Player Faction Customizable Bulletin Board Missions
I’m not talking about the ability to create custom BB content, but the ability to customize, to some degree, some of the content that already appears there. Similar to how we can request Local Galnet News. Indeed, this would dovetail very well with that ability.
Imagine a Galnet article talking about The Dread Pirate Roberts in the nearby Xihor System harassing the trade ways in the current system. You could then request one of the standard “Kill Pirates” mission only you can specify to kill them in the current sys on behalf of your faction. You could also request an Assassination mission to go to Xihor and Kill the NPC Dread Pirate Roberts.
A second example. Create a Galnet Article detailing a recent viral outbreak on a planet side base and how some infected persons are seeking to break quarantine and flee. Create a handout mission asking for donations. Create another mission asking for medical supplies to be located and brought to the base. Or perhaps a pair of missions; One to smuggle sick patients away to a nearby starport and one perhaps to Kill Civilian ships smuggling the patients and stop the spread of the virus. One of these could be for an opposite faction to create some PvP potential. This would almost allow you to create Local Community Goals with RP gameplay as the additional reward rather than credits.
There would have to be limits on what can be requested to minimize abuse of the system.
1. I would think no more than 3 such Customized missions at any given time from your faction, per system.
2. Any such mission would expire after a set time, maybe 14 days so they do not stay there indefinitely
3. Specific rewards cannot be requested. The reward should be calculated in the standard way taking into account # items, rarity of items, distance traveled and danger involved.
4. The distance to the target system should be limited to perhaps 40-50 Ly. No recreating Sothis or Robigo runs to make your faction super-rich super-fast.
5. The missions appear randomly on the BB just as other missions do today. No guarantee they will be there for each BB visit.
6. The # of objects in Kill X, Deliver X, or Retrieve X missions should be randomly generated not player set. Again this helps to stop purposefully large pay out missions.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel, something along these lines would utilize already existing game mechanics, allowing Factions to add meaningful flavor to the game by altering the cosmetic text in the missions. I think this would help combat the perception of “Lack of Content” without altering existing game mechanics, which I would hope, would be easier than adding all new content from the ground up.
In the end, isn’t this what other games really do? I mean WoW is generally considered content rich. But its age has shown that in reality each new release is mostly the same content just re-skinned. Go here and kill X number of ______________(orcs, goblins, dryads, dragons), go there and bring back __________. They just change the flavor of the month: Outland, Northland, Elemental Land, Panda-Land. Not trying to disparage WoW, I played it for years and still have a fond spot for it. Just acknowledging that there are really only so many things you can do in a game. The difference is how that game presents these repetitions to you. Faction Customizable BB Missions would not only provide that ability but put some control in the player’s hand, which is kinda what “Sandbox” is all about.
I’m not talking about the ability to create custom BB content, but the ability to customize, to some degree, some of the content that already appears there. Similar to how we can request Local Galnet News. Indeed, this would dovetail very well with that ability.
Imagine a Galnet article talking about The Dread Pirate Roberts in the nearby Xihor System harassing the trade ways in the current system. You could then request one of the standard “Kill Pirates” mission only you can specify to kill them in the current sys on behalf of your faction. You could also request an Assassination mission to go to Xihor and Kill the NPC Dread Pirate Roberts.
A second example. Create a Galnet Article detailing a recent viral outbreak on a planet side base and how some infected persons are seeking to break quarantine and flee. Create a handout mission asking for donations. Create another mission asking for medical supplies to be located and brought to the base. Or perhaps a pair of missions; One to smuggle sick patients away to a nearby starport and one perhaps to Kill Civilian ships smuggling the patients and stop the spread of the virus. One of these could be for an opposite faction to create some PvP potential. This would almost allow you to create Local Community Goals with RP gameplay as the additional reward rather than credits.
There would have to be limits on what can be requested to minimize abuse of the system.
1. I would think no more than 3 such Customized missions at any given time from your faction, per system.
2. Any such mission would expire after a set time, maybe 14 days so they do not stay there indefinitely
3. Specific rewards cannot be requested. The reward should be calculated in the standard way taking into account # items, rarity of items, distance traveled and danger involved.
4. The distance to the target system should be limited to perhaps 40-50 Ly. No recreating Sothis or Robigo runs to make your faction super-rich super-fast.
5. The missions appear randomly on the BB just as other missions do today. No guarantee they will be there for each BB visit.
6. The # of objects in Kill X, Deliver X, or Retrieve X missions should be randomly generated not player set. Again this helps to stop purposefully large pay out missions.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel, something along these lines would utilize already existing game mechanics, allowing Factions to add meaningful flavor to the game by altering the cosmetic text in the missions. I think this would help combat the perception of “Lack of Content” without altering existing game mechanics, which I would hope, would be easier than adding all new content from the ground up.
In the end, isn’t this what other games really do? I mean WoW is generally considered content rich. But its age has shown that in reality each new release is mostly the same content just re-skinned. Go here and kill X number of ______________(orcs, goblins, dryads, dragons), go there and bring back __________. They just change the flavor of the month: Outland, Northland, Elemental Land, Panda-Land. Not trying to disparage WoW, I played it for years and still have a fond spot for it. Just acknowledging that there are really only so many things you can do in a game. The difference is how that game presents these repetitions to you. Faction Customizable BB Missions would not only provide that ability but put some control in the player’s hand, which is kinda what “Sandbox” is all about.
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