in almost any nation have no problem in developing their own individualism unless you live in North Korea in which that case i just feel sorry for you. An i understand what your saying with buying yoru own equipment but the reality if it is if a military cannot afford it what is to say that it's lowly employee grunts can afford it either? Body armor weapons, and ammunition is not cheap not to mention medical supplies and food. If a soldier bought their own personal equipment they would spent every dime they make bieng a soldier.

And i understand this is a game and people want to get their own badass equipment and such, and i understand that a few soldiers in wars buy their own equipment. However the reality of it is that if a nation cannot afford to purchace their troops adequate armor and weapons then it's not likely that goverment is paying their troops enough to buy their own stuff. Usually rebels and mercenaries are the ones buying/stealing their own stuff.

But again this is a game not real life, so people will have the money to buy their own stuff. However i would like to see research that everyone benifites from such as someone making a new engine or ammunition. To win the war and for survival people would make every effort to see that everyone has superior weaponry and armor.

To suppliment traditional gameplay of an MMO and for more team based goal oreinted gameplay I do have a suggestion. Everyone will be part of their respective army but it could be broken down into untis, guilds, clans etc as part of the character creation process. For example i decide to play a human and name him Shiv, i make shiv and get assinged to Explosion battalion. Explosion battalion provides me with my basic gear, and a list of minor assignments to help the war effort. I succesfully complete said newbie missions, i get my military salary yay! And i get an extra bonus of money from looting enimies yay! Afterward Explosion battalion sends in a repoort of all the cool damage they have done to the enimy and explosion battalion recieves an ammount of money based upon the damage done.

Then Explosion Battalion with all the extra money that has been aquired equips the entire battalion with brand new armor.

I hope that all made sence to you.

[EDB700]

If I understood well, the devs want this game to be a meaningful one, not just another "grind/kill everyone/grind/craft uber gear/grind" type of game, right? I mean: gear that grows & evolves with you, missions/quests that do matter and are important in a player's path in game, meaningful fighting system, unique history, etc - all these will interconnect and will affect the players' evolution. So I think it would be just a matter of time before the players will understand there's a higher purpose in all they do in game and that colaboration is the key. From there, posibilities could be endless. Why not forming a virtual nation in game, one that would be capable of assisting and supporting many player activity? Let's take wars for instance and create a simple state/nation - citizen relation: when you go to war, your faction/race/nation will freely allocate you an ammount of pots/energy cores/whatever items you'll need to stay alive and be able to fight and also some specific unique skills available only for/during race/nation/community wars - the ammount and type will be determined by the research level of your faction/nation/state. So how long you can stay alive and fight will directly depend on the player's collaboration & involvement. This way the guilds/player groups or organisations that pursue political and strategic agendas will also be forced to work in the benefit of the whole community, thus contributing to the overall wellfare of the citizens and to some degree this will also balance personal dominance. Players could still be rewarded individually for participating to wars, but they will get a sense of a higher purpose and possibly receive other group benefits, such as rights to exploit certain areas and resources, or gain additional income for a limited period of time. What I'm trying to say is the devs could implement both individual & community rewards for cooperation between players, or any means that would convince the players it's better to work together rather than go for the "each for himself" approach. Instead of endless wars between the various factions within a nation/race, why not joining forces for a higher stake from time to time, right?