» Sat Jul 18, 2009 12:58 pm "Welcome back dear wasteland wander, we missed you by the camp fire. I've got a story for you, it's about this thing they used to call Archeology, they just call it Scaving now or Junking, but back in the days before the bombs fell they called it Archeology."
**hands you a bottle of whiskey that's long ago lost its label, could be fine stuff, or just the normal rot gut they usually find**
"Back before the vaults, they had these people that would go to places all over the globe. That's the thing beneath your feet sunny, try to keep up! Anyway, they'd dig though the dirt, grime and garbage of people that were long since dead and find really interesting stuff. Some say they found weapons, wealth, and even old booze!!!
Ah, I see your starting to catch on. It might be that booze your drinking, I didn't pick that up off of just no caravan or in the hub."
You look down at the old bottle, it has the remnants of a wrapper just clear enough to say 'McMue...' and you can't read the rest. It doesn't really matter as the old Blend goes down smooth and slowly spreads a warm glow to your belly. You gotta admit, you've never had booze this good.
"Where did you..." you start to say, but the old man cuts you off with a quick spit into the fire.
"It doesn't really matter where, I picked that place clean over the last 3 months. That's where you come in sonny...
It ain't hard to see I'm not getting any younger.... Maybe a trade can be worked out?"
It might have been the booze, the fire reflecting weirdly or just the darkness of the light, but you could have sworn at that very moment when you looked up into that old mans face, full of wrinkles and age, and he saw the red glow of the fire and the old mans eyes look like two empty black pits.....
It was only then that you wonder just what sort of trade you were making.... and who with?
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So Archeology then shall we?
People have over and over said they don't like the idea of people obtaining resources from traditional methods like mining, farming, fishing, etc etc. So this is my attempt at not only reusing the past but catering to the former greatness that Fallout seems to always be chasing from 'before the great war'.
Saluaging wouldn't just be a Press button = receive bacon! Reference: http://looka.gumbopages.com/images/push-button-receive-bacon.png Like most MMO's fall into with practically everything else (aka mine patch of metal, receive metal after 3 seconds.... challenge? Heck no, our users have EXTREME A.D.D.)
Saluaging would have tons of different levels and it's own 'level' bar that would progress separately from the players experience that levels him/her.
For instance at level one the player would get an old fashion metal detector/dowsing rod and have to try to figure things out with a large degree of error. The world also wouldn't have little 'piles' of dirt that can be prospected like the nodes of other games. That's not only dangerous (bots) but there is no randomness which players love.
The detection item would have to be equipped in the main slot and actively used, but when a 'ping' happened it wouldn't mean the item is right below, it would be with a degree of 'drift' the higher the experience with that tool (aka actually making it work) the less drift use it and you get better at it is much better then push and receive in my mind and I hope most others
So finding the item is just the first part however, you'd also have to get the item from it's entombment. This can be done with drilling, digging, blasting(quickest but could destroy the item) or something else that the devs could come up with.
This Scavenging/Archelogy could be coupled together so that one feeds the other so that as players become experience with an item or method it would unlock other methods and technologies.
For instance for detection it could be.
Metal detector -> hi tech dowsing rod --> scanning module enhanced detector (3 heads in a semi wide pattern) ---> Pinion method (put rod in earth, walk in giant circle with wire between rod and user, everything under the wire is scanned, after walking full circle, results given) ----> Triangulation method --> Place 3 mini tripods on the ground in a wide area after setup is complete pulses go out and results given
For Scavenging you could have the following for example
Shovel (nuff said) ----> Drill (able to get down much deeper and accurate) ---> Blasting (can get to the right depth easily, but will you blow up the item if you use too much explosives?) ----> plasma excavation (small pulses from a pulse device removes anything organic but upon reaching man made materials ceases) -----> Miniture robot/Mr. Handy -----> Digs down perfectly using inputs from detection device and gets your item for you very quickly.
I believe a method like this would and could be used for items, lost items, salvage that can yield resources and practically anything the devs want to include. It might take some skills for players to figure out but can be very rewarding.
Lastly scarcity
This should be something that isn't equally all over, and if possible should change as items around found around the zone/region/server. This means that places that haven't been 'searched' for days and weeks would have higher concentrations of items while the most populated zones would be quite 'picked over' giving a sense of realism to the profession. From a server load point, forcing some players to 'get out' of the over populated areas never hurts.
As always, just trying to assist this game in being more then the dozens out there and I hope it helps or causes a discussion that will help.
-Ban
Give me an axe and point me towards the caribou, dinners on me.
