Demangel
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Posted - 2004.04.29 06:09:00 -
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Edited by: Demangel on 29/04/2004 06:32:47
Ahh the good old days of NDA and beta... I remember sitting here with many other hopeful fans bathed in the glow of our monitors reading and posting on these forums somtimes for hours at a time wating for baited breath for beta testers or devs or ANYONE to drop a crumb of intel about the game for us to gleefully gobble up and wash down with tons of optimism.
Back in those days, I CLEARLY remember a LOT of hype about the bounty system! how it would be the end all be all of all MMOrPG bounty systems. How it would revolutionize that profession in the industry and make it a worthwhile endevour.
I remember clearly the modules and things CCP had in mind...
Ranging from tracking bugs to scanners to help you locate prey, to agents that would let you use a region wide service to track down offenders...
Probably the only suggestion I would make for making bounties more difficult to exploit would be:
Make two versions of bounty hunting: One being a casual version, where the bounty is whatever happens to be on the player at the time. This way if some do gooder manages to get a kill on a player rat, they get a small reward for the job well done.
The other version being the more professional version. This version would work like this:
Requirements:
1: Level 3 or higher Concord/DED agent.
2: Special Security clearance (high sec rating, say 2.0 or higher).
3: No detectable criminal connections (IE unless you have the fast talk skill maxed out, you shouldn't have any good relations with the NPC pirates).
4: No prior criminal actions (Assuming CCP finaly puts in some kind of criminal flagging system). This can be made to be time sensitive so minor accidents are overlooked, like accidentaly using a smart bomb near a gate while your drunk at the keyboard (oops).
5: your alts information, while invisible perhaps to players, should count, if any of your alts have connections with the player pirate you nab, you just get the basic bounty price.
now, that would make it a LOT harder for the casual alt to really get the required minimum to be a full fledged bounty hunter... sure it's still possible, but hey, if you ask me, thats fine... There must always be some kind of illegal fraud in the universe in my mind for it to be realistic. But it's a lot harder... And if a bounty hunter manages to make a deal with his prey to make some easy money, then good for him... I mean it's not like corporations or other players are always ethical people either... the other night I got offered 200K for something I know was worth 1 mil... I can't blame the guy for tryin.
So with all these added requirements what are the benefits of meeting them? simple:
A more dyunamic and responsive bounty payment which "Might" work like this:
Concord pays out the initial bounty price put on the players head by players. they then pay it again, thus effectively doubling the payout.
Based on skills and faction standings and security ratings, the hunter should also recieve more bonuses (to ensure they stay on the right side of the business).
The longer the pirate has gone without having his bounty collected, the higher the bounty becomes, BUT only for liscened bounty hunters... perhaps raising an additional 100K per week, or month that the player goes without being podded.
Some additional benefits only offered to liscensed hunters:
Any player, even those without player bounties will have a payout, IF the plyers Sec status and criminal flagging reveal they are a criminal on one level or another. Thus a player with -2.0 sec rating, who HAS committed a flagged crime but somehow improved thier rating is still a legit target for a liscensed hunter.
A bounty hunter CAN attack players with such criminal status in high sec space. Prodiving no innocents are harmed.
A bounty hunter will be assigned a SPECIAL tracking agent. This agent will be used to locate a player just like it does now, however you can use this service from any station in the game. Meaning you don't need to go and dock at your agents station to find out where a player is hiding, you dock at ANY station and comunicate. you won't get mission offers, but you will be able to ask for the location of a player.
Lastly the bounty hunter with a valid liscense could buy special tracking bugs from these agents, which would simply need to be jettisoned in space (no module needed). you click on the bug in your cargo bay and target a ship, and like a drone you command it to attach itself to the target. the player tagged can discover the tag if they repair thier ship and remove it for a cost. You then get a list in your bookmarks for tagged players and ships... :)
Oh well it's just an idea :)
Galaxion > If you drove a car shaped like a thorax women would call you
Demangel > Dude... I would call..
Demangel > wait that sounded g@y I bet.
Galaxion > Just a bit.
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