Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,024
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7425.0.html
Introducing something new and different isn’t an easy task. A fantasy game like AoD offers many familiar concepts: a local lord in charge of a town, different guilds, rival Houses, traveling preachers, etc. None of it raises any questions or requires any lengthy explanations.
The Colony Ship Game is very different and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and a lot of concepts that need to be explained without overwhelming the player with the new info. That’s one of the reasons you start the game in the Pit, the container town, instead of the much stranger Habitats. It offers some familiarity and gives you plenty of second-hand information from other people.
The Pit will give you two locations: the relatively safe "main street" and the not so safe “bad part of town”. Overall, it will give you more places of interest and things to do than Teron, including an arena that will allow you to test your character fairly early and figure out your limits. Did I say arena? I meant the Courthouse:
“This, my friend, is the cornerstone of justice in our little town,” he says with pride. “Welcome to the Courthouse.”
“I thought the Pit was a barbaric outpost where people went to hide from the law.”
“No, no, far from it! We abide by the Constitution, and much more strictly than those fools in the Habitats. Every accused man in the Pit is guaranteed to have his day in court and face his accuser, just like the Constitution says. If said accuser is unable to make an appearance, an Arbiter appointed by the Court will take his place.”
“What about the trial?”
“If the defendant slays his accuser, or the aforementioned Arbiter, he’s cleared of all charges and released. If the defendant falls to the accuser he is declared guilty. Posthumously, of course.”
“That’s what you call a trial?”
“All contests conform to the process of law,” he says with a reassuring pat on your shoulder, “and here is where our method is superior: it is immune to the corrupting influence of money. Try to find a system like that in the Habitats. Haw!”
“You mentioned a job.”
“We’re running low on legal representation for the prosecution,” he admits with a sad shake of his head. “Lost three Arbiters last week in a string of challenging cases.”
Other notable locations include the Regulators, a local church, a whorehouse, a prison, a gambling den, various stores, and entire town "blocks" occupied by different crews of scavengers and other men of ill repute. They will provide you with some bits of common knowledge as well as quests properly introducing other locations:
Cole:
“Combat tech and implants.” He taps the data jack on the side of his head. “The good stuff, extracted with care and rehabilitated for my more moneyed customers.”
“Extracted?”
“You know they don’t make new ones, so where do you think they come from? Now take a look at this beauty.” Cole dangles a small ball, made of some smooth, shiny substance, from a bundle of ultrathin translucent wires. As it slowly pivots, you see on its reverse side a much worn bar-code and brown spots that look like dried blood.
“Excellent pedigree,” says Cole. “Four previous owners, no registered complaints, and still performs up to factory specs. It’s a basic model though, which is why I’d be willing to practically give it to you for twenty chips.”
“What is it?”
Cole shows you the recessed lens on the underside, the “pupil” of the device, ringed by an impossibly blue iris.
Solomon Kane:
“God has everything to do with it!” The preacher moves closer, closer than you like, leaning well into your personal space. “It is by the Lord’s grace alone that the Ship was launched, and by His grace alone shall She arrive at that land He promised us so very long ago.
“And it was written,” he shouts, the tendons of his neck leaping up, “I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. The words of millennia ago, my son, millennia, for the truth of His word is eternal.”
“Who are the Canaanites?”
“Those who dwell in the Promised Land, those who wait open-armed to embrace the righteous when, and only when, we prove our devotion to the Lord.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Did the Israelites not wander the desert for forty years before He allowed them into the Promised Land? Why did they go for so long without a home? They were not ready. The Israelites must first make their children worthy of the Lord’s grace, and only then were those children allowed to set foot in the Promised Land.”
Mags:
“Take the Exo-Spine as an example. It reinforces your vertebral column and taps your spinal nerve in four different places. The implant makes you stronger than a human being ever evolved to be. Now let’s say that a few months later you get tired of it and want to have it removed. The Exo-Spine is fused directly to eighteen of your thirty-three vertebrae, and the top spinal cord access point is right at the brainstem. Best case scenario, irreversible paralysis. I’ll let you guess the worst case.”
“Where can I get some implants?”
“Two places, from the scavengers or from the source. Problem with buying from scavengers is that over time the goods keep getting rarer, and when you find what you want it’s always pricy. The budget conscious customer goes for the second option: do the extractions yourself.”
Ol' Ben:
“Well,” says the man, scratching his stubble, “the Mutiny drained the ammunition depots pretty fast and that was what, a hundred years ago? The Ship was provisioned with weapons to secure the future colony, not to fight a civil war.”
“So there are no energy cells left?”
“I’m sure there are a few cells left here and there, but they’re worth a lot of money, so only a fool would use them to charge a gun. Fortunately, there are less fancy but still effective alternatives.”
“Such as?”
“The pipe gun can be a man’s best friend, and makes for a cheap date too. All you need is a good metal pipe and some propellant. The rest is a bonus.”
“Do you have anything more … sophisticated than pipe guns?”
“What’s wrong with pipe guns?” The gunsmith stands a little straighter, as if offended. “A bullet from a pipe gun will kill you just as dead as one from a fancier weapon. If your needs run that way, you’ll have to ask around the Habitat. They’ve got all kinds of fancy over there.”
“Why not make better guns here, in the Pit?”
“You see anyone around here who’d pay a few hundred for a high quality piece? It’s something called Economics, which I’m not inclined to discuss with you just now. You take your pipe gun, shove it in someone’s face and pull the trigger. It will do the job just fine. Providing it doesn’t explode.”
Speaking of guns, here is some recent stuff for your viewing pleasure:
^ Assault Rifle, Tier 2 (meaning a step above a pipe with a magazine)
^ SMG, Tier 1
^ 1H SMG, Tier 4
The game will have 3 types of firearms X 3 subcategories (like sawed-off, rifle, multi-barrel shotgun) X 5 tiers = 45 unique models plus some varieties and upgrades. That's just the firearms, although admittedly it's the largest weapon group. Melee and Energy weapons will have 3 subcategories X 5 tiers each. Anyway, back to the Pit:
So far we have 12 quests written and mapped out, including a 6-quest local conflict between the Regulators and the self-proclaimed mayor, aka Order that’s not all that great vs Chaos that’s not all that bad. The conflict fits perfectly well into the belief system I mentioned earlier and comes with long-term consequences you’ll be able to experience in-game (i.e. not in the slides). So in one corner we have the challenger:
Rumor has it that Captain Braxton once served a higher power, that in the days before his crisis of faith and the subsequent falling out with the Church of the Elect he was known as Faithful Gunner Jeremiah Braxton. Speculation about why he left is abundant, but as is often the case no story is more compelling than the others.
Backed up by a few like-minded men and picking up more willing recruits along the way, Braxton left the Church behind and ended up in the Pit, a place where reliable fighting men are always in demand. Around the time of his arrival, the Brotherhood had started showing a keen interest in the Pit, eager to establish a foothold there. Braxton and his newly christened Regulators offered the good people of the Pit their services and after much debate they were hired to drive the Brotherhood’s men out, which was accomplished with brutal efficiency.
In the other corner we have the incumbent "mayor":
Wasteland is the affectionate name used to describe the now uncharted miles of scorched corridors and decks that bore the brunt of the fighting during the Mutiny. It is even rumored that the hull has been breached in certain sections, leaving them open to the void of space. This unstable no-man's-land is the principal hunting ground for folks willing to gamble their lives against the chance of finding old and outlawed tech.
For a scavenger, Jonas was more successful and more ambitious than most. One of the key difficulties for a professional scav is to extract your finds as quickly as possible, since anyone else stumbling across your good fortune will quickly try to make it their own. In order to facilitate more efficient runs into the Wasteland, Jonas set up a base camp in Cargo Hold #3, right next to the action. Such a good idea couldn't remain secret for long, and his fellow scavengers soon began pitching their tents nearby. With its increasing popularity, the camp attracted a growing crowd of traders, whores, and other hangers-on, and people began to see it as a rugged alternative to the Habitats, which promised safety, but insisted on submission in exchange.
At some point Jonas realized that more money was waiting to be made right there in the Pit, as it had come to be called, than out in the Wasteland. Thus he opened The Promised Land, the finest and only whorehouse in town. The success of this venture, and his own popularity, led to his role today as the de facto mayor of this frontier town.
In case you're wondering the goggles and other gear will be available to your character as well and the inventory will have special slots for goggles and breathing masks. In the next update we'll introduce gadgets and explains how they work.
New concept art:
^ The Pit, top view, will be accessible in-game (like those upper levels in Dungeon Rats). Click here to see the ground level concepts:
^ The Habitat, Living Quarters
^ The Habitat, Public Area
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