Space Ships and Space Combat
 

Hello. I've discussed this with Stefan a while ago, and I wanted to see what the public opinion is on this.

The concept is simply this: Rather then selecting a world, you use spaceships to travel to each world where you would then go into the player mode and play like normal. But when traveling, it is like a free for all adventure space battle deal. It is essentially what I did on Shifting Ages when I released for a shot amount of time (see attatched screenshot). The graphics would be new and improved, and most of all it would have zero lag.

This would allow for a more unique game and attract more players. For the players that do not like flying around in a spaceship fighting in space battles and prefer the current Zone configuration, some special warpers could be added in each area allowing you to instantly teleport to another world for a fee or something like that.

The concept behind acquiring a ship is the same behind getting new items. You need to raise enough money to buy a ship. Once you have a ship, there will be space tasks you can perform to get more money that way, or you could simply continue the regular Zone and get more that way. There would be multiple ships you could purchase, weapons, and other upgrades you would be able to apply.

There are a great deal of possibilities with this. Such as being able to board another persons ship and try and steal things from them. Or creating guilds of ships and having massive wars. Could even create ships that require more then one person to operate.

I feel this idea really does match the theme of Zone, and would expand the game a great deal. Tell me what you think about it, and if you think this would be a negative to Zone, or if you would enjoy it. Also feel free to add to the pool of ideas.

I wouldn't want to spend lots of time travelling just to change game types.

I like this idea. Giant space battles over a planet would rock.

I call first dibs on an x-wing! :cool:

It would probably not be good to change the current planet-selection too much, because an easy interface is always good, but such a space world could be interesting as a mission or as a connection to missions, like you need to travel to places where you need to do special objectives (get into the enemy base and steal some document, or kill the huge alien bugs who have terrorized a planet).

I think it'd be neat if you made a level where it was two ships really close together, and Team A would battle Team B in this type of level. The gravity would be reduced and you'd be able to 'jump' from one side of the ship to the other or use the faster method of teleporting. I basically got the idea from Halo. Not original but it'd be cool to play.

I like this idea, gives you something to do. :D

I agree with that, but it would be good to use it somewhere else though as it's a useable idea.

how about we have 2 main places, a space station, and a home world. You take the space station to the dropships, once on the dropships you can instantly teleport to any of the other dropships. So you're in your ship when traveling from home to the space station. home planet should be residential and probally include the monster hunting thing.

Well, I'm not sure if you guys read the post completely, (Stefan, Kaimetsu) but I said:

So in other words, for players who do not like this idea, they can simply play Zone as it currently is. For those who like space combat, and like Zone, they could use the ships to travel from planet to planet and do additional things on the way with the ships. For those who like only space combat, they could forget the current Zone stuff and just go for the space things.

It matches the current Zone perfectly, and will expand the playerbase a great deal because it will appeal to more people.

From here, there could be a variety of extra things that can be added - I won't mention those unless the idea currently on the wall is generally accepted.

Anyway, what this idea is essentially is a win-win situation. It will not hurt anyone, but it will help many. Hopefully you can see that.

Just have it as another selection from the planet menu. From which you can travel from planet to planet and all the other stuff. It would be another means of fighting anyway, just happens to include transport.

Would be neat to have protected and unprotected territory, the latter of which you could be hijacked by gangs or whoever.

Well, I think it should be that way I described. I say that not because your idea isn't valid; rather, one of the primary aspects of the idea I've presented is to make the worlds seem...more alive. Make it feel more authentic. Personally, I always feel games with an instant teleport system are phony and cheap. It isn't that hard to make a space aspect in a game; I made an entire game in Graal by myself in a total of about a ~weeks worth of time. If there were 3 or 4 people making this, it could be done very fast.

Anyway, I went in a little tangent...but my point is this would make Zone feel a lot more solid.

The words to which I objected were "for a fee". Nobody wants to spend time flying around just to change game type, and they certainly don't want to pay to do it, so you're just discouraging migration. This completely opposes what Zone really needs: Better distribution of players between the different planets.

I doubt it. I don't think many people would play.

Sadly, people only play Iricia all the time.

The current 4 planets would belong to the same solar system, you will not need to travel between them. But I see the star map thing as a good way to go to the missions - the current 4 planets would be just one small place on the map where you start at, but later you can buy your own space ship and fly to other planets and do missions.

This would seem more like a seperate game rather then a server. A lot of ideas, but the question is, will half of it ever be constructed?

Remember: You may be a master coder, but getting GFX done is a pain when you cant find anyone to do it for you.

Reply to Stefan:

This doesn't happen very often but for once I like an idea you've presented. The space ship system could be required to explore different solar systems - deep space travel and such. Then, once you reach a new solar system, it enters into the star map where you could either instantly teleport to a planet or use your ship to explore the solar system.

Eventually, an upgrade could be purchased for your ship that allows you to instantly teleport to the different solar systems you've visited.

Reply to Kaimetsu:

Well, sort of figured that. But it was only a possibility - just an idea I threw out. It could very well just be for free. And if it was for free, there would be no reason not to do this idea....it wouldn't effect anyone who would not like it.

We're all entitled to an opinion. But the fact is this: My goal in presenting this idea is not to appeal to the current playerbase (although I strongly feel it would appeal to them). That is the problem with Graal, and why we have no new players really - it is all the same old same old. If we expand the game to match the interests of more people, more players will want to play. Not from Graal regulars - from new players.

Reply to Gambet:

Not sure if you are catching this, but I am kind of implying I could do most/all of the graphics work. Scripting is really where this becomes tricky; I could in theory do all the scripting, but I would lose motivation very quickly and the quality of my script would keep going down.

Yes. Just an idea with which I disagreed.

I think we're probably getting lots of new players. We just don't notice them, since we only ever talk to a tiny subset of the whole.

But anyway, I'm all for diversifying. In the past I've drafted several designs for playerworlds, all of which attempt to break away from the status quo and explore new avenues. If I could reach a suitable agreement with Stefan/Unixmad then I'd be developing one of them now, but I know it's not going to happen.

The point is that diversity is good, but if you differ too much from Graal's theme then you lose the common denominator. Maybe that wouldn't happen here, but my gut feeling suggests otherwise.

This ideal is appealing but would be like Ratchet and Clank and get annoying very quickly. Its a good ideal for the one player missions like catching up to a ship in a space battle hijacking it and then blasting through the entire hallways and that to kill the boss in the **** pit.

....i could help with graphics?......if i was needed.......or if no one else will help......i like to draw!!!! so i have no problem with making up new things like different spaceships, maybe some could be faster than others? more drawing different parts for the ship that would make it better? or just helping :)