A New Star Wars game? (Legends of The Old Republic (Name pending))

[Mr.Johnson]

Alright, building this thread so it doesn't spam the shout in the dark thread.

Let's get a few things out of the way right up front:
I've got zero coding experience, so don't expect miracles here.
Just because I'm working on this doesn't mean the Superhero mush I'm building is no longer getting worked on, all it means is there's not much work for me to do, and it's mostly on my coders shoulders right now.
I don't have much experience running Mush's so don't expect the moon from me.
I'll work as fast as I can reasonably while still keeping a respectable level of quality, but it might take some time to get properly running.
We're using the SAGA system. If you don't like that, well I'm sorry this isn't the game for you, the system being used was decided by the gracious donation of a nearly complete system.

So moving on let's talk ideas here. So far the only real things I know for sure are:
I'm not going to be limiting how many Sith and Jedi we have, I want people to be able to have fun.
We're likely going to be set right smack dab in the last days of the Mandalorian war, and one of the first events is going to be the end of said war.
Players will also be able to apply Mandalorians. I think it'll make things entertaining.
Players will NOT be allowed to play canon characters. Canon characters are NPC's that can be used inside of scenes, but can not be used as player characters.
If a player proves to me their willing to take an active part in running stories for the benefit of the game and are willing to have a proactive position in a faction I will have no problem with players leading factions.
We're going to be a partial consent based game. You will be able to die, but likely not unless it's part of an event specifically labled as one that can result in the death of characters.
TS will always only be allowed with consent and must be kept to private rooms off of the main grid. It doesn't mater what the game rules say you can't force anyone to TS with you no mater how powerful in the force you are, or how seductive you are.
We're going to attempt to stick with the canon to start with while allowing players to effect the world around them, so things might diverge from Legends as we move forward depending on what the player-base decide.
We're NOT going to be charging people to use the fast travel system or have a limit on how often it can use. I want RP to come first.

Edit: No, we will not be restricting Grey Jedi either. We want people to have fun and create interesting roleplay scenarios. If people abuse my kindness in allowing so much it'll get restricted, but only if, and as people abuse it.

[Kosh]

I approve.

Keep me posted. I've been looking for a new game to play on, specifically Star Wars themed.

[Tinuviel]

@mr-johnson said in A New Star Wars game? (Legends of The Old Republic (Name pending)):

diverge from Legends

You mean canon.

[Mr.Johnson]

@tinuviel Well yeah but I like using fancy words.

[Seraphim73]

I think a lot of your ideas sound great. I particularly like the ideas of not restricting Fast Travel and of keeping Feature Characters to NPC-only. A slow divide from canon is a great idea as well--the slower the better, in my opinion, since you want the world to still be relatively recognizable to newcomers.

I have a few suggestions based on my own experiences on Saga Edition games and on the old KotOR game:

• Start your characters at level 3-4 or at level 7-8, but start them all at the same level. I would suggest 3-4, but if you want Knight-level characters, it'll have to be 7-8. If you have a varied set of starting levels, people will pick the highest one most of the time, even if they're not interested in any requirements you set (you could also have a sliding starting level, where it went up somewhat as the playerbase leveled)
• Cap the levels. Probably around 13 if you start at 3-4, and around 15 if you start at 7-8. The higher level you get, the crazier and more complicated things get.
• Find the sweet spot between permissiveness and theme strictness. If you're too strict, you lose players, if you're too permissive, you lose any sense of theme.
• In keeping with the last point, consequences. Actions should have consequences (which it sounds like you're totally on board with). But both positive and negative consequences are important.
• Have some shinies for players to chase beyond rank and credits. Medals are good for people in the military, but something along the lines of reputations that are spread by Staff and work with NPCs can be nice, as can recognized areas of expertise (Go to Grognar for grenades!).
• I would strongly suggest focusing on one military sphere (Republic, Mandalorians, or soon-to-be-Sith) and Indies. And I only add Indies because there will definitely be people who want to play Indies, and won't play if they can't. I suggest this because we discovered on the old KotOR that players got way too caught up in the CvC aspect of things, even if they weren't directly interacting.
• Tie the Indy characters you have directly to that sphere. Only allow Indy characters with explicit connections to the Republic, or the Mandalorians, or whatever. Then they can be tied into the war, and will have more to get involved in than chasing credits.
• Focus on a single sector of space at the largest. You can have scenes on Coruscant and Tattooine and wherever as needed, but keep them off-grid, with the focus on a single sector (plus a military ship?) so that you can keep your playerbase concentrated.

Just my suggestions, take them or leave them, of course.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I am posting to voice general interest in an Old Republic Star Wars game that does not use feature characters or marry itself overmuch to the movie plots!

[Mr.Johnson]

@Seraphim73 Honestly I was thinking of allowing people to have 4 alts but only ONE can start at 8 and the rest at 3 giving people the chance to level as they go if they want, and put the cap at 12, with that level 8 character being restricted and requiring a more intensive app to actually get, and specifically being something for people who are faction heads or jedi knights or high ranking sith. So most the characters are on the level of 3, and 8's are a rarity. Other then that I really appreciate the advice and will take it to heart.

[Seraphim73]

@mr-johnson KotOR (the MUSH) did a very similar thing with levels. People could start at 1, 3, 5, or 8. Each one required a little more as far as BG and activity. Most people apped in at 5 or 8. There were lots of people who apped in at 8, and then just used their sheets as sticks, not worrying about requirements (which was our fault as Staff for not enforcing the requirements).

I would also say that 4 alts is probably significantly more than is necessary, unless the game is very spread out. I mean, there are 3 groups max, right? Republic/Jedi, Mandalorians, and Indies. So at most, you would need 1 per group in most cases (barring treating Republic/Jedi seprately, which I would caution against, because in my opinion you want them as unified as possible to prevent splitting the playerbase even further).

[Mr.Johnson]

@seraphim73 I was thinking of going 4 groups and allowing people to have one alt in each group with one alt that is their 'main' being at level 8. I intend on enforcing the stricter requirements on people apping 8, but you know how intentions go when the tires hit the road. The 4 factions I was looking at are Sith, Jedi, Mandalorians, and Indies. Not to spread things too thin but just to give some variety. So the Jedi are at war with the Mando, and the Sith, the Sith at war with the Jedi and Mano, and the Mando at war with the Jedi and Sith. Just as an idea. Again most of what this thread is for is testing out ideas and getting feedback while I work on the game.

[ixokai]

@seraphim73 said in A New Star Wars game? (Legends of The Old Republic (Name pending)):

I would also say that 4 alts is probably significantly more than is necessary, unless the game is very spread out. I mean, there are 3 groups max, right? Republic/Jedi, Mandalorians, and Indies. S

Wait, are you saying Sith/Empire are not possible? I find loyal Imperial subjects very compelling in the Old Republic setting!

[Seraphim73]

Well, in the Mandalorian Wars, there are no Sith involved (yet). As I recall, there's a year of nothing major happening between the end of the Mando Wars and the beginning of the Jedi Civil War (the time when Revan and Malak are going to Dromund Kaas, getting dominated by the Sith Emperor, finding the Star Forge, breaking the Emperor's hold on them, and building their fleet/armies). So the Mandalorians aren't really a major war faction at the time that the Sith are (although I may have totally misread @Mr-Johnson's intent on when the start the game).

I'm also a pretty huge fan of playing Imperials, but most people want to play the good guys, and I would still strongly suggest starting with just one war faction plus Indies (to keep the playerbase less spread out, and to limit bad OOC feelings based on which side is "winning" the war at any given moment). I mean, it worked well enough on KotOR, and it took a nasty database crash when the database hadn't been backed up in months and significant hardware-based downtime to kill the game, but there was definitely some ugliness involved between people who primarily played Sith and people who primarily played Jedi/Republic.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to bring Darth Trucidas back (ETA: and to play a Taung -Crusader- who dislikes the Neo-Crusaders, and to play a Republic pilot, and... and... and...). And I'm -totally- not trying to claim that my opinions are right and everyone else is wrong. I'm totally just spouting off my opinion.

[ixokai]

@seraphim73

On the one hand, I get what you're saying. I am usually the guy arguing against game dividing playerbase, where 'dividing' can be 'covering a so large a space that moving from spot to spot is an issue' or to faction level division where A and B can't reasonably RP.

BUT.

On the other hand, if I'm gonna play TOR, I want to play an Intelligence officer or a struggling-with-lightside Sith. Saying Repubs/Indies only just completely makes me not interested.

But that's me being entirely selfish in my interests, granted.

[Mercutio]

@mr-johnson said in A New Star Wars game? (Legends of The Old Republic (Name pending)):

@Seraphim73 Honestly I was thinking of allowing people to have 4 alts but only ONE can start at 8 and the rest at 3 giving people the chance to level as they go if they want...

Might I recommend a 3-5 or 5-8 split? Lower the 'distance' between the 'low' and the 'high' of initial application. 8 is a typical choice for the prestige classes it brings. So it depends on what kind of game you want to run off the get-go; a heroic higher level romp, or a start-from-nothing type.

(And know that you can, over the duration of the game, raise these starting levels as your needs change)

As usual, I agree with the level 12/13/14 absolute halt, as SAGA breaks down severely after those levels.

[Aria]

I am super excited to see this!!!

[Tinuviel]

Oh. Another... suggestion. Don't limit prestige classes (specifically in CG) based on stupid reasons. "Oh you can't take the Jedi Knight prestige class in CG because you need to get knighted IC."

[WildBaboons]

If I may offer another suggestion.. have some preconfigured kits/builds that people can choose from at chargen if they aren't that familiar with Saga since there is a steep learning curve to figuring out how it all pieces together.

I tried to play on a Saga game once and when I asked for help in figuring how out to build a character an awesome player sent me a googledoc spreadsheet they had custom made for me that had three seperate builds from 1st to max level... It was amazing and awesome.. but also overwhelming.

[Arkandel]

SAGA is a game within a game. It's so vast, with so many books - nearly all of which seem to be out of print - and the information for builds and traits is scattered all over them.

It was pretty discouraging when I dipped my toe in an otherwise pretty good Star Wars MUSH in the past.

[Tinuviel]

@arkandel Most games that I've seen use it have almost all the information available on the game itself.

[Mercutio]

@tinuviel said in A New Star Wars game? (Legends of The Old Republic (Name pending)):

Oh. Another... suggestion. Don't limit prestige classes (specifically in CG) based on stupid reasons. "Oh you can't take the Jedi Knight prestige class in CG because you need to get knighted IC."

As the guy that runs a game that does this due to policy inheritance - I echo this.
You can make the applications stricter around more difficult concepts if needed.

[Mr.Johnson]

There's some great suggestions just to cover a few things in no particular order:

I've no intention of limiting prestige classes.

Kits would be a great idea if I knew even the most basics of code, maybe that's something we can do down the line? The closest I can do is allow people to use builds from the books like as an example: Allowing people to play clonetroopers on a clone wars game with the stats of a clone trooper. You know just allowing people to use the precons from the books if they so want.

I'm still thinking we start end of the Mandalorian wars beginning of the Jedi Civil war. Then over time perhaps the Mandalorian faction would be phased out in place of the sith faction? The idea would be that once the Mandalorian wars are over they'd be a bit more of a non faction since Reven's actions aren't exactly going to be leaving much of them left. What I'm probably going to do to facilitate this is have the testing phase set RIGHT at the tale end of the Mandalorian wars, and let people play there till we move out of early testing and whatnot, then do a 1 year later skip. Unless people really want to play through that 1 year gap which hey cool I can work with it.

Honestly for the level thing. I really want to have people able to start as leaders if they show they're willing to put in the extra effort and put up with the BS. The majority of players SHOULD start with level 3 characters. What I might do is put in a restriction that you have to play for x weeks/months with y amounts of activity during that stage before you qualify to apply for a level 8 character that would still have some fairly strict requirements on what it takes to get one. Because I still want people to be able to come in battle hardened or disenfranchised old soldiers or Jedi Knights, but I want the majority of people to be lower level.

That's not just so my friends can play those things either (Mostly because I have very few friends in the mushing community, like 3 who don't exclusively play WoD, the bastards. (Hi guys! I know you're lurkin out there. :3)) It's more so people can still run those concepts.

When in doubt I'd rather raise standards of application then restrict or ban outright.