As I'm a bit of an ideas guy I felt like putting together a list of my suggestions for this great game and maintaining them in this thread. Kind of like a blog, but I can't write those.
Friends List
As I keep extending my friends list. Pretty bloody crazy how big it is now. I was thinking it would be great to have some statistics and sorting in it. My ideas as follows:
1. Show total number of maps player with each person. Be able to sort listed based on this.
2. Allow a personal rating, like 1 to 10 stars for each friend. Be able to sort with that.
3. Show total minutes played with each friend in a map. Sort on that.
etc
Zone Builders
Back in the day, I played, in my opinion, the best text based MUD going around when I was at University. It was called TorilMud/Sojourn and at its peak had a heap of players for that type of game. For those unaware, MUDs, where the forefather to the current MMORPGs that we all love now.
The thing that made TorilMud so fantastic was it had a good group of Zone builders, all ex, or current players, who were continually adding exciting new content to the game, and all unpaid. At its peak there was a new zone being added every other week, and I'm talking BIG zones with extravagant quests, equipment and creatures.
Much like that, I was wondering if Spacetime would ever consider opening up Zone Builder positions? The key points of this would be as follows:
1. Unpaid role. I think there would be quite a few members of the playing community right now who would like to contribute.
2. I'm hoping there is a nice zone building tool that Spacetime use right now to construct their current zones. This would be released to those zone builders who where accepted.
3. Zones Builders would provide their completed zones to Spacetime, becoming their ownership, to sell/give away as they saw fit.
4. Zone Builders would only be able to use the current tile-set and creature/equipment models as the game currently has. Even with what is currently there, there are an absolute multitude of different zones that could be built.
5. Finished zone would be approved by Spacetime before released.
6. Spacetime would add a test phase to new zones. During this period selected players would test the zone for balance and bugs. During testing kill/deaths would not increase when in the zone, as with XP and gold. Any equipment collected would also be lost when leaving the zone. This would make sure everything was balanced before being officially opened.
7. As quests and more tile-sets, creature models and equipment models are introduced by Spacetime the number of different zones that could be built would expand exponentially. Spacetime could then spend time just building models and tile-sets and leave the new zone construction to the builders. Add some Elemental models and air, fire, and water plane zone could be added for example.
8. The added benefit of this is that there would end up being a whole lot of different zones for a particular character level. Everyone wouldn't have to level from 30-35 in the swamps any more.
Skill Overhaul
Full document covering the whole idea here
Equipment Weight & Bags
I don't like the current idea of buying slots. In it place, and I'm afraid this will take a bit of work, I think equipment should have weight. As you hold more in your inventory you get weighed down. The more you are overloaded the slower you move, the lower you AC and damage become. Now to counter this add bags. Standard bags will help a little, backpacks and the like. For Plat, my preference via a quest, allow people to get magical bags. Can carry a lot of weight with no effect. In essence people will buy inventory slots, but not feel like they are just getting ripped off. I'd much rather spend 10P on a bag that can hold 250 items without encumbrance than buying straight out 250 inventory slots.
Group Game Mode
Add a new type of New Game mode. Rules are as follows:
1. You have to start from the first map in a campaign.
2. You have to play through sequentially.
3. You can't join a group once its started.
4. Bosses will ALWAYS drop pink. A selection of items relevant to the boss type.
5. Sub-bosses ALWAYS drop pink or purple. A selection of items relevant to the boss type.
That way people can still farm, and maybe get the same number of items over the same time, or get an organised group together and play through for guaranteed items.
Expand on this by adding a group equipment pool where all pinks and purples automatically go into, that rather than individuals. Add a random dice option and you have a nice group way of playing rather than the current every-man-for-himself approach.
Plasma Pyramid Map
I propose a nice little change to the Plasma Pyramid map in AO2.
1. Change the Lesser D'Jinn to an Anubis
2. Add three Lesser D'Jinn spaced out in the early part of the level.
This would add one more pink chance to the end and spice up the tedious slog through the early part of the level.
Group Stash Mode
When you select Group Stash Mode all equipment and money is added to a group pool rather than individuals. When a map, or maps if you want, is complete its time to split the loot. A random player would be selected and they can choose one item from the stash, then the next player is chosen and so on. Each player must be chosen before someone gets another turn. At any time everyone can select SELL. If all players select SELL the rest of the stash is automatically sold and all money is equally split.
Interactive Maps
I would love to see interactive features added to maps. Some of these would be great when quests come in, others could be added now. My ideas are stuff like:
1. Doors
2. Keys
3. Traps
4. Puzzles, high Int characters can solve them, low have trouble.
5. Teleporters
etc
Enhanced Items
Currently items are all pretty similar. Each new expansions just added a little more H/s or M/s, a little extra DPS etc. It would be great if items had a big overhaul and some cool new features were added to them. Some ideas are as follows:
1. More damage procs.
2. Non damage spells procs. Rage, Evade, Haste, Stone Skin etc
3. Heal or Mana procs. Like drinking a pot.
4. Spell effects you can't get from skills
All these would have low chances of firing, with the chance directly related to the rarity.
Added to this it would be good if when you clicked on an item you got a new window pop up over the right side of the inventory window so more detailed information could be shown. There are already a number of items that have more features than can be shown in the current interface.
http://a.imagehost.org/0481/Item-View.jpg
Item Rarity Indicator
As this is more of a pick up and play game rather than the hard core MMORP like WoW I though it may be a nice little addition to add some type of Item Rarity indicator.
For those of us who play quite a bit, knowing what is rare and what is pretty common is fairly easy. For those however, who only play sporadically, knowing if an item is rare or not, and its potential value is a lot harder. I'm sure there have been players who have gone through level 5 of AO2 and scored a blaster only to be talked into trading it to a seasoned player as they had no idea of its rarity. Not hard to see why as the stats aren't anything fantastic. I have mocked up my idea in an image below:
http://a.imagehost.org/0100/Item_Rarity.jpg
