My only concern, and thus question to you, would be how players would preserve the feeling of 'progress'
"Progress" and "power differential" are directly proportional. My goal is to keep the power differential narrow through the use of a percent skill based system. That's a step.
Another step is about decoupling the progress from the simple character growth to the *story*. In a FPS, for example, the character development is zero, but there still can be a sense of progress through the game. The same for the Ultima series, the character growth and character development (and even the gameplay itself) were quite awful. Still the story gave a great sense of progress and accomplishment.
The possibility to kill a monster could come from the acquisition of particular powers or tools. This is again another simple pattern that offers "progress" without messing with the character.
RPGs can be extremely rich. The current trends have removed so many of their innate qualities. One of my goal is to recuperate those. Give back some complexity. (see my ideas on questing)
Btw, the world is NOT scaled. The persistence is obligatory and I hate when it is denied. Your character, though, can be scaled. As often as possible through excused means that are coherent with the setting and not as an out-of-character intervention (for example your magic could be weaker on a particular plane plane).
You continue to progress, but your progress is partly bound to yourself (so you bring it along, as skill values, stats etc...) and partly bound to a sub-world you have visited. If you enter a brand new dimension that you never visited, your progress there will be zero.
This is just an overall structure that should frame the game. Are the designers of each single world to decide when and how to use those possibilities. I'm just providing the scheme and the tools.
In theory you could start naked and without a single power on a new dimension. Then slowly grow your character there and gain powers that are going to work only on that dimension.
Finally there's the PvP (see the tripartite model). The PvP world is persistent and player-centered. My ideal game is focused in particular on this part. It's here that the players can see a concrete progress and be part of something.
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Re: Worlds traveler: "gated content"
My only concern, and thus question to you, would be how players would preserve the feeling of 'progress'
"Progress" and "power differential" are directly proportional. My goal is to keep the power differential narrow through the use of a percent skill based system. That's a step.
Another step is about decoupling the progress from the simple character growth to the *story*. In a FPS, for example, the character development is zero, but there still can be a sense of progress through the game. The same for the Ultima series, the character growth and character development (and even the gameplay itself) were quite awful. Still the story gave a great sense of progress and accomplishment.
The possibility to kill a monster could come from the acquisition of particular powers or tools. This is again another simple pattern that offers "progress" without messing with the character.
RPGs can be extremely rich. The current trends have removed so many of their innate qualities. One of my goal is to recuperate those. Give back some complexity. (see my ideas on questing)
Btw, the world is NOT scaled. The persistence is obligatory and I hate when it is denied. Your character, though, can be scaled. As often as possible through excused means that are coherent with the setting and not as an out-of-character intervention (for example your magic could be weaker on a particular plane plane).
You continue to progress, but your progress is partly bound to yourself (so you bring it along, as skill values, stats etc...) and partly bound to a sub-world you have visited. If you enter a brand new dimension that you never visited, your progress there will be zero.
This is just an overall structure that should frame the game. Are the designers of each single world to decide when and how to use those possibilities. I'm just providing the scheme and the tools.
In theory you could start naked and without a single power on a new dimension. Then slowly grow your character there and gain powers that are going to work only on that dimension.
Finally there's the PvP (see the tripartite model). The PvP world is persistent and player-centered. My ideal game is focused in particular on this part. It's here that the players can see a concrete progress and be part of something.