Hub Towns On Worlds Idea.

[Z3GR4M]

I was thinking the other day how Warframe could be made more immersive and I had a interesting thought.  Warframe missions are randomly generated form a randomly selected amount of tiles that are slapped together, so in order to create a more cohesive and rich atmosphere what if when you land on a planet (wouldn't maybe work as well on space ship tilesets) you land in a central hub zone.  Let me explain.

 

Lets say you land on earth, instead of selecting a mission, getting dropped off by your ship and doing your thing, you would land on the earth hub, in the earth hub there would be a mission board perhaps, several NPC's and so forth, you would talk to people/mission board, accept your quest and exit the hub town area.  The tile sets would randomly generate a level that continues on to the next NPC hub.  Think of it akin to a rouge-like environment, instead of selecting a mission and running from point A to point B, the game would continuously generate mission's on said worlds, it would no longer be 15-30 missions per planet, instead it would be continuously generating missions you can continue to engage in on said planet.

 

For example you accept a spy mission at the bounty board, you do your mission on the way to the next hub, or you go back to the hub you accepted it at, turn in the mission and select eh next available one, something like a merging of what we have now with missions and randomly generated alert missions.  They would of course need to create some new tileset pieces that plug these rooms together better, a couple different hub town tile pieces, maybe even some larger tile pieces that give you the sense that you are in a large area, some building sets you would need to enter to trigger internal structure tile pieces and so on.

 

Overall a structure like this would make the game feel more grounded, this of course is some high concept stuff, but I just thought it would be a cool way to keep the player engaged and playing on a planet as well as give more purpose in creating randomly generated maps.  This is of course a slightly different direction then how the game is now but Warframe is nothing if not about change, what do you guys thing?  Thoughts?  Do you guys thing a system like this would ground the game farther?  Perhaps allow multiple players to be in hub towns, kind of like how relays work now, I guess it would really be like relays on the planets themselves.

[Dhrekr]

I have never felt that quest hubs add much to the game, personally. I have played games where it works like that (it isn't that innovative a feature), and after a while most "talks" with NPCs just boil down to the same ("bla bla my brother is lost bla bla the evil guards bla bla bla can you retrieve bla bla bla something connected to the plot bla bla I don't even know why there is a plot bla bla bla say just go there and kill dudes"). Skip and repeat. Somehow the reason is different and somehow you always have to kill dudes on the way there and on the way back.

 

Besides, the way we access missions - and possibly the kinds of missions themselves -- are about to change. With the new Starmap, we might have a different offer every day -- in the same way we have different Sorties every day.

[Synville]

First of all: Yes, please.

 

One note though, I don't agree with the "relay on planet" thing, we don't need the seven syndicates, Darvo and Teshin pushed even further into our faces.

 

I do really like this idea though.

[Z3GR4M]

I have never felt that quest hubs add much to the game, personally. I have played games where it works like that (it isn't that innovative a feature), and after a while most "talks" with NPCs just boil down to the same ("bla bla my brother is lost bla bla the evil guards bla bla bla can you retrieve bla bla bla something connected to the plot bla bla I don't even know why there is a plot bla bla bla say just go there and kill dudes"). Skip and repeat. Somehow the reason is different and somehow you always have to kill dudes on the way there and on the way back.

Besides, the way we access missions - and possibly the kinds of missions themselves -- are about to change. With the new Starmap, we might have a different offer every day -- in the same way we have different Sorties every day.

You are completely right, but i meant it more as an alternative to add more imersion to the game, somehow picking random missions on a star chart just seems so disjointed. The imersion in the game has been growing prigresively, i just figure this would be another way to tie the world together.

Also by "kind of like relays" i was thinking along the lines of the hub towns hosting a set number of players, hub towns would become like relays in the sense that they would be mission lobby's and you could find your team, select said mission, seamlesly exit the hub town and be on your way.

Edited December 19, 2015 by Z3GR4M