Megapost: Suggestion to redo game mechanism from the ground up.

Niryco

New Member
Jul 29, 2016
16
14
3
#1
> Warning, this post can potentially get really large, in posting it this format, I usually if not always never finish, as proof of the multitudes of similar post in 3 other games so far. Thus feel free to discuss any of these meta to maybe help develop Ember as a radically new game.

* PS: I am not so lore heavy at the moment nor do I fancy doing so (committed to real life at the moment, really hard game to play) Most topics although long are actually already touch and go.

Start-
^ Game meta that hopes to be achieved (main purposes)
==- Sandbox
==- player omni frame customization, aka player choice
==- horizontal progression
==- shooter first and foremost
==- Crafting and resource gathering to be engaging (fun is overused, engaging isn't temporary)
==- Dynamic events, if possible enemies.

^ Author's hopes as well
==- Player inclusion (Contribution significance as well as ease of access into game)
==- Player/Server Driven narrative.
==- Re playability
==- Epic scale, Evolving
==- Player discovery/creation/theorycrafting
==- Anti grief, grief free is possible

Content list:
1.Narrative focus, direction, handle
--A. Niryco's take

2. Map structure:

Base line:
Perfect game? nah just a game with goals that are somewhat desired. Meta from scratch.

^What is ember?
== Based on mercenaries going around the Crixa-verse and finding habitable planets, colonizing them for self benefits and other reasons.

1. Narrative focus, direction, handle:
The story focuses on reapers and their race (presumed humans), within the Crixa, possibly evolution from a traveller/nomad form of life to one similar to our metropolitan one. Therefore it is necessary to treat the game as an evolving entity. This means it isn't an mmo world that looks stagnate with increased number of explorable areas, instead it is a world with an already expansive explorable area that changes within the confines of this expanse.

To limit this expanse, I suggest the largest confines of the narrative area is the solar system which the story focuses on. The reason to this is to highlight the significance of the Ember event (or rather game) within the Crixa-verse (in-game lore).

Hence Ember should revolve around an episodic period of the Crixa-verse, where reapers(humans) attempt to colonize said solar system which led to a great boon that succeeded past centuries of exploration where great advancement was made to human technology, socio-political-economic and academic spheres. However not everything so good can stay good for long, internal struggles soon arise, wildlife and foreign monsters begun their revolt even the break out of war with alien civilizations. Thus Ember tells of humanities struggles and success in a epic long narrative, where players actions will determine its outcome.

A google augmented reality game inspired me to suggest this format of evolving game within its large universe, it is called Ingress . The feature that appealed to me the most was how it conducted its open player narrative, every week or so the developers of the game would collate the weekly player activities of areas under control by which faction and then upload videos online to reveal more story. How Ember can carry this out is having a world that can respond to player and npc actions, and every update/minor update cycle the developers can prepare to release narrative relevant content and game changes.

This would mean the game narrative would take an entirely different approach to what normal mmo's are like. Instead of always introducing new mechanics, the developers have to prepare several strings of content based on the possible evolution of the world, but since we are changing the world from the outside in, instead of inside out, the size of such changes doesn't have to be all that huge as the game gets larger.

Therefore to make several checkpoints in the narrative to ensure it is headed in the right direction would be events that happen nil of player contribution. These events are listed below.
1. Successful colonization of the first planet and boon.
2. Subsequent colonizations of other planets due to greed.
3. Monster retaliation to player and human development.
4. Insurgencies within developed nations, reapers take on greater responsibility.
5. Introduction with alien civilization.
6. Subsequent war/peace within human race and against alien race.
7. Endless war till then or current Ember time period.

Ember also hence symbolizes the burning fire of humanity to grow and struggle against odds internal and external. In addition they also consume more than what they need with greed to achieve mass growth within the scope of the narrative.

1A. Niryco's Take on a possible narrative path:
The story begins with human civilization reaching a stage of planetary exploration and expansion. Within the laws of space territories and ownership there is one of great value to companies and business man of the human civilization, Law

it is mentioned whoever successfully colonize a planet would be the owner of said planet. In it the law states that the use of any resource, land, water, air, excavations would be taxable and payable to the owner of colonized planet and they reserve the right to exile those they do not agree with.




2. Map structure:
The map would be hexagonal in fashion like in the picture below, for those who are like hey it looks like firefalls original map, I kinda forgot what firefalls map looks like, honestly i haven't played it since 2014 XD
I will make a separate screenshot of each legend and symbol to indicate the meanings they possess later on.
The general idea if the image doesn't look clear is that the map size is arrange in this fashion from largest to smallest (focusing on the first planet)
- Planet ( at most x10 continents) BIGGEST
- Continents ( at most x4 regions)
- Regions ( at most x60 zones)
- Zones ( at most x 10 sites)
- Sites ( most basic, takes roughly 10 seconds by foot, 1 second by veh) SMALLEST

Will be back eventually (stop for now)

Unexplored map feature + zone distance effects:

Considering sandbox and map size:

Monster/wildlife evolution and behavioural changes
 
Last edited: