Well I have been thinking a lot about how the old world could be made more alive. I came to the conclusion that it might need some gameplay loops that keep you traversing the land to work towards a desired goal. Here is an Example gameplay loop I came up with. All words in „“ will be explained below.
Example for first Gameplay loop. Building a Dock in Theramore.
You start at Elwynn forest and fly to the „landmark“ Eastvale lumber camp to play the minigame to get 1000 Lumber. With that you buy your „Wooden Wheelbarrow“. You now fly to „Gol‘Bolar“ and play the mining minigame:
Once the player(s) gathered 30.000 iron ore which is the equivalent of 1 „Barrel of iron ore“ They can deposit the barrel and load it onto their „Wooden Wheelbarrow“. The player(s) will now walk to Iron forge pulling their „Wooden Wheelbarrow“. Arriving at Iron forges loading zone the player(s) will deposit their „Barrel of iron ore“ and start playing the smelting minigame to transform their „Barrel of iron ore“ into 1 „Iron slab“. The „Iron slab“ will then be loaded in the output area of Iron forge and the player(s) resume their journey with the „Wooden Wheelbarrow“ to bring the slab to New Tinkertown. Here the player(s) will play the Engineering minigame to turn 1 „Iron slab“ into 1 „Iron sawblade“. After this the player will take the „Wooden Wheelbarrow“ journey through the deep tram to Stormwind and finally Eastvale lumber camp. With the newly added „Iron sawblade“ the production of lumber will increase massively for the durability of the sawblade. While the Eastvale lumber mill is busy producing lumber. The player(s) take a trip to Westfall to harvest the ocra they have been raising in the past. Again the take a „Wooden Wheelbarrow“ journey to bring the ocra to the Amberstill ranch. There the ocra will be used to play the raise the rams minigame to produce a draft animal the „Amberstill ram“ With all the lumber produced at the Eastvale lumber camp the player(s) will now be able to craft a huge cart which can load up to 100 „Barrels of Lumber“ but requires a draft animal like „Amberstill ram“ to be moved.
Now project Theramore Docks can start. After 100 „Iron slabs“ have been been produced they will be transported via the Horse & Cart travel to Westfall Lighthouse Dock. There the Ship will be built with all the lumber from Eastvale. The ship will be loaded with the 100 „Iron slabs“. at the Westfall Docks and the Sailing minigame starts to make the trip across the ocean to Theramore.
Now we have Iron slabs in Theramore and can start using the Landmark over there.
What are Landmarks?
Landmarks are special points of interest that tie into the lore of the zone. Each Landmark has the following properties:
Prestige Milestones: Renown system to unlock rewards for a player to increase effectiveness of the landmark for the player and cosmetics.
Storage: A player specific capacity similiar to bank slots to hold items valid for the specific landmark.
Loading Area: A highlighted circle where items can be transferred into the landmarks inventory. Loading process will take time depending on the volume.
Output Area: A highlighted circle where items can be extracted from the landmarks inventory. Output process will take time depending on the volume.
Status: Each landmark will have three phases depending on how active the community is. Red, Yellow and green phases will be active at any given time. Green usually means maximum efficiency with no dangers. Yellow means normal efficiency with occasional mob spawn or danger appearance. Red means production is severely obstrued by a crisis which usually is a boss mob that needs to be defeated.
Production: A world quest like mini game that can be played to gain the specific product of the landmark.
What is Wheelbarrow travel?
Wheelbarrow travel is like summoning a toy. It is a vehicle that can be mounted and driven just possible at normal walking speed. It cannot be accelerated externally. A wheelbarrow can carry only 1 Barrel of items. Wheelbarrows can only be loaded and unloaded at landmarks loading and output areas. If you diesembark the wheelbarrow will stay in the zone for 5 minutes. After 5 min it will be abandoned, which means other players can loot it. After another 5 minutes it despawns and the goods loaded are lost. Falling damage dismounts the wheelbarrow automatically with a % chance to destroy the load with increasing falling distance.
Whats happenning at Gol Bolar Quarry
The player(s) can pay a fee to rent the mining kit. He or she can now enter the mine and changes to the borrowed mining kit. It produces a cone of light to see in the darkness. 1 skill to detect nodes. 1 skill to mine a node. Nodes will be hit and have a chance to directly drop iron ore into the score of the player. At the end of the timer or when the player leaves the mine the fee is deducted and the remaining ores will be saved on the players mine storage. The output zone can be used to obtain ores from your own stash or buy ores from people who put ores up for sale. Deposits can only be in „Barrels of ore“ and have to be loaded onto a suitable inventory.
What is an heavy item?
A heavy item such as Iron slab or Barrel of Copper Ore are heavy items. They consists of a base item but are consolidated to a heavy unit. 30.000 Copper Ores equal 1 Barrel of Copper Ore. 30.000 Iron Ingots equal 1 Iron slab. Heavy Items cannot be stored in players inventory, mail box or bank inventory. The only valid inventory for heavy items must be labeled as such. This usually is storage inventory of landmarks and transportation devices. If heavy items are dropped and become lootable players can obtain fractions of the heavy item. Barrel of Mithril Ores can be looted by players to obtain Mithril Ore.
What is Sea travel?
If the zone has a dock there is a interactive desk. In the menu your ships can be built and repaired.
Other than that it can be readied for a journey by entering a departure time. During this state the vessel will appear on the public harbor blackboard. The captain of the vessel can accept passengers, goods and crew member that can apply. Players will be able to pay a fee to the captain for transport. On the other hand crew member can ask for a price if the captain decides to hire them. Of course he can ask friends / guild members to crew his ship. 5 minutes before the ship leaves all goods must have been stored in the harbors storage area and passengers and crew have to arrive at the boarding zone. Everyone will be transported on an instanced map which resembles the open sea. The minigame consists of following parts:
Steering Wheel: The captain can interact with the steering wheel. He steers the vessel in 3rd person view now. Leaving the steering wheel will keep the set course and speed.
**Navigation seat:**The captain or declared navigator can interact with a navigation table on board. It will open a 2d window which shows starting place, route to go and dangerous places (shallows, pirate areas).
Lookout: The captain or declared lookout can climb on the lookout and open a 2d similiar to the navigation table, however he cannot see the route, start nor destination. Instead he can see an area around the ship and see all dangeroues places and dangerous events (Pirate ship, Sea monster, Storm)
Chef: The chef can cook meals to increase the crews abilities to do their job.
Canoneer: man Cannons and fire at enemy ships/monsters, cannons need to be reloaded manually by the cannoneer or a skirmisher.
Skirmisher: Has a hookshot to enter hostile vessels or creatures to fight.
Map: Depending on the Route you will enter a tile map. Small routes will have a 16 x 16 grid. Each tile consists of 9 squares. The ship will represent 1 square. The ships course will determine to which square the ship will jump after a movement step. The ships speed will determine the time it takes to produce a movement step. For example the ship sits on the 5 of your numpad. It sails at the speed of 30 with a course SW. It will take 30 seconds for the ship to move from the Numpad 5 to Numpad 1.
Tiles can have the following properties: Dangerous place, Dangerous event, Safe,Lucky, Destination. Indicated by skybox.
Dangerous place: Traps spawn on the sea which the captain has to maneuver around. Skybox will indicate traps spawning.
Dangerous event: Enemy Unit spawns on the map hunting the ship. If the enemy is closer than 3 squares it will appear on the skybox. If they share the same square combat will commence and canoneers and skirmishers have to deal with the theart.
Safe: nothing will happen ship, kitchen, weapons can be prepared.
Lucky: Safe tile where treasures can spawn containing items from the inventory of „the depth of the sea“
Destination: Harbor will spawn on the Skybox. Minigame will end. All active crew members will receive Experience in their roles.
Capsize: If the ships health drops to 0% during the minigame all crewmembers and passengers die. Large portion of ships inventory will be moved to the inventory of „the depth of the sea“