I’m not a player, I’m a dreamer. This is why the immersion is so much important for me. I don’t play games, I dream along them and about what they could become. What they suggest me, as they tickle my interest.

These are just some truly fanciful and extreme ideas that EverQuest 2 suggested me. They are just rough possibilities that could be then adjusted in different directions. Some parts of them may still be interesting, though. And wouldn’t be too hard to add to the game.

Guild Houses and real cities
I already started to comment about guild houses, this idea is just to continue along those lines. Instead of just limiting the houses to functional doors on a private instance, each door should be leading to one and only one place, possibly with the layout matching the exterior of the building. This would mean that the houses available in a city would be finite in number, adding the element of scarcity in the system. I don’t see this as something bad, it would be much more consistent and it would create both a true sense of ownership and “presence” in the city, not just a functional, private portal.

The next step is opening new villages and outposts to create more different opportunities. There should be a variegate offer of many different types of houses, scaling from shabby cubicles to bigger and exotic mansions, till the bigger castles that should become permanent landmarks as the floating tower in Freeport. Something with a concrete impact. Then injecting gameplay into the system. Just scaling the renting costs to differentiate these places wouldn’t be much fun. Owning the biggest castle would become just an insane grind that I don’t think the game should reward. Plus there’s the need to keep the system alive with a constant turnover, preventing some guilds to lock their houses forever. So this is the idea:

Two big castles for each faction, donated directly by Antonia and Lucan. These castles will be a reward of merit, a symbolic status to promote the best guilds. The assignment will depend on a semestral official tourney where the best guilds will compete between each other. The best two will get access to the castle and the right to participate to the next tourney at the end of the six months.

These guild “hubs” should become the “fulcrum”, of the game, not its outskirts, as it happened in both Ultima Online and SWG where the players lived OUTSIDE the towns instead of WITHIN them. Then giving these places special uses that would be advantageous for both the guild owning the place and all the other players. For example access to special porters to cut travel time between the continents, or special quests and crafting tools only available there. The guild hosting these services will have to pay maintenance costs that should move parallel to the activities they do already, like obtaning magic stones from particular raid encounters to feed the power of these teleporters, while the other player would have to pay for the service, but moving the money paid from the NPCs directly to the guild vault. The idea is to give the guilds winning the tourneys not only the reward and a special status among all other players, but also responsibilities and duties toward them. Creating a relationship and a collaboration. Creating more a sense of community.

There are many more possibilities worth exploring but they should all following this line: from a side giving relevance and visibility to the guild, creating a truly unique status and gameplay from them, from the other taking advantage of the special role the guild has in the game to also create gameplay for ALL the other players. This is something I already hinted, the aim to create a type of “status unbalance” that would feel TRULY unique, but that, at the same time, is able to involve, affect and create a gameplay space even for all the other players. Creating a relationships between the two parts and not a total detachment and the resulting “envy” that comes because some players have access to a part of the game that is precluded to many others.

This is how I was planning to “solve the paradox” that Brad McQuaid explained in that quote I linked. Not a division between casual and hardcore players as two separate groups that deserve different types of content and that must remain separate so that the hardcore can enjoy their e-peen over the (excluded) mass. But different and definite “status achievements” that are visible but become the real fabric of the game. Making the two parts interact instead of isolate. Adding benefits for BOTH sides.

Dolmens, talking “stoneheads”
I got this idea because I felt the need for more directions since the maps aren’t really useful right now and I still cannot figure out how the zones are connected and the overall geography. The inspiration also comes from “Labyrinth”, the movie with the talking door that asks who passes by to resolve a riddle. These dolmens would be magical stones, shaped as big, magical faces stuck in the terrain with only the possibility to turn. Big more or less as half an ogre, with the face fully animated and as much expressive as possible. There should be one of these for each zone and they should serve two basic purposes:
1- Provide some lore for the zone.
2- Give directions.

Then adding many more fun habits that would make them as something truly unique. Not only they should all have different voices, but also different personalities with an attention to the humor. For example there should be running jokes on the fact they cannot move. They should be really upset by the fact that they are stuck there and complain all the time with everyone. They could notice and mock a player fighting with a monster nearby, taunting him or inciting him! It would be tons of fun. They could go like: “I’m booored.” Or “Uhm.. Could you scratch my nose? Pleeese?” Or “Sniff.. sniff.. You smell. Move away!” when a player moves too close to the face or starting to get completely nut if someone goes to sit right on their head. Adding more and more situational interactions.

Think if a player is fighting nearby and dings a level. The dolmen would go: “Whohooooo! Grats! What you are now? Five?” with true voices, maybe yelling from far away, for everyone to listen. Things like this really freak out the players. Noone expects a pile of rock to start talking to them or congratulate them for a level. It would really add a whole new level of entertainment to the game. Another of those “whoa!” moments, totally unexpected that you will remember for a long, long time and that would always remind you the game as something special and unique.

Then they could offer a long series of quests that should be all undepended from the level of the character. This mean that they should never depend on combat but on other gameplay elements like going to recuperate objects, obtain special recipes, go on long journeys and so on. To add again a depth to the interaction beyond combat and levels. The reward could be a mix of functional and “toy” purposes. The functional one could be the possibility for the dolmen to cast a special, unique buff on the player if the player is able to give the correct answer to a riddle, while the “toy rewards” could instead vary and would be there only for the amusement. For example the player could point the dolmen another player passing by and the dolmen could “spit” a small rock toward it, executing a high parabola and then landing precisely on top of the player’s head (if he didn’t move), doing very little damage but triggering that “what the hell?!” reaction. And then the dolmen would go “SCORE!”, yelling at its target and then laughing :)

The focus should be really about providing each dolmen its own unique personality and then add a good number of situational reactions that the players could try to discover just for the fun value. Some dolmens could whistle for example if a female elf passes by. Keeping a balance between making them an active and entertaining part of the environment still without becoming too annoying and repetitive. They should be able to notice the level of the player, a “ding”, if he is fighting or not, gender and race and the distance from the stone. These elements should be already enough to spring many different fun situations. Then the players would still be able to interact directly with them through the dialogue system. Asking them directions around the world or getting some informations about the lore of the zones.

Flying carpets
Just a quick note: A better animation from the flying carpets. They look really faked right now. They just translate horizontally without any semblance of realism and when they don’t move they still are too rigid, like if flying on a table more than a carpet. It wouldn’t be too hard making them more believable. An animation that makes them float up and down and ondulate more, both when idle and moving, could do wonders.