Keeping to a Character Avatar Centric Game

[Hamilton]

Someone mentioned ejecting. I always assumed this would be in... its got to be in. Especially if our clones have a limited lifespan etc.

And two problems with ejections is being exposed to enemy fire while in the air and then trying to escape on foot.  Will there be players who will shoot at ejecting pilots in the air and on the ground... yup.

So to help with this, we're looking at providing Emergency Escape Vehicles (hover cycles) for crews.  Allow players to get out of their mechs in other ways besides an ejecting seat or capsule.  And incentives to discourage players from making such easy kills.  Once a player can get onto an Escape Vehicle, the character is pretty much saved.  The dilemma is those some odd seconds to a minute or so, when a characters is getting out of the Mech and activating the emergency vehicle.

[Falcon]

Have an ejection system that boosts the pilot up to 10.000 feet altitude or so, then deploys hangglider wings.

[veshire]

while we are on the subject, what is going to happen to a player if his avatar gets killed while trying to get away from the enemy.  Clones like in Eve? or a death like in WoW?

[Falcon]

You might concider  ejecting from a mech more or less like ejecting from a ship in EVE. You CAN be podkilled, and sent to your clone. Podkilling will however not be nearly as prevalent (at least I hope not) due to the limited number of times you can be cloned before permadeath.

[KC_Render]

Podkilling shouldn't be too much of an issue, I hope as well as you Falcon, b/c those who would podkill, can BE podkilled as well, someone develops a reputation for that, the Bounty Hunter Guild will make sure they hate their lives.

[Falcon]

Right up to the point where he can't get another one.

[KC_Render]

Aye 

[Cavadus]

Why is so much effort being put into player killing prevention?  Isn't that the point of any and all combat?  You should be rewarded, not reprimanded.

[Hamilton]

Well, I guess the difference is that gray line of killing and murder.  I know hard to define killing as murder while on the battlefield, there are a number of situations.

Without going too much into specifics, one example would be; say a Mech has been considered knocked-out and the pilot decides to bail out.  If the pilot declares a surrender and then gets killed, that is considered as murder.  But if the pilot seeks to escape and not surrender, well then, killing the pilot at that point is not considered murder as the pilot is still considered an operable battle unit.  (And killing a pilot in a battle operable Mech or vehicle would have no negative effects)

Again there are a number of possibilities and what if's; such as one enemy pilot has gunned down a number of ejecting pilots (pod-killing) and then his own Mech is destroyed.  He manages to bail out and seeing he can't escape declares a surrender.  To give mercy to someone who does not give it to others...  Well, sure killing that pilot would be considered as murder; but not as a significant penalty, using reputation as the deciding factor.  No bounty would be applied, except for the dead pilot seeking revenge perhaps.

[Cavadus]

Instead of all these elaborate escape mechanisms and karma systems why not just have factions seriously reprimand players?  Like cast them out of the corporation, ban them from entering capital and faction cities, bounty hunters, refuse to hire them (if mercenary), et cetera?

I think this issue is getting overly complex.

It seems like the best solution is just an in-universe Geneva Conventions type articles of warfare that all parties strictly enforce.

[Hamilton]

Except players love choices and options, and always find ways that developers never thought or planned.  Players are smart and cunning people, so a complex system I think is required.

Yes, there is to be a Rules of Engagement to be used.  But a problem of how to enforce it...

[Kellzz]

I would like to be able to run around with a small scanner and listen in to the idle chit-chat between NPC mechs. or perhaps engaging in some "extreme sports" IE Sky diving. Perhaps a scoring system could be implemented to add a bit of competition. (restrict the area players can sky dive, otherwise you have people using it as a means of transport.)

[darkgreen]

Getting out could be cool to do "special force" kind of tasks. If there are man portable rocket launchers and humans aren't really easy to detect (the hiding skill perhaps) then you could get a few guys at the top of a hill in the tall grass: set and brace and aim for the head perhaps (skill levels with rocket launcher) and then after firing run back to your mechs and fire them up for the main fight.

That would be very similar to current tactics (except current special forces guys fire some Javelin missiles and then just run away in a dune buggy). It also gives an excuse to introduce lots of new skills for more players to learn and grow into.

The downside is that with perma-death there's really no freaking way people would want to do this except with disposable alts and now you'll have a guy in a mech and his three aggro alts suicide ganking people.

[Harakeen]

Just a quick note and true story. Eve is the only MMORPG game that I fell asleep in RL at the keyboard playing.

Yes, I was mining. 

Lol, that happened to me to many times 

I like the idea of getting out of the mech and do the "special force" task like darkgreen said.
Question.
If im using an joystick to control my mech, will i still be using it to control my avatar, or will i control it like any other MMORPG with the mouse?

[Hamilton]

With joystick supported, I would say it would be a player choice or preference.