Darkwind to Return to its Post-Apocalyptic Roots via ‘Darkwind: Scavenger’

Darkwind: Scavenger will be a new (optional) way of playing Darkwind. This will operate as a ‘hardcore’ mode as well as operating as a kind of ‘test server’ for new ideas.

THE BASICS

Players can run both a normal gang and scavenger gang. There will be an option on the website to switch from controlling one to controlling the other. The scavenger gang will belong to a new Scavengers faction (and cannot leave it).

Scavenger gangs are given a quantity of food, ammunition, water, fuel, car parts and scrap metal in place of the normal starting cash. (I would suggest that the ammo corresponds to one or more of the rental chassis). Scavenger gangs have no access to cash – this is the most fundamental aspect of the idea.

The player must loot food, fuel, car parts, water, medicines and ammunition to keep their gang operating. In Scavenger these items would be substituted for cash prizes in town events so that a gang always has an option to continue playing.

SCOUTING & LOOTING

Scavenger gangs may scout only with other Scavengers
Loot will include additional items:
– Medicine: having medicine in your lock up would work the same way as hospital does now.
– Food and water: gangs would have to keep a stock of food and water to prevent gang members from starving
– Additional Ammo: ammunition ‘destroyed’ in game (other than by fire) would be available in the loot box
– looting of hand weapons and sometimes handweapon ammo is required (and would be useful in the ‘normal’ game too)

DAMAGE + REPAIRS

Faster perma damage – sometimes even when the item wasn’t even hurt in the event (i.e., natural wear and tear). Damaged weapons will jam sometimes, even at better states of repair.
NPCs will typically use damaged stuff
The ‘cost’ of car repairs is calculated in car parts and scrap metal rather than cash.
For engine and weapon repairs a certain number of car parts must be expended
For chassis repairs scrap must be used
For armour repairs each unit of scrap will repair 15-ish points of armour (depends on rarity of chassis). It takes a good mechanic to fix armour grade A, and a reasonable one to fix armour grade B. Any fool can do C repairs.

TRADING

A cashless marketplace will be open only to scavenger gangs, with passwords and with the ability for players to attach notes to each item in the market: these notes would allow the item’s owner to state their requirements for a trade, and for interested parties to negotiate. This system would be open to abuse (ie. player one might list his item and have it taken whilst player 2 never lists theirs) – that said it might make it realistic to be done over every once in a while. If someone defaults on an agreement, they will be shut out of trading pretty quick by everyone else..

TOWN EVENTS

Scavengers are exempt from entry fees. Their prizes are paid in food, water, ammo.
A new category of stock town event will be created: ‘scavenger’ events – where every car starts with randomised initial damage

MISSIONS

Missions would still be available with the mission reward being paid in food, fuel, ammo, medicines or weapons.

MISCELLANY

No access to camps (for the moment)
Full pvp
No access to lasers or RGMs
The return of the jamming of electronic weapons due to certain aurora conditions

OTHER IDEAS I’M UNSURE OF AND/OR WHICH REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT DEV. WORK

‘Amateur Night’ idea. It would be an arena combat maybe run a few times a week at scheduled times, and the winner gets to keep their vehicle.
‘Scavenger’ missions: you use peds to search piles of junk for random useful items. NPC pirate cars and/or creatures spawn over time.. eventually your peds need to get back into their cars and escape

High School RPG

I have been dreaming up some ideas for a high-school MMO. Something along the lines of ‘Surviving High School’ (which is quite a nice little linear RPG for the iPhone where you try to become the school’s quarterback while passing your exams and being popular etc.) and ‘Princess Maker’ (which is a game-of-life type thing where you make decisions about the activities of your character as she grows up, as well as getting her jobs, scheduling her week’s studies/routines and taking her on Rogue-like dungeon crawls). Students has been using a site online that helps everyone with contraction words. The site also helps with other ranges of English.

On the iPhone, the one (thematically) related game is High School Hero. It’s pretty similar to Mafia Wars – i.e. the game is the grind. I still can’t claim to understand the appeal of this; repeatedly pressing a button and watching your stats climb, then attacking other players and stealing a bit of their stats when you beat them. No depth or strategy or even graphics, just grind.

I tried watching some youtube reviews, but really learned little new due to the incoherency of the 10-yr olds who made them.

I think High School Hero has a social draw – there’s cliques (=clans) which have private noticeboards and can run parties for an all-round stat boost (yes, it really is mostly about watching numbers climb). There’s the dress-up part of the game, which does make good sense if you assume the game is social – buying clothes and hairstyles etc. There’s dating, which again is mostly about stat boosting and earning badges but also again there’s a social hook there – your character spends 4 hours presumably with a private chat room available with his/her datee.

Imagine a high school game where there are different schools, and football leagues, exams to sit etc. Your character needs to be managed wisely if he/she is to come top of the class, or become the star quarterback, or even get to progress through school at all. This could add a longer-term and strategic element while removing the grind as central gameplay element, and retaining the social aspects such as cliques, dress-up and dating. One day real-time is one week in-game, so a year would take 1.5 months, and you’d need to log in daily to adjust your plans for the week, attend special events and deal with little roleplaying curveballs that the game would throw at you. Or do kids really prefer grind to gameplay?