3 Things Jack Could Do Right: Part 1 (long)

noxdraconis

Read part 2 here

Read part 3 here

Introduction: 

After reading through the ‘screw the pooch’ thread, I decided to take a more positive viewpoint and think about what features Jack could implement in Champions that would result in a better, more immersive game. None of these ideas is easy, as each would require a significant amount coding above what would be required to create a baseline, City of Heroes, type game. They would, however, help to create an environment where players feel more like superheroes and less like they were playing WoW or EQ2.   

 

As a side note, I have not read everything about champions (or maybe even most things) so it’s possible they are trying to do some of this already. That said, here goes:

 

Part 1: Make it Dynamic

 

Heroes impact their world, so the world needs to react to heroes.  Being a hero is all about saving the day (or neighborhood, or city, or world …) which means not only that there needs to be something to save, but also that something bad has to happen when things go pear shaped.  

 

Put another way, without a world in balance (or, more dramatically, on the brink of utter destruction) there is no reason to have a bunch of guys in spandex running around causing mayhem.

 

So let’s start with the balance.   Comics are mythology made modern. At its heart is the idea that world is a battle ground for two opposed, colossal, equally balanced forces. Order and Chaos, Good and Evil, Light and Dark, call it what you will. What we want is a world that can change in response to this battle. 

 

Here is an example:    

 

When a hero takes down a villain, rounds up a group of thugs, or saves some innocent grandma, the level of crime in an area should go down. As crime decreases, neighborhoods become cleaner, new buildings go up, wealth increases. When heroes sit on their collective butts (or fail) then just the opposite should occur.

 

This is what happens in any simulation game. The game world is not static, but over time changes in response to the actions of the players. Formally, what this means is that the game world is the result of an agent based simulation. Every NPC is an actor or agent, with a set rules that define how that NPC interacts with the world, including other actors.

 

In other words, a sandbox.

 

Here is another example.   Thugs randomly spawn in area, more if the area is decrepit, less if the area is posh. As the number of thugs increase, the chance of a supervillain spawning also increases. Once a supervillain spawns, he (or she) will exert control over the local thugs, in the process making them more efficient (thugs will no longer fight each other, police will become corrupt, etc.). The supervillain may take control of a nearby building turning it first into a hideout, and then gradually building it up into a major base. If left unchecked, it’s going take a very high powered hero (or team of superheroes) to get the situation under control.

 

Included in the simulation should be anything that could have a significant ripple effect on the rest of the environment. Here I am thinking of things like the power grid (remember the New York Blackout of 1977), financial networks (no bucks, no Buck Rodgers or giant robots or satellite lasers …) and, of course, a hyper advanced version of the internet (maybe with holographic data access).

 

Done right, it should be possible to (like Oracle) fight crime without ever leaving your virtual apartment.

 

Think about it. Want to take out a villain’s base? Well you could go in with powers blazing. Or you could hack into their computer system. Or you could take out the block’s transformer and make them hope they have back-up generators. Or you could just freeze all their bank accounts.

 

OK, that’s it for this one. Next post we will talk about the building blocks of a dynamic environment: objects.

 

~nox