I finally got JWE, and have been playing it. This is a very shallow game. I SINCERELY hope that JWE is just a stepping stone to laying down the foundation for a good Jurassic Park game. So here's how to do it:
Repeat this mantra: Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity.
1.) It doesn't matter if there are 30, 40, or 50 dinosaurs if they are all identical. It doesn't matter if there are 100 dinosaurs in JWE if you can't fit more than 15 in any given park. Quality over quantity. So cut the number down to 15 (or so). AND make every single dinosaur have a unique behavior. I'm not just talking about the Dino's stat screen being different. I mean an actual quantifiable behavior and way of acting different than the others.
If I make a pack of velociraptors, they should be causing so much strife. And right now they just don't. 15 individual dinosaurs with unique behavioral traits is better than 50 clones with new models.
Further, every single Dino should have a memory. If an overhead helicopter hits them with a tranquilizer, they should fear the helicopter until the helo passes over them several times without incident. I.E. This game should feel like you're battling living, breathing creatures that have their own desires, wants, and foibles. If you do it well enough, you can program in pack behavior or experiences learned through the pack. I.E. If one deinonychus hits the fence, the rest will also learn that it's a bad spot. But if two hit the fence they notice the warning lights dimming...
2.) The genetic system. While interesting, completely ignores all the lore from the movies, and from the books. So we're going to change it completely.
To start, it's easy to harvest fossils to get a specific dino genome up to 50%. Then it is spectacularly difficult to get the genome up to 100%.
You can't birth an animal that's missing half of its chromosomes. So the NEW genetic system is about filling in the rest of the genome with various modern day animal genes to get the dino up to 100%. The catch is that the new genes make the dino's react unpredictably. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in ways you'd not expect. But since you can't make money off of an unborn dino, you must deal with this problem. AND every single gene may react differently with every single dino species. Introducing Raven DNA in a Carnotaurus may make them start experimenting with tools, but the same DNA in the same spot with Edmontosauruses will make them hold funerals for the dead. (No, really, ravens do that.)
Let me give you an example from the book / movie: In the first one, they made all the dino's female to prevent them from breeding. BUT they used frog DNA to fill in some of the gaps. This DNA allowed some of the Dino's to change gender, and allowed them to breed and multiply under their noses.
This would be the purpose of the Gene system. You'd be forced to compromise on the genetics of an animal in order to put them in your park, but you'd have to deal with your choices as the animals act oddly. The ultimate goal would be to introduce 100% complete genome dinosaurs which would be much more stable and predictable, but you gotta make money to get there, so you have to deal with 50->70->90% genome dinos to do it.
3.) Scale / Park size. Either the scale of items within the park is off, or the usable areas of the park are too small. We need some sort of way to either expand the size of the buildable areas, or they need to be bigger to begin with.
4.) Adjusting the missions / contracts. On the surface they are a lot of fun and interesting. But the back bone of the favor / influence system is just poorly thought out. Take for example a mission I just got: Hatch 8 Dinosaurs. This had a rating of Science +4, Entertainment -2, and Security -2. Now, why would the Entertainment division NOT want 8 more dinosaurs in the park? It's just silly to have the contracts be +4, -2, -2 to the different factions every single time. This example mission should have had a rating of Science +4, Entertainment +2, and Security -1. Security would be mad about having 8 new dinos for no reason, but they would still benefit from it somewhat.
5.) The sandbox needs the option to make it cash optional. I.E. Start with $10 mil, and build it from there.
6.) ACU's vs. Rangers. From mission 1 I thought it was silly that rangers couldn't do everything. It was very clear that ACU's should be the more expensive, quicker acting Rangers who can do most everything that the Rangers could.
7.) Economics. At a point in every mission I've done so far, I got to a stage where money was no concern. I need not even bother looking at my bank account or income per minute because I'm making more money than I could possibly dream of spending. But it shouldn't be this way. The bigger a park is, the more expensive it should be.
For example, in the game "Total War: Rome 2" they had a neat mechanic called "Corruption." As your empire grew in size, so did the number of dirty bureaucrats operating in your empire. These people would siphon off more money the larger you got. This is a clever system to check your progress when you're growing. So you don't capture half of europe, and have so much money that no one can stop you.
JWE needs a mechanic like this. I can't think of what to call it, but some function that subtracts more money the larger your park footprint.
8.) Grand Campaign. We're going old school for this one. The Main Campaign starts in the 1980's with the original park. Including original 3D models, AND original technology. You'll have to build up the OG park with the track riding Jeeps and the DOS security systems.
Then you'll see simulated time scale. You'll have day and night schedules, and the park will progress through the years. You wouldn't see 365 day/nights per year, but maybe only 10 day / nights to show the progression of time per year, ala Tropico.
New technology will become available as the years advance, or you'll have to research them, or both. The value of money will change due to inflation. Hyper expensive technology in the 1980's will be commonplace and cheap in 2020. But new technology will itself be expensive.
An example from the lore: The first park kept track of the dinosaurs via cameras posted around the park. Your park will have to mount cameras in order to track the dinos. Any dino not in camera view will not be tracked. In the Jurassic World park, the dinos are tracked via subcutaneous trackers, which also give them a shock if they approach the borders of their zones.
9.) Failure. At some point with these new, dangerous and clever dinosaurs, you're going to lose. It's going to happen. Maybe you shouldn't have bred those Velociraptors that ate everyone. Now your park is empty and people won't come back. So what happens if you fail?
Your corporate sponsors will give you the opportunity to retake the park. They'll give you some ranger crews, some money, and you get a shot at reclaiming the island. Maybe you kill all the bad dinosaurs. Maybe you capture and rehouse them. It's up to you. But if you fail at retaking the island, you fail for good. Have to start over or revert to an earlier save (probably much earlier).
10.) Islands. While the islands were interesting in that they had separate layouts and missions (not withstanding the problems I've already highlighted), we're using the islands for their original purposes.
(If you think about it, the parceling of the islands in JWE is stupid. Why would you build 6 (SIX!) separate dinosaur parks right next to each other? If these were one off missions just for fun, it would be one thing. But it's part of the main story. So we'll be ditching that concept.)
Each island will have its own purpose, and you'll be able to switch between them at will. You'll have the main park island. You'll have the science island, where all the research is done. You'll have the dinosaur testing island, where you can test out new dino's to make sure they won't go bonkers when you put them next to people. Lastly you'll have the Baby Dinosaur island. This is where the baby dinosaurs are hatched, and grown before they are put in the park. (The 5th island we'll cover momentarily.)
11.) DLC. Now we can come out swinging for the fences with Hybridization and Dr. Wu. Do it for real. Every single dinosaur in the game can be mixed with all the others. It might not work, but you can try. They hybrids bring in a lot of fame and money, but they always cause problems. There would be maybe 5-10 hybrids (each fully fleshed out) from combinations of 2-3 dinosaurs.
Dr. Wu's experiments would happen on the 5th island. Sequestered from the rest, it'd be your job to figure out which dinosaurs can mix with the others, and how to deal with them as they grow up.
You can also introduce other dinosaurs as other DLC, but remember, quantity over quality. Every single dinosaur introduced must be fully fleshed out behavior wise.
12.) Research system. The research was pretty well implemented in JWE, but I'd introduce new tiers, like 4 and 5. Make them progressively better stats, but MUCH more expensive and time consuming to research. So that way a player would have to prioritize a new research item over a new dinosaur, possibly.
(Note that if we're doing a grand campaign of 80's->20's, we may need more than 4-5 tiers of stuff. I was just bring up 4 and 5 as examples for the current levels of research.)
13.) Buildings. The number of structures is pitiful. But if we stick to my Grand Campaign idea, we can really stretch it out. For example, we currently have the Incubation center, the Fossil Center, and the Expedition Center. If we're splitting up the islands, we can split up the Fossil center into Fossil Center and Amber Center. Then we need a Genetics building to splice in animal DNA into the dino's. Then on a separate island, we need a Hatchery for creating and incubating the eggs. Then a "Daycare Center" for taking care of the baby dino's (not to mention paddocks for the adolescent ones). Lastly we'd need a staging building on the main island for distributing the newly adult dinos. 3 buildings become 7 with very little effort.
So what do you think? Would JWE:2 be worth it with my ideas?
Repeat this mantra: Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity.
1.) It doesn't matter if there are 30, 40, or 50 dinosaurs if they are all identical. It doesn't matter if there are 100 dinosaurs in JWE if you can't fit more than 15 in any given park. Quality over quantity. So cut the number down to 15 (or so). AND make every single dinosaur have a unique behavior. I'm not just talking about the Dino's stat screen being different. I mean an actual quantifiable behavior and way of acting different than the others.
If I make a pack of velociraptors, they should be causing so much strife. And right now they just don't. 15 individual dinosaurs with unique behavioral traits is better than 50 clones with new models.
Further, every single Dino should have a memory. If an overhead helicopter hits them with a tranquilizer, they should fear the helicopter until the helo passes over them several times without incident. I.E. This game should feel like you're battling living, breathing creatures that have their own desires, wants, and foibles. If you do it well enough, you can program in pack behavior or experiences learned through the pack. I.E. If one deinonychus hits the fence, the rest will also learn that it's a bad spot. But if two hit the fence they notice the warning lights dimming...
2.) The genetic system. While interesting, completely ignores all the lore from the movies, and from the books. So we're going to change it completely.
To start, it's easy to harvest fossils to get a specific dino genome up to 50%. Then it is spectacularly difficult to get the genome up to 100%.
You can't birth an animal that's missing half of its chromosomes. So the NEW genetic system is about filling in the rest of the genome with various modern day animal genes to get the dino up to 100%. The catch is that the new genes make the dino's react unpredictably. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in ways you'd not expect. But since you can't make money off of an unborn dino, you must deal with this problem. AND every single gene may react differently with every single dino species. Introducing Raven DNA in a Carnotaurus may make them start experimenting with tools, but the same DNA in the same spot with Edmontosauruses will make them hold funerals for the dead. (No, really, ravens do that.)
Let me give you an example from the book / movie: In the first one, they made all the dino's female to prevent them from breeding. BUT they used frog DNA to fill in some of the gaps. This DNA allowed some of the Dino's to change gender, and allowed them to breed and multiply under their noses.
This would be the purpose of the Gene system. You'd be forced to compromise on the genetics of an animal in order to put them in your park, but you'd have to deal with your choices as the animals act oddly. The ultimate goal would be to introduce 100% complete genome dinosaurs which would be much more stable and predictable, but you gotta make money to get there, so you have to deal with 50->70->90% genome dinos to do it.
3.) Scale / Park size. Either the scale of items within the park is off, or the usable areas of the park are too small. We need some sort of way to either expand the size of the buildable areas, or they need to be bigger to begin with.
4.) Adjusting the missions / contracts. On the surface they are a lot of fun and interesting. But the back bone of the favor / influence system is just poorly thought out. Take for example a mission I just got: Hatch 8 Dinosaurs. This had a rating of Science +4, Entertainment -2, and Security -2. Now, why would the Entertainment division NOT want 8 more dinosaurs in the park? It's just silly to have the contracts be +4, -2, -2 to the different factions every single time. This example mission should have had a rating of Science +4, Entertainment +2, and Security -1. Security would be mad about having 8 new dinos for no reason, but they would still benefit from it somewhat.
5.) The sandbox needs the option to make it cash optional. I.E. Start with $10 mil, and build it from there.
6.) ACU's vs. Rangers. From mission 1 I thought it was silly that rangers couldn't do everything. It was very clear that ACU's should be the more expensive, quicker acting Rangers who can do most everything that the Rangers could.
7.) Economics. At a point in every mission I've done so far, I got to a stage where money was no concern. I need not even bother looking at my bank account or income per minute because I'm making more money than I could possibly dream of spending. But it shouldn't be this way. The bigger a park is, the more expensive it should be.
For example, in the game "Total War: Rome 2" they had a neat mechanic called "Corruption." As your empire grew in size, so did the number of dirty bureaucrats operating in your empire. These people would siphon off more money the larger you got. This is a clever system to check your progress when you're growing. So you don't capture half of europe, and have so much money that no one can stop you.
JWE needs a mechanic like this. I can't think of what to call it, but some function that subtracts more money the larger your park footprint.
8.) Grand Campaign. We're going old school for this one. The Main Campaign starts in the 1980's with the original park. Including original 3D models, AND original technology. You'll have to build up the OG park with the track riding Jeeps and the DOS security systems.
Then you'll see simulated time scale. You'll have day and night schedules, and the park will progress through the years. You wouldn't see 365 day/nights per year, but maybe only 10 day / nights to show the progression of time per year, ala Tropico.
New technology will become available as the years advance, or you'll have to research them, or both. The value of money will change due to inflation. Hyper expensive technology in the 1980's will be commonplace and cheap in 2020. But new technology will itself be expensive.
An example from the lore: The first park kept track of the dinosaurs via cameras posted around the park. Your park will have to mount cameras in order to track the dinos. Any dino not in camera view will not be tracked. In the Jurassic World park, the dinos are tracked via subcutaneous trackers, which also give them a shock if they approach the borders of their zones.
9.) Failure. At some point with these new, dangerous and clever dinosaurs, you're going to lose. It's going to happen. Maybe you shouldn't have bred those Velociraptors that ate everyone. Now your park is empty and people won't come back. So what happens if you fail?
Your corporate sponsors will give you the opportunity to retake the park. They'll give you some ranger crews, some money, and you get a shot at reclaiming the island. Maybe you kill all the bad dinosaurs. Maybe you capture and rehouse them. It's up to you. But if you fail at retaking the island, you fail for good. Have to start over or revert to an earlier save (probably much earlier).
10.) Islands. While the islands were interesting in that they had separate layouts and missions (not withstanding the problems I've already highlighted), we're using the islands for their original purposes.
(If you think about it, the parceling of the islands in JWE is stupid. Why would you build 6 (SIX!) separate dinosaur parks right next to each other? If these were one off missions just for fun, it would be one thing. But it's part of the main story. So we'll be ditching that concept.)
Each island will have its own purpose, and you'll be able to switch between them at will. You'll have the main park island. You'll have the science island, where all the research is done. You'll have the dinosaur testing island, where you can test out new dino's to make sure they won't go bonkers when you put them next to people. Lastly you'll have the Baby Dinosaur island. This is where the baby dinosaurs are hatched, and grown before they are put in the park. (The 5th island we'll cover momentarily.)
11.) DLC. Now we can come out swinging for the fences with Hybridization and Dr. Wu. Do it for real. Every single dinosaur in the game can be mixed with all the others. It might not work, but you can try. They hybrids bring in a lot of fame and money, but they always cause problems. There would be maybe 5-10 hybrids (each fully fleshed out) from combinations of 2-3 dinosaurs.
Dr. Wu's experiments would happen on the 5th island. Sequestered from the rest, it'd be your job to figure out which dinosaurs can mix with the others, and how to deal with them as they grow up.
You can also introduce other dinosaurs as other DLC, but remember, quantity over quality. Every single dinosaur introduced must be fully fleshed out behavior wise.
12.) Research system. The research was pretty well implemented in JWE, but I'd introduce new tiers, like 4 and 5. Make them progressively better stats, but MUCH more expensive and time consuming to research. So that way a player would have to prioritize a new research item over a new dinosaur, possibly.
(Note that if we're doing a grand campaign of 80's->20's, we may need more than 4-5 tiers of stuff. I was just bring up 4 and 5 as examples for the current levels of research.)
13.) Buildings. The number of structures is pitiful. But if we stick to my Grand Campaign idea, we can really stretch it out. For example, we currently have the Incubation center, the Fossil Center, and the Expedition Center. If we're splitting up the islands, we can split up the Fossil center into Fossil Center and Amber Center. Then we need a Genetics building to splice in animal DNA into the dino's. Then on a separate island, we need a Hatchery for creating and incubating the eggs. Then a "Daycare Center" for taking care of the baby dino's (not to mention paddocks for the adolescent ones). Lastly we'd need a staging building on the main island for distributing the newly adult dinos. 3 buildings become 7 with very little effort.
So what do you think? Would JWE:2 be worth it with my ideas?
