Post by King Richard on Oct 15, 2011 13:06:20 GMT -6
Jenlyn and Hugh have mentioned these recently, and it got me thinking.
The game usually breaks down around this time in every version, so I think we should implement some kind of either randomized raids on areas, or if we figure out the DF thing, make it so they can initiate a raid. So, here's my idea.
The first month or so of the version is spent on the clan side of the game, where everyone is trying to own their own piece, or in some cases, half, of the world. Just like normal. Then, either randomly or somehow initiated, a way gate opens in the Hills of Kintara, or a Trolloc raid comes across the Blight Border in Tarwin's Gap. This means the area is closed to regular exploring. I think the way gate scenario could happen in all the wilderness areas, but the raids which are slightly bigger, should only come from areas next to the blight. Keeping it true to the books, and making it 'easier' to live in the south. For a time anyway.
Way Gates
I'm just rolling around, looking for a fight, and I notice in the Hills of Kintara that a way gate has opened, and a number of Shadowspawn (SS) has emerged. Just Trollocs and Fades and DFs for these. This becomes a priority for all the connected towns safety. The number brought out should be random. For way gates, I think 100 for the minimum, to 300 the max.
Now, this is a big deal. We must fight these things before we are overrun. Say, you have 24 hours to kill them all. Killing them, is just like the normal, you come into the area, and run an NPC. Then if you beat them all, everything goes back to normal.
Raids
Raids are the same way, just in the areas by the blight. Aiel Waste, Tarwins, Plain of Lances etc. These should be slightly larger, and more varied. Draqkhar, (or however the hell you spell that) Trollocs, Fades Darkhounds. I think these should be more like 300-600. But also, they should have a little more time to win. 36 hours.
Blight
What happens if you lose? If you, and you're allies fail to kill them all, in the time alloted, the area becomes blight. No traveling through it, no quests. And, of course, there should be some kind of penalty on the connected towns. Permanent Ji loss for the surrounding towns' owners, equaling the amount of SS left at the end. Town bonuses become less effective etc. But, you can try to take it back. Go to one of the connected towns, and fight the blight from the town. Might need a tab in town for the fight battle and score.
This means the only ji earned, is in 1 town now, achieving once again the goal of making it harder for one clan to own the world. Lets say the blight can be destroyed if you beat 1000 SS in the Blight.
Allow too many Blighted areas and travel could get tricky.
What's the point you ask. Well, these things should start happening around lvl 40, when people start to quit, from either boredom, or as some would have us believe, one clan is dominating all the others. Well, this is a great opportunity, to be a bad person, and steal one of the affected clan's towns, while they're scrambling to stop the Blight. Or be a less bad person, and just sit, and not help them, and hope they fail, while building your own defenses.
Defense Upgrades
Add these to the Town upgrades, which would add a standing army to the town. Not just civilian pop, but Military too.
Cause, wait for it, there's more.
Trolloc Wars
If you fail to stop the Blight, something similar to a clan battle happens. The Shadow declares war on a town, bringing Dreadlords, Black Ajahs, and the rest of the SS ilk. Hopefully you built up the town, and added defenses/population, cause you're gonna need it. Here's how I think they should work.
You have 48 hours to stop it. A massive force of SS approach the town. If you choose to fight, you go to the town, and man the defenses. Yep, that's right, to keep the town, you must defend the town. Someone else is gonna have to do the math though, to figure out how many SS are needed, cause I'm thinking the Population kills 1 SS per hour for of the civilian pop, and +2 for the soldier pop, defenses add a bonus of more dead SS per hour, and Players in town add a bigger bonus. Say, a member of the ruling clan adds +10 dead trollocs an hour. An ally, +5 and player not affiliated +4. But if an enemy shows up, they'd only add +3.
The strength in numbers idea can be added here too. If two mighty warriors of the ruling clan show up, a morale bonus is added. Say, instead of +10 for each, you now get +25 for both.
In addition to just killing off the trollocs by just sitting there, you could run battles to kill them too. Maybe even a kind of duel. A Fade moves into the Nearby list, if you kill him, he takes 100 trollocs with him. Or in a later version, we could add sorties where the highest ranking (clan first, then level etc) person in town, could lead sorties with the soldier pop.
If you win, whew. If not, the town is lost, cannot be taken back, like Malkier, and everyone dies.
OK, ok. The players survive. They're booted randomly to the 4 nearest non blight towns. 20% of the towns civilian and soldier pop also escapes to the 4 nearest towns.
BUT WHAT'S THE FRIGGEN POINT???
Let me finish.
Tarmon Gaidon
The last battle is of course the point. Whether it's started by breaking seals, or whatever, the last battle comes at some point down the road. 3 months after the start sounds good.
The goal of the game, now has changed at some point from, 'Whoohoo! We own the world!' to 'Aw crap! We're all gonna DIE!'. That is, if you didn't prepare. The more towns that are left by the time TG happens, the better. Which means, and I hate to say it, it's in the best interest of everyone, if you don't own more towns than you can control.
When the battle is announced, you'll have 24 hours to gather in, and prepare the strongest town for the last battle. (Giving that clan an unofficial win of sorts) Everyone helping to buy last minute upgrades...or not. I think now is the time for everyone to chose whether they're gonna fight for the Light or Shadow. But, when the battle starts, everyone, including 80% of all the towns' remaining pops are brought to the selected town.There's a 72hour Clan Battle/Trolloc War. Light players and Shadow players duel. Pop and Light players fight NPCs. Shadow players can do other nasty things that I can't think of. Like spending turns damaging defense or something.
We might even consider increasing the turn regeneration during the battle, so those who only have 1 alt can play more if they want, or those with tons of alts can put their very lives at risk and die of starvation cause they didn't stop for food.
If the light wins, all the towns and wilderness are restored. Shadow players can then be mocked, and we can restart, or start a beta soon after, depending on Tim's coming time constraints.
If the Shadow wins, we hang our heads in shame, at the loss of our proud city that has fallen. And all the others that are still dead as well. (But the others that were Blight free before the battle, would be ok)
And now, for those of you who just skipped to the end...
END OF AGE
The game usually breaks down around this time in every version, so I think we should implement some kind of either randomized raids on areas, or if we figure out the DF thing, make it so they can initiate a raid. So, here's my idea.
The first month or so of the version is spent on the clan side of the game, where everyone is trying to own their own piece, or in some cases, half, of the world. Just like normal. Then, either randomly or somehow initiated, a way gate opens in the Hills of Kintara, or a Trolloc raid comes across the Blight Border in Tarwin's Gap. This means the area is closed to regular exploring. I think the way gate scenario could happen in all the wilderness areas, but the raids which are slightly bigger, should only come from areas next to the blight. Keeping it true to the books, and making it 'easier' to live in the south. For a time anyway.
Way Gates
I'm just rolling around, looking for a fight, and I notice in the Hills of Kintara that a way gate has opened, and a number of Shadowspawn (SS) has emerged. Just Trollocs and Fades and DFs for these. This becomes a priority for all the connected towns safety. The number brought out should be random. For way gates, I think 100 for the minimum, to 300 the max.
Now, this is a big deal. We must fight these things before we are overrun. Say, you have 24 hours to kill them all. Killing them, is just like the normal, you come into the area, and run an NPC. Then if you beat them all, everything goes back to normal.
Raids
Raids are the same way, just in the areas by the blight. Aiel Waste, Tarwins, Plain of Lances etc. These should be slightly larger, and more varied. Draqkhar, (or however the hell you spell that) Trollocs, Fades Darkhounds. I think these should be more like 300-600. But also, they should have a little more time to win. 36 hours.
Blight
What happens if you lose? If you, and you're allies fail to kill them all, in the time alloted, the area becomes blight. No traveling through it, no quests. And, of course, there should be some kind of penalty on the connected towns. Permanent Ji loss for the surrounding towns' owners, equaling the amount of SS left at the end. Town bonuses become less effective etc. But, you can try to take it back. Go to one of the connected towns, and fight the blight from the town. Might need a tab in town for the fight battle and score.
This means the only ji earned, is in 1 town now, achieving once again the goal of making it harder for one clan to own the world. Lets say the blight can be destroyed if you beat 1000 SS in the Blight.
Allow too many Blighted areas and travel could get tricky.
What's the point you ask. Well, these things should start happening around lvl 40, when people start to quit, from either boredom, or as some would have us believe, one clan is dominating all the others. Well, this is a great opportunity, to be a bad person, and steal one of the affected clan's towns, while they're scrambling to stop the Blight. Or be a less bad person, and just sit, and not help them, and hope they fail, while building your own defenses.
Defense Upgrades
Add these to the Town upgrades, which would add a standing army to the town. Not just civilian pop, but Military too.
Cause, wait for it, there's more.
Trolloc Wars
If you fail to stop the Blight, something similar to a clan battle happens. The Shadow declares war on a town, bringing Dreadlords, Black Ajahs, and the rest of the SS ilk. Hopefully you built up the town, and added defenses/population, cause you're gonna need it. Here's how I think they should work.
You have 48 hours to stop it. A massive force of SS approach the town. If you choose to fight, you go to the town, and man the defenses. Yep, that's right, to keep the town, you must defend the town. Someone else is gonna have to do the math though, to figure out how many SS are needed, cause I'm thinking the Population kills 1 SS per hour for of the civilian pop, and +2 for the soldier pop, defenses add a bonus of more dead SS per hour, and Players in town add a bigger bonus. Say, a member of the ruling clan adds +10 dead trollocs an hour. An ally, +5 and player not affiliated +4. But if an enemy shows up, they'd only add +3.
The strength in numbers idea can be added here too. If two mighty warriors of the ruling clan show up, a morale bonus is added. Say, instead of +10 for each, you now get +25 for both.
In addition to just killing off the trollocs by just sitting there, you could run battles to kill them too. Maybe even a kind of duel. A Fade moves into the Nearby list, if you kill him, he takes 100 trollocs with him. Or in a later version, we could add sorties where the highest ranking (clan first, then level etc) person in town, could lead sorties with the soldier pop.
If you win, whew. If not, the town is lost, cannot be taken back, like Malkier, and everyone dies.
OK, ok. The players survive. They're booted randomly to the 4 nearest non blight towns. 20% of the towns civilian and soldier pop also escapes to the 4 nearest towns.
BUT WHAT'S THE FRIGGEN POINT???
Let me finish.
Tarmon Gaidon
The last battle is of course the point. Whether it's started by breaking seals, or whatever, the last battle comes at some point down the road. 3 months after the start sounds good.
The goal of the game, now has changed at some point from, 'Whoohoo! We own the world!' to 'Aw crap! We're all gonna DIE!'. That is, if you didn't prepare. The more towns that are left by the time TG happens, the better. Which means, and I hate to say it, it's in the best interest of everyone, if you don't own more towns than you can control.
When the battle is announced, you'll have 24 hours to gather in, and prepare the strongest town for the last battle. (Giving that clan an unofficial win of sorts) Everyone helping to buy last minute upgrades...or not. I think now is the time for everyone to chose whether they're gonna fight for the Light or Shadow. But, when the battle starts, everyone, including 80% of all the towns' remaining pops are brought to the selected town.There's a 72hour Clan Battle/Trolloc War. Light players and Shadow players duel. Pop and Light players fight NPCs. Shadow players can do other nasty things that I can't think of. Like spending turns damaging defense or something.
We might even consider increasing the turn regeneration during the battle, so those who only have 1 alt can play more if they want, or those with tons of alts can put their very lives at risk and die of starvation cause they didn't stop for food.
If the light wins, all the towns and wilderness are restored. Shadow players can then be mocked, and we can restart, or start a beta soon after, depending on Tim's coming time constraints.
If the Shadow wins, we hang our heads in shame, at the loss of our proud city that has fallen. And all the others that are still dead as well. (But the others that were Blight free before the battle, would be ok)
And now, for those of you who just skipped to the end...
END OF AGE