User:Iscariot/New Server Ideas

Hopefully I've created this right.

This will be the place where I'll deposit all those ideas I've been having about a new city.

Please discuss anything on the discussion page.

Original Suggestion:

Zombie Apocalypse

Timestamp:	Troymk1 16:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Type:	Limiting to finite Game Cycle
Scope:	GAME ALTERING
Description:	I've been playing Urban Dead for some time. I think it may be time to shake things up. Here is my proposal. 1) No new Survivor characters may be created. 2) Find chances for all items beging to degrade. 3) Necro-tech still works, just supplies would be limited. 4) This imbalance would eventually lead to fewer and fewer survivors. And to recognise this the last surving 100 Survivors would be enshrined in the UrbanDead Hall of Fame. (and perhaps the 100 Best Zombies by kills?!) 5) Game would restart at this point. Would allow Kevan to generate a new map (as the infection spreads to other urban centres) and we would all have to start fresh characters (obviously flushing the data from the DB to allow us to use our fave names!). Since the game system has matured this would be an interesting and fresh thing for many. What do you think?

My Ideas

These will be rambling, incoherent and badly formatted....for now.

Most of the non-UD ideas I will reference will be taken from Travian, another browsergame I play. For sake of saving you going out and learning, Travian is a village building sim/wargame. It has many servers for each country that it has a specific website for, for example the UK has 5 servers, 4 normal and 1 speed. Different versions of the game can be run on different servers as well as different rules or end goals. Servers last for approximately 12 months before the endgame is initiated, or 4 months in the case of a speed server. After that the server resets, progress and usernames are wiped. Travian attracts thousands of players to each server and has features available extra to the standard game interface for a small cost.

Note, these are ideas, not all of them are needed.

Firstly, I'd wipe Malton, seriously. Malton at the moment looks old, if it could be done it has been done. I'd call the current game a successful beta test and wipe it in favour of a new improved Malton.

New and Improved Malton

It could incorporate new terrain and other ideas which just cannot be put into current Malton. Rivers, prisons, universities, underground systems, airports etc. Background history could also be coherently set up beforehand and story ideas and events will have clues in this history and be easier to plan due to both the events and the city being designed with each other in mind.

New and Improved Malton would remain running then, permanently much like the game is now. The story justification would be NT pressure stopping the eradication of the city in order to study the spread of the virus and its ongoing effects.

After major story events, new servers with brand new cities/quarantine zones could be established. With possible bonuses or even character transferral of the winners of the ingame event that precipitated the launch.

Malton would remain its traditional 10x10 square, but new cities would allow smaller areas or different shapes 5x5 or 4x7 say.

New cities would be time limited. The time limit will not be known to the players but they will know that they do not have the luxury of forever. A major event will end each server, details to differ depending on the storyline ideas behind each scenario and possibly altered due to the effort of players in earlier events.

Character classes

There are a shitload of these in PR. I'd favour adding some of these to the new city.

Prisoner (Starting skill: Hand to Hand Combat) would be one I'd favour as well as some new type of zombie starting characters.

Characters

You get one. That's right, you heard me, one. One per server that is. Like Travian each player would only be allowed one account for each server. Travian polices this by using volunteer Multihunters to find and punish breakers of this rule. Want two characters? Tough. Want to play both sides? Fine, play a survivor on one server and a zombie on another.

Trading

By using only one account per player per server we can institute a trading system, and an ingame economy can emerge. The big difference between the closeness of Travian alliances and UD groups is due to the fact that in Travian the good alliances can care for and help their new smaller players. Groups in UD are prevented from doing this due to anti cheating rules. One character per server would allow this.

Sponsorship

Inevitable if you want more cities. New cities need new equipment, electricity to run them and work from Kevan who needs to eat and pay rent. Ingame background mentions: 'You find a bottle of Easy Rider', 'You find a copy of The Guardian', 'You see a billboard for Rocky 17' would be a simple way to generate revenue. Events can also be sponsored either ingame or out of game, possibly with the sponsor companies also providing prises for winners. Any successful free game needs to make money somehow, unless you want to start to pay a mandatory subscription then the bills need to be paid for by someone.

Here ends today's entry. Feel free to make your objections/agreements with any part on the discussion page.