Player made missions - i.e. enable players to give missions with story text in game

[Destraex]

Just an idea. It would be nice to be able to put bounties on people and create missions with stories that players invent or add as historically researched.

I am talking something like - go here and kill 5 french ships and I will give you 10,000 gold as a reward. Maybe put some background text behind it for flavour and add a .jpg picture... or choose one from a list.

[Robert Danforth]

I think it would have to be somewhat moderated, or "pick elements from a list", elsewise you'll end up with the stupid stuff like "xXxJackSparrow420xXx will pay you 10000 gold to take your turn in the barrel on the way to Cuba" (but probably more vulgar).

[Snoopy]

Mission: "Doubles for Bubbles"

[Destraex]

I was hoping for as much creativity and flavour as possible. Like a forum the community would have ways of reporting misbehaviour. I see no reason to have the missions canned.

[Booyaah]

Mission: "Doubles for Bubbles"

 

shh

[Blackjack Symons]

I like this idea too, but I also agree that moderation would be key here (which creates more work for already busy devs and mods). Bounties on other players? That is something that can go either way - it can be great, introduce consequences for players who sink a number of ships in certain windows of time, or it can be used to troll or otherwise maliciously. I.e., placing bounties on players for no reason, the idea that higher ranked players will have the gold to post bounties while new players will not.

 

tl;dr it's a slippery slope, but I think it could add to the game if it did have limits.

[mouse of war]

Real stories would occur spontaneously if a few more real-world mechanisms were added to the game

 

For example:

1. Your ship is blown off course and then wrecked in a storm and the survivors of your crew need to be rescued from a dessert island before they eat each other.

2. Gold needs to be delivered to one of your fleet outposts 

3. You don't attend to your crew's needs and they set you adrift in an open boat and become AI pirates - if they are not tracked down and hung it increases the chance of your nation's crews mutinying in the future.

4. Pirates being able to bury treasure on shore but having to carry a treasure map that might be found if their ship is captured

 

All this would generate stories and would ensure that the game is not just a PVP fighting fest.

[Destraex]

I look upon this as a way of keeping the community and game alive with all sorts of stories and imagination. Once again I see no reason to curtail the imagination just to stop a rotten few who would abuse the mechanic. A sailing game needs to be alive with story and life from the era. Sinking ships is one thing. Having a purpose other than simple XP is quite another.