Upcoming Features

This is my To-Do list.

TECHNICAL

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ACCESSIBILITY
The game needs to be sorted out so that anyone can play it.  This means PDA users, mobile phone users, blind or visually-impaired users and - if I get the chance - Internet Explorer users, I guess.


PERFORMANCE
Eventually, we're going to have to get a dedicated server.  I'll start asking around for quotes, and figuring out what we're going to need hardware-wise.

GAMEPLAY

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RACES
JOKERS
The Jokers are an unstable race who have been on the Island for far longer than they should have been.  Their bodies are so saturated with Improbability that even their physical forms are constantly changing.

GOBOTS
GoBots are robots who have become even less human.  They are outfitted with wheels and/or caterpillar tracks, which come in handy for whizzing around the Island at breakneck speeds.

FOEBOTS
These sinister, black-painted metal dolls have no humanity left in them whatsoever.  Their clockwork bodies must be wound up regularly, lest they fall into eternal stasis.  The only warmth or light in a FoeBot's body lies in its eyes - light-sensitive chemical cameras sit behind thick glass lenses, burning dull orange like hot coals.  These machines have two-inch-thick steel for skin, dull pointed knives for fingers, and a mainspring for a soul.  They run on rage and hatred, and exist only to kill.  What's more, they're completely unstoppable - they will carry on killing all night, as long as they keep themselves wound up.


IMPLANTS
MITOCHONDRIAL ACCELERATION
An implant available only to the organic, Mitochondrial Acceleration allows you to grow a spontaneous moustache, leathery hide, teeth and tentacles at will.

CHEMICAL PACK
A tiny pack of chemical containers is inserted into your brain.  You can choose to discharge these containers at any time, and their effects will vary about as much as you suspect.

HEAD-MOUNTED LASER
Not all implants are inside your head, you know.  This one does screw into your skull, but only to keep up appearances.  You can cast a targeting beam onto an enemy which will locate their weak points - or, at the cost of more drain on your battery, you can fire a more powerful laser.  Be careful of overheating, though - you don't want to set your hair on fire.

IMPROBABILITY SHARD
"What Implant do you want?"
"Actually, there's already something stuck in the side of my head...  What the hell is that?"
"I'm afraid that's classified, sir."
"I'm a woman."
"You look like a dude.  Move along, sir."


MOUNTS
KITTYBIKES
Is it a cat?  Is it a motorbike?  NO!  It's a KITTYBIKE!

CENTAURS
Not what you'd traditionally think of as a centaur.  A genetically-engineered beast of burden that I'm actually sneaking in from my novel-in-progress, "Loaders."

SPIDERTIGERS
Yup, you guessed it.

CATHORSE
I'm just typing random combinations of creatures now.  I'll stop.

DOGBAT
No, really, I'll stop.


SOCIAL DYNAMIC
WALKIE TALKIES
This will allow an in-game chat room, which can be accessed by anyone who has a walkie-talkie.  Clans can also buy walkie-talkies that operate on their own frequency, so that only their clan can hear them.

MARRIAGE
Does exactly what it says on the tin.  If you fancy quitting the life of constant nude hot-tubbing and wrestling in strawberry jam, you can settle down with another player-controlled character.

LANGUAGE BARRIERS
To do after the Joker race is finished.  I think this thread on DragonPrime sums it up nicely.  Velle was nice enough to write a module that I haven't gotten around to testing properly yet - it may form the basis of this shop.

CLAN WARS
There needs to be more of a reason to be in a Clan, I think.  Aside from the awesome clan buffs, obviously.

RELIGION
There is a Religion module available for LotGD.  Of course, all the Religions are nonsensical, and not based on real-life ones - that'd be asking for trouble.  No, I think we need religions like Pastafarianism and Buttism.
(or, I could just use this module to make two "religions," which are really social views, but fanatic enough to accomplish the same thing - probably something to do with Skub)


ECONOMICS
GAMBLING
I'd like there to be a fruit machine in the pub.  Not an American-style one-armed bandit, they're so boring - a proper British fruity, with extended boards and minigames and all sorts.  I used to supply these for a living, so I've got a good idea of how they work.  Perhaps a pusher would be nice too.


WEAPONRY
BUFFS
The Equipment Buffs module appears to have been updated and is reportedly now working.  I'll test this out on the Dev Server.  If it flies, I'll think of a few new weapons that do More Complicated Things, and put them within the reach of people with a few DK's to their names.


WRITING
BETTER MONSTER DESCRIPTIONS
Some folks might have noticed by now that most of the Level 1 monsters have rather rich and verbose descriptions.  Making it this way for most of one level took an entire day.  Making the entire game this detailed will take weeks.  Nonetheless, I think the feeling of richness and detail is well worth the investment of my time.  What do you think?

TRANSLATION BUGS
There are still a few reported instances of "Gems" instead of "Cigarettes," and "Gold" instead of "Requisition."  These should be pretty easy to sort out.

MISSIONS
Dan's Missions are all screwed up.  They're a half-finished translation job - I just changed a few key words and left it at that, and now I'm going through and rewriting it properly.  A rough indicator of which parts are old and which parts are new will come from whether Dan's talking about "Quests" or "Missions."

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
The Watcher needs to be fleshed out a little more, I think - her sections aren't written terribly well, and I know I can do better.


MECHANICS
GLORY
The idea is that the more epic your battles become, the more Glory you have, the more air time you get and the more the Network rewards you.

Upon fighting a monster or another player, Glory is awarded.  In the first round of combat:
glory+=(foeHP-playerHP)

In subsequent rounds of combat:
glory+=(((playerMAXHP-playerHP)+foeHP)*RoundsThatTheFightHasLastedThusFar)

Glory is awarded at every round of combat, not just after the fight.  To the viewers at home, it matters not who wins, as long as the fight is bloody and epic.

Basically the idea is that the player is encouraged to live dangerously, taking on monsters bigger than (s)he, encouraging fights to go on for as long as possible and healing as infrequently as they can.  I'd also like to have a HOF entry for this, and a system whereby Glory can convert to Charm (or Requisition) on newday, possibly by establishing whether the player is above or below the average Glory for their level and adding or removing a single Charm point (or paying a Requisition stipend) accordingly.

In the HOF, the players who defeated the Drive with the most Glory points would be at the top.  Your Glory points are reset at DK, and your final "Score" inserted into the HOF.  Thus, the HOF entry for this stat becomes a sort of "High Score" table.


SMOKING
Smoking one of your cigarettes will give you some sort of buff.  I know not what it will be, just yet, or how I'm going to make it thematically appropriate (they may be Improbable cigarettes, after all...), but it'll be a pretty good buff.  However, beware...  Smoking too much will make you dependant on them, and a negative buff will be applied unless you smoke.  Giving up smoking is accomplished by simply not smoking, and riding out the shakes, jitters and negative buffs until they calm down.


SPECIAL EVENTS
The default set of random events (the ferryman, stonehenge, that annoying Trick or Treat kid in NewHome etc) are only there as placeholders for events to be custom-written in the future.  Said events will have a higher level of interaction between other modules, notably the Races and Implants.
These Special Events could be used to make certain outposts more "Hostile" or "Friendly" to outsiders, IE players not of the predominant race in the outpost, by checking the player's race and modifying the outcome accordingly.


GAME DAYS
MOOLAH MONDAY
Donations get double points on Mondays.  This will help to finance Newbie Tuesdays.

NEWBIE TUESDAY
Just gonna keep on doing this.

SOMETHING WEDNESDAY
Think of something, Dan.

SOMETHING THURSDAY
Seriously, think of something.

FEROCIOUS FRIDAY
Maybe it'd be nice to automatically set a bounty on every player on a Friday, to encourage PVP play...

AUXILLIARY

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THE ENQUIRER
CONTENT
The Enquirer will not only serve as a support forum, but also as a genuine trashy tabloid rag, complete with in-character articles and interviews.  Some upcoming features:
THE WATCHER - GAY, STRAIGHT OR BI?  YOU DECIDE!
THE WATCHER - "I'VE DONE IT WITH ROBOTS" - EXCLUSIVE PICTURES ON PAGE 3!
SPIDERKITTIES - WHAT THE HELL IS THE DEAL WITH THESE THINGS?
DAVID ABRAHAM - THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH
JOSEPH HAWTON - DECONSTRUCTING THE VILLAIN

AESTHETICS
Man, Geeklog is ugly.  But it's easier to make Geeklog pretty than it is to make WordPress useful.  I am a web designer, after all.
I do most of my Geeklog-based template editing live on the server, so when I start to make changes, you'll get to see them happen in real-time.  Won't that be exciting?  I'll let you lot know, in case you want to watch how I do things.  It could be interesting.

FUNCTIONALITY
An inbuilt FAQ manager might be an idea later on, but I think for now we've got everything we need on the site.


TOURNAMENT SERVER
This'll be something to do once we've got more players.  It'd be nice to set up an accelerated "Tournament" server, that runs for a month at a time before resetting everyone's character and awarding a prize (say, a shitty Chinese MP3 player) to whoever has the most of a particular permanent asset, like DK's, Charm, or Cigarettes.

PROMOTION

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Just gonna keep doing Newbie Tuesday on Project Wonderful.

Last Updated: Monday, March 03 2008 @ 10:36 PM UTC|Hits: 9,375