I assume there will some kind of Bounty Hunting missions with Wanted Posters and things that.

How will traveling between cities be done?

What kind of loot will NPC animals drop?
- Bullets? Gold coins? Dollars?

Had a few others but I can't remember now.:rolleyes:

Excellent questions. while the actual gameplay may be different upon release, I can give you a few tidbits of info based on what's in the design plan:

The storyline of Phoenix is your story. It's a story of survival and living in the Old West. The missions will be crafted to follow the player down the path they have chosen, not direct them toward any one goal. Decisions you make, factions you gain (or lose) reputation with, and your actions in-game will determine what missions are available to you, and how those missions unfold. For example, someone with positive reputation with an Outlaw gang could be invited to rob a coach or hold up a bank whereas positive reputation on the side of the law might have you defending a train from hijack, stopping a cattle rustler, and so on. Phoenix will have multiple factions - some Outlaw, some law-abiding, some somewhere in the middle.

Bounty Hunting was huge in the Old West. As such, it will play a very big role in Phoenix, for both Players and NPCs.

Horse-powered travel will be the ideal method of traveling in-zone. This could be by horseback, coach, some other horse-drawn trailer. Players could walk, but the size of the world would make this quite cumbersome. We see "Animal Husbandry" being a very popular skill. Traveling from zone-to-zone will consist of traveling by train or stagecoach in cases where there are large distances between (Tombstone to New York, for example).

The loot tables are up to much discussion. It's not realistic for a wild animal to drop a weapon, clothing, or ammunition (unless it was large enough to eat someone, I suppose). Animals will be more of a source of building blocks for crafted items such as food and clothing. Phoenix will rely considerably on player-crafted items, with "basic class" items available from NPC merchants. Players will earn in-game money from completing missions, selling crafted items, performing services for each other, or even gambling in saloons.

Awesome.

Are you going to have quests done like WoW where there will occasionally be 60 people waiting in one spot to kill a guy in order to level up; like Guild Wars were the missions are solo (or with your group only); or some sort of mix of the two?

I really think that mixing the two (say solo for the early leveling-up stuff sort of like a tutorial) would be a cool way to do it.

With the loot, animals could theoretically eat stuff like ammo and money if they're scavengers or carnivores. so you could get away with a mountain lion dropping some cash, lol. :)

You mentioned Tombstone and New York, how big are you planning to make Phoenix, because that's a fairly large expanse of land, or at least one I wouldn't want to walk. Beyond that, will getting a horse be easy and can it be "stored" like the speeder-bikes in SWG?

Are you going to have quests done like WoW where there will occasionally be 60 people waiting in one spot to kill a guy in order to level up; like Guild Wars were the missions are solo (or with your group only); or some sort of mix of the two?

You mentioned Tombstone and New York, how big are you planning to make Phoenix, because that's a fairly large expanse of land, or at least one I wouldn't want to walk. Beyond that, will getting a horse be easy and can it be "stored" like the speeder-bikes in SWG?

Tombstone and NY are just examples. Initially there will only be a few zones to play in, with more to come as the game progresses. The individual zones themselves will be quite large, however. We want the player to feel as if they are in a wide open and untamed world.

Inevitably, there may be some areas where special mission objectives live. In most cases, we'd like to see these missions instanced. However, care will be taken to avoid bottlenecks as much as possible.

Owning a horse will almost be a requirement - whether buying one from a player specializing in Husbandry or a standard horse from an NPC stable. Simply stated, if you want to travel long distances, you'll need a horse. That said, basic horses will be easy to come by.

We have not fully worked out the inventory issues surrounding horses. However, we want a system where horses could only be stored while you're in-town, say at a community stable. If you're out in the world, your horse is your companion and will need to be cared for like their real-world counterparts.

Yeah I like the idea of people having to go on foot while in town, and unless they use a stable or livery to store the horse it can be stolen by horse thieves.

Inevitably, there may be some areas where special mission objectives live. In most cases, we'd like to see these missions instanced. However, care will be taken to avoid bottlenecks as much as possible.

Owning a horse will almost be a requirement - whether buying one from a player specializing in Husbandry or a standard horse from an NPC stable. Simply stated, if you want to travel long distances, you'll need a horse. That said, basic horses will be easy to come by.

We have not fully worked out the inventory issues surrounding horses. However, we want a system where horses could only be stored while you're in-town, say at a community stable. If you're out in the world, your horse is your companion and will need to be cared for like their real-world counterparts.

Makes me think about what would happen to the poor soul who is out in the desert, and gets their horse stolen by thieves.

I agree though, if you're in a town, you should be walking around. If you're outside of a town, you should be on an animal (I won't limit myself to horses, because not everyone could afford a horse.)

My own thoughts on quests are:

1. Becoming someone who is strong should be just as fun as being that high-end character.
2. Quests are a way to involve players into the story.
3. Quests shouldn't just be about killing something over and over, nor should there be "n" templates. You should have types of quests that are abnormal and abnormally fun.
4. Every player does not like to do combat. Quests should fit all kinds.
5. Rewards should make sense. Why am I getting a rifle for something that had absolutely nothing to do with a rifle?

Quests to me are the bread and butter of an RPG. If you don't have a good, solid, balanced system, you don't have a good RPG.

I couldn't have said it better!

{Are you going to have quests done like WoW where there will occasionally be 60 people waiting in one spot to kill a guy in order to level up; like Guild Wars were the missions are solo (or with your group only); or some sort of mix of the two?]

On the whole I found the quest system in SWG (sounds like WoW) to be a real pain most of the times, lots of players standing around and then having to wait while the NPC re-spawns.

I'm playing Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS) now and they use quest / combat instances for all their quests, so you could have all those 60 people doing the same quest at the same time and it wouldn't impact on each other. Allows you to solo, group as you want within the "some quests are mando solo etc... rules"

We're trying to keep the scope of the game very broad. There is a storyline, but the player determines how the story unfolds for themselves. There is no one clear-cut way of playing the game. Much of the content will be player and event driven, with several quest lines and sub-stories to follow.

Unfortunately, anytime you have quests with sub-stories, you're going to end up with a situation where an area of the world becomes populated by players all trying to complete the same quest. We're looking into ways to reduce the bottleneck spots.

That's where the quest / combat instance (dungeon) set up would come in handy. The players would be able to click on.....door / cave / old dead guy etc.... and he'd go into his own little zone server.

SWG used something like it with Rage of the Wookies, certain areas would give you a choice of 10 different zone servers to enter so you could spread out the populas.

My only reservations with an instanced quest is that 1) it almost always forces the player to group up with others to complete the quest, and 2) Instanced zones feel "disconnected" from the main world. This, in my opinion is where WoW has gone wrong. I played WoW since beta - finally kicked the habit last fall

I've been playing Tabula Rasa since early beta. The instance system they have in place scales difficulty (and rewards) to the size and composition of the party, which makes soloing possible. The instances are relatively small, but again, feel disconnected from the main world.

So, I'm open to comments.. :)

With the RotW expansion, as mentioned above, it wasn't as disconnected as say Guild Wars is. When you got up to the door of a main part, you chose between instance 1-8 or so. Of course, that many isn't needed now lol, but with a lot of people running around in say instance 1, you could hop out, go to instance 2. Oh, too many people in this one too, head to instance 3 - here we go, a couple dozen people running around and it's not too crowded. You'll still have that connected feeling to a community, and reduces lag & spawn camping.

I think we're more into a sandbox arena than an instancing arena. The real and ultimate goal of any MMO is immersion, fun and player-gathering. Instances tend to break immersion. They can be fun. They're not really player-gathering.

I've played TR quite a bit as well, and while I like being able to solo most of the areas, I think they need better community resources.

It's a tough balance. I know what it's like to go to a coordinate to kill something and have 10 people already waiting to kill that same thing. It can be frustrating. On the other hand, I also know when you group up with individuals to kill that beastie, you make friends. Putting you in a position to make friends isn't a bad thing.

WoW does that decently. SWG used to do that fairly well too, but it was because the game was a sandbox. I don't agree with RoTW - I know a lot of people that really hated that expansion.

I think the best is more of a blend of both worlds. Provide a sandbox world. Allow you to enjoy what you enjoy the best. Provide content through in depth stories. If that will include instances, I can't tell you, but I will tell you we will work to make it fun.