Lonin said:
That"s a huge risk/tiny reward mechanic. It could ruin the game for 90% of the player base at its worst, and maybe add 10% more players at its best. Would not be a wise decision IMO.
I hate this attitude but I"m not going to single you out because there"s a ton of people who would agree with you -- likely including Ngruk and the staff at 38 as well as the boys at Blizzard, SOE and most other game studios.
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One of my favorite (non-game) anecdotes about fear of the new is American Idol -- Freemantle presented it to every major broadcast (save Fox) and (IIRC) cable network farmously hitting ABC up twice -- before Fox final bit. Nobody else "got" the concept -- Fox was leery but made the bet and was handsomely rewarded.
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What pisses me off the most is that if you go back through this thread you"ll see people pissed off over current game mechanics - but nobody wants to take the next logical evolutionary step.
As for the risk/reward - most guys are collectors -- CCGs and a CCG/MMO targets that wallet-opening need in men.
Some Basic Assumptions
1. Everyone has their 8 standard class-based abilities on one hotbar: taunting, healing, dps, CC, pulling (e.g.feign for monks). Leveling improves these basic abilities,
2. In game, "cards" are rare to very rare drops off of most mobs. There can also be a physical retail version of the CCG that has cards (abilities, creatures, enchatments not just chrome mounts) that can be used in the game (via scratch off digital key on the card or what have you)
3. There is a lot of variation in all cards that are just chrome - that is you might have 5 different creature cards that all have roughly the same combat abilities (I"ll use MTG terms since most of us are familiar with the game) -- that is there might be: 2/2 Wolves, 2/2 Bears, 2/2 Lions, 2/2 Artic Wolves, 2/2 Desert Wolves, 2/2 Jungle Wolves 2/2 Snakes, 2/2 Beavers, 2/2 Jackalopes, etc. (see #5 though -- with typical CCG card restrictions you"re gonna want a bunch of the same type of cards to fill out your deck).
4. The "card" combat system is designed in such a way that cards remain useful throughout the leveling process: that is the 2/2 wolf you got at level 1 is still useful at level 50. This is via either (a) automatic improvement of the card stats or more likely (b) the availability of additional dropped cards that add (again using MTG terminology) enchantments or instant effects to the 2/2 wolf (example: the wolf card is a rare drop off of level 1 wolves in Wolf Valley, the "giant growth" enchantment card is a rare drop off of level 50 witches in Witch Valley. The giant growth enchantment when played on the level 1 wolf turns the level 1 wolf card into the equivalent of a level 50 wolf card).
5. There are the usual CCG restrictions in terms of # of particular cards, severe limitations on powerful cards, and deck size limitations.
6. Smart mobs get their own decks in addition to their abilities.
What does it add?
1. Variation. The key thing it adds is variation to each toon. In one sense it almost acts like a job system in that ideally there is no limitation on what kind of deck a character can build. A healer can build a deck with all direct damage cards: lightning bolts, fireballs, etc. A tank can build a deck with crowd control cards: armageddon, balance, etc. A dps-er can build a deck with a bunch of healing/creature cards.
2. PVP. Whether or not there is world PVP. A CCG-combat system is natural for PVP. Instead of having healer with mostly same set of abilites fighting a healer with mostly same set of abilites in the Arena. You have two healers with potentially very different decks going after each other. Same thing with group combat just moreso.
3. Class balance. Becomes much less of a worry - as long as all classes have access (via grinding, questing, killing) to most cards - what matters is card balance not class balance. Of course there may be various class/faction/diety restrictions on cards - but these should be the exception not the rule.
4. Roleplaying. You can be Wolfie the Ranger who builds an all-wolf/all-the-time deck with timber, dire, forest, jungle, ice-covered and of course volcanic wolves. Probably not a super effective deck - but as long as Wolfie is having fun playing the game who cares?
5. Encounter Replaybility/Flexibility. Since the cards come out in random order - there is more variation in mob/raid encounters. Instead of taking on a mob 300 times hoping for the perfect play by all your players - there"s flexibility - the right cards at the right time can allow an under-geared group to defeat a mob/raid mob they shouldn"t be able to in a pure Diku system. Giving smart mobs/raid mobs their own cards (and a decent AI) means that encounters are going to go differently as well. Things are going great until the raid mob plays his Armageddon.
I"m not going to beat the dead horse anymore this week -- maybe after Copernicus gets released and people start bitching about how it"s the same WoW/EQ/EQ2/VG Diku system I"ll bring it up again.
