Author Topic: Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players  (Read 2406 times)

Offline zeusalmighty

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Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players
« on: June 18, 2018, 04:43:22 pm »
(I put this on Mantis but thought this would be a good topic for the forum to create some fun scenarios)
Goal: To prevent new players being overwhelmed by campaign options

Proposal:
Having pre-set "themed campaigns" to choose from in the Game Menu.

There should be a variety of pre-set campaigns to choose from with a flavorful description and a catchy name. These would be distinguished from each other by the minor factions included and the personality of the AI.

[e.g. "Great Train Robbery": The AI funds massive projects to dominate the galaxy by use of interstellar trains. Loot these trains to cripple their plans and fund your own, but be wary of alerting the wardens who don't take kindly to bandits. (Minor factions enabled: Astro trains, Marauders, Zenith Trader. Wardens higher diff; Hunters lower diff)]

Why this should be implemented:
*For new players, the immense amount of choice is daunting. Having some pre-set campaigns (with adjustable difficulty) can appeal to a given player's preferences.

*Special Achievements!

*Incorporate fan-made scenarios!

Offline x4000

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Re: Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2018, 10:25:14 am »
I'm not positive how hard this would be -- that's a question for Keith, really -- but I do want to say that I'm very much behind this idea.  My main concerns are:

1. There are a variety of difficulty settings (each individual faction, etc), and we don't want to bake that into the scenario.  Some people would want the equivalent of 10/10, others would want the equivalent of 7/7.  So we'd need some way to have a central "what difficulty do you want?" dropdown that then gets fed into all the factions.

2. Honestly, the map style and size I think also should still be chooseable.  So basically I might want to play the great train robbery on map X, and you want to play it on map Y, and that's fine.  Maybe it has a default built in, but I shouldn't be forced into it.

In general basically I feel like people should be able to JUST play these scenarios and have as rich an experience as anyone else.  I might just wind up playing great train robbery over and over again for 200 hours, but each on is vastly different just like some other configuration of the game is.  Obviously I hope that people branch out more than that, but at the same I feel like this is the most interesting style of quick start.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2018, 10:26:25 am »
Actually... thinking about this more, I think that I could probably implement this on my own... and should.  This needs to be in place pre-EA.
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Offline zeusalmighty

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Re: Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2018, 11:39:39 am »
Honestly, the map style and size I think also should still be chooseable.

I agree, there should still be some customization and the map choice is the obvious one. It still might be worthwhile to have a a default map and size for each scenario, if only to give new players a good one to start with

This might be an effective way to implement the tutorial too but that's just speculation on my part

Offline x4000

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Re: Pre-Set Campaigns to attract new players
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2018, 12:19:38 pm »
Keith already has a tutorial system in place that is really flexible and xml-based.  This would be more like training wheels, or simply cool combos, I think.
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