Mr. Anarch's Design Studio
posted at 11:30 PM on Monday, February 2nd, 2004
This will be my first in a series of weekly columns dealing with game ideas. Some will be serious, some will not, and some (like today’s) will be both. So let’s get to it shall we?
The year is 1846, manifest destiny has just been coined a year earlier and the Mexican-American war has begun. What we find ourselves in for this game is a very loose recreation of that era. The map will include modern day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado except the northeastern corner of the state, a small portion of the south western corner of Kansas, Oklahoma’s panhandle, Texas and the very northern portion of Mexico.
WWWO will be a Guild vs Guild faction based first person shooter semi-persistent state world with perma-death, city-building/management, dynamic quest/missions and a reputation system. I will explain each of these in more detail.
A large number of static forts and cities will be in historical spots across the game map. Three factions will begin with initial control over some of these cities. Most cities will have some sort of unique strategic resource. Cities will be reset to basic shop/defense levels when “conquered” and can be upgraded through time, the slowest method, and player activity, the quickest. Owning certain combinations of cities can unlock even greater strategic resources.
Outlaw and Bandito hideouts will be dynamically built, fully destroyable cities. Hideouts can only be upgraded by stealing city/fort resources. This is done through “raiding”. Effectively raiding a static fort/city will result in resource points that can be allocated to upgrading the hideout. Hideouts are unmovable once placed; however, they can be abandoned or destroyed. Hideouts can be created when enough resource points are stockpiled through raids.
Lastly Indian tribes will have villages. These villages are also player created, though they can be moved. which takes packing and unpacking time. These villages are also upgraded through raiding of static cities/forts or bandit hideouts.
Towns/Forts/Hideouts/Villages:
Towns will be cities of varying size with no real defensive fortifications. In order to capture a town you will be required to capture and keep key sites within the city, such as the bank, sheriff’s office, and other strategic locations. In order for the city to switch to your faction you will need to hold those sites for 48 consecutive real-time hours. When that occurs towns will be downgraded significantly and then must be upgraded which happens slowly if left on its own or speeded up significantly through player activity in and around the city. This may be in the form of missions that involve destroying any hideouts or villages near the city or even just the amount of bandits/Indians/enemy factions players killed. Also there will be a merchant system that will basically move from point A to point B and will require player guards and will be fully attackable by bandits/Indians or other factions. A small amount of NPC’s in the town will actually come to its defense. Enough to make raiding a town even in off-hours no easy feat, but not enough to deter a good sized faction army bent on securing the town.
Forts will be heavily defended military bases. Forts will provide several basic functions, one of which is the Armory which will be where the major faction characters will be able to get and upgrade their equipment. Forts will be captured in the same basic way as towns, but Forts will be far more defensible and will require advanced planning and large scale participation to be won from an enemy faction. NPC’s in the town will all fight back at a nominal level to make it impossible for small groups to take forts at off hours.
Hideouts will also be able to be upgraded in terms of what resources/weapons are available to players who belong to the guild or alliance who owns the hideout. Upgrades will be purchased through stolen resources from raiding towns or other hideouts/villages or also waylaying stagecoaches, trains or supply convoys. Hideouts will survive through obscurity as they have no real defenses and will be easily destroyed by a hostile force. The more active a gang is the more detailed the map of their hideouts location will be. The level of activity for a hideout can decrease through inactivity as well. Gang members who are killed within town limits on raids further increase the chance of hideout detection.
Villages will also be able to be upgraded through the expenditure of raided resource points. The weapons available in beginning villages will be rudimentary but can be upgraded in the same manner as Hideouts. Villages will be nomadic and will likely take 8-12 hours to pack, more time to relocate depending on the new location, and another 8-12 hours to unpack. Villages can be decimated by annihilating every NPC in it. Basically you ride in guns blazing, running down women, children and elderly Indians to destroy a village (Editor’s note: good luck finding a publisher, you sick Mexican freak). Unlike hideouts, villages can be “joined” together via alliance to create more advanced and productive villages. At any time a guild leaves the alliance their share of the village breaks away and moves to the new location that guild has chosen. Villages will also be hidden through obscurity, and in addition to being revealed through Indian activity, they also suffer greatly when they reach certain sizes.
Factions:
U.S. Cavalry: One of 3 major factions who may own and control forts and cities. They have the best starting equipment and resources. They can be organized into player run Companies or Units.
Mexican Federales: Also one of the 3 major factions who may own and control forts and cities. They have the second best starting equipment and resources. They can be organized into player run pelotons.
Texan Separatists: The last of the 3 major factions whom may own and control forts and cities. They have the poorest starting equipment and resources. They can also be organized into player run militias.
Outlaw gangs: A minor faction which can not own or control forts or cities. However, they may build hideouts. They can be organized into player run gangs. They start with basic weaponry.
Mexican Banditos: Another minor faction which can not own or control forts or cities. They can build hideouts as well. Also they can be organized into player run cuadrillas. They also start with basic weaponry.
Indian tribes: The last of the minor factions who also can not own or control forts or cities. They may build villages and can be organized into player run tribes or war parties. They start with rudimentary weaponry.
Faction Interaction:
The 3 major factions will start at war with each other however alliances can be made but only with other major factions. Major factions can also post “missions” for minor factions to peruse and accept if they wish. Major faction player run organizations cannot attack members of the same major faction. Minor faction players can be attacked and attack anyone. Minor faction player run guilds can organize with other player guilds of the same minor faction except Indians who can only ally with other Indian tribes.
Alliances will be set up to allow a de facto leader or allow for elections by either member guild leaders, guild leaders and officers or general guild population. Alliances can be entered or left at will.
Communication:
Major factions will have a common channel and a channel for faction guild leaders. Each guild regardless of faction will have a guild channel and an officer channel. Alliances will also have a common channel as well as a guild leader channel.
Tells will be possible anywhere in the game world with members of the same guild or alliance but will be Line of Sight only for other factions.
Skills:
Skills on character creation will vary depending on faction and will increase based on use of the certain skills. Skills will rank from 1-99. Attaining levels in certain skills will unlock others. Such as getting a 35 skill in basic 6 shooters may unlock the Colt Paterson which if used the skill would start to increase. Some skills such as Tomahawk may actually unlock different uses of the same weapon. As an example lets say at skill level 50 in Tomahawks, it unlocks the skill of Thrown Tomahawk which may now be increased through use.
Combat:
This system will be based both upon player and character skill so as to blur the lines between older and newer characters and allow newer characters to be competitive but also reward other characters for longevity. Basically current actions, horseback riding, running, crouching, etc will determine the size of the “hit box” around your aiming point. Your skill will determine what percentage chance 1-99 you have of hitting your exact aiming point. While a new player may not be able to reliably shoot someone in the head they would have a much greater chance of hitting someone with a torso shot it just may be a gut shot instead of a fatal heart shot. This allows also for player skill to come into play within the game as well.
Combat will be more realistic than not and thus it will be incredibly lethal to be shot in all but the most trivial of spots. Death will result in respawning at your bind town unless the town is under attack and the bind area has been captured.
Perma-death flags will be switched on when you have accumulated enough kills of a specific faction. When this occurs, bulletin boards at sheriff offices in forts/cities will have wanted posters for this character with his name, picture and last known whereabouts which may change if the character raids or kills again. At that point if you are killed by someone of that faction that character is retired. They receive their own personal webpage giving the statistics of their life along with the bounty-hunter or character that brought them to “justice”.
The game itself will be reset when a major faction wins by holding 80% of the forts/cities for a solid week. Players will have the option to carry their current character over or restart a new faction. The winning faction guilds will get medals on their characters uniforms according to the role they played in the win.
Well I have quite a bit more to go into, but this is getting a little long so I’ll end it here and see what you have to say about it and ideas of your own.
Discuss riding down women and children here.
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