hi there!
First I have to apologize if I made spelling or grammer errors - I'm not a native speaker.
I read most of the threads on the last two pages here in the subboard and I noticed, that some people don't like a few suggestions because they would really affect the game play. For example: I think the game lacks depth in case of story and quests - others don't think that or think that those are none important things.
So I thought about improvments that are optional, which means they wouldn't change the feeling of the game for those who like it the way it's right now.
As someone noticed in the "killable NPCs" thread, many places in the game are really "dead" at the moment. For example WSC. I totally understand that the game is beta right now and you, the developers are already working on that. So I don't know if you already thought of something similar to my idea. I thought of adding different factions to the game. This may sound similar to the guild system that already exists, but let me explain. I already mentioned WSC. This big city would desperatly need something like a town guard - let me call them "The Paladins of WSC". Every player could join this force (maybe just if he has certain stats?). By joining this guild he wouldn't have to stand 24/7 in front of the city to guard the door, no, he would get certain advantages, like training in a Paladin only arena. Or he could do quests. Those quest should be very different from what usual quests are now. I was thinking of something similar to the hide and seek games Lord Velmor is already practicing. Special storytellers or Questmakers could give _all_ of the Paldins a certain quest, like "there's a horde of monsters threatening a little town there and there... go there and help the people". Every member of the Paladins could (but wouldn't need!) now go to a special NPC in the Paladins basement (please don't take everything word by word, I'm sure there are many many ways of improving the system I'm talking about - I just try to create an image of how it _could_ look like) and take this quest. If the quest was successfull those players could either get a special bonus or just climb in the Paladins hirarchy (one of my ideas was a "faction stat", similar to all the other attributs now). This would system would guarantee a maximum of freedom comared with a feeling of taking part in a greater event for the players, imho.
Another faction could be "the merchants of portland". Most players show a tendency towards specialising either in manufacturing, fighting, summoning or somethin else. Each of those factions would have a focus on one of those skills. A quest for those Merchants could be "we need to send a ship with 2000 leather boots to the neighbour island. we have 2 days time to do that". If the members of the merchant faction couldn't do that in those two days, they all wouldn't get their awards.
These factions should not compete with the traditional player based guilds, they would just be an addition to theme! So players could join a guild and for some time one of those factions.
I would give members of this faction a unique cape or something like that there would be some kind of uniform. Of course no one would have to wear that, it's just optional. The higher players would climb in this "faction stat", the better awards they would get. those awards wouldn't need to be material, they could be something else (imagine something )
I believe this system would add much more depth to the game, because players would feel that they are part of something bigger and I think there would be competition within those factions. Just think about a big war between magicians and paladins This could be a great game event imho.
Please tell me what you think about it! I hope you got the idea of it.
Another idea I had is this one:
http://shared.afterdarknet.at/gute%20fee.jpg
Yeah, it's a small pixie that appears as soon as you start the game the first time. No one else but you can see it. It would explain the players a few basics, like trading or chatting. All those simple things newbies don't now at first, so they run through PI asking for free items ... you all know it. The little pixie would just follow you and would help newbies with the first quests... Maybe up to level 5 or something like that.
And something I really miss:
Since I'm playing a female Character (an elve), I'd really like more clothes that look good when worn by ladies. If I wear a fur cloak I just look like a Yeti and not like an elve. I know that you are working on new items, maybe you already did that. think about letting clothes look different when worn by females!
my last comment: I really love the game
kl4Uz