If Panzer Dragoon became more popular

Panzer Dragoon
21

I thought you liked SH Geoff, maybe I was wrong, anyway it was just an example really… Replace it with any series you like that also happens to be popular unlike PDS…

Megatherium, sure, nothing is comparable to the power of the dragons, but there could be things comparable to the power of monsters so you wouldn’t necessarilly need a dragon to beat them, just a team of well equipped airships perhaps, after all The Empire would never gain so much power if any ol monster could beat their technology so easy, don’t forget at times even the dragon had some trouble to deal with their ships, Grig Orig anyone? :slight_smile:
And why no going inside Towers? For “Fear of guardians”? How about they don’t put any guardians in the towers you explore in the MMORPG to allow you to explore them then :stuck_out_tongue:
It’s a MMORPG man anything can be changed here and there if it’s going to let you do something really cool like visit a tower and anything can be explained or semi explained with things like “it’s been thousands of years after PDS and al the towers going inactive” and other things like that… You could even fight weaker mutated versions of some really power PDS enemies, which would basically be just as hard but be classified as mutated to show why a bunch of humans can defeat them if well equipped without the need for a Dragon… anything is possible… yes you obviously won’t be able to do certain things you can do in other PD games but you could also do a lot of things you can’t do in other PD games :slight_smile:
Anyway you don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to not like it :slight_smile: it’s just an idea, not something I expect to happen anytime and in fact you are the one who (re-)started the mmorpg discussion on it I just showed you how it can fit in the PD world and make sense and still be enjoyable, seriously, is there ANY mmorpg out there with a world as interesting and unique and well developed as the PD world? I don’t think so… So, basically, take your favorite MMORPG and imagine it being in the PD world and how much better it would be if you could do/see/explore/fight all the things I mentioned and much much more…
I for one would be excited at the prospect of a freeform game that lets me be a hunter alone, have a bunch of friends and ride around on our coolias hunting down monsters and finding amazing new areas just like Kyle was doing at the start of PD1… Then at nightfall setting up a camp resting and telling tales around the fire to each other about things and situations we’ve encountered. The addition of all the rest possibilities in a full mmorpg like that would allow you to do so much more than just be a hunter and that would just be too good for me to pass up… (assuming it was done right and not like all the rest mmorpgs that imo aren’t that good games at all)

22

i said that i and just about anyone else here would love to go deeper into the PD world, i just have reservations about leaving the dragon behind.

as a set up i would prefer an explanation such as the heresy program comes into effect again, but it’s malfunctioning now. i loved how abadd was a drone that still retained its goal and funstionality but was also borderlining on completely insane. so perhaps something goes wrong in the sestren leading to the production of a large amount of heresy dragons (the heresy program perceives a threat that is not there and retaliates). that would kind of be the main goal in the game; to shut down the sestren before all life on the planet is turned into or destroyed by the heresy dragons. but in the mean time, you and your buddies get to ride around on them :slight_smile:

i wouldn’t really like that plot line, but it would be an explanation for the huge amounts of dragons (and the drone dragons and dragonmares could help decrease that number as well). there could be a persistent world where the three sides are each taking different portions of the area. there could be pre-planned assaults on different locales where everyone of one side would be called to fight (such as the drones making a move on an imperial stronghold, or the imperials making a raid on a tower and all the drones are called to defend it)

i think riding coolias around as a hunter would be great for early to moderate progession; but without dragons, there isn’t much of a chance to survive an encounter with a golia. the idea for new imperial vehicles would allow them to stand against pure-types; but i have a hard time believing that any fleet, regardless of size could take on the guardian dragon.

so to summarize, i agree with you fully except i think dragons are an inherent part of any PD game. without dragons, it is at best a spin off.

23

Nothing wrong with spin offs, I never implied that a MMORPG, should it be made, should replace the rest of the series or anything like that… Ultima Online is an Ultima spin off, see how popular that became :wink:
And I suppose you are right about the Golia, but, come on, there’s a ton of creatures in the PD world, you don’t need to put in the biggest baddest ones in order to make a MMORPG… There would be big and bad ones except not “big and bad ones for a dragon” but “big and bad ones for the people/vehicles” instead… Besides the biggest “Selling point” of MMORPGs is the interaction with real people not their monsters… at some point, in every mmorpg, for the veterans of the game that have seen everything it could get boring, however by chosing a side when you enter be it seekers imperials or meccanians or whatever else you then have the prospect of battles between these factions just like they happened in the games as well… There’s a few MMORPGs that focus on faction wars so far, a PD MMORPG could be one of them (without neglecting the rest parts ofcourse), Also, what I find exciting is the prospect of living in the PD world, spending everyday as a seeker would spend it, or a hunter would spend it, or as a loyal imperial would spend it, striving to survive (Imo it should have survival elements like having to rest if you get tired, needing food once in a while, needing to find a safe haven when the weather turns too bad and always risking death should you travel all by yourself in dangerous areas no matter what “level” you are (if it even has levels) etc…That would also make people focus in interaction with each other more so as well since they’d depend on each other just like the PD world’s inhabidants…) learning about various mysteries, protecting your hometown from monster or enemy faction attacks etc etc… Not the prospect of beating a Golia to the ground with my uber +200 dmg ancient age super hyper duper hyper dual blaster with a +10% chance of summoning a shellcoof to help on hit or anything like that…
All I’m “against” really is sayin that the game would be no good in any way just cos you wouldn’t be able to have dragons and other things… yes it would be a spin off if it didn’t have those but so what? Spin offs can be just as good as any game… As I said before, you don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to not like it so let’s just agree to disagree :slight_smile:

24

that’s what i’m thinking :slight_smile:

but it really sounds like we’re saying the same thing, but not understanding eachother. i said a few times that a game like that would be great, i’d love to see it, to get down in it from an “average iva” perspective. i think getting missions from the empire, then going out with some friends to scout a wasteland where you may or may not run into pure-types would be really amazing experience.

the only issue that we are in disagreement about is that i think the dragon should not be forgotten, and you’d be quick to trade your own solowing for 20 dyne and a heal medis :wink:

i’m sure they could still come up with some pretty awesome creations, but i have never liked the idea of a game being a “step down” in terms of anything. there should always be something bigger and more amazing that the last one (or at least on par). are you strongly against the idea for there to be a multitude of dragons?

i can imagine an elite group of very high level players that ascend the ranks in the imperial academy and eventually are accepted into the cavalry (dragonmare force). they could set up something like, there are only 100 (that could change depending on how many people played the game) positions in the dragonmare force, so it’s the top 100 furthest advanced imperial players that get to ride a dragonmare.

the same could be true of the drones and seekers. and lets forget the idea that the heresy program was creating all the dragons; lets just say that it IS far into the future and orta had left the dragon pup in the seekers’ care. they raised it and it continued to produce more dragon pups, then those pups created more (of course they did this in some underground fashion so as not to alert the empire). but in anycase, the seekers have a large group of the descendants of lagi and only the best seekers may ride them.

and with the drones, they’re trying to restart the towers (to a degree, not fully, just to their liking). then the top 100 most advanced drones are selected by the towers to be their guardians.

now if that’s how the game was; you and your constituents could ride your coolia out around in the wastes as much as you wanted, then me and mine could dedicate ourselves to raising through the ranks to gain the most powerful creatures on the planet :smiley:

you could tell stories by campfire of the time you saw a golia and narrowly escaped it by running your coolia into a cave. then i could tell stories at the imperial capitol about the time my strike team in our dragonmares took down a golia that was defending some ruins.

eh? eh?

25

I don’t think that Orta would leave Lagi’s offspring in the care of the Seekers - the people who imprisioned her for 13 years - but I can see what you’re suggesting. Panzer Dragoon Orta’s ending has the set the story up perfectly for multiple dragons to be introduced into the story. And I do think that the next game - whatever it is - should take advantage of this.

Even if there are multiple dragons, that doesn’t imply that they would all have to be as powerful as the dragons created by the Ancients. Lagi was able to defeat many dragonmares at once. Maybe the Empire or another faction could breed other monsters to ride into battle on.

Although I didn’t really like get into the game, it would be interesting to see something that takes a Morrowind kind of approach, but is more story orientated. A lot of gamers these days expect non linear features in their games - to be able to customise their characters and do what they want within the game world. If it was done right, it could turn out to be something quite special.

I like that idea that Alex suggested of a Panzer Dragoon game where one of the main goals is to survive. Why do all creatures have to be defeatable? Maybe there could be monsters that simply can not be killed, and instead, when you see one, you know it’s time to run. Something like that would work with the Panzer Dragoon world quite well in my opinion, but again it would have to be done right.

26

sorry, i meant the wormriders (like mobo’s clan), i don’t know why i called them seekers :slight_smile:

i agree that whatever the terms would be, it should be very difficult and time consuming to get a dragon, so the majority of the time you would want to run. i can just imagine flying along in some imperial fighters, the sky turns dark and you enter a storm, the clouds start to thin and you think you’re almost out of the storm but then BAM you come upon something like mer-kava!! you would get this breathtaking glimpse of the huge creation but if you didn’t turn and flee immediately, the pure-types onboard would intercept you and take you down :smiley:

27

I agree with pretty much all of those points that you guys have brought up, and I’ve actually had my own ideas of how the “dragon or no dragon” dilemma could be overcome in a potential new game. I don’t have much to add to the mmorpg ideas, but for a new RPG, a storyline could be created which was based around the dragon but where you didn’t actually play as the dragon and rider. For example:

You could start off the game as a hunter on a Coolia lost in the wastelands, or an Imperial officer going about their duty, or a Wormrider or a Seeker or a newly awakened Drone. (The possibilities for characters are pretty vast, and I’d even be interested to see a multiple character system worked into a future game, although I’m not sure how it could be implemented appropriately.)

Then the dragon and its mysterious rider appear, and they impact your character’s life in some way: they shoot down the rest of the Imperial ships in your character’s squadron, your character’s Wormrider clan sees it as an omen, your character’s fellow Seekers realise that something is up, and you are the one charged with following the dragon and finding out what is going on. Then a large portion of RPG goodness could be served up where you followed the trail of the dragon and its mysterious rider across deserts and through villages and forests and ruins and other new and old PD locales.

The story (and the dragon’s mission) could be discovered piece by piece, until a massive turning point occured in the middle of the game where your character finally caught up with the dragon, only to witness the current rider’s untimely death (possibly at the hands of an enemy dragon/rider). Then the dragon could take your character as its new rider, the focus of the plot could shift, and you would be able to do things like revisit old areas and get to new places that you were unable to reach or enter before.

Actually that idea did end up having you riding the dragon, but ultimately it wouldn’t be necessary in that kind of a plot. On a similar idea, you could spend the entire game following the dragon and eventually helping the dragon and rider to complete their mission in some way. That way you could have some quality adventuring in the PD world in the meantime.

Just food for thought. By the way alex, the “raise your own Coolias” idea sounds like a really suitable (and quite funky) minigame.