I've talked about this before, and it is still an idea that excites me. I'd love to see more attention to the 'Living World' aspects.
We are nearing the release, but since there is still a chance to make some additions and changes, here is a list of things that could still be added without too much difficulty, and would help to make Elemental feel a bit more alive. I don't think any of this would require a massive investment of resources. Some of these ideas are fairly cosmetic and are designed to help bring things to life, and some have a greater impact on gameplay and would thus need more balancing.
1) Roleplaying
- Allow for greater roleplaying opportunities with the Sovereign and NPCs, with impact on gameplay. When in a city, generate events that the player will need to deal with. Allow for different ways to handle these events. If the player acts like a tyrant (see Reputation below), have it lead to revolts (maybe spawning of some hostile units near the city) or maybe have it generate a quest that adventurers can partake in (kill the tyrant sovereign, rob from the rich and give to the poor, etc.). While questing, allow for more chances to make decisions. So if a witch asks you to help her find her magic ring, you can decide to help her for a reward, find the ring and keep it, or even just kill the witch outright and ignore the quest. Each decision will have an impact. Tie this to the stats of the Sovereign or party leader. So if the Sovereign is a great mage, he or she might have an option to handle an event one way. A warrior might have a different option. An evil ruler might have yet another option. Tie these options to measurable gameplay decisions.
- Give each character, including the Sovereign, a reputation and alignment. This will be impacted by gameplay decisions. For the Sovereign, alignment / reputation will impact your dealings with NPCs and other factions. So, if your decisions lead you to have an evil alignment or a bad reputation, an independent NPC with a good alignment will be less likely to join you, and may actually become hostile or engage in quests against you and your faction.
- Give personality to NPCs. Assign some variables to each NPC that will help determine their behavior. A farmer NPC might seek out fertile land and stay there rather than just wandering around the wilds. A scholar might find an ancient library, or even a library in a faction, and hang around there. Building on the reputation and alignment ideas, parties of like-minded NPCs will form and compete with / battle opposing NPCs. Allow your Sovereign and heroes greater interaction with NPCs and other Sovereigns. If your Sovereign goes around adventuring with a hero, have that hero gain or loose loyalty based on the choices the Sovereign makes. If loyalty gets too low, the hero will leave or even fight the Sovereign. If it becomes high, the hero might gain a bonus, become a marriage prospect, etc.
- Allow greater faction-level roleplaying. Give each faction a reputation and alignment. The starting reputation and alignment of a faction will influence how they will play. So if you have a faction that is fairly civilized and 'good' it will be less likely to raze cities and engage in other nasty behavior. If a faction burns cities down to the ground and other nasty behavior, it will see its alignment tilt towards evil / chaotic / whatever. It will then have diplomatic penalties with good / lawful / whatever factions. Allow for alignment-specific units, abilities, spells, etc. So a good, freedom loving faction can't build a slave market, but an oppressive faction can.
- Add more NPCs and NPC factions. Have religions spread around and influence NPCs, cities, and factions. Have merchant guilds set up shop in cities with lots of commerce. Allow the player to make decisions about these NPCs and NPC factions. If a mercenary unit wants to setup shop in your city, you can recruit them for your armies, but the mercs might stir up trouble in the pubs, leading to some disorder. If you refuse their request, they might become bandits in the wilderness instead. Create more independent actors moving around the world, living their lives. Private sector economy.
- Help create villains and heroes and everything inbetween. Have an NPC that can become the arch nemesis of the Sovereign, a hero, or a faction. That NPC can constantly pop up in the wilderness to start trouble, or generate events and quests that will need to be handled. Make the player care about the NPCs, and feel a sense of triumph after sending a party of adventurers to finally end the threat once and for all.
2) Cities
- Right now, I think we have missed a real opportunity with cities. I find them very, very bland and dead. However, we can change that!
- Auto-generate and allow Players to name buildings. Give that Inn we built some personality!
- Give buildings more functionality. Have NPCs visit buildings. Majesty is a good example of this. If I build a market, have NPCs visit it. We have the item shop already, which is a great idea. Expand on that. If I build a library, have it attract scholars that may provide quests, join my faction, etc. Have it generate quests and events. If I build a palace, have diplomats and adventurers visit to gain favor with the Sovereign, seek out quests, etc.
- Give cities more stats. Morale, war weariness, etc. If the player is a cruel tyrant, it might make the people unhappy, which will lead to revolts, loss of income, etc. This will generate quests and events. The player could react by changing their ways to be less cruel, or could clamp down even harder by building dungeons to imprison and torture people, which will lead to more unhappiness, but perhaps keep the people from revolting. If the player builds a dungeon, good heroes might raid it to free people. Same thing for AI factions, of course. Let me send in my Sovereign or hero to rescue an NPC from another faction's dungeon. If the Sovereign is a cruel tyrant, it might allow for greater production but reduced research or income. Give cities a general alignment or character. If the city is ruled by a tyrant and has lots of nasty events and buildings, have it become an evil place with low morale but better at something else. If it is a wild, free market place, have it generate more income but also generate more disorder. Have the stats help determine the kinds of quests and events that are generated.
- The city levels are a great start, but making them a bigger event with different consequences. Make them less bland, and make them based on what the city has built. If the city has a market, allow us to choose a money bonus. If we choose the money bonus, have more caravans seek that city out as a trade hub. Tie city evolution into the stats. If you have a city that has high levels of unhappiness or poverty, let us build slums. If it is very wealthy, let us build estates.
- Add visual changes based on a citiy stats. If a city is orderly and wealthy, have everything look clean and maintained. If a city is poor, have things look dirty and broken. This might be too hard...but it might be possible to swap or alter tiles.
3) The World
- Open up the world to make exploration easier. Don't have such restrictive borders that keep out my caravans and heroes. Allow for different levels of borders. Open Borders with anyone and anything passing through, commerce and diplomacy bonus. Restricted Borders, keep out military units without a treaty - default. Closed Borders, nothing gets in but diplomacy penalty. Make it easier to send out parties of adventurers to explore the world, get into adventures, and interact with NPCs and factions. If my Sovereign and his party travel to a neighboring faction, let them take on quests that they find in that factions cities. Let my Sovereign form a relationship with other Sovereigns, ie: they go on a joint quest, at the end of which they become friends or enemies depending on how decisions were made and their alignments.
- Spread news around, carried by NPCs, caravans, etc. Let me know that Faction A just razed a small village in Faction B, and that everyone now thinks Faction A is an evil threat. Tell me that the Sovereign of Faction A just recovered a powerful magical artifact. Present this in an engaging news or rumor-style system. If we build a tavern that becomes popular, have it give us more detailed news and rumors.
- Create an ongoing history of the world that we can look at, with important events listed.
- Auto-generate or allow us to name more places. I love the look of the cloth map with the city names. We need that for geographic locations, special places, etc. Mark the sites of important events. If a huge battle is fought, mark it on the map as a famous battlefield.
- Create world-level organizations that can be founded or joined, plays off the NPC faction idea above. Let us create multi-faction councils / alliances / trade unions.
