Twilight Forums

This is the place for players to put their creative ideas for in-game items, zones, effects, etc. (Like make-a-KoL, if you've been over there.) The management makes no claims about the amount of attention they will or won't pay to this thread. We pride ourselves on our originality and mostly feel compelled to provide our own content, but we appreciate a good joke or idea as much as the next person, so feel free to share them here.

Can this be mechanic-a-TH as well? If so then...

If you have enough chips, you can quit your job! It lifts the restriction of stopping adventuring at 7 am. Maybe you could use this as a requirement to get the currently unobtainable badge. Or something.

Hmmm... I can identify both pros and cons, realted either with gameplay or with game balance...

As far as gameplay is cncerned, it promotes realism, and a sense that the job one gets is really an annoyance so procedeing to being indipendent from it, makes it interesting.

On the other hand, it lifts a measure of control that opens more ways to breaking the game...

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Having played a Gadgeteer for a long time and then reincarnating as a Naturalist, it occurs to me that while Gadgeteers get some measure of customization in their buffs, it seems like any given Naturalist at level X is going to be pretty much exactly the same as any other Naturalist.

The ability to choose those buffs was really novel and exciting for me, and it seems like maybe you could do the same thing with the Naturalist's wolf skill. Like, instead of Summon Wolf, it could become Summon Animal Companion, and you'd get to choose from a variety of animals with different effects on combat.

This might be stepping on the existing or future design, as I've only played this guy up to level 11 so far, and I don't know if there are any higher level animal companions.

No, there aren' any, skills stop progressing at level 11 (or 10?) at least this is unless I seriouly misunderstood something...

I really like the idea of being able to summon a variety of animals for different effects and wanted to add to that idea, the possibility of having skills that improve the animals themselves, making summonings, a central piece in the naturalist's arsenal.

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Sorry, Devant, but this isn't quite right. There in fact *are* other animal companions, and while most high-level skills don't exist, there are a couple that kick in beyond level 11.

Jick: intriguing idea, though coming up with different animals and what they'd do might take some work. Could still be a "summon lesser animal" and "summon greater animal" or something like that. Skills in general still need a lot of work.

Ops, pardon me. To be sincere, it has been quite sometime I last played a very low level character...

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No worries. Just keeping the facts straight. Eventually the Wiki will take care of that for me, right?

Eheheh! Now I feel ashamed! keeping track of all the information of the game, and not remembering basic things like skills...

Well, there will be a moment that you will have not the time to respond to every single game related question... for *that* moment, let the "wiki staff"* take care..




*Curently IcyFreak and me...XD

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Works for D&D.

Uhm, yeah, but the restrictions are more severe in D&D... limtied time, physical vunlerability, and the fact that at a given level, whatever you summon, sucks... (unless you start contacting other planes and exchanging your precious artifacts for a few minutes of service from a Planetar...XD Not that it needs "more than a few minutes" to do its job...XDDD)

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Fix'd typo. Also, since when did I become a "wiki staff"? All I'm doing is list things. >.>

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Have a nice day.

That is 3/4ths of what currently the wiki needs...XD

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Maybe you should create an all new zone with shiny things in it!

*Wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*...

Geddit?

ANYWAY, I thought of a new type of caffeine! Although it renders PG Tips much worse, I think it's pretty cool. You can find a bottle of water in the University: Retro Rave. Then, you assemble it with a bag of PG tips. But to do that, you need to buy a kettle from JitterSpout coffee. Although it would have to give rather a lot of minutes of extra time awake because of its complexity... I would say 1 and a half hours?

Well, brays give 2 hours, so this is not all that much...

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Yeah, but Bray costs 500 chips.

Small price to pay for an extra two hours.

Yeah, but it has been awhile since I last saw them being sold... Ross? You hear? We want brays... We are addicted..XD

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I'm selling for 1500 per can.

I've got a stackload since I bought absolutely tons of the stuff the last time it came.

I am selling for 1200 per can. >.>

Ross, we need a trade forum... >.>

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I've got an idea, what about if bray gives you wings?

And then scalpel can give something else... I dunno.

Wings - 30 minutes

This pair of wings lets you jump and then fly sky high! Although it does look rather dorky and get in the way...

(-5 reflexes)
(+50% initiative)
(-5 to hit chance with melee weapon)
(+5 to hit chance with ranged weapon)

Oh yeah, I'm selling brays for 1199 chips!

I like the idea with the wings, but not with brays (they are a staple drink) but instead with another, lesser drink, maybe a more direct parody of red bull...

Oh, and I am giving brays at 1150 chips, making better prices for mass purchases. u.u

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Hmmm... maybe instead of giving brays and scalpels at the game corner, you instead win... I dunno... a ruber taurus, which also happens to be red bull but in latin!

Ooh, oooh! I've just got a great idea! At the flight simulator, each time you would win a bray, you win instead a piece of a plane. So when you reach the last one, you have enough parts to make a plane! But it's a toy one... But still, if you find the right tool, you could make it larger...

And in the sports game, you win the ruberum tauros.

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Super Happy Enlarger Light-up-the-dark!

This seems to be some sort of gadget from a manga comic. And it looks like it just came out of some robotic animal's abdomen. Ewwww...

Whenever you press the button, it seems to make the air in front of it suddenly expand. How strange.

Miscellaneous Item
Item cannot be auto-sold

Usable

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When used, it gives a long list of all the items in your inventory. And if you have specific items that fit the criteria, you can enlarge them! I.E. the toy plane.

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Plane

Wow. A full plane. HOW MUCH DID THIS PLANE COST YOU?!?!?! DID YOU JUST USE UP ALL YOUR SAVINGS?!?!?!

What? Oh. Sorry. It seems to be entirely made of plastic and runs on batteries. And the engines don't seem to be working that well.

Transportation
Range: 5
Autosell value: 200

-10 to initiative
+4 PP per turn

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It gives access to a shop above the clouds! And I have no idea what it sells. Maybe cloud men. And a brick maker that uses clouds. And of course, clouds! And maybe a palace plan.

**NOTE** The enlarger and shop I came up with is a big fat reference to Doraemon. It's something I used to watch and I've recently found again on YouTube.

Oh, and I'm selling brays for 501 chips! But it's only today's discount price!
(Today happens to be a day with brays on the black market too...)

Hmmm... What do you say Ross? Could it be a good idea the following?

Each month holding an item creation contest, and you get to decide one item to be implemented . devteam-community interaction++

As for the specifics, it could be done in various ways:
1)Each month, players decide only the type of item they want. Weapon, accessory etc.
2)A poll could be used, either in the forums, or better yet, in game, permitting one vote each player each month (yep, I know this could create multi acount problems, but there are workarounds)
3)Players design items in the forums. Then, devteam, decides the most interesting one, rebalances it and put's it in.
4)Ross creates an image, and players think of descriptions for it. (I like this a lot )
5)A month is divided in three tendays, the first one creating a concept, the second creating the image and description, and the third, the mechanics. Practicaly, three individual contests/polls. (this is the mot demanding one from the part of ross)
6)The item could be either one a creature drops, but it would be also inteesting if it could be found in the market. Each month, a new item would be introduced, making the list ever increasing. maybe a special shop could be introduced for that. It could also be possible that those items can be bought for silver stars.
7)Maybe when the items are created, they can be had only through a recipe, bringing eternal bliss to the spades out there..
Maybe Ross chooses a category, and players design on that field. For example "this month we need a weapon" etc. Or he might even choose a theme. "This month we need an oriental sword" etc.

I do understand that such a thing is more a decorative element than anything else, and a strong intracomunity tool, but I wanted mostly to know if it is an idea that has a future, or one that has a bulet planted on the head..

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Man, that's a tough one to answer.

There's definitely a lot of appeal to having the players really feel like they get to be a part of the world, up to and including affecting what's in it and perhaps how it works.

There's also an equal appeal to making sure that the game maintains standards of quality, entertainment value, humor, consistency, and playability.

Those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but they can very easily diverge, and given a choice between the two--if it came down to a choice--I'd always pick the latter.

(Also, the thought of having to read through something like 10,000 submitted item descriptions--most of them probably bad and/or duplicates--just gives me the shivers.)

Short answer: probably more trouble than good. Long answer: on rare (probably one-time events) occasions, something that involves some player input might be fun.

It would be possible, provided you had staff.

I play another online game where players (over a certain age) can submit ideas to the game (different, but akin to new equipment). The owner doesn't do anything with them, but a handful of staff members do. The staff that work on this are able to edit just about everything that was submitted (sometimes they're edited to much the player doesn't recognize the finished product). Their work is vetted by the owner to make sure it fits, though.

With a system like that, you wouldn't have to worry about reams of garbage, just polished items from people you trust already. Granted, you aren't really big enough to need a staff (even unpaid volunteers), but something like that might be workable.

Understandable. Both the positive and the negative part . As you said, the two basic objectives are not mutualy exclusive, but then again, it leaves open the hole for lowering the standards. and when the comunity grows, it is simply a pain in the ass even to skim through all the applications.

On the other hand, even a step as letting players choose the category of the item they want to be implemented, goes far beyond established standards on other games.

What I think is that there is a distinctive line between letting in the opinion, and letting in the creativity. The latter is most probably impossible, due to the multitude of factors that get into the equation (except as special events like you said). The former sounds as a proccess that can be easily automated (having of course its own share of problems, like multiaccounts etc) practicaly giving a greater sense of comunication between dev and playerbase (not that we lack such thing ), gives an easy to measure comunity opinion and it is fairly easy to implementate. (An in game link to a poll, that lets a player choose a category once a month. About 50 lines of both php and html, plus one field in the db )

All in all, keeping up the standards is far more important than doing seemingly interesting, but hasty and reckless moves. Wehn the time is available, and multitude of other more important things have been implemented, then such thoughts can be observed with a more analytic approach .

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How about letting you move out of Somerset Square? With your improved powers, you feel sure that you are able to defend yourself in a less "safe" neighbourhood, so you move to the suburbs of downtown Twilight. You find that your new house/apartment/hovel has internet access, too. Score!

And while we're on this flight of fancy... how about this. While surfing the internet one day, you come across a Web site advertising "Live at an increased level of consciousness!" Intrigued, you show up at their headquarters, where you learn that, apparently, everybody is living a dream. To reach the next level of consciousness, you have to do what sounds suspiciously like a load of bulls**t. While you're too image-conscious to do any of that over there, you try it out at home...and you suddenly wake up, realising that all that you did (or thought you did) before was a dream. You leave your apartment to get dinner...and meet the flying saucer (or whatever it is that gave you your original talisman, again).

Yay, internet!

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Have a nice day.

Very interesting! This idea, coupled with the idea of getting to choose a job, gives a very personal touch to the character! As for the interent, it can be used both for new quests, and also for making purchases etc.



Yeah, it could be that a new "adventuring zone" appears, the internet, where you fight cyber foes and eventualy encounter quests.



Hmm.. in my opinion, this idea fits good as an ascension option .

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That's an absolutely terrible idea.

It'd be a huge cop-out. "Nothing that happened was actually real, you just imagined it. lulz." No thanks.

Relative to the elements, I was wondering if it could be a good idea to add sonic and magic damage types... I guess you put the three current ones because there were already items granting resistances to those, then again, it seems a good idea design-wise to cover everything from the begining...

It may seem that sonic comes up very infrequently, but there could be a variety of monsters that make use of it, and also a variety of both arms (for the playes) and armed foes that use sonic damage.

As for the magic one, it may seem a bit out of place, but magic is not necessarily as is known from Sword and Sorcery... For example, Vampire The Masquarade, and genrally, all the White Wolf's RPGs, make use of magic in the contemporary world in a very intriguing manner, that melds harmonicaly to the intricacies of the modern timescape.

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We need a violin as an item in the game. Totally. If there isn't one.

Why? Fits in with the whole "dark" mood and stuff. If you need help on this, I can try to materialize what I was getting at. But I just can tell that it fits.

Add them in what sense? You mean create a weapon that has them?

I think I've already got sonic resistance on something, and I know I've got acid resistance on one shield, so they're in the game in some sense. No weapons yet, though.

Regarding "magic," I'm not so sure that I'll ever have a magic damage. Yeah, the super powers are in and of themselves somewhat magical, but my guideline (that I just made up) is that the magic allows you to interact with things in ways that aren't understood, but for the most part it's the things themselves that then do the damage, or are affected by the magic. So magic may create fire, ice, or sonic waves, but it's not magic damage, it's damage done by one of those means.

There isn't one yet. And I was just about to say that I don't really see stringed instruments being weapons in this game, but as I was just talking about sonic damage I suppose extreme cases might be possible. But it won't be a theme like in KoL. I'd say a musical instrument could be an accessory, but in that sense you wouldn't be playing it (because your hands are full of weapons and such), it would have to contain an effect in and of itself. A miniature player piano, for instance, could accompany you and provide appropriate mood music.

Or maybe I'm missing what you were getting at. If you'd care to elaborate? Things that help set the mood are always good, but short of having actual music play in the background (don't worry, I won't do that), I'm not sure how to do that with the concept of a violin.

Meant in both terms of adding monsters/items making use of them and adding them to the resistances in the cahracter sheet . About magic, well yes, it could be argued that spells like that produce "raw energy" or other more obscure effects like making the blood vaporize, could need a seperate damage element, but then again, it seems that such things will not see much use in TH.

Relative to sonic, I haven't checked all the items again, but if indeed there is something in that field, I suppose adding the proper entry in the resistances list in the character sheet would make this more clear .

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The resistance will appear if you have it. It shouldn't appear if you don't. That holds true for all the "elemental" types. Is it not behaving that way?

Duh! Stupid me! I tohught all ressitances appear anyway . By the way, why not showing all of them, even if they have a zero value? Minor decorative feature, but it it gives a feeling of knowledge to the player .

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I figure it keeps the character page clean. After all, how often do you need something to tell you that there's nothing you need to know? If there's nothing to note, might as well keep it hidden. Especially on a page that will eventually get pretty complicated.

Hm. Then the Force Gloves need to be reworked a little. Their desription says "+5% resist all", but my character sheet only shows fire, cold, and electric.

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

Ah, yeah. Back then "all" just meant the first three, because the other two didn't exist. I'll have to fix that.