Increasing the sandbox feel further

Hello!

First of all, thanks for making this great project! I feel this mod is a step in the right direction but it could definitely go deeper.
Adding a few quests and changing numeric values on disciplines is not really going to make the replay value higher.
What would be really great is to add random events and make the whole game a lot more sandboxish. Here is some ideas of what i mean:

Random events:
Random encounters in all severs in the game:
10% chance to spawn one of these (if possible adjusted to the player's level) on the sever map when the player loads:
- Friendly Nosferatu that sells one or two random items.
- Sabbat Lower Vampires (could be different types) (attacks you on sight)
- Vampire Hunter (attacks you on sight)
- Homeless people

1% chance to spawn one of these (if possible adjusted to the players level) on the sever map when the player loads:
- Friendly Nosferatu Spy that can be hired to steal you unique items from around the city. (costs a lot and gets you one random unique item)
- Sabbat Boss Vampire (attacks you on sight) (unique loot)
- Elite Vampire Hunter (attacks you on sight) (unique loot)

Random encounters in all cities in the game:
5% chance to spawn one friendly Camarilla vampire that is from one of the playable clans, with dialog options to:
- Hire them to assist you for a certain amount of time. High seduction (if opposite sex) or persuasion could make the price lower.
- If from the same clan then possibly offer training in your skills for money.
- Random chat options.

3% chance to spawn a Vampire Hunter that only attacks you if you get in melee range. (From there they can feel you are a vampire.)
3% chance to spawn criminals that fight people randomly on the street.
0.1% chance to spawn a Werewolf that does a massacre on the street. If possible make it killable and make it drop a very powerful unique item.

General gameplay features:
Implement Day/Night cycles.
This would actually make you feel the drawbacks of being banished to walk the night.
- Implement a clock into the HuD that shows ingame time.
- The night should last 2 hours REAL TIME. The day should last around 15 minutes of REAL TIME.
- If you are outside in this 15 minutes you instantly die. If you spend the time in a building then it has no effect on you.
- Implement sleeping coffin into the player homes. If the player sleeps out the 15 minutes day time inside the coffin then he/she gets a buff.
Something like +10% maximum blood, that lasts until the next day.

Implement the ability to Embrace a child with the permission from the prince.
- Something similar like it was in the Companion mod.

If you like these ideas I could write more, but I will wait for your feedback first.
Thanks again for making this awesome mod.

Regards, Brevi.

interesting however i found only 1 of it that would be cool imo:

something about getting companion ~ like i could imagine about the endplay:

if we cool with the camarilla than the prince would give his sheriff on our side when we going against Ming Xao - would be pretty awesome like the sheriff (who would be unbeatable) would do the dirty work when and if we are from the ventrue clan and during the gmaleplay we were totally loyal for him. ~ if we aren't we would only get 2-3 ventrue soldier like on the tower in leather stuff with blades+autamataguns.

same goes to the other main clans like:

-Brujah: we would get 2-3 brujah warrior on our side and kick the shit out of our enemy's together
-Gangrel: we would get 2-3 manbat on our side and tear the flash from the bones of our enemys dependiing on who will be our targets.
-Malkavian: we would get 2-3 maniac on our side and make our enemys out f there mind say the least ^^
-Nosferatu: 2-3 shadow warrior on our side that mostly stays invisible and do silent kills / attack (before that a meeting with Gary as he his the primogen, the clan elder of this clan)
-Tremier: 2-3 blood-magic as companion, mostly the would use bloodboil and purge
-Toreador: 2-3 toreador that would use heavy guns like combatshotgun and desert etc with speed-descipline

would be a bit easy the endgame like that but since we did play this game out already more than once by doing this alone would be cool to watch the action

~

on the other hand, a companion would be cool anyway who would follow and help us everywhere no matter what (like opposit sex of our chosen clan) so we could play the as a team from the start

Hmmm...

I would say the game is way easy as it is... Let's just say our opinions are different. I would want the mod to make this Vampire experience realistic. You know... the whole World of Darkness is about a CRUEL world of immortal monsters where it's really damn hard to survive and you don't know what's behind the next corner.

Those changes you mentioned would make it a walk in the park.
Also please don't hijack the thread and post your ideas in it. You may create a new topic and freely write them.

I would prefer if this topic would only be about the sandbox ideas. People who doesn't want it ... please just ignore it.

@ Brevi: I would like nothing more than putting in random encounters and items, but I'm restricted to the items and monsters that are in the game. I can make small changes, but not too much. And I'm no experienced programmer. So if what you suggested is at all possible with the version of the game engine Troika had to use, I don't think I can implement it. For a day/night cycle: I think, the trouble would far outweigh the possible merits, and it would severely interrupt a fluent gameplay.

For companions or siring another vampire: I'm really opposed to any idea of this kind. If you want to have something like that, you should play the companion mod.

-

I have read both the post and your PM, Childe of Malkav. Thanks for considering the suggestions.

Yeah I didn't know this was a one man project, it makes implementing tricky features and workarounds to overcome the hard-coded stuff in the engine really hard.

I'm no one of course to tell you what to do, but if you would like to create a superior Bloodlines mod then this is exactly what needs to be done. You know if I could use one example... then let's take the Build Mod for Akela's Pirates of the Caribbean (Sea Dogs 2) game. That mod has been around for 7 years now, and it's still being developed. It's one of the biggest success of all mods I've seen. Link here:
http://forum.piratesahoy.net//forum/37-potc-build-mod/

The game was a lackluster crappy pirate game with completely linear quests and towns that didn't feel alive at all. You could only play one nation and so on. Now Vampire: Bloodlines is not this bad, but the game still does not feel alive. Your like walking in LA which supposed to be a huge town with tens of thousands of people and good hundreds of monsters... yet I feel like I'm in a small town where everyone knows everyone. There are absolutely no unexpected things... the story is linear. There may be multiple ways to complete a quest but that's not really a reason enough to keep playing the game over again.

What Build Mod did back in the day is to create loads of roleplay random encounters... people who tell you tales, cutpurses that wanna steal from you, random bandits, veteran soldiers... that would approach you on the street. It makes cities so much alive... you may run into someone you would never expect. And as you wrote in the PM if it's all just combat then it's hack and slash... yeah dialogs are needed.

This is still easier then to create new storylines and new quests.

I've read into how Companion mod was done for Bloodlines. The author used several variables to store the information of companions. They are literally respawning each time you zone in or out of somewhere from these variables. I'm sure it's possible to use the same system to create random encounters that would be spawned on zoning in and out.

This is a lot of work probably to get it right but clearly it makes the whole game better. The storyline is good, the characters are great. It's just that instead of being in a constantly changing world that's alive, we are in a completely linear story with one or two small sidings. It could be so much better.

Well those are just my thoughts. It's up to you to decide what way you develop your mod.

EDIT: Oh and about the companions and Oblivion... yeah your totally right about them getting stuck and such, but it's still fun.

My opinion in short (because the one above is a wall of text):
If you would create like 20-30 different random encounter events for towns, severs, clubs and implement Companion Mod into this mod, then this mod would be the best there is for a long time for Bloodlines. It would clearly make the difference in gameplay value.

Make you a deal Brevi... I'll sign on for this and give it my best for all of these ideas if you front us the cash and resources so we can quit our real jobs to work on this fulltime.

I think we could have something very playable and awesome within 2 years or so.

I don't think that companion mod should ever be merged with CE. Companion mod is quite profesionally done but I don't think it belongs with CE. Personally, I don't like playing more than one character and the system in Bloodlines as good as the one in Kotor, for example. And even if it was the game is still a lot more enjoyable in solo. Companions make you quite powerful for a fledgeling. If an item such as the Animus Consrupto was in our character's hands, the whole city would be after us. They would ever forget about the Sarcophagus.

If you want to play with companions you can simply install the mod and play.

Ah well point well taken Zer0. I'm a modder myself so I know why you said that. It's too much work. Well it's a good mod as it is, I will play around with it until the World of Darkness MMO. I really hope they do it right.

Thanks for not getting upset, I didn't mean to sound offensive but the reality of it is, this mod is being developed by 1 or 2 guys at any given time and done in our spare time, it's FREE to download and play, and the only thing the modders get in return are a few thank you's, a few complaints, and alot of personal satisfaction, non of which pay the bills, lol.

Since you are a modder yourself you said, I'm glad you understand. On a lighter note, I hope the MMO goes well too but until that time I think CE and TFN will be in business putting out new material for all to enjoy.

Zer0Morph wrote:

On a lighter note, I hope the MMO goes well too but until that time I think CE and TFN will be in business putting out new material for all to enjoy.

Even after the MMO goes live.