Hello To all of Goblinworks

[Hecubus]

Boy a lot of poeple I know are very hopeful of this project. I used to run, along with my partner a website called Gen3D. A little game called UO was out at the time. Than they announced another little game called Everquest.

We were one of the first companys to get in on the beta of that game, and we put out one of the earliest reviews of the game when they allowed us to publish information on it. We were really impressed despite the normal startup snags, lag and bugs. Varant was really jazzed by our review of it.

Since than I have just about played every single MMO that has come out, and have done reviews for other sites for about half of them.

My last love was Vanguard. It was amazing, and I still think it is amazing. Its still better in terms of graphics and class/race/mechanic structure than most out there.

Its been plagued with issues through the years though.

I wish to make some suggestions.

One of the things I noticed that keeps people interested in an MMO for the long term is the ability for a player be invested in the content in the game. NOT just the existing content, in fact its CUSTOM content.

This is what I mean.

Take a Guild managment interface for example. It needs the ability for the guild to change rank names, assign catagories manipulate the data in the guild manager to present it to the rest of the guild in a coherant but customizable fashion. You need to put the GUILD site that the guild might use, WITHIN a tab within the guildmanager, inside the game. SO that forums or even chat is availalble inside and outside the game. You need to have the ability to customize the symbols associated with your guild, some kind of Vetting process to make sure the images are acceptable (I suggest using the community to police itself, so that the load is not on the DEVs or online GMs to handle)

Your Control interface needs to be simple but supremely customizable. (My personal preference is not to use NUMBERS in the interface, maybe percentages, it takes away from the immersion, but many disagree with me on that note)

I HATE personally names floating above peoples heads. In EQ I recall playing on the PVP server once. (good and bad experineces) and I ran behind a big giant tree to hide from my assailant. MY NAME was floating there sticking out from either side of the tree. Failure to hide.

Have the name float over the head when the person is hovering his mouse over the character, to simulate LOOKING at them them. Have the ability for a person to choose weather or not there name appears above them when this happens (simulates keeping a low profile), or its blocked by line of site.

IF you have ships, don't let them be just for image alone. Allow them to be used to actually travel to locations you can't get to any other way. Accross the sea to get to another continant for instance. Let the random ecounters of the sea create the adventure for you. Have the ships give you the ability to hold your cargo (equimpment).

Let us use wagons to hold more loot and bags. let our horses have useable saddlebags, etc...

Have features Under the water. seaweed, volcanic activity, lava flows. etc....

Build the world that takes personal Flight into account. To control flight in areas where you want to control access to content. USE ariel encounters or wizards on hiltops throwing fireballs at you or somthing. DON'T just SUDDENLY have your mount cease to function in the air above controlled content.

If you get knocked off your mount in the air by a swooping dragon, so be it.... at least it happed IN the game, not by some arbitrary rule for the area. IF you summon a mount, allow us to MOUNT the mount. SKYRIM is an example of this. (although give a whistle or somthing to lure my mount to come to me)

If this is sandbox..... ALLOW people to exploit the enviornment NOT the Mechanics.

For instance If my party can TRAP a evil cow of death by running/leading it into a ravine so we can kill it easier. LET US do it. Just adjust the experience for the kill and give us a BONUS for setting such a trap. Don't penalize people for playing smart. Don't Nerf the mob later and have it POP out of the pit arbitrarily in front of the party and continue on its merry way. LET have the immersion that permits us to feel like there are some PHYSICS in the world.

If a mob becomes easier to take out because we take advantage of some geographic feature, than its because we are smart. Let us be smart.

Make items namebable by the person. I am really tired of everyone showing up to a raid all having the UBER SWORD Of CLEANSING DEMONS on there back because they all went on the epic quest to get it. HOW about such weapons being acquired via the players getting them MADE from Componants acquired from the EPIC quest. Than the player can name it the BOOGER SWORD OF CLEANSING WATERNYMS. Vetting the name with the community if needed.

I promise you if you have a awesome guild manament/progression system, a proper search system to find players to play with, a detailed Friends Roster that you can EDIT notes on your friends with, etc... All in place when the game starts. This will make HUGE inroads to keeping the community in the game.

NOTHING is more frutrating than having a crappy interface to play behind, than HAVING to wait one to two years for the team to getting around to improving it.

EVERY MMO I have played has messed with the playerbase this way. They put some really subpar interface in the game when it launches and they take forever to improve it.

Inventory UO I thought was best in this regard. BAGS popped open your screen and you dropped your items in the bag, all stacked on top. ONE thing I loved was, when a person was Pickpocketing my bags,

I would stack about 5 animal skins on top of precious items. When they snooped my bags and had to move the skins to see what was further in the bags, it gave me (like the real world) numerous opportunities (as many skins as they had to move) for me to detect the snooping. It was awesome and felt real. Immersion.

PVP.... hmmmmm this is hard... its the griefers. If you can provide us the means to Actually hide from an assailant (bushes, invisbility, all out running). A criminal system in place. such as... if I get murdered I get to report the crime, when the other person gets caught ALL his stolen loot gets returned to all the people he took it from, a man with a reputation of a murderer can't buy, bank or sell in any city and any player can see if that person has the repuation of murdering people so they can choose to interact with him or not. If you steal from somone you get Jailed by any guards that capture you. YOu pay huge fines, or you pay huge JAIL time which has to be payed ONLINE in the game. You can't just camp in jail though you have to be producing somthing in jail to pay your time.

PVP should be a heavy price to pay in your society. But I think everyone should be able to do it. Only place you can hang out in is the PIrate coves. You should be able to Legally duel each other, heck FULL raids should be able to duel each other...

YOUR GUILD can declare war on another guild... and fighting them doesn't penalize you at all...

ITS WAR....

I digress.... a lot

I would love to help you guys define some of the parameters in the game, because I would love to see a great sandbox MMO come into being. I would do it for a buck a month.

Need a good editor though, I am writing this on my phone.

Best wishes
Hecubus (Gene)