Here are my main ideas. As I said before, these are just messages I have posted on a.f.e.p.. Well, here they are:
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Thu, 05 Mar 1998 19:29:16 +0000
From:
Matt Dibb
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Idea for TEP
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Here is just a small idea. How about when you hire a crew member they
actually have a history, criminal record, friends and so on. If someone
says they want to get out of this system, then there is a reason for
this, and you may even get attacked if you hire them. Or, if a member
of your crew has friends elsewhere they can arrange special deals for
you and so on.
What do you think?
Matt Dibb
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Date:
Fri, 06 Mar 1998 20:47:54 +0000
From:
Matt Dibb
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More ideas for TEP...
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Sorry, but I have loads of ideas for TEP, again. Here are a few:
Before the release of FFE (or was it Frontier, I can't remember) I
remember seeing screen shots in magazines of the BBS system, and one of
the items on these BBSs were insurance companies trying to offer you
their services. Could this be implemented in TEP? Say for example you
went to repair your ship, there would be two buttons, one for cash, one
for insurance. The incentive to use cash was not to loose your
no-claims bonus (cash, goods, items for ship etc. etc.) at the end of
the year and so on, but if there was enormous damage (like loosing 90%
of you Panther Clipper's hull...) then this could be easily paid off by
the insurance policy you hired.
In Frontier the password protection system was done in such a fashion as
to give the impression that ships could be stolen. How about including
this probability in TEP. If you leave it on the Tarmac for too long
(whilst waiting for an assassination say) a thief could get onboard and
fly away whilst you are sipping drinks in the Bar whilst perusing the
local BBS. This links in with the insurance system. You could take out
a policy that covers theft as well as damage. To prevent such
occurrences there could even be special items you could buy in the
shipyard (like alarms, DNA scanners and the like). The probability of
your ship being stolen would of course be variable. Say you were in Sol
then P(stolen) would probably equal zero, but if you were in Phekda the
P(stolen) would equal 0.9 recurring or something. This would give you
more reason to steer clear of dodgy systems.
What happens to your ship when you eject? It just floats there until it
either burns up in the atmosphere of some nearby celestial body, or is
destroyed by a pirate right? Would it not be a good idea that you could
hire someone/a company to go out and retrieve your ship for you? Thus
saving money etc. This might also be good if your ship breaks down in
deep space. Just radio for assistance and eventually you could be
pulled back to the nearest port, for a hefty price of course.
Receive radio calls for help from cargo ships etc. If you successfully
fight off pirates they might give you a reward etc. Or actually get
help when you broadcast the same message.
If your reputation is bad enough and your Elite rating high enough then
you may be able to join a pirate 'clan' (what do you call such
groups?). It would be a little bit like the military in FFE, but the
missions would be less mundane and/or humane...
A 'kills' counter that comes with the radar mapper thing?
No doubt I'll come up with some other ideas soon.
If you are still reading this I guess they must be good ;p
Cheers,
Matt Dibb
Now, I don't want to be called elitist (no pun intended), but I feel that the game should be designed for users who are intelligent. It's not that I don't like the below average people (some of my better friends are in the latter group), but I think that the game could be made so much better if it were harder to understand, has a strong element of mystery, and makes you think about what you have to do. This will make the game much more atmospheric. Think of it this way, do you think a game of this callibre is really intended for those people who write their pages using words like 'da' instead of 'the' and swapping 's' when used to pluralise a word with a 'z', then replying to your mails with viruses and insults and using ridiculous pseudonyms? They will (probably) not be able to appriciate the quality, deep subtexts, and hidden meanings of the game and tell other people in chat rooms about how they didn't like it, it didn't make sense and so on. Although this would slightly restrict the user base of TEP in the short run, it would eventually increase it over time, just take a look at all of the stratergy games out there. People who don't like action games would be attracted to the strategic, intellectual side of the game instead.
of course, I may be wrong.