Thread: Ideas and suggestions

Hey, everyone, first post. I found this forum a few days ago and have been reading through it, and I gotta tell ya - I'm pretty excited about this. I'm utterly amazed at what you're doing. That being said... I have no skills that would be useful, as my scripting ability is limited to basic GECK scripting, etc. You guys are on a whole other level than me. I have been playing Fallout for quite a while though, and hope that I can help with testing, suggestions, etc. I think I have a pretty good idea how this is going to work, please correct me if I don't grasp it as well as I think. As each server would be set up differently, I understand that not all of these would apply equally, and I'm looking forward to the fact that if we don't like the way any of the servers have the game set up, we can make one ourselves. That's just fantastic. I will try to focus on basic game mechanics, though.

I really don't see how it's feasible to have any vanilla game functions that stop time or quickly advance time such as VATS, sleeping, pause, etc. When using a pip boy for inventory purposes the pause wouldn't work for that reason, as well as while bartering, or any other item or player inventory menu, etc. While this could work in theory, it would seriously suck in practice for other players affected by those pauses.

As far as main quests, or other quests, as a general rule I have no idea how those would work. The most obvious example is Power Of The Atom, etc. If one player blows up Megaton, it would obviously affect everyone else on the server. Same with the player home if you take the other direction, really only one person would be able to live there, etc. Some other examples would be quests such as Stealing Independence, where you have a single, specific item that needs to be removed from it's location and brought to another. The only person that would be able to do it on the server would be the first person that completes it.

Some suggestions that might work would be that certain areas are single player only areas, such as Megaton. When you enter Megaton, you are now in a single player only world. This way you can do the Power Of The Atom quest (though only disarming it) and gain a living space in the normal player home. Outside the gates is MP, inside is SP. It could work, I suppose. I have no idea how difficult it would be, or if it's even possible.

On the flip side of that coin, each person could do the disarm quest for XP and caps, like normal. But once you disarm it, you cannot do the quest again with that PC. The next guy through the gate could still talk to Lucas Simms, and disarm the same bomb you just did, and collect a reward... but not the player home.

For each of those you would have to remove some of the NPC dialog, and the options for blowing it up, etc. Remove Burke from Megaton, empty his house, etc. Whatever. I would also think that certain NPC's that know you or your father personally, such as Moriarty or Dr. Li, should have dialog options removed that specifically ID you as James' son/daughter. Have all of them treat you as a normal person in dialog. To do this a lot of the main quest would have to be disabled, and certain areas opened up that are only accessible through the main quest. Afterall, you're just another wastelander right?

Stealing Independence could be done similarly, where the entire game world inside the National Archives respawns when a player gets the quest from Abraham Washington. After that player finishes the quest, and removes the Declaration, the world stays at it is. Robots dead, containers looted, etc. To respawn it, a different player must get the quest from Washington, and the National Archives world respawns then. Sydney would have to stay there, though. Instead of her being a follower or leaving the NA to hang at Rivet City, she could just chill out there. Again, just spit balling.

As far as in-game chat, I gotta say that I prefer the way it's done in 2238. Hitting the enter key opens up the text box, you type, and hit enter to send it. If the text box is empty, hitting enter closes it. It gets very, very easy to use pretty quickly. The Enter key is useless in the vanilla game during play, anyway. I also like how the option to see the different players names floating above their head is implemented. Makes it easy to spot your friends or enemies when they enter. I would suggest that as long as they are in your Perception range, you can see their name tagged above their head. If you want to tag them as friends or enemies, I like that function, but have no preference for how it's done, if done at all.

A few people mentioned radios, and I gotta say, I love using radio's. They make it incredibly easy to keep in contact with your friends, do multi-player missions where you aren't near each other, etc. I don't like the idea of seeing your friends on your pip-boy map at all times. I would think that if they want to be found, they can tell you where they are over the radio. If they are out in the waste in a random cell, they can send a distress signal that puts a red waypoint on your compass, etc. Anyone who has played 2238 should know what I mean, as it's one of the most useful features of that game.

Player death is always a fun topic. In the vanilla game when you die, you respawn pretty quickly. And you respawn with all your gear at your last save point. Obviously, I assume that save points are not possible in this mod. How long does the players body lay on the ground after death? Is the player able to be looted? When the player respawns will they have their gear on them still? Do they only have what gear was not looted? I would personally prefer that each player is dead for the duration of say a minute, and in that time they can be looted - of anything and everything. Weapons, caps, armor, ammo, etc. If everyone is nice and leaves you with all your inventory, you respawn with it. If people are cruel and leave you with nothing, you respawn with nothing. If they take it all, and leave a single round of 10mm and a crappy pistol on you, well that's what you get on respawn.

I like the idea of starting the game via FWE, in an abandoned shack. Perhaps this could be a player home, perhaps the shack drops you in a random spot in the wastes when you exit, forever unable to return to the shack. Don't know, don't care really. As long as I can get into the MP world, I'll be happy. But I do like it, and I've always played with FWE for that reason. If the shack was used as a player home, then random shacks would appear on the map every time someone made a character. As far as how to handle player homes, if any, I have no idea. Maybe a series of abandoned hotels with available rooms from an NPC, rentable by the game week/day/whatever. If the number of PC on a server is limited, you might be able to match that number to the number of available rooms. Some could be at Tenpenny, some at Megaton, some at Rivet City, Big Town, etc. Maybe build a few new locations, small towns, whatever. So if there are 50 players limited to a server, then possibly 50 rooms/shacks/etc available total. You could get a key when you rent the room, that is not able to be looted (or maybe it should be?), and the key is removed from inventory if you don't pay your rent. heh

Anyway, that's just the stuff I remember thinking while reading this thread. I'll keep reading, and hopefully install the available alpha version soon and give it a shot, so I can give a more informed opinion...

personally i reckon there should only be one house, but when players enter it they go to there own version of the house so the house is sp only but everything else is mp and maybe you could invite people to enter your house, like giving them keys in there inventory, then when they go to enter the house they have the option to enter there house or anyones house they have the keys to

[quote author=Recycler link=topic=16.msg679#msg679 date=1312822267]
I suppose it's pretty much impossible to enable VATS without pausing the game. I may re-implement VATS, but this would require to freeze everybodys game when a player enters VATS mode. The server can define a rule like that every player is allowed to use VATS once every 30 minutes or so
[/quote]
IMO, there wouldn't be VATS in mp because freezing of everybody is quiet annoying. Example I'm going to city X and I meet someone which is fighting with NPC and he use VATS. I will freeze and must wait for end combat/VATS but I don't want to fight. There should be only real time fight or special gametypes for VATS (turn based) fights or options for enabled/disabled VATS.

[quote author=Dantiko link=topic=16.msg717#msg717 date=1312920140]
Also, CouncilOfDave the idea of a single house sucks because if a gang of pks camp outside it when you leave with all your money on your way to buy something, you would be transformed into [size=36pt]GOO[/size]
[/quote]

I never suggested the idea of a single house. I suggested the idea of many houses, available at the location of your choosing (availability dependent, of course)... or making Megaton single-player only when you enter/exit the gates. Again, I don't know the best way to do all of this, they were just random ideas.

As far as PK's camping at your house, nothing will stop that, no matter where each player lives. They can also camp at the entrance/exit to any town, any trader, or any main travel route. How do I know? I'm a PK. I'll be the guy poppin' players in the grape with a round of .308 for fun and loot, and I won't have to wait outside their place to do it, either. At least if Megaton is a single-player only world when you enter, you can fast travel from your porch and not have to exit the gates. (Although I dislike the idea of fast travel in a MP game, without significant limitations on it.)

Even having guarded towns/merchants really only does so much. Then all you need is two people - one to kill the player, the other to loot him without drawing fire from guard NPC's.

I consider this all to be "The Wasteland", and pretty much expected of any Fallout MMO. And even if it's not me, it will be someone else.

But like i said, just throwing out suggestions.

It seems to me that, VATS doesn't fit to play multiplayer especially with the open world. Would be a little strange to travel the wilderness and not see someone who fights with raiders before us. After the fight that suddenly appeared, because VATS has passed. I think a good solution would be to completely remove the VATS system and improve the elements of FPS and action points.

You understand that VATS is a good option for single player, but is not suitable for multiplayer. Anyway, if someone really wanted to fight that only in VATS I suggest you do the 2 battle modes: real-time combat and VATS (turn based) combat for disabled/enabled by admin/owner server.

We can use bullet time for 3-5 sec in combat if you example have perk or something. Bullet time will be something like VATS but it doesn't stop everybody.

I'm already working on a perk based crafting/professions mod... lol. Whether or not I'll sever set up a server remains to still be seen, but I gotta have SOMETHING to do.