Another Long Term Evolution - Game World/Regions

[Lanidrak]

A way to make more quests and give more of a sense of adventuring in the world of Elements.

Right now we have AI0, AI1, AI2, AI3, Top50, AI5 and AI6 (False Gods). You simply click on the difficulty or type of opponent you would like, and then it randomly assigns you an opponent, either from the:
AI0 - completely random deck, made up mostly of pillars?
AI1 - completely random deck, more creatures/spells?
AI2 - still completely random, but more of a theme?
AI3 - a pre-built deck and 'more clever AI'
Top50 - a player in the Top50 with whatever he has loaded as his deck right now.
False God - a pre-built, highly specialized, 100% upgraded deck with advanced AI and 200hp.

This idea I propose is that we create a sort of game-map, with cities, towns, wilderness etc... Each city and town will give relevant quests to the wilderness which surrounds it. Each city will have a slightly different Bazaar from the one before it. Travelling from place to place (specifically crossing bodies of water, taking some form of air/or/magical transport) would cost Electrum. The wilderness areas will each have corresponding decks and AI difficulties within them.

The following are just examples.
Region: Highgren
City: Hillsborough
Elements: Air, Water, Life all for sale at the Bazaar.
Wilderness: Desolate Peaks, Aquanite Lagoons, Jadens' Swamp

Once you have traveled to Hillsborough, you can see what quests they have for you (changes monthly/with new content being added). Visit the Bazaar to buy a selection of cards from the Air, Water and Life elements - the selection will be random and change every x hours, or every time you leave and return to this region.

The three wilderness areas will contain element-specific decks and various AI levels of difficulty. For example, the Desolate Peaks will contain mostly Death and Earth, maybe Gravity. Aquanite Lagoons will contain Life, Aether and Air, Jadens Swamp will contain Death, Darkness and Entropy.

Every time you enter a wilderness region you will come across an elemental, but before going into combat it will show you the name of the elemental, each elemental will have a specific name and deck and will be of varying levels of difficulty relating to its specific AI routines and card combinations it uses.

When you come across an elemental, before entering combat you will have the choice to either 1) Flee, lost a number of electrum coins relating to its difficulty. or 2) Battle it. Different elementals drop 'cards' or have x% chance of dropping certain cards. For quests, elementals can also drop quest-specific items... For example the Council of Hillsborough might ask you to bring 5 Firefly Bulbs to them in exchange for a 'rare card' and say 500 electrum. These Firefly Bulbs will be dropped 50% of the time when fighting any elemental with Fireflies and/or Firefly Queens in their decks.

Some examples of Elementals you might encounter in Jadens Swamp, for example, could be Werewolf Packrunner, low level difficulty, 40 card Entropy/Darkness deck, running mostly Werewolves, Devourers, Parasites and Chaos Seeds... Another Example could be the Mutant Highlord, a 35 card mono-Entropy Deck, running Abominations, Improved Mutation, Chaos Power and a couple Amethyst Dragons.

False Gods could also be kept in these regions...


[this is just a draft, have to do something else on my laptop for a while - will continue typing it up and submit an edited and more thought out version later tonght/tomorrow]



But with the preliminary idea on the table, let me know what you think!

[undergoing editting]

There will be 8 regions.

Highgren
Cities: Hillsborough, Highpoint
Elements for sale: 8 Gravity Cards, 8 Earth Cards, 4 Air Cards, 2 Other Cards
Wildernesses: Two
Quests: Dragon-Hunter - kill 10 Dragon Flights for a reward of 450 Electrum
Grey Plateau:
Gravity and Earth
Example Decks:
Otyugh Pack - 6 Otyugh, 6 Plate Armors, 10 Gravity Pillars, 8 Earth Pillars, 4 Stone Skins, 5 Earthquakes, 4 Armaggios
Sapphire Warleader - 6 Sapphire Chargers, 5 Gravity Pulls, 4 Armaggios, 2 Otyugh, 12 Gravity Pillars, 1 Colossal Dragon
Golem Clan - 6 Helmatite Golems, 5 Earthquakes, 4 Gravity Pulls, 2 Otyugh, 8 Gravity Pillars, 5 Earth Pillars.
Dragon Flight - 6 Colossal Dragons, 6 Stone Dragons, 6 Momentums, 6 Heavy Armors, 10 Gravity Pillars, 10 Earth Pillars
Azure Peaks:
Air/Life and Death/Water
Example Decks:
Firefly Swarm - 6 Fireflies, 4 Firefly Queens, 3 Thunderstorms, 6 Novas, 12 Air Pillars
Poisonous Creeper - 6 Chrysaora, 2 Arsenic, 6 Poisons, 2 Skull Shields, 10 Death Pillars, 4 Water Pillars
Firefly Hivemaster - 6 Firefly Queens, 4 Rustlers, 2 Tridents, 12 Water Pillars, 4 Life Pillars, 2 Heals.
Dragon Flight (Water) - 6 Ice Dragons, 4 Freeze, 2 Ice Shields, 18 Water Pillars
Dragon Flight (air) - 6 Azure Dragons, 6 Thunderstorms, 18 Air Pillars
Dragon Flight (death) - 6 Bone Dragons, 2 Plagues, 2 Bone Walls, 2 Aflatoxins, 18 Death Pillars

[end of edit: will continue writing later today]

Regions to come include:
Fyreldia; a Time/Aether realm, on the verge of a dimensional gateway (false gods?)
Norpith; a Light/Death region where the powers fight for control
Skathia; a Fire/Entropy area, burnt out and chaotic
Del'vanu; a Life/Light area, peaceful and tranquil but hiding a secret (false gods?)

and many more.

[Kamietsu]

I skimmed over most of it. It doesn't sound too bad of an idea. Though with the different cities, make all the cards purchasable  in each city/place. It's such a pain having to go to different places to pick up specific things.

[Lanidrak]

Well, I guess that's true, Kamietsu.

I suppose it could be done like that, the alternative which I was hoping was for the City to sell say Elements 1, 2, 3. Then the wilderness around the city could drop Elements 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. That way, even though you're not strictly buying them, you're still coming across them and having a chance to win them through battle.

It will make people work harder to try and get a perfect deck and hold onto cards which they want to use in the future, instead of grinding, selling, grinding, selling, buying their ultimate deck and then grinding and upgrading.

[Scaredgirl]

This is actually pretty close to an idea I had some time ago.

It went something like this:

- there are 12 maps, one for each element
- each map is full of cities, small, medium and big (total of about 20-25), connected with roads

- you start in the map of your element and try to conquer the cities one by one
- there is a different storyline in all cities based on what kinds of decks your opponents have

- small cities give you electrum
- medium cities unlocks a card (you can then buy it in Bazar)
- big cities have the "final battle" against a a "boss" (level 5 or whatever), and give you a rare card + cash

- after finishing all the cities in your starter map, you will have unlocked all the cards in your element
- now you can travel to a map of one of the other 11 elements

- after beating 3 "bosses", you can travel to a new map and challenge False Gods.
etc.

Something like that.

I'm not trying to topic-hijack here. Just maybe giving you new ideas to work with.

[Lanidrak]

Interesting, SG.

I was going against the whole 'conquer each city', because while that would be cool as hell, what happens after you've done all of it?

We can't presumably create new worlds and cities as quickly as the most die-hard of players can complete the content.

I'll finish the edit on my original post tomorrow sometime, going to bed now - but the basic idea is that Cities have Quests which change over time/are random to a certain degree. There are random events as you travel from place to place, which can replace the Spinner to some degree.

For example, I travel from City A to City B and have a 10% chance of being ambushed by Highwaymen (30 card Darkness Deck). I also have a 1% chance of triggering a Quest which if i complete it will give me a Nymph (this quest will be hellishly hard to complete, such as a random False God, with the deck you currently have loaded).

Another change to the current game play would be how the whole False God thing works. Currently it says 'pay 30 electrum to challenge a False God' - you should at least be given some choice in which God you are challenging. Maybe you can only challenge a single god 5 times a day, I don't know.

Anyways, as I said, I'm off to bed - will update tomorrow!

Peace out.

[Cisco]

I like all these ideas and don´t think it be to hard to implement.

[Scaredgirl]

I was going against the whole 'conquer each city', because while that would be cool as hell, what happens after you've done all of it?

Well, those 12 maps would be like "noob islands" on MMO's. After that there could be other maps, like one for each False God, etc.

At some point the main PvE content would end and players would move to PvP or maybe there could be some kind of "raids" like in MMO's? Something where you gather a team of 4 players, each with their own deck and you have do a single "mission" or whatever.

I think that if Zanz wants to make Elements big, he should copy World of Warcraft as much as possible. I personally don't play it or even like it but that have really understood what a casual games (90% of playerbase) really wants. Anything that works for MMO's could be transferred to Elements as well.

We can't presumably create new worlds and cities as quickly as the most die-hard of players can complete the content.

Well, of course not. Zanz is just one guy and there is no way a one guy can create content . Even gaming companies that have hundreds of full-time employees cannot achieve this.

But that's not a reason not to add new content or create new worlds. When the content ends, it ends.

I like all these ideas and don´t think it be to hard to implement.

Almost nothing is hard to implement really, but with only one (or two?) developers it just takes a lot of time and we have to ask ourselves what we want the most.

[Kamietsu]

 After that there could be other maps, like one for each False God, etc.

The more I read of these ideas, the more it doesn't sound too terribly bad. But to keep the False Gods as random as they are in our ability to challenge them, you could give 30 electrum to some old wise-cracking fisherman to take you to one of the 12 "Forbidden Island" but you won't know which one it is until you arrive.

[xdude]

SG's idea is good but it would be pretty weird for players which already have acc's... And if these upgrades would be announced all players wold farm like hell to get 6 cards of ea, but that not really bad, just a misc fact.

[Lanidrak]

Bump: Added the region 'Highgren' in detail to the original post, will edit the mechanics and the 'how this should work' sections later today. Lunch time now.

[Lucifear]

Reading over this, and really liking the idea... This could separate players into cities, and create a learning curve for this game.
AI could not only be organized by skill, but by how difficult it would be to someone from that region. For example, players starting in a fire region would play normal decks at first, but maybe harder AI would have immaterial creatures, shields with reflect, etc.

I also like the idea of unlocking cards. Maybe have what are currently 'commons' unlocked, and perhaps we would have a new level of rarity...Just an example, but if each city had it's own nymph queen, defeating her would unlock the nymph for that region in the bazaar. Not rares, but certainly a goal.

But that's not a reason not to add new content or create new worlds. When the content ends, it ends.

I like all these ideas and don´t think it be to hard to implement.

Almost nothing is hard to implement really, but with only one (or two?) developers it just takes a lot of time and we have to ask ourselves what we want the most.

We could always help! Zanz could hold competitions, you could help create maps, art, cards, decks, or anything in exchange for some sort of prizes! I bet I'm not the only one who would donate art, coding help, or just about anything to this game for free...Elements is great, and I know plenty would help any way they could!

[Kamietsu]

Reading over this, and really liking the idea... This could separate players into cities, and create a learning curve for this game.
AI could not only be organized by skill, but by how difficult it would be to someone from that region. For example, players starting in a fire region would play normal decks at first, but maybe harder AI would have immaterial creatures, shields with reflect, etc.

I also like the idea of unlocking cards. Maybe have what are currently 'commons' unlocked, and perhaps we would have a new level of rarity...Just an example, but if each city had it's own nymph queen, defeating her would unlock the nymph for that region in the bazaar. Not rares, but certainly a goal.

But that's not a reason not to add new content or create new worlds. When the content ends, it ends.

I like all these ideas and don´t think it be to hard to implement.

Almost nothing is hard to implement really, but with only one (or two?) developers it just takes a lot of time and we have to ask ourselves what we want the most.

We could always help! Zanz could hold competitions, you could help create maps, art, cards, decks, or anything in exchange for some sort of prizes! I bet I'm not the only one who would donate art, coding help, or just about anything to this game for free...Elements is great, and I know plenty would help any way they could!

I could definitely help with the Art