What does Treasure Hunting mean to you?

I get two different pops-ups in my head when you say 'treasure hunting'

1) Already known archeology treasures - hidding in the sand around the pyramids, in hidden temples in the woods, in a sinken ship on the bottom of the sea. Fx Titanic. You know it's there and you go treasure hunting on the already excisting ship for almost forgotten treasures.

2) Treasures which is a myth or belongs to an old story. The Golden City for example ... Something you find on an old map, from an old conspiracy in an old book, something rare and unknown, which I just HAVE to find by following clues all over the world (which is why I LOVE LOVE LOVE Tombraider ^^)

Both me and Peter wanted to become acheologists when we where young - which is probably why we find this planet so exciting

 

I'm exactly on the same page as Lykke, because she and Peter and I have quite a bit in common, but would expand a little by adding ...

1 - that I love solving a mystery, and working one clue to discover another that leads to a location where there's more work to be done in order to uncover the treasure.

2 - I also love locations that might be inside a building or even a personal home that has a secret passage, accessed by some code, some key, or moving a bookshelf out of the way ... even pushing a stone, or pulling on a wall sconce to open a doorway into a hidden room.

3 - I like discovering maps that lead somewhere - journals that may tell a story in a way that promotes discovery of new places - unforgotten messages in a desk drawer, or scribbled on a wall somewhere that give clues.

4 - in terms of treasure itself - I would much prefer something that would be functional, rather than just decorative, although the "just decorative" treasure could have value as well - and perhaps treasure that enhances our game play in some way, or adds skills or attributes - those are definite treasure, but not sure planet partners have control over that kind of stuff

Yet again, you bring it to the community to get our input - which is a very wise thing to do, but then you already know that. It's awesome to feel that you in some way have contributed ideas that might be used in the development of a game - to the extent that sources are available to accommodate our ideas.

Thank you Dave, for engaging us and making us a part of your new adventure, this really means a lot.

 

IRL
It is something found in a place not normal to the items intent, use, or value. The treasure can be measured in many ways, value, rareity, uniqueness, or its desire by otheres to by owned. Some treasures are known and sought after, some are unknown and stumbled upon.

Applying this to the gaming world I would assume it to mean we must search out these treasures known or unknown. I being the explorer type that does not EVER get into a grind process or in game terms "Cookie Cutter" way of play, hope this not to mean the standard shoot something and a shiny object falls from its gut. I hope the "Treasures" to be spread around and not just stuck inside the bellies of beasts and man.

I do hope that instanced areas do not become a big part of EU in any of its aspects as that is usually the point where games fail and become routine and boring as hell. This is the main reason I dont play games like wow that use them. You end up becoming and doing just the same as the guy next to you which not only kills any sence of indivduality but also enhances the greed part of the game by opening it to more scammers and farmers importing from other games where they have this practice down how to manipulalate these instances.

I would like to see more surprise things popping in loot windows simply by walking around and actually exploring. Not limiting as most hunters do their knowlege of the game to no more then 2 tp's from the nearest revive so they can get back faster and be more eco in the kill process. They will all cry its not fair to hunters if things could be just found lying around so to speak but hey thats the price to pay for routine and no imaginaion in your game play in a fantasy game.

Lastly since it seems missions are here to stay however they degrade the game. I thnk the rewards system needs to seriously be rethought. All missions are doing currently is contributing to cookie cutter syndrome and perpetuating the need for more nerfs since again it is too dam easy to get skills and attributes ( the known deathknell for EVERY video game that has these systems in place). This system only does two things in the end..Puts a shit load more money in MA's pocket to be blindly spent on rediculous investments and poor management... Further widens the gap between players who can not afford to piss away thousands of ped to get the attrib gains but STILL get screwed over by the nerfing.

This system will NOT keep new players in game for long as EU has a tendancy to show its harshness thru financial measures extremely quickly making younger players not stay long at all. (I understand this is MA's goal of 6 month life span of player but it will kill EU in the end once most gamers willing to try have rotated thru and not come back)

So to sum it up my version of treasure hunting should be designed to keep players coming in AND retain them once here. Avoiding the inherrant gaming traps I mentioned above would be one way to do this.

 

I'll give you three movies

Saharah (read/listen to all the dirk pitt books by Clive Cussler)
Indiana Jones (ok well all 4 movies)
National Treasure.

I want clues and puzzles and trying to figure things out. Trying to put pieces of a puzzle together.
To me i'd like that there wasn't so much hunting but just surviving on the path of a storyline. Like i need to get from point A to Point B but there are a bunch of monsters or obstackles.

Could treasure hunting also have a lot more to do with mining or "excavating"

I'd also like to see a planet partner put in some platform gaming elements in. By that i mean it takes some skill of moving your avatar maybe along a small ridge or something.

And there better be some caves and underground things too. Heck some underwater areas and caves would be good too.

Sorry that all sounded demanding but thats what i'd love to see.

 

I would like to see individual quests for everyone. At first glance this might sound impossible to do, but actually it should be easy. If a quest has some variable arcs and these get chosen randomly, each quest should be different.
That way it would be impossible write any walkthrough and even if one would repeat a quest, it would lead to completely different places and outcomes.Sometimes it could really lead to "treasure", sometimes just to clues and somtimes you gain absolutely nothing.

As for the places...
1000 years in the future would also mean completely other kinds of treasures than just "archelogicals".
Some futuristic science labs and ware houses stuffed with rare components, caches hidden in small asteroids, rare minerals guarded by robots in a defunct satellite, valuable information stored in Cyberspace ( needs "hacking skill" and a "deck" to jack in , )
Or a damaged hauwler slowly drifting in the atmosphere of a gas giant containing a prototype fighter.
Or simply inside a computer, where a miniature cache with some isotopes are hidden and you first have to find a way to shrink yourself in order to start the search?

 

I like the idea of hunting/mining the new planet and uncovering ancient fractured tablets or something which gives you clues to find something, similar to the way beacons worked. for example

I may kill a creature, and in it's loot is a fragment of a stone tablet with a phrase or a few words that guide me to a location. Not simple clues, but clues someone with a decent knowledge of the planets terrain, landmarks and history can figure out. When the location is found a cave or ruin or something can be discovered which must be explored (basically like a spaceship). Some could be team, some could be individual, and they could have some rating system to gauge their difficulty.

I think this would add a new element/level to the game which I would personally love.

Warpath

 

At Calypso I do two main things:

- Melee hunting/skilling like hell - as long as the budget allows me to do this. [I don't care for enviroment.]
- Walking/driving/flying around to enjoy nice spots and landscapes when I'm bankerupt again. [I cannot skill.]

I would like to have a combination of both. You may show me some beautyful places using missions. Killing mobs, yes ... but not simple grinding. It would be better to have several options as mentioned above and get the chance to loot/find nice items ... after solving special riddles. Dunno if puzzles are possible. But a line of hints should be possible I think ... including misleading hints as for instance (mad persons as mission advisors).

I like the idea of finding items somewhere. Surprizes are welcome

 

I would like to see Arkadia keeping true to the theme of the planet. The universe is set in the future - so please... No digging in the ground with shovels. I would imaging we were to have "high tech equipment" which could find the treasure(s).

Also, implement "real life" skills in this process. This is something I had hoped would be implemented in mining - ie. the orefinders would not produce an "arrow" to the location of the mineral. But rather show you a sort of topological image of the ground where the different colors would indicate various density of the ground. It would then be up to you (real life skill) to decipher where to plant your claim - and your claim would then excavate whichever minerals there were under the marker. With increased skills (game skills) the map would be more and more accurate.

The same could be done for arkadia - Place a bomb on the surface, detonate it.. Look for interesting ground density and start excavating. Please do not just make this universe "click click click click.. deposit.. click click click click" -- we already have that.

Furthermore I deeply wish for a new "damage type" so none of the old gear will work on the planet.
Or - if MA demands that you do have blp and laser damage as well as the regular armor types, at least make some new ones as well. "Microwave damage".. Would penetrate the regular armor as if it wasent there.. Then make a new type of armor which could protect against this damage, and make mobs that would not be hurt by BLP or Laser but also only were vulnerable to the new damage type. Then make sure to ONLY create (L) weapons and armor for this damage type as this would make sure you never run into the demand for new people to join the game each day for everything to keep its value.

With L items its not the increase of participants thats important - but rather the combined playtime of the userbase.
More players -> less playtime per participant are required to keep the market steady. But im sure you have some skilled economists working on the balancing formula of the game.

So, yeah... Two things I would like to see from Arkadia.
Make real life skills an important aspect of the game. I dont want another "click click click" universe.
And make a new weapon type so the old ubers starts at the same place as the rest of us - make it an even fight.

 

Treasure hunting to me means finding a woman with a beautiful smile, yer your right i'm joking ...


Seriously though I agree with what most people have said above e.g finding hidden places and unusual items/artifacts.

What I would add to that though is the possibility of combining some aspects of actual archaeology into the problem/mystery solving. Most people you ask about this type of thing will give you answers to what they are accustomed with allready which is tomb raider style problem solving. It need not be like that you can do things in a more unique way by incorporating certain aspects of archaeology/anthropology. This may even win you some academic awards. Some aspects may take time as they may require MA to produce new code for your planet i.e. related to archaeology but some aspects could be incorporated without any new system. For example if my memory serves me correctly it was Binford who did a study in which he "solved" some problem with regard to bone remains i.e. he showed where and how some hunter gatherers ate from animal bone remains. Studied the patterns formed by bones after people ate their food and threw the bones over their shoulders. His work is not easy reading but anyway it's just as an example here (also i've probably simplified it too much and been a while since I studied archaeology). The point being though in a game animal bone remains could be placed somewhere quite easily and by reading the placement of these bones we may be able to make certain deductions which may be needed to find the treasure

While it's a game and there really is no need to make it a proper archaelogical simulator. Although that may be useful in its own terms i.e. we have every other simulator so why not archaeology too This is a game and it's for entertainment so in the first instance some aspects of archaeology could be incorporated but you would probably need to consult a trained and experienced archaeologist into how certain aspects from it can be used with your game.

All that remains on arkadia from soil to buildings can be viewed as a written document. This document is not read through normal means but must be deciphered by certain tools like archaeology...

 

Treasure hunting reminds me a bit of pirates and map's with a big red X on it.
Personally I like it better if it's called artifact hunting or relic hunting.

For me this gives a more mysterious feeling.

And I think along the lines of solving puzzles, following leads, finding clue's.
A mix and match of Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones, Relic Hunter, etc.

And this can be anything, weapons, Scrolls, tablets, computers and what more.
Following the trails of old civilizations, old robot strongholds, etc.

Regards,
Ion

 

Well maybe the best treasure

Maybe could have a mission related to that or a competition. Avatar with the best smile and conversely avatar with scariest face could also be fun for halloween or something ...

 

"Close your eyes" you say...

Well IDEALLY something like this

[video=youtube;w2FHdIi9vI4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2FHdIi9vI4&feature=related[/video]

and I'm going to link this one too (same series) just to convey the sense of adventure/inspiration:

[video=youtube;xicL1CAej3I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xicL1CAej3I[/video]

Yeh well Cities of gold was a massive part of my childhood. In short we couldn't get enough of it and inspired many games and activities we made up. People say Tomb Raider but really cities of gold was the original with all this stuff

I'd also recommend a book called "gold of malabar" that I read a couple of times when I was a teenager for a good old fashioned treasure hunt. I've also just started watching Stargate SG1 lately (never saw it before) and I'm really enjoying that, particularly the mix up between scifi and archeology.

Anyhow... thats enough dreaming. Time to get real about missions as this seems to be what this is all about (reading between the lines).

Highlighting/seconding Rex's best points there. Historically the events MA/FPC did where there were codes to decipher seemed to go down really well but its been done a LOT now and the formula hasn't changed.

I'd like to see more that involves the environment in short, for example clues in the landscape or items to be found that tell you where to go next. In the earlier days of Calypso there were all these doors round hades to these massive cool looking buildings. Some of these opened to disappointedly reveal the building was a "textured on the outside only" shell. I always hoped one day I would find one that took me somewhere....

More than anything, I'd like to see a mission that opens a closed door...

For example, Doctor Zhen or one of her team (just an example using your characters so far) tells you of a sight of archeological interest that had been spotted by air. Its in an area that for some (make an excuse) reason needs to be visited on foot (or at least BITS of the journey need this). Your first contact is in a (unaccessible without the mission) hangar/base where you meet your pilot who flies (scripted) you to the foot of the mountain. From there you continue on foot witnessing stunning surroundings there may be a very narrow ridge crossing at some point where you might fall and loose health if you do and maybe some mobs to avoid/kill on the way. When you get there you need to search for the item which appears to be ancient but has technology which when activated unfolds itself and displays strange runes. You need to put your thinking cap on now to decipher these runes which tell of a place you must go next. There may be some dialog between you and Dr Zhen where you tell her your decryption and this updates mission objectives. Then it is on to the next phase, maybe you need to hire a boat to get somewhere, you are given deap sea diving gear for the duration of the next stage of the mission to get from the boat to the sunken ruin to open the door you need to USE the item you previously retrieved. When you finally retrieve the final item you get and get back to the boat you are boarded by the "bad guys", you have to make a choice, to hand over the item or fight them. This determines if you go back to Dr Zhen empty handed or not. This decision may influence future missions....

OK so I haven't covered every detail here and given total thought to how every aspect of this can work in a non-instanced universe but these are for the programmer to work out

To be slightly critical of this thread for a moment I'm going to stick my neck out though and say that it can only be SO useful in the guise of "tell us what kind of missions you would like" which it seems to have turned into.

At the end of the day we can only throw up vague ideas cause none of us have any clue just what the mission engine MA implemented is truly capable of.... I remember the FPC story writer claimed it was the best thing since sliced bread but we havn't seen massive evidence of this on Calypso so far. A deluge of "kill 100 of this mob now please cause it makes us money" missions quite frankly take the piss and show little respect to the player. Yes these missions are valid (sometimes we just WANT to to kill stuff over and over) and have a place for those who want their grinding to be a little less pointless but there are other types of player who have no interest in such dross.

So my request is that you or one of your developers tell us something of the existing mission system, what tools are available, what are they like and the degree of complexity that can be achieved as well as what challenges you, as developers, have found in creating missions as the technology stands.

So far everything seems dialog, kill count and way point based. Mission items arn't even "proper" items. Is this really all there is to it?

I think if people here had a better idea of what is actually possible then we could really help you out with ideas thats all...

Anyhow hope that was useful in some way

Cheers for a good thread
Wistrel

 

no shovel, just a brush, so you dont risk breaking it

 

yeh... I did think the point had maybe been missed there too. Not that this matters since you can't dig, brush at or deform the landscape in EU in any way. Its only recently that we can push shrubbery out of the way

Wistrel

 

Hey David thanks for the response, much appreciated!

I understand you can't share details and yup kinda expected that. I guess such things have to be kept secret to stave off competition from other MMO's or something. No harm in trying it on and asking though

Yup totally appreciate the kill 100 mobs missions have a place and are easy to make plus are a nice no brainer to do. You guys aren't made of free time and statistics on who has completed such missions presumably available to you will keep you knowing how many more of these should be made. A minor request on these though, just a tiny bit (not a lot, but a little) more thought than FPC have put in so far on the reasons for them. Maybe just a little more dialog or reason, dunno what, a farmer who's crops are being damaged or something I dunno. I quite liked some of the dialogs in the Calypso Gateway missions. Some of those made me laugh! I appreciate that people who like to do these missions may not care that much about creative dialog though... however I expect you'd be surprised how many people appreciate it. No one wants their carefully crafted dialog to be "click click click accept" 'ed without the player actually reading any of it though. Seeing those kinda stats (available? or can't say?) must be a bit heartbreaking.

OK so if anything more or less can be done here's an idea. I appreciate voice acting is expensive (and adds to download size... streaming audio an option? - like net radio?) and to have spoken dialog for EVERY part of a conversation could quickly spiral out of control (especially with branching). A friend highlighted one solution to me though which is the idea of just the opener of a mission dialog being recorded speech. This might set the scene and better engage the player a little to add to the sense of value of the mission in the players mind. I am not sure how this would work without instancing though.... is it possible to create audio in game that only one player (the one collecting a mission) hears?

Another thought I had is best illustrated by an example. There's a "Mad Prophet" mission on Calypso where there is a guy standing out in the wilderness looking agitated (depicted by a standard stance emote) surrounded by random weird objects, skulls etc. What would have been REALLY cool for this guy would have been if he was occasionally randomly shouting mad utterances. You get the idea? Like:

"BEWARE! SinFULL Traveller!"

or

"THE EYES, THE EYES - THEY DEVOUR THEM!"

This would be heard by anyone who happened upon the area around him (without engaging the mission, just ambient noise). It would have been a definite draw for the player to talk to him. As it was I nearly missed the poor guy.

Obviously this is just one case but the idea can stretch to less weird things. Perhaps a scripted action an NPC could be carrying out whenever they are not engaged in conversation? eg a Scientist walking back and forth between a few bits of equipment occasionally using the "engage ore finder" emote with something that looks a little more like a laptop and muttering "hmmm..." or "curious..." or it "it doesn't make sense..." at random. To be honest, this might work just as text in the local chat as this can be as much a draw as anything else....

I expect most peoples reaction to this sort of thing would be "heck thats a lot of work for not a lot" but after all this is content for a game. The whole point is to pay attention to the details and engage the player more than the other games. Too much in Entropia in the past has been about cutting corners I feel.

While I'm driveling on here I may as well try and ask about instancing on missions...

Someone said here "it spells the death of an MMO". I don't agree. Sometimes its just darn right necessary. Not EVERYTHING in an MMO involves more than one player and shouldn't have to. In theory it would be nice but causes too many user/logistics problems.

To use the example from my previous post, at the point in the mission where you "gain access" to the hangar (to get the ride in the ship to the mountain) a door would open and you walk through.... potentially accompanied by every "non-missioning" tom, dick and harry who decides to rush through at the same time... not good right? You could make it so they can't walk through the door (the "invisible wall" syndrome which, personally, I hate) or maybe they just don't see the door open... but instead see you walk through a wall? :S

Is it possible to say yet what can be done about these kind of scenarios? I suppose you "could" say that players rushing through the door is fine... there isn't a lot for them to gain save for a look inside which is meaningless unless they are on the mission. Once you are inside and you talk to the pilot, you both get in the ship (can an NPC fly a VTOL?) and fly off. The "invading" player can't get in the ship and when he talks to the pilot the pilot says "How did YOU get in here? Get out or I'm going to call security!" or something.

OK this is all just example but I guess you can probably tell these sort of mission design problems really fascinate me. The "scene" in my previously described mission though where the bad guys show up and "potentially" fight you is something I don't have an answer for though... if you happened to take a bystander with you in the boat what does he see?

I guess, in short, there is always the question of "what does the player on the mission see?" and "what do the bystanders see?".

As a final question, is it possible to have a multi-player mission? Where you and a friend have to cooperate to complete it? Or is that a logistical mess just waiting to happen?

OK I'm done driveling now... sorry haha I guess I go on a bit sometimes...

Cheers if you got this far.

Wistrel