Well, it sure has been a while since I've updated this beast. As the title suggests, this is a recap of some of my previous entries, with the inclusion of a new death system idea.

PvP Key Zones

            The entire game world would be divided up into objective based areas. Those areas would include cities, towns, and extra regions. They will all have key features that you need to capture. There are multiple ways of gaining these, such as buying them or taking them through force. The way in which you take the location changes the amount of influence you gain from it. Influence radiates outwards, the more you have the farther it pushes. If your influence takes over most of the zone, it belongs to you.

At first, all of the world will be divided into extra regions. Some of which will be available to be turned into cities or towns. Others will be forced to stay the same, but they will be very large. Extra regions will contain resource nodes, which are required for taking the zone and acquiring resources. Extra regions will have no extra advantage, except for expanding your borders, taxing the towns, and collecting tariffs from those who control the resources. One faction can have as many extra zones as they can manage.

Secondly come the towns. They will have a few key points, but with little real value. An example of this is, if you take the town hall you can change the laws, or if you take the armoury you gain control of all the weapons and armour. Towns provide a steady income of money for those that control the area. To capture a town you have to take all or most of the key points, including the town hall. Towns spread influence into the extra regions. One faction is limited to having five towns.

Lastly come the cities. They are basically several towns divided up into one. Cities are divided into districts, which are decided by the concentrations of NPC activity. If an area has a large quantity of stores or merchants, it becomes the merchant’s quarters. If it has a large dock, and has many ships delivering goods it becomes the harbour district, and so on. Each of these districts is divided into several key locations, such as the docks, the guards’ post, or the inn. These have generally the same effects as their town equivalents, but will work on a larger or smaller scale, based on what it is. Taking a city spreads influence outwards into nearby towns and extra regions. One faction is limited to having one city.

            All key locations can be sold in the name of the governing body, to another faction. For example, an inn can be run by a smaller faction, while still being owned by the faction from whom it was sold. A small company can control a lumber mill in an extra region, with it still belonging to the main government. Or a city can be run by another faction, while still belonging to the main faction. One faction can work this way within multiple other factions’ borders.

            A faction could also work subtly, within a city, town or extra region. To do this, they would have to set up a secret base in one of the buildings, and gain influence through secret means. Their influence wouldn’t show up to a faction who did not know that the influence was being gained. For example, if a group of thieves set up a secret base and bought off a lot of the guards, they would be gaining influence in the district and the original owners would not be able to tell that it was happening, unless they specifically looked into it.

1. World
   1. Cities

                                                               i.      Districts

1.      Examples:

a.       Harbour District

b.      Merchant District

c.       Guard District

2.      Key Locations

a.       Examples:

                                                                                                                                       i.      Light House

                                                                                                                                     ii.      Barracks

                                                                                                                                    iii.      Tavern

                                                                                                                                   iv.      Fortress

                                                                                                                                     v.      Prison

                                                                                                                                   vi.      Bazaar

2. Towns

                                                               i.      Examples:

1.      Any village

                                                             ii.      Key Points

1.      Examples:

a.       Inn

b.      Town Hall

c.       Armoury

3. Extra Regions

                                                               i.      Resource Nodes

1.      Examples:

a.       Forest

b.      Quarry

c.       Fields

                                                             ii.      All areas outside of towns and cities are divided equally into extra regions

Skill System Hybrid

            The each character would have a large variety of skills, each with their own set of sub skills. Each time you perform an action, your level in its respected skill increases. The further the skill increases, the more powerful it becomes. The more powerful it becomes, the less that levelling it will do. Skills level until they reach level 10 000, but they are not a deciding factor. For example, someone with 1000 levels in Long Blade skills may lose to somebody with only 100 levels. Though the advantage would go to the player with 1000 levels. Certain skills give you new abilities over time, such as Investigation. For example, if you have level One Investigation, and you were to search for evidence, you might only be able to find somebody’s cause of death, whereas if you had level 100 you might be able to tell when they died and certain aspects about the killer. Or if you had level 1 Cooking, you might be able to put certain raw foods together, but if you had level 100 Cooking, you would be able to put meals together.

            Skills deteriorate over time if not used. Gaining magical skills makes you deteriorate levels in other skills faster, even if they are being used. Gaining a level in one magic skill causes you to lose skill in the other one. The higher your level in a magical skill, the weaker your other skills become. But to balance this, magic would be very powerful. As such, you shouldn’t really have an expert swordsman running around who can cast extremely powerful spells.

Example System:

1. Short Blade
   1. Thrust
   2. Parry
   3. Slash
2. Long Blade
   1. Thrust
   2. Parry
   3. Slash
3. Axe
   1. Slash
   2. Parry
4. War Hammer
   1. Smash
   2. Parry
5. Pole arm
   1. Slash
   2. Thrust
   3. Guarded Attack
6. Bow
   1. Accuracy
   2. Draw Speed
   3. Moving Shot
7. Mounted Combat
   1. Mounted Archery
   2. Mounted Thrust
   3. Mounted Slash
   4. Mounted Defence
8. Armour
   1. Heavy Armour
   2. Medium Armour
   3. Light Armour
   4. Shield Block
   5. Shield Bash
9. Cooking
   1. Cooking
   2. Brewing
   3. Spices
10. Building
    1. Construction
    2. Architecture
    3. Ships
11. Engineering
    1. Explosives
    2. Clockwork
12. Alchemy
    1. Potions
    2. Poisons
13. Texts
    1. Ancient Texts
    2. Codes
14. Crafting
    1. Weapon Smith
    2. Armour Smith
    3. Carpentry
15. Stealth
    1. Ambush
    2. Subtlety
    3. Disguise
16. Earth Magic
    1. Nature Magic
    2. Beast Magic
    3. Elemental Magic
17. Death Magic
    1. Reanimation
    2. Blood Magic
    3. Spirit Magic
18. Enchantment
    1. Runes
    2. Empowerments
19. Investigation
    1. Tracking
    2. Investigation
    3. Interrogation
20. Athletics
    1. Sprinting
    2. Acrobatics
    3. Climbing

Combat

            Combat would be more realistic. Each character would have around 100 health. A level 10 000 attack would do around 100 damage if unblocked, and not cushioned, but a level 1 attack would do around 20 in the same conditions. A stealthy arrow could do up to 100 damage from an extremely skilled character in ideal conditions.

            Blocking would be manual, and only guard your front. Attacking would be manual and damage whatever your weapon or spell hits. Attacks parry automatically if both sent at the same time. Scenery would stop an attack. Velocity would increase damage (running at your enemy is what I mean there). Attacking would drain stamina, as would blocking, sprinting, and jumping. Stamina would not regenerate while moving, jumping or attacking.

            Attacks would work out like Mount and Blade combat system. Looking up would draw back a downward swing, looking down would draw back a thrust, left would draw a left to right slash, and right would draw a right to left slash.

            In combat there would be full corpse looting, and there would be counters to this (see economy section). Weapons and armour would that are currently equipped would not be lost.

            PvE monsters would range from easy to epic. They might be a wolf (which could easily kill an unprepared player), or a horrible monster, which would kill entire parties, all of this would be spread out in the same zones (one zone wouldn’t be all easy monsters, and the next more difficult. They’d all be in the same general areas).

Economy and NPCs

            To help stimulate the economy in the game, trade skills would be an important part of the game. Cooking would be important to feed the NPCs and Players (mandatory, but scaled back player eating would also improve the social environment), crafting would be important because players would need to replenish their equipment, enchanting, alchemy, and engineering would be important because they would give players and edge in combat, and building would be important so that cities and towns could develop.

            Cities would be required to have a strong economy so that their citizens could pay their taxes, merchants could pay their tithes, and that money would go to paying the armies, developing the cities, and keeping the faction head’s pockets fat. A city would be just as easily destroyed by an economic war.

            NPCs would have to fulfill their basic needs, thus improving the economic system. Also NPCs would fill in to take the roles of merchants, soldiers, and the like in cities where there were opportunities. To keep the economy growing, there would be many more NPCs than players, all with their own personality traits. Every NPC would have a job. If there were no player requesting to do specific things, an NPC might step up to the plate and do it. For example, if the city have no taverns, and the NPCs are saying that they want something to do after they are done working, and no player builds a tavern, and NPC will buy the land deed from the government, and build one.

            Crafting would be flexible as well, with every craft able item being composed of different slots, in which any item that could fit would be put. Putting in a different item would have a slightly different effect on the final product. For example, making sword’s hilt out of metal would make it more durable, but more heavy. Or putting berries into a meal might make it taste better thus giving you a better stat boost, but you could also save the berries for something else in which they would have a better effect.

Natural Player Quests

            Because of the PvP key zone idea, the economy, and the fact that this game revolves entirely around player factions, the individual or faction would decide the quests in this. There would be no “traditional” quests, outside of being paid by a faction to perform a certain task. With the way crafting and spells work, a specific crafter might hire you to go out and collect a rare scripture or ingredient. The idea is for the players to run the world, like Face of Mankind in its glory days, except without set factions. It would all fall into pecking order. For example, a merchant is successful in his crafting because he is good at it; he makes more money off of his works, and can then hire better players to get him more valuable ingredients. A medium level crafter would have to hire an average player to get him the ingredients he couldn’t buy from the store (he gains crafting experience from making more difficult items and the mercenary gains experience from his adventure, and money as well). Lastly, a novice crafter would buy all of his ingredients from merchants, because they would all be cheap, and commonly found; he would lose less money and gain experience more quickly.

Re-Revised Death System

            Since the idea of perma-death turned people off, and so did the idea of working people towards perma-death through constantly dying, I figured that the idea of permanently losing a character would have to be out entirely (you can’t have a game without players). The idea of a death you would want to avoid is still a must in my opinion. My new idea is that, since this is a skill-based game, you should take a large loss in all of your major skills. For example, a player whose major skills are Long Blade (1000), and Heavy Armour (1000) dies, both of those skills go down to 900. Or say, an archer who only has Bow (10000) would have it go down to 9800.

            This player would respawn at the nearest friendly/neutral altar, with all of the items that he had equipped. Altars would be player built, and would be placed in towns, and cities. Usually they would be in a temple, but certain factions would be able to put them in other buildings, such as hideouts.

             A player who dies would also lose durability in all of his items.