Today I'm going to go over a couple of my shorter EQ:N Proposals from back before or just after the launch of the Landmark Alpha. First, Tracking by Smell & Sounds
------------------ Tracking by Smell and Sound - An EQN Proposal by Thornbrier
In one of the early panels for the reveal of EQN the topic of having ‘smell vision’ was brought up. Personally, I think something like this could be very practically applied. Among the many tags that items, characters, and places would have are the odor tags. Odor tags would leave in their wake and in the area around them a decaying tag signifying the odor’s passage or presence. A character capable of tracking by smell would then gain an overlay of the area around them which would show various hovering color trails leading off in different directions. It may be necessary for them to narrow down their search as the flood of information would get too confusing to follow. By narrowing it down they could track the smell they believe belongs to their target. Other than their selected smells showing up as smoky trails around them, their vision should remain as it normally is (or with whatever other vision modifier they are using).
The selection window will display the names of all NPC’s they have spoken with who they have been around since gaining the ability to track by smell, along with any odor tags they are currently able to smell, or have recently smelled, including those on their own person (even if stored in a D-pocket, like pulling out a bit of a subject’s clothes for a bloodhound to track).
NOTE: Any items being carried in ‘dimensional pockets’ or some such should not leave an odor trail.
Sound tracking might be a little different, allowing you to choose specific types of sounds the character would be listening for, color coding each of the selected sounds as they wish. These don’t need to all be audible to the player. But whenever these sounds loud enough to reach them they would be given the direction and an indicator for roughly how far away it is. Viable sounds might be chains, wings, footsteps, scratching. speech, the voice of a known character, the sound of heavy armor, swishing fabric, or combat. While not quite as precise as tracking by smell, tracking by sound definitely has its uses.
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Some of this next one has already been confirmed, but I will provide it in the original form.
-------------- NPC Nameplates & Movement
When you first meet someone you don’t know their name, you don’t know what they do, or anything about them. As such, I think it fitting that you not get an NPC’s name and profession stated for you before you’ve ever even met them. Shops and stalls should obviously be labeled, so if you find an NPC in the Blacksmith’s shop working at an anvil it’s a pretty good bet that’s the Blacksmith, you don’t need a label for that. Once you hail them they typically introduce themselves, at which point they should gain a nameplate with as much information about them as has been revealed.
At a stall that acts as a front for a secret organization their identity as part of that organization will only be labeled once your character has found out their affiliation.
When a story progression ‘quest’ tells you to find a specific character they will tell you where you should likely be able to find them and when. At the given time the NPC would show up, unless they’d been delayed, and you could then ask if they were the specific person.
NPCs with ‘quests’ shouldn't have a huge marker saying so. Their actions and words should be used if they are trying to get your attention. Sometimes an NPC might come up to you and say, “Hey, I need your help.” But other times you will need to initiate the conversation to find out if they have something for you to do. Might even need to be wearing the right stuff, have the right reputation, and ask the right questions.
The NPCs should move about on their own schedule. They will have errands to run of their own, need to go home and sleep, or go to work. A blacksmith won’t craft you stuff while she’s at the provisioner or at home. A clandestine character might be unwilling to talk about the heist they want you to perform while they are at their day job. Some characters might live and work in the same place, so they are more likely to perform their duties even if you catch them eating instead of at their crafting station. Some might use magics to sustain them, allowing them to remain vigilent at all times. An NPC’s schedule shouldn't just be based on Day/Night, but also on which day of the week it is, whether or not it is a holiday, the current weather, mobs in the area, and even the current workload and city population (NPC and PC).
With major events NPC’s might even move to other cities, but aside from specific story instances a single NPC should never be in multiple locations at once on the same server. It always annoyed me a little that in WoW I would see Thrall in one place wearing a newer outfit, watching from a specific rock where he always stood, then I return to Orgrimmar and he’s there in his older outfit on the throne, never having left, return to the rock, and he’s still there. Obviously, this was because of the static system, something which would need to be maintained for some specific story points, but this should never be the case in the open world.
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I'd like to think I've gotten better in my writing of these since then. Here's another odd one, I hope we will see aspects of this, but I find it a little unlikely.
------------------- Realm of the Dead
Some games have used Corps Runs through a dead version of the world as the penalty for being defeated. Others cause you to drop all your gear where you died. These games almost never have any discussion, let alone explanation, of why you don't stay dead. Given Norrath's known history of the living dealing with the dead it might make sense to combine these concepts to create something we've never seen in an MMO before.
When you die you show up right were you died, but in a realm of the dead. As long as you stay near your body you are protected from its inhabitants. Some of the various enemies with souls that you and others have killed in the area hang around wanting revenge, others just accept their fate and move on. You can look at the fighting the living are doing near your body, as well as see items on the ground.
The realm you appear in depends on the tier of the class you died playing. Higher tiers have fewer and tougher ghosts as well as shorter distances than the realm of the living. Each time you are defeated while dead it drops you to the tier below. The lowest tier mobs don't actually damage you, rather, they slow you down using states, trips, slow effects, and generally getting in your way in this realm that is already longer distance than the realm of the living.
You must find your way to a PC or NPC capable of resurrecting you. In some places these could be friendly ghosts, but most of those must be befriended or placated before they will help you. Alternatively you could use a soul shard to revive right at your body (or pay SC to get a soul shard for immediate use).
When you die only soulbound items can be carried into the realms of the dead. Everything else will drop at your corps for others to pick up. Items don't automatically bind, and it is impossible to bind an item to yourself. Someone else with the skill and reagents must do it for you (player or NPC) and will likely charge for the service unless it is part of a contract they wish you to fulfill. The same goes for unbinding items from your soul.
Some places are weak points between the realms allowing the dead to spill into our realm, these can also act as doors for the living to enter the realms of the dead without dyeing. Some weak points are stationary, others are mobile. Those who gain power by manipulating the dead love to gain control of such locations as they are far easier to control in our realm. Similarly, these locations also attract those who would see the dead left at peace, or at the least, not used as a weapon against themselves. The recently departed can far more easily be restored to life if they can find their way back to the realm of the living as spirits in the realm of the living are visible to all instead of a limited few with the ability to see through the vails.
When summoned at these places, a necromancers minions tend to be empowered until destroyed.
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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed these short glimpses into the writings that started me off to now have this blog.
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