For the past 2 tests I have been exploring a more spontaneous type of gameplay. My skill tree is almost done, so quests: none, and I am not excited enough about Alakol as an area to participate in projects. So I decided to engage with other players and make up our own quests.
Obviously, this is something that other people have already done (The Easter Egg Hunt is one example). But, I have had a few difficulties along the way that maybe we can discuss and find solutions for.
1. Communicating:
Trying to communicate something to several players can be SUCH a grief. Right now the only way to do it is through notes or through the chat, but there are several problems with that:
a) In order for it to work you need to use both methods: bomb one area with notes (otherwise nobody reacts to them) and talk about it in the chat (general chat, new streets group, etc). Talking in chat only is not engaging enough for people to actually follow through with your quest.
b) There are only 5 paper trees in game. So paper is really precious and hard to save up.
2. Fixing things on the map for questers to find
c) People always pick things off the floor. Doesn't matter what you do. During this last test I had to ask the devs to stop making notes a requirement for projects because my notes didn't last ONE SECOND. Once removed, people STILL picked them up. I think some of them might be newbies who didn't know how notes work, but most of them were probably picked up by griefers or hoarders. If you leave a bag behind forget it: you aint gonna see that one again anytime soon.
So after discussing this, Cupcake and I came to the conclusion that gnomes were a better choice for communicating: you can't pick them up and take them away. Unfortunately you can only place it in the quarters, so main streets are off the question.
Faereluth suggested that maybe we could have the option to bind certain objects to people which is fantastic, but it still doesn't solve the problem of communicating in game and building quests for other players.
So my idea is this:
Once you introduce the mailbox we could have a Glitch Journal (which is basically a newsletter every player receives every day with news about Tiny Speck, Glitch, new clothes, new tokens, new areas, it would help you sell subscriptions) and there should be a "players" tab in it. We could purchase space in it with credits to announce our own quests, to extend invitations to our guilds or to parties, etc.
Also, the penpersonship skill branch should be extended. One of the higher levels could be "journalism" and it grants the possibility to send out newsletters to the members of any group you participate in. It would work in the same way as simple letters only you can send them to a bunch of people at once.
Finally, maybe we can have a megaphone item.. you place it on a street and it blurts out bubbles of text. It is bound to you, nobody else can teach it anything or pick it up, and you can only have one. You could also buy more messages with credits.
This would be a good idea to sell subscriptions too.. for the people that dont want to pay just for wardrobe options.. I would definitely spend credits to be able to communicate with other players better.