1) Relationships. You see them in most M-Rated Games. I had this idea a few days ago, and I've wanted to post it ever since. Say you go to a colony under siege, and you see... The One. The one who deserves your attention, no matter where you go, or what you do. He/She might be struggling under too many opponents, or might be trying to herd a family to saftey. You go over and help. He/She thanks you, and goes off to help more people. You run in a few more times while on the mission. That's just an idea for how you might meet the love intrest of your playthrough. Anywho- What if this was real? I'm not asking for baby-making, but to have your character be driven to save/help their.. You know, I'm not a sappy guy. I like it when the main character and his girl amke out while buildings explode behind them. But to have a drive, besides saving/exploring the galaxy, it becomes more personal. Could there be certain power-ups/utilities that become accesable as your relationship with your significant "other" becomes stronger? Love rush? What the hell was I thinking when I thought about this? Then wrote it? W.T.F 2) Karma Meter InFamous 1 and 2 Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 Even Catherine, which was weird as all hell. I posted a Side-Quest idea about special items retival, and a very awesome Captian posted an idea about lying to the NPC who was hoping for you to go and get this special item. You could lie, and keep the item(s), or you could get a payment if you gave the thing to them. The guy who posted this is called SpaceCap'n, and is totally boss. But any Quests/Side-Quest/gameplay would work pretty well, with a Karma Meter in place. To any InFamous Players, you know the potential of good or evil. What about this in StarBound? Certain Upgrades, or charisma options due to karmaic status. Good Karma Ideas: Bargaining: Certain Merchants would be more suspectable to good bartering skills. A gun merchant might be more willing to give you a rifle if you can convince him that you'll use it on monsters, not people. Implanted Powers: Like Lightning (LOL), fire, etc. Certain Karma choices will open up new power choices, like machine gun bolts, or explosive fireballs Weapon Upgrades: Swords, guns, etc. could do more holy damage(more damge to undead, corrupted, and mutants.) Bad Karma Ideas: Threats: You could imtimidate merchants into giving you bigger discounts, or even free items. Implanted Powers: You could choose InFamous-esque Evil Karma upgrades for powers. Sycthe bolt, hellfire missles, etc. Weapons: Weapons could do more evil/poison damage, or more to Peacful NPCs (Evil damage does more to soul, light enemies.) It's not as professional as my other posts, but its like 10:00 pm where I live, and I was working on a big project all day. But would you like to see your StarBound character "getting it on" with that special NPC. Or would You like them to threaten merchants for guns? Tell me!
This seems quite interesting - I do like the Karma meter and all - A ability to make choices with quests will bring A LOT more sense of freedom and "own choosing" But with this type of mechanic it wouldn't feel all the right with a reputation one as well - Being a bad karma person with all the good people just is not as fun - But being a Bard karma with A LOT of bad people like space pirates - galaxy dominators - etc! That would be interesting.
Typically, I like the relationship aspects in games. Not only relationships with a specific NPC, but also with the world (a.k.a. Karma). But in Starbound I simply don't see it. Its a game centered around exploration and doing your own thing, with you own style. Karma rewards force players into doing one path of a game, because to get these rewards you have to be all good, or all evil. This is usually not what most people truly think, but a player would be punished for doing what they want to if it goes against their alignment.
if the Dev team could just make it inflluence "you," then it wont separate you as much. But I do see the possible design complications that could arise.
Space Pimps... Space Penguins... Mechs. Where is all of my money? Oh yeah, I threw it at the screen. Also, to really make the Karma meter work, make it all about your own space station. This isolates it, and thus keeps the game from forcing you around. A good example as to how this could work is Stronghold: Crusaders. Waaaay different game. But you could treat your citizens well, and they would work harder to please and defend you, but had no fear so they sometimes wondered around because they had no consequences. If you were cruel, they would work hard to keep out of trouble, but tended to run away if you were under attack and make mistakes in production and such because they really didn't care about you. A nice way to add that in perhaps.
No, please. We've seen how Karma affects games (Fuckout, Mass Erect etc etc) and it simply harms the experience by posing crappy morals between the player and fun. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have repercussions. Those are fine. You blow up a planet, and the community allied with that planet will chase yo ass. But please just don't put a stupid karma bar around that.
Karma is good if it doesn't interupt gameplay. I personally didnt like the Infamous karma system where the powers were almost exclusively tied to karma. Though in mass effect it didnt really affect the gameplay just made it so that you could do special persuasion in noncombat it took a massive bad turn on the third game where it affected how much war readiness you had. Regardless it should only affect people in small ways like only a little more tense around player with darker karma whereas if karma was good they wouldn't be affected by it. No special options. Much like in Fallout where karma was only a small part of it and it affected only how people in wasteland who never met you at least in New Vegas.
How would others be able to view your Karma Meter though? If you were on the negative side, you would surely try to conceal it, as to get an advantage over people that would otherwise not trade with you, or outright attack you for your crimes against fluffy little animals. And for that matter, why should they be bothered about what you did to another species on the other side of the galaxy? (Ignoring the fact that they somehow share a hive mind that communicates your actions to everyone else.) How can they know you're a bad person, if you never leave anyone alive to tell about it? Unless it's done in a way that's different from everything before it, I really don't see it working. Don't get me wrong, I liked the "Karma" system in Fallout New Vegas, no matter how little sense it made. (And don't even get me started on F3 and Megaton, how blowing up an entire town is just as bad as stealing 200 bottlecaps)
I like the idea of being able to choose different ways to complete quests for different rewards but I'm not too sure of a Karma system that is omnipresent and affects everything. I think having a title next to your name that is tied to your karma would be about as far as I'd like to see it go, maybe having villagers react to you differently would be cool to see as well.
