People waiting at the docks for boat, People gathered at a spire for ports, people gathering do to trade, a gathering of crafters, people gathering to exchange buffs like KEI. I hated how plane of knowledge clicky books and translocators desolved the gatherings. In my opinion there should be no game mechanics that will disolve gatherings. Meet you at the soul well and we will conjure some soul stones, meet you at torch 4 for some trade, 15 people gathered around tunnel ent doing a player made casino, 10 min wait at the docks for a boat? mise well give these newbs some buffs in exchange for some copper. Bunch of paladins sitting around in a bar waiting for a drunk dwarf to show up so they can do a hand in for there soulfire. Hangin out and shooting the breeze. I dont like the idea of instanced gathering zones either. if all the top guilds are online and the majority of the players are in either their instanced guild lobby or in an instanced dungeon then the game world will always seem empty.
I joined facebook and am glad to see that brad is an offroad enthusiast, in everquest you can head in any direction and there are things to traverse and explore, in most other mmo's if u venture off the set path u see that the game sucks.
Crafting is a real cool part of mmo's but i feel that allot of people like myself dont bother with it because it is so taxing on bag space. I wish crafting mats had a seperate tab, stacked to infinity and had little weight, but still remain tradeable. I dont like how in everquest your inventory and bank can be right full of quest items, gear, crafting mats and they are all amongst eachother in a big mess. I wish they would automaticly store in seperate loot tabs or something.
Instantanious postal service? i say nay i think that players should have to carry their own mail. Ingame postal service should just be a bunch of postal drop off points. No item should be instantaniously moved from one corner of the world to the other. other wise your local trading hubs are just going to be a bunch of people standing around the postal clerks and it will be a postal bazaar.
On the subject of in-game mail - I think it would actually be pretty cool to take a page out of Elder Scrolls here. Have a courier that travels overland, one that goes from city to city to pick up mail. It would keep it from being instant, but also we wouldn't be forced to leave our groups or travel to town just to pick up some mail. I imagine The Courier(s) running through the world would be something everyone looks out for.
I imagine being in an out of the way overland zone and seeing in /Shout Courier in zone!
Nobody knows who the courier is looking for, everyone just kinda stops what they're doing in anticipation.
Then, /Shout Courier was for me!
Everyone lets out their breath and continues on their business.
****
No idea how that would work on a technical side. Maybe the courier has a PC name list determined by how long ago a piece of mail was dropped in the box and in relation to location, but if that particular PC is not in an overland zone, or just plain not on-line, the algorithm automatically jumps to the next name, and so on, and so forth. There would be one courier per city, but they are all connected to every other city. When dropping mail in a mailbox, you have the option to either have it sent directly to its recipient, or to the city of your choice.
I don't know, just spit-balling here. Another way to make the game feel a little more alive.
Toyed with the idea of making the courier easily killable by overland mobs, causing players to band together to protect it if the courier is spotted, but that would probably just make it too ridiculous.
sorn said:This is a pretty fun concept, but imagine replacing NPCs with PCs. In EQ1 they have the Going Postal set of quests and I always thought it would be neat if you were delivering actual letters from players.
If they made it in such a way that posts wouldn't be delayed in the event that no PC's were actively doing that quest, then I would be all for it. It wouldn't be fun to have your mail being delayed just because nobody wants to do the quest. I also see obstacles in how it would be implemented.
Would the PC be unable to make use of teleports while on that quest? Would their be a time-limit to the completion of the quest? Would they be able to /tell the recipient with a "Meet me here!"? What if the recipient, another PC, logged off right after completing the quest?
Perhaps, if they were solely City-to-City postal runs, that would make more sense if done as a Player quest, though I would still rather they find a way to block the Quester from accepting teleports. Either that, or make the reward for such quests so miniscule that nobody would even bother.
I don't know, as much as I'd love if it were done by PC's as a quest, I don't see how it could be done fairly and not exploited.
Porshia said:
I remember waiting on the docks for the boat to arrive in EQ1. It always turned into a social occasion. I had so many friends in that game it was ridiculous. Doesn't happen for me in games any more.
Tralyan said:If they made it in such a way that posts wouldn't be delayed in the event that no PC's were actively doing that quest, then I would be all for it. It wouldn't be fun to have your mail being delayed just because nobody wants to do the quest. I also see obstacles in how it would be implemented.Would the PC be unable to make use of teleports while on that quest? Would their be a time-limit to the completion of the quest? Would they be able to /tell the recipient with a "Meet me here!"? What if the recipient, another PC, logged off right after completing the quest?
Perhaps, if they were solely City-to-City postal runs, that would make more sense if done as a Player quest, though I would still rather they find a way to block the Quester from accepting teleports. Either that, or make the reward for such quests so miniscule that nobody would even bother.
I don't know, as much as I'd love if it were done by PC's as a quest, I don't see how it could be done fairly and not exploited.
IRL you usually deliver to a communal location, like a mail box containing slots for several addresses, or the post office which does individual distribution afterwards.
What I think would work is have players deliver bags of letters/parcels as part of a quest that awards something other than exp (for example, in FFXIV you might get seals for your Grand Company as a reward for delivering mail if the game's mail system worked like that), then either players go to that distribution center or the game sends out couriers...and if there are no players doing that quest, then NPC couriers can go out on a regular schedule that may or may not be slower than player-delivered stuff.
Then it may become a sort of communal thing where everyone delivers mail as they bounce from city to city. There could also be player-driven quests where people post on boards in cities trying to find couriers for speedy delivery of packages. If a courier dies en route, the letters may automatically go back to the original city. Where this concept breaks down is when there's a lack of players doing mail quests...but having regular NPC couriers scheduled would alleviate that.
Anyway, these are all just ideas to throw around.
Couple of good threads about postal services:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5811/mail-how-should-it-be-handled
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5785/shared-bank-system/view/page/1
As Bazgrim correctly points out there is some overlap with other threads.
I tend to be in the middle on these issues.
YES having things somewhat slower and more deliberate and realistic is a big plus. Current MMOs cater all too much to the "I want it now and I want it easy and while I may not be stupid I prefer not reading or thinking while playing a game" crowd.
NO to having things so slow and realistic that playing the game becomes tedium. A week to have the mail delivered. 30 minutes waiting for a carriage or boat because maybe other people will be there and you can socialize. Well maybe they won't be there or won't be interested in talking or you only have an hour to play or the group you are trying to join won't wait half an hour for you to schmooze waiting for a carriage.