I was thinking of a strong relationship between the deity and his avatar. As the Avatar completes tasks, he strengthens the Deity, and the Deity can challenge the Avatar to gain his or her favor by completing a heroic task, like slaying a Hydra. If the Avatar completes the task, he increases his strength, allowing him to do harder tasks that make the Deity even stronger. But what's the point of having a strong Deity? Spells. The Avatar is, at the most, a demi-god. He's physically and/or mentally superior to normal human, but he doesn't have superpowers. So, as the Deity gets stronger, he can cast spells for the Avatar, everything from lightning strikes to healing the Avatar's wounds.
Man, you guys are tossing out a ton of great ideas, most of which have totally not occured to me at this point. I'll spend some time elaborate a bit on one particular aspect of the game.
As to the rudeness, well, I play Halo enough to have developed a thick skin to it. If they want to take the time to rip on ideas, I'll give respect to a good burn. Lame burns are met only with scorn.
If I'm going to be playing as a God, then I'm not going to put up with killing boars for an hour in order to "level up". No, not even if they're divine boars.
Hey.
That guy back in town NEEDS those Divine Tusks, man. Don't let him down.
My original intent in the original post was to lay out an intriguing mechanic, and this bare bones effort left me subject to a few legitimate and whithering attacks. The comments that most resonated with me observation that I have conceived a game that had not just one grind, but DUAL grinds built the game. In order to counter this terrifying prospect I've decided to add a bit more to the framework. I apologize for the length of the post, but I'm prone to offering examples.
Avatars
I'll start with the easier of the two to explain: the Avatar. I spoke briefly about two possible systems, the second system described the role of the Avatar as the God's earthly minion, who seeks to spread the gospel of his God. Let's talk about the framework where this occurs.
At the inception of the server's creation, the Mortal Realm will be blessed with a specific number of souls (NPCs). As the server's player population increases, the NPC population will also increase. The NPC population cap will serve the purpose of constantly creating a tension between the fledgling religions and the Avatars who seek to grow them. Avatars must therefore either find and convert an NPC upon his initial entry into the Mortal Realm or steal the follower from another religion.
So, how is this accomplished? Well, through a variety of ways, and certain means will be more successful with certain NPCs and within the boundaries of certain regions on the map. For instance, if you have a desire to create a religion devoted to a bloodthirsty savage God, you would send a VICIOUS ATTACK AVATAR to the Mortal Realm. More importantly, you would send your emmissary to a region that values these traits (such as a warrior nomad tribe) as your message is more likely to be well received and result in converts.
As a Warrior Religion, you may convince this nomad tribe to follow you in a variety of ways. Your Avatar could defeat notable creatures in the surrounding area. He could duel the lead warrior in a display of dominance. He could kill an opposing tribe's chieftan. Each of these actions would leave an impression on the region and its inhabitants. Actions contrary to these behaviors (losing battles, duels, showing benevolence) would likewise decrease your ability to win converts and may even lose you converts. Of course, should you ever achieve a dominant position in the tribe's hearts, you would always need to be wary of competing Avatars attempting to steal them away.
Let's say Warrior Avatar isn't you thing. You want to become the God of Knowledge and seek followers that appreciate you for this trait. You elect to send down your Avatar to MegaCity, a center of knowledge and learning. You seek to convince followers to come to your cause by writing prose/books, delivering speeches, engaging in local politics, and using diplomacy to avoid conflicts. As your Avatar becomes known as a beacon of insight, the religion grows, and the God prospers from the influx of devotion.
Gods
Evading a God grind is somewhat more difficult for me. I believe there are a few mechanisms that may be implemented to evade the grind, but one idea (pirated from a fellow poster) I found intriguing is to have the Immortal Realm function as a PvP realm (this is certainly not the only solution.) Now, the initial difficulty I had with this is: how do we determine the battles? I mean, if a God doesn't just grind levels up, then how does he get stronger? And how do I limit PvP interactions to Gods of relatively strength and power?
Well, the answer comes from the feedback loop I mentioned in my original post on the matter. The Avatar's power and the God's power would be tied together. Success for one would result in success for the other. The key lies in the followers and the strength of the Religion. A successful Avatar would result in a strong religion, which would then result in more power being accorded to the God. The Immortal PvP Realm would therefore contain battlefields devoted to the various different strengths of religions. As the strength of the religion increases, the powers the God may bring to bear increase.
So, a new player may have a Religion of only one follower. Until his Avatar gets cracking, his God will be confined to the lowest PvP realm. The battles would entail relatively uninspired sparring between these lesser Godlings. Small sparks of lightning and brittle heavenly swords would clash.
A more dedicated player would have a massive following. He would enter the highest echelons of the Immortal Realm and the battles would involve breathtaking feats of strength and magic. Gods would summon legions to do battle on their behalf. Earthquakes would rattle the countryside. Destruction, mayhem and so forth.
Well...that's just one take on how the Immortal Realm might work. There is one critical element I am leaving out, which would be the Pantheons. This game mechanism would add an additional layer of complexity to the battles in addition to making the game much more compelling for players that don't have as much time to dedicate to the game. But that's for tomorrow.
The time for idle gameplay is behind us, it's time to move on to idol gameplay. Avatarus (a Fizzle Co. vision) would create a bifurcated gaming experience where players develop two characters simultaneously: a God and an Avatar. Rule the Immortal Realm above and then rule the miserable Mortal Realm below. This game need not be an MMO, but given my addiction to MMO ideas, I'm going to present it as one. Let's get into the possibilities I find particularly intriguing...
Two Characters, Same Rules
The God
The character creation screen pops up. What type of GOD do you want to be?
A warrior god? Very well sir, rippling muscles and horns are at your disposal. Rampage through the battlefields of the heavenly abodes at will. Oh, a great intellect are we? A Divinity of Divination you shall be. Hurl spells from hands and scathing repartees from yammering maw.
In essence, your God is the equivalent of your character in a standard MMO. The only meaningful difference would be the world around you, which would instead focus on heavenly/hellish themes. You would progress through the game and you would level up your character as one normally does (quests/grinds/etc.)
The Avatar
This is where the story gets interesting. The God would, at some reasonably early point in his development, gain the ability to create an Avatar (I will avoid talking about the ins and outs of this, but suffice to say, the ways and means of this process create intriguing possibilities in and of themselves, which I will likely discuss tomorrow). This Avatar would populate an entirely separate realm, namely the Mortal Realm. Since your God cannot interact with this realm, he will rely on his Avatar to conduct his earthly business. In the Same Rules framework, this would merely add an additional layer to the Immortal Realm content, and the Avatar would develop and operate very similarly to the God.
This framework would be decidedly easier to implement than the following idea.
Two Characters, Different Rules
Here the roles of the two characters will operate under different objectives. The God would continue an objective similar to that described above: leveling up to become more powerful/prominent in heaven. The Avatar would be created for the purpose of attracting followers to the God who created him. These two roles may interact in a variety of ways, but I like the interplay engendered by a feedback loop. Let's work through it with an example.
After reaching level 10, Goodward Godly gains the power to create an avatar. He elects to spawn this avatar. The Avatar enters the mortal coil and begins to recruit followers. This may occur any number of ways, such as heroic feats (battles), bribery (paying off recruits/donating money to causes), interaction (going around convincing people to follow you through dialogue) and so forth. As the Avatar grows successful in these endeavors, the God gains certain bonuses, such as items, experience multipliers, or unlocking new areas/quests.
Upon receiving these benefits, the God is thereby more effective at gaining experience, which he may employ to enhance his own skills or use to supplement the Avatar's repetoire. The Avatar himself doesn't gain levels so much as it gains new bodies and attributes that will assist him in his recruitment in the Mortal Realm.
I should note that I hacked out huge swaths of information in the interests of keeping this puppy manageable.
[Cross Posted from Blog]
Isn't this basically just Actraiser in reverse except less fun? The God is the platforming stages and the avatar is RTS mode. Basically, you grind your god so you can grind your avatar? Sounds like Korean MMO developers need to listen up!
Posts
As to the rudeness, well, I play Halo enough to have developed a thick skin to it. If they want to take the time to rip on ideas, I'll give respect to a good burn. Lame burns are met only with scorn.
Avatars
I'll start with the easier of the two to explain: the Avatar. I spoke briefly about two possible systems, the second system described the role of the Avatar as the God's earthly minion, who seeks to spread the gospel of his God. Let's talk about the framework where this occurs.
At the inception of the server's creation, the Mortal Realm will be blessed with a specific number of souls (NPCs). As the server's player population increases, the NPC population will also increase. The NPC population cap will serve the purpose of constantly creating a tension between the fledgling religions and the Avatars who seek to grow them. Avatars must therefore either find and convert an NPC upon his initial entry into the Mortal Realm or steal the follower from another religion.
So, how is this accomplished? Well, through a variety of ways, and certain means will be more successful with certain NPCs and within the boundaries of certain regions on the map. For instance, if you have a desire to create a religion devoted to a bloodthirsty savage God, you would send a VICIOUS ATTACK AVATAR to the Mortal Realm. More importantly, you would send your emmissary to a region that values these traits (such as a warrior nomad tribe) as your message is more likely to be well received and result in converts.
As a Warrior Religion, you may convince this nomad tribe to follow you in a variety of ways. Your Avatar could defeat notable creatures in the surrounding area. He could duel the lead warrior in a display of dominance. He could kill an opposing tribe's chieftan. Each of these actions would leave an impression on the region and its inhabitants. Actions contrary to these behaviors (losing battles, duels, showing benevolence) would likewise decrease your ability to win converts and may even lose you converts. Of course, should you ever achieve a dominant position in the tribe's hearts, you would always need to be wary of competing Avatars attempting to steal them away.
Let's say Warrior Avatar isn't you thing. You want to become the God of Knowledge and seek followers that appreciate you for this trait. You elect to send down your Avatar to MegaCity, a center of knowledge and learning. You seek to convince followers to come to your cause by writing prose/books, delivering speeches, engaging in local politics, and using diplomacy to avoid conflicts. As your Avatar becomes known as a beacon of insight, the religion grows, and the God prospers from the influx of devotion.
Gods
Evading a God grind is somewhat more difficult for me. I believe there are a few mechanisms that may be implemented to evade the grind, but one idea (pirated from a fellow poster) I found intriguing is to have the Immortal Realm function as a PvP realm (this is certainly not the only solution.) Now, the initial difficulty I had with this is: how do we determine the battles? I mean, if a God doesn't just grind levels up, then how does he get stronger? And how do I limit PvP interactions to Gods of relatively strength and power?
Well, the answer comes from the feedback loop I mentioned in my original post on the matter. The Avatar's power and the God's power would be tied together. Success for one would result in success for the other. The key lies in the followers and the strength of the Religion. A successful Avatar would result in a strong religion, which would then result in more power being accorded to the God. The Immortal PvP Realm would therefore contain battlefields devoted to the various different strengths of religions. As the strength of the religion increases, the powers the God may bring to bear increase.
So, a new player may have a Religion of only one follower. Until his Avatar gets cracking, his God will be confined to the lowest PvP realm. The battles would entail relatively uninspired sparring between these lesser Godlings. Small sparks of lightning and brittle heavenly swords would clash.
A more dedicated player would have a massive following. He would enter the highest echelons of the Immortal Realm and the battles would involve breathtaking feats of strength and magic. Gods would summon legions to do battle on their behalf. Earthquakes would rattle the countryside. Destruction, mayhem and so forth.
Well...that's just one take on how the Immortal Realm might work. There is one critical element I am leaving out, which would be the Pantheons. This game mechanism would add an additional layer of complexity to the battles in addition to making the game much more compelling for players that don't have as much time to dedicate to the game. But that's for tomorrow.
Ha ha, yeah it was pretty awful, I was just trying to make a point about trying something new rather than re-skinning a game.
And if in 2 mins work I can reach Sky's lofty Gang of Daggers platform imagine if I try!
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Which is, by no means, a bad thing. There hasn't been a game like populous in farrr too long.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Isn't this basically just Actraiser in reverse except less fun? The God is the platforming stages and the avatar is RTS mode. Basically, you grind your god so you can grind your avatar? Sounds like Korean MMO developers need to listen up!
Read my most recent post, which I hope addresses some of the grind issues.