IIIlusionist [253384] —
Original article
The updates to player activity statuses and the inventory system are all well and good, but what more do the citizens of Torn have to look forward to in the near future?
We will start with a smaller potential update: Starter Jobs. At the moment, the starter jobs' role in the game is uncertain. Should they be a stepping stone to companies where new players can boost stats quickly before jumping to companies, or should they be a viable career choice with specials that rival that of companies? The demand for more employees from player-run companies often means new players jump into companies fairly early in the game due to various specials and high pay. A little attention may be given to adjusting starter jobs in a number of ways to give them a little more meaning and competitive edge. As it stands, new players are able to choose from three of the six starter jobs before eventually unlocking all six. One proposed change may open up all six to new players right away. This may not seem like a big deal to us veterans, but imagine if instead of having only Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur to choose from, you could also choose from Gastly, Abra or Machop. Although I would still pick Charmander, my point is new and old players will have more choice.
In keeping with my poor choice of the Pokémon theme, your initial rival always picks the Pokémon that is strong against the one you picked, so for new Pokémon trainers there was no obvious choice that would offer an immediate benefit. In a similar way, the hope is to balance all the starter jobs to ensure that all six give equivalent working stats, pay and specials. At the moment, medical, law and education give continuous passive abilities, which means the other three may be seeing some changes to their specials to standardize them across the starter jobs.
What is that I hear? Sounds like company owners' tears. As interesting as this update sounds, there is a fine line between giving the starter jobs more structure and making them more desirable than certain companies, which would encourage company employees to flock back to make use of the starter job specials. Worry not company owners, this issue has been flagged up and will be considered carefully...I think.
Moving on! How many have wondered and speculated on how after a 49 turn battle with high heels, a pillow and in nothing but a coconut bra, the attacker still manages to remain unrecognizable (stealth attack). Again, discussions are underway about clearing up what affects stealth and introducing a few new variables to what contributes to the degree of stealth. The current concept on the table surrounds the idea that a player starts with a base stealth chance percentage. This chance will decrease based on other variables such as the difference in dexterity between the two players and bonuses from companies and armour. Finally, weapons will also play an important role in stealth, quite simply because after slapping someone to near death with a trout, one would imagine the victim would at least get a glimpse of their attacker. Weapons will be assigned a stealth "level", some with a high stealth such as Ninja stars, and others having a low stealth level such as fireworks.
Next on the discussion list is books. We all enjoy getting completely lost in a good book.
Who are we kidding, we just want to play games and eat food. However, that may all change with the introduction of special items for subscribers. Many have complained that subscriber rewards are not enticing enough for players and don't offer enough rewards. On the other hand, subscriber rewards can't be too beneficial to give players that pay real money too much of an advantage over those that can't or do not want to pay to obtain these bonuses. Maybe a nice middle ground is a selection of one time use, non-tradable books that offer interesting bonuses, such as an increase to defence gains for 31 days?
The final discussion that I will talk about is surrounding our much beloved drugs. Xanax, Ecstasy and Vicodin are perhaps the most popular and widely used drugs outside of merit hunting. The other drugs are used less and their effects not potent enough to be considered for regular use. Drugs 2.0 is an update that may just see some rather interesting new effects and changes to the way substance abusers enjoy their fix. Without getting into the finer details, here are some of the main ideas floating around. Firstly, all drugs will have both positive and negative effects. Negatives will vary rather than just being a reduction in stats, and may include reduction in crime success, awareness, stealth and life regeneration. In the same way as negative effects could vary, the positive effect may also have a "dice roll" effect, meaning that they could give a variable response - Instead of Xanax giving 250 energy every time, it could give between 200-300 energy.
A big concept that has been thrown into the mix is the idea of being able to take more than one drug. So a player could take a Xanax and then risk taking another one. I say risk because the chance of an overdose would increase drastically the more drugs you take. This concept of being able to take more than one drug at a time opens up the possibility of players being able to mix certain drugs to create a "cocktail" of drugs with added positive and/or negative effects. Nothing has been decided but as an example to demonstrate the idea; mixing Xanax with another drug could give an energy boost and then a boost to life regeneration as an added effect.
Although the final decision is down to the developers, the committee has been heavily involved with putting together ideas and helping optimize upcoming updates. Everything in the article is just a little taste of what is in the pipeline, whether these ideas make it to the end of the pipe and if they are the same at the end depends on you know who. However, many of these concepts require a lot of thought about what will improve gameplay and thus can take some time to perfect. So as always, a little patience will be required.
**Editors: Glimph [1950707] & Gholden [1786423]
We will start with a smaller potential update: Starter Jobs. At the moment, the starter jobs' role in the game is uncertain. Should they be a stepping stone to companies where new players can boost stats quickly before jumping to companies, or should they be a viable career choice with specials that rival that of companies? The demand for more employees from player-run companies often means new players jump into companies fairly early in the game due to various specials and high pay. A little attention may be given to adjusting starter jobs in a number of ways to give them a little more meaning and competitive edge. As it stands, new players are able to choose from three of the six starter jobs before eventually unlocking all six. One proposed change may open up all six to new players right away. This may not seem like a big deal to us veterans, but imagine if instead of having only Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur to choose from, you could also choose from Gastly, Abra or Machop. Although I would still pick Charmander, my point is new and old players will have more choice.
In keeping with my poor choice of the Pokémon theme, your initial rival always picks the Pokémon that is strong against the one you picked, so for new Pokémon trainers there was no obvious choice that would offer an immediate benefit. In a similar way, the hope is to balance all the starter jobs to ensure that all six give equivalent working stats, pay and specials. At the moment, medical, law and education give continuous passive abilities, which means the other three may be seeing some changes to their specials to standardize them across the starter jobs.
What is that I hear? Sounds like company owners' tears. As interesting as this update sounds, there is a fine line between giving the starter jobs more structure and making them more desirable than certain companies, which would encourage company employees to flock back to make use of the starter job specials. Worry not company owners, this issue has been flagged up and will be considered carefully...I think.
Moving on! How many have wondered and speculated on how after a 49 turn battle with high heels, a pillow and in nothing but a coconut bra, the attacker still manages to remain unrecognizable (stealth attack). Again, discussions are underway about clearing up what affects stealth and introducing a few new variables to what contributes to the degree of stealth. The current concept on the table surrounds the idea that a player starts with a base stealth chance percentage. This chance will decrease based on other variables such as the difference in dexterity between the two players and bonuses from companies and armour. Finally, weapons will also play an important role in stealth, quite simply because after slapping someone to near death with a trout, one would imagine the victim would at least get a glimpse of their attacker. Weapons will be assigned a stealth "level", some with a high stealth such as Ninja stars, and others having a low stealth level such as fireworks.
Next on the discussion list is books. We all enjoy getting completely lost in a good book.
Who are we kidding, we just want to play games and eat food. However, that may all change with the introduction of special items for subscribers. Many have complained that subscriber rewards are not enticing enough for players and don't offer enough rewards. On the other hand, subscriber rewards can't be too beneficial to give players that pay real money too much of an advantage over those that can't or do not want to pay to obtain these bonuses. Maybe a nice middle ground is a selection of one time use, non-tradable books that offer interesting bonuses, such as an increase to defence gains for 31 days?
The final discussion that I will talk about is surrounding our much beloved drugs. Xanax, Ecstasy and Vicodin are perhaps the most popular and widely used drugs outside of merit hunting. The other drugs are used less and their effects not potent enough to be considered for regular use. Drugs 2.0 is an update that may just see some rather interesting new effects and changes to the way substance abusers enjoy their fix. Without getting into the finer details, here are some of the main ideas floating around. Firstly, all drugs will have both positive and negative effects. Negatives will vary rather than just being a reduction in stats, and may include reduction in crime success, awareness, stealth and life regeneration. In the same way as negative effects could vary, the positive effect may also have a "dice roll" effect, meaning that they could give a variable response - Instead of Xanax giving 250 energy every time, it could give between 200-300 energy.
A big concept that has been thrown into the mix is the idea of being able to take more than one drug. So a player could take a Xanax and then risk taking another one. I say risk because the chance of an overdose would increase drastically the more drugs you take. This concept of being able to take more than one drug at a time opens up the possibility of players being able to mix certain drugs to create a "cocktail" of drugs with added positive and/or negative effects. Nothing has been decided but as an example to demonstrate the idea; mixing Xanax with another drug could give an energy boost and then a boost to life regeneration as an added effect.
Although the final decision is down to the developers, the committee has been heavily involved with putting together ideas and helping optimize upcoming updates. Everything in the article is just a little taste of what is in the pipeline, whether these ideas make it to the end of the pipe and if they are the same at the end depends on you know who. However, many of these concepts require a lot of thought about what will improve gameplay and thus can take some time to perfect. So as always, a little patience will be required.
**Editors: Glimph [1950707] & Gholden [1786423]
Original article
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