Tempest's Roleplay Suggestion Compendium

[GM Tempest]

Hello, everyone!

 

I wanted to start by saying that this list is not a complete accounting of all the suggestions in this forum, this is an effort on my part to curate some suggestions given to me in other forms and formats, and to promote neat ideas that players (and even staff!) have come up with that are a bit within my purview as a rep for the Roleplay community.

If you have roleplay suggestions that you think might not warrant an entire forum post, you might drop them here, or if you think it’d be something you’d like me to take a peek at, too! I’ll be checking in occasionally and adding things to the list as we go, so keep an eye on this thread if you want to see what’s been added!

I’ll add personal notes of my thoughts on the suggestions, underneath each. Please note that anything shown or not shown here does not mean it will or will not be considered – these are merely ones I am observing myself!

 

The list so far!

 

• Trigger invasion events for player-run events
  • This is an interesting concept – this would largely be just activating an otherwise ‘random’ or timed event at a time when a roleplay event is being run by a group to coincide with whatever storyline they have going at the time!

 

• Pull league groups into an AE map
  • This one surprised me! I hadn’t considered the implications here, but right now you have issues getting league-size people into an AE map, and largely the suggestion revolved around group RPs that have large numbers of players using a large map, like the Ruined Atlas map for group combat RP and the like.

 

• Narrate for AE arc RPs
  • This one can technically be accomplished by the story leads at the time using team chat/local chat with something like [Positron]: Blah, but it’s a neat concept if they want to see the actual NPCs chat a bit.

 

• New invasions/redo old invasions
  • This one somewhat applies outside of the RP community too, and ties into the suggestion above – people liked some of the old invasions or want to see ones triggered more often for specific things. Events and the like that were hosted on live but haven’t shown back up since. I like it!

 

• Larger descriptions
  • The current description limit of 1023 characters is quite a bit limiting, so seeing it expanded to allow for larger descriptions with more detail would be just a generally nice quality-of-life change that would let people be more creative and descriptive with their character’s bio!

 

• Bio editor bug fixing
  • There are some issues with the bio editor at the moment, a bug-fix sweep would be quite welcome.

 

• GM line drop/appearance at player events
  • This one would be fun! This would be, for example, a story event being run by players where a hero/villain might show up and say a few lines, sass some people, or generally appear for the sake of the story to enhance it. It could be a lot of fun!

 

• Weekly-change/etc callouts and chatter by quest giver NPCs
  • This one surprised me as well – I genuinely hadn’t thought of this! As our weekly targets change, a GM could call out as that character in LFG and other methods to seek help from willing heroes/villains, as well as chat with players as they collect the mission from the quest giver! They could congratulate successful teams, offer advice, and generally breathe some life into the existing story arcs by providing input from their spot.

 

• Add a Bouncer role to SGs to boot people out of a base
  • With public SG bases come people who are going to try to cause trouble. With that in mind, giving SGs the ability to boot people out who are causing problems would be nice, as the only other option right now is to completely kick out everyone, rather than selectively. This would be a good quality-of-life enhancement for everyone, not just roleplayers!

 

• Add an option for variable chat range
  • When you start roleplaying in places like Pocket D or in big SG bases, it can quickly become very hard to keep track of who you're talking to because of how wide the /local range is. Perhaps an option to reduce local range? Or another /whatever option to speak/emote in shorter range like whisper?

 

• Dicerolling!
  • Because why not? /rollxdx would be nice.

Edited March 28, 2020 by CR Tempest

[Ruin Mage]

I think having GM assistance with events would be cool.

But I also understand not every GM might understand RP or stuff like it.

Overall, good list so far.

(this is mostly commentary on the appearance at player events suggestion)

[Alchemystic]

I wouldn't mind the inclusion or more emotes that are available exlusively to NPCs. There are so many in the open world and in AE that I just NEED!

 

Also, on the topic of NPC emotes, how possible would it be to have 'walk' emotes that function like the flypose emotes? I see plenty of walking 'styles' that would be really fun for use in RP. If not an emote, what are the chances of additional walk powers being introduced that change your walking style? (sorta like Beast Run and Ninja Run)

Edited March 9, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Terminal]

GMs being able to hand out costume powers - either permanent or temporary - so people can more reliably impersonate certain NPCs would be helpful.

 

What would also be helpful is if GMs could hand out temporary powers in general. Things such as the 'Iron Blade' or 'Coral Hammer' temporary powers for example (for additional aesthetic/cosmetic effect in certain cases).

 

This one is a bit extreme - but we know GMs can already alter the time of day in-zone as well as possibly trigger certain invasion event atmospherics. If it were possible for GMs to occasionally change the SKYBOX as well for certain events, that would be spectacular. Like a Shadow Shard arc ending with a mission where the Shadow Shard is about to overlap/merge with Primal Earth for example.

[Kaelit]

Captain Mako showed up at Joker's Wild last friday, was a rather fun little distraction. However, I'm not sure if I'd want to see that level of power in the hands of ordinary players, if that's what you're suggesting, Terminal. I did like the interaction, though, and am definitely in support of GMs showing up to RP events.

What I would like to see is an increase of /local's range. Kinda bothers me when I can't talk to someone that's 20 yards away without the use of PM or /team (not sure if it's actually 20y, just had something similar happen to me recently). And yeah, a huuuuge +1 on the character cap increase for bios.

 

EDIT: Not sure if this fits into the roleplaying category, but I'd love to see different flight poses being implemented into Flight's customization menu at the tailor. Right now, you can only use them with autorun and have to reactivate the emote whenever you do anything other hold the forward key.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Kaelit

[Alchemystic]

Also another quick suggestion; (though this can help for outside of RP, such as leagues and events)

 

Make it so that when you click on a character, their chat is highlighted a different color in the chat box. That way if you ever want to go back through what was said by a single individual it would be much easier for you to find what you're looking for. This also allows you to focus on one conversation too, allowing their chat to remain highlighted as you talk and allowing you to filter out the rest of the surrounding conversations.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Ikmachek]

Oh awesome. So my two cents

First, I love the option we got to turn everyone's name a different color in the chatbox, but the color is force-randomized. Could we get an option to pick what color our name would be in the chat box?

Second, more power animations. Just cram 'em all in there within reason. Speaking of that. Could we get a way to customize all the powers at chargen or a low level? Example being if I got a character in mind who's going to take fitness or whatever. I have to wait until he has one power from the fitness pool to make tough/weave/etc the animation I want... Then go through all my other costumes and apply that change, if there was a way to basically preset 'Okay I want these power pools to have this animation, these incarnate powers to have this animation/color' at chargen or around then. I'd be a happy rat.

[Andreah]

4 hours ago, Krimson said:

I have no idea how possible it is, but yesterday in Help chat someone had suggested a PvP Bank Robbery/Safeguard mission. 

I brought this up in /help yesterday, so I suppose I should flesh it out a little. I doubt it's possible, but who knows! Maybe some dev will latch onto it and make it a pet project for the long term.

 

So, it would go like this. When you start a bank mission, you would be able to choose whether it's open to PvP, or not -- need to preserve the current way, since most people would probably prefer that.

 

Other people would be able to enter a waiting queue for bank adversaries, either as heroes to stop them, or as villains to get in on the mayhem. This would be through the LFG queuing system. 

 

So when a bank Safeguard or Mayhem mission needs adversaries, it would draw a few people out of the appropriate queue and add them to the map, with pvp enabled and levels normalized to the mission level. At this point, it is now a capture and secure/escape with the money bag mission. Being defeated takes you out of the mission if you don't get a friendly rez in, say, some modest number of seconds. Regular rez insps don't work, but there are one-use rez powers which can be found in the map in various spots. 

 

Carrying the bag of money turns off all your travel powers, and reduces stealth radius a lot.

 

When everyone on one side or the other are defeated, a hero gets the money bag to the police van, or a villain gets it to the arachnos flier, the mission completes. The victor side gets bonus xp, inf, and a few merits. 

[Andreah]

Another idea. Radio/Newspaper missions have been a staple for years, and many people like them, and we often roleplay through them. However, they could use some sprucing up. Some simple things might be easy to do.

 

For example, add more boss names to the lists for each foe group. Add some new "McGuffins" to the lists of those. Add some new call-outs for the enemy groups to say when the players get close.

 

There might be some additional tweaks which could be made to them as well, perhaps inspired by things we can do in AE missions. For instance, more than one objective inside a Radio mission. Or a radio mission where two groups are fighting.

 

Another change might be to extend some of the enemy groups to levels they're not usually found it. For example, have a low-level Arachnos themed radio mission pop up in King' Row. Or let the Family try to muscle their way into Peregrine now and then. 

 

[Alchemystic]

19 hours ago, Ikmachek said:

Oh awesome. So my two cents

First, I love the option we got to turn everyone's name a different color in the chatbox, but the color is force-randomized. Could we get an option to pick what color our name would be in the chat box?
 

I would say perhaps the text should gain a similar border the target box (blue for passive, green for team, teal for league and orange for enemy).

Edited March 10, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Andreah]

One more suggestion.

 

Could we have a way to add a note to ourselves, so we can take down notes in-game? Ideally, tied to the character, but if the note taking window had two tabs, one specific the the character, and one global to the account, it would be great. It would be fine if these were only stored locally on the player's computer, but better if they were stored server-side. Bonus points if we could link map points into a note. Bring up a clipboard animation while this window is being edited. 🙂

[Chainz]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

One more suggestion.

 

Could we have a way to add a note to ourselves, so we can take down notes in-game? Ideally, tied to the character, but if the note taking window had two tabs, one specific the the character, and one global to the account, it would be great. It would be fine if these were only stored locally on the player's computer, but better if they were stored server-side. Bonus points if we could link map points into a note. Bring up a clipboard animation while this window is being edited. 🙂

There is a Add/edit note option if you look at a characters info.

[Andreah]

2 minutes ago, Anguitami said:

There is a Add/edit note option if you look at a characters info.

On other people, yes. But I want to add notes for myself.

[Chainz]

One of my suggestions is a event like tab on the chat that goes server wide like the help and looking for team. That way the advert does not get buried and the ones adverting don't step on those using the help or lft. 

[Outrider_01]

14 hours ago, Ikmachek said:

Could we get an option to pick what color our name would be in the chat box?

This.  I mostly want to change it, have two characters with an ugly ass "school bus canary" yellow.  I am sure their is some formula based on the name, the colors are the same every day even after turning option off.  And having 2 accounts same color.

[Alchemystic]

Another quick one.

 

Would it be possible to make it so that when you leave Praetoria you can continue on with your current alignment? Or perhaps even create new praetorian equivalent of the normal alignments based on your story? (These alignments would be pretty nice even when playing Praetorian content too!)

 

Warden = Vigilante 

Crusader = Villain

Responsibility = Hero 

Power = Rogue

 

(These alignments are just a 'best fit' sorta deal, their motives/morals may be different, but this works for the narrative at least)

 

Also, the option for 'dual origin' characters would be nice too. I have so many characters that wouldn't strictly fall into one origin, so it would be nice to have hybrid origins that properly portray your character. I'm unsure how this would (or should) affect characters in terms of gameplay, but I quite like the idea all the same. Besides! there's plenty of comic book characters with mixed origins, even a few in the CoH roster too!

 

Perhaps when you select your 'primary origin', a new tab opens up for your 'secondary origin'? Your origin symbol would then split in two, and your origin reads something like Science/Technology or Magic/Natural depending on your primary and secondary choice!

 

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Tyrannical

[AerialAssault]

Allow Bios to be edited like text in AE arcs can i.e. HTML text editing for colour, bold, italic and font size. This would naturally facilitate a character increase.

 

Gold Title Requests. Yes, this was something that existed on the Secret Server pre-Homecoming. And yes, I'm aware that there would be a massive demand for them here, which is why I would suggest this: At the start of the month, requests are opened for no more than 3 characters per account for a week (that is, you can only nominate three of your characters to have one added.) Since they can only be granted by GM's, it means they will be fully vetted and always subject to approval. From what I understand, the character limit is virtually unlimited for gold titles, so I'd recommend a soft cap of 38 characters.

 

Adding more Temporary Powers to the P2W vendor, i.e. the weapons you get from Safeguard/Mayhem side-missions. Man wants his shotguns.

[Alchemystic]

(also can Walk disable external buffs? especially the ones that force animations and break emotes, or put auras/effects on you)

[DonavonRoivan]

A suggestion to remove training from War Witch, as people are down right rude with how they go to her. Running through the RPers not caring if they disturb them, push them off ledges, etc. Place a trainer in the AE area.

[ockbald]

The folks at the City of Roleplay discord have some fantastic ideas of having a "News" system where people post things that have or are about to happen ICly in game.

I wonder if there would be able to direct people to that in game? Or a way to create a similar system in game where people would submit 'news' or 'IC factoids'?

[Andreah]

One thing that would be really nice would be to be able to set my personal radius of hearing to local to be closer. SO I would be able to use a command or a setting to only hear chat in /local from say, half the normal distance, or even 1/3 or 1/4 the distance. Trying to have small RP discussions with others close to me is often drowned out by the clutter of chat from other people in areas that are busy -- for example, tonight's SG Faire on Everlasting. it's very hard to pick out what the people who're asking questions about our group are saying with a lot of other groups also trying to conduct their talk at the same time. It would be nice to be able to set my listening distance to close or very close at times like this.

[Kaelit]

On 3/15/2020 at 12:55 AM, Andreah said:

One thing that would be really nice would be to be able to set my personal radius of hearing to local to be closer. SO I would be able to use a command or a setting to only hear chat in /local from say, half the normal distance, or even 1/3 or 1/4 the distance. Trying to have small RP discussions with others close to me is often drowned out by the clutter of chat from other people in areas that are busy -- for example, tonight's SG Faire on Everlasting. it's very hard to pick out what the people who're asking questions about our group are saying with a lot of other groups also trying to conduct their talk at the same time. It would be nice to be able to set my listening distance to close or very close at times like this.

And I asked for a larger radius >.<

Think the middle ground would be sort of a slider you can set, just like the /camdist command. It'd limit/expand the range at which you pick up local. I like it!

 

EDIT: I'd also love to see a power or emote stance that would allow you to keep your weapons out without them disappearing after a set amount of time. It could be a toggle like walk and you wouldn't even have to disable all other powers since the animations are already there. Someone ingame suggested calling it "Brandish".

Edited March 17, 2020 by Kaelit

[Andreah]

It would be very useful in RP to be able to use the animations and VFX's from our powers on otherwise friendly players. Maybe limited to inside AE's, or inside a base, or something. Not unlimited use in public.

[ArchVileTerror]

Low Hanging Fruit with potentially deep roleplay usefulness:

Step 1:  Copy the Just For Fun Snowball Power,

Step 2:  Strip the animation and activation time from the Power,

Step 3:  Name the new Power "d100.00 Test" or something to that effect, and adjust the Combat Log text to match,

Step 4:  Place said Power in the P2W Vendors, in the Just For Fun category.

 

This will be a quick way to add a die check mechanic in-game, without having to program any new slash commands for the chat.

I already use the Snowball for this purpose, but the wind-up time and the animation are both significant issues.  The animation especially, since it's very disruptive to roleplay activities.

 

May we have this brought to @Captain Powerhouse's attention for a quick feasibility study on it?  Are we looking at 5 minutes of work (excluding testing, since testing always takes longer than anticipated), half an hour of work, or days worth of work?

[Starforge]

On 3/10/2020 at 1:26 PM, AerialAssault said:

Gold Title Requests. Yes, this was something that existed on the Secret Server pre-Homecoming. And yes, I'm aware that there would be a massive demand for them here, which is why I would suggest this: At the start of the month, requests are opened for no more than 3 characters per account for a week (that is, you can only nominate three of your characters to have one added.) Since they can only be granted by GM's, it means they will be fully vetted and always subject to approval. From what I understand, the character limit is virtually unlimited for gold titles, so I'd recommend a soft cap of 38 characters.

This would be a great addition, if GMs are willing to do it.