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Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338263] Sun, 14 December 2014 02:58 Go to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Random Work Notes

I've hidden this post because all you will find are random notes I make before developing them further. Either from your feedback or from my own head. Please skip to next post you do not want to read mumbojumbo

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Concept
I want to emphasize the building of the AIM through the conflict in San Hermanos as the Zero Day of the franchise. I want to start with an empty roster and put the player in the position to meet the mercs in person, have them share their stories with him through quests and only then join him. I will use a few tricks for this that I will explain later.

Also my JAF world is heavily factionized. You don't have "good guys and bad guys" anymore. You have to make moral choices. I will not force you to play the good side or the bad side, because in war and life there are no white lines and black lines but a lot of grey. And history is written by the victors, so whatever side you pick, you WILL feel morally justified, to an extent. ANY side you pick, they will have their humour and their gritty side. It's up to you what you stomach more. There are multiple factions you can work for or against. Some are incompatible, some don't care who are your friends. The main combatants are the rebel communists who call themselves Hermanistas and the state army. The rebels hide out in the Western mountains, fighting for social equality, liberating mines from the military junta and sending the innocent civilians all the aid they can raid in true Robin Hood style. But they're also funding their revolution through drug dealing and Soviet military aid. And The Army, fighting to keep the scourge of communism spreading over San Hermanos, but exploiting the people in uranium mines in order to fulfill the demented dreams of a Generalissimo who thinks he's the nephew of Franco by mother and Mussolini by father. And who wants to make San Hermanos a nuclear power. Will you allow a nutjob to own such a weapon? What if there is a way to get rid of the general and still fight off the communists?

My ending is not about helping "the people's revolution". We know how that turned out in history. My ending is about showing everyone what war is about: the powers to be playing a game of chess with everyone's life.You start as a pawn in this game and move forward as a pawn. But when the pawn reaches the end of the table, it becomes the most powerful piece on the table. That's the closest analogy I could find. You will feel that power, that I can promise.


Reversed campaign concept (dark, very dark)
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Misc aggro factions and NPcs

Prince Militia
Prison Guard
Prince Soldier
Smuggler's Muscle
Hired Muscle
Prince Guard
Meth Trooper
Cultist
Thug Spiga

Pablo
Rafa Oyster Man
Henrico Lecter /Cult Leader Lecter
Angelo Spigadoro
PeaceGuard
Dane Peacemaker Sorenson
MonicaBuns Sondergaard
J. Huang
Andrew Harris
Rudgar van Lanshof
Shifter Drifter

[color:#CC0000]- NOTE: Add Spiradoros vs Peacemaker as factions in the script
+ NOTE: Divide types of soldiers per faction
+ NOTE: Define merc locations
+ NOTE: I've checked (a few) JAF mercs against a spreadsheet of JA1 roster and FC apparently did a perfect job on stats. It's JA2 which is a problem, because between JA1 and JA2 it appears to be some nasty inconsistencies. Especially when it comes to merc level.
+ NOTE: Still need to adjust the perks to fit the JA2 traits better
[/color]

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 00:50] by Moderator

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Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition": Factions[message #338389] Wed, 17 December 2014 21:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
I've asked FC to give us more factions ingame and a quest trigger that allows the player to switch his faction dynamically.
My campaign concept relies on re-using the relatively small map smartly. Basically the player will have TWO parallel campaigns. The first one will leave rebels and army alone and will concentrate on recruiting locally (no rolodex mercs, please!) a team of mercs on the field, by doing certain quests, either helping or eliminating various gangs. These undercover quests will take place all over the map and will not give the player the option to conquer sectors or train militia yet, but they will open access routes the main factions HQs, negotiate access to towns and their shops, provide the player with quests to get money and gear. It will add a lot of hours of RPG and stealth combat without much map making. It will also allow you to recruit most of your "lost" AIM mercenaries.

Basically my faction schematics and game evolution are like this:

Phase I: You're undercover as a civilian, you are neutral to civs and aggro to bandits (actually THEY are aggro to you)
Phase II: You negotiate your support for either rebels (/drug lords!) or liberals (/exploiters, brutal repression).
Phase III: You capture sectors for the faction you picked, train their troops (militia), get the benefits
Phase IV: You find out the truth behind whole campaign
Phase I Reversed: see below, you get to play the game in reverse.


Each faction, hostile or not, has a representative NPC that you can dialogue with and that doesn't aggro. Depending on your actions, that NPC can trigger positive faction status and give you missions. The others are just replaceable, respawnable soldiers.

In-between phases, we need some antagonists. So here the gangs come in. They're not tied to overall struggle for power (they can bribe off both commies and liberals), they're are tied to control of certain towns. I originally thought of a single bandit faction, but after reading the above I feel like having an underlying gang turf war is more cool. For now names are not in sync with fathambuerger's ideas (i used ingame factions more), but the actual faction design can be based on the gangs he mentioned.

MAIN FACTIONS

Hermanista Rebels
Backstory: The claim to be leaders of the socialist/communist revolution, but in truth they control the drug traffic using their Soviet connections to get weapons and launder money.
Control & HQ: They need a central HQ in the Western part of Garcia, within mountainous area with limited access. They control the hemp farms initially and want to take over the mines controlled by the Army and focus their raids on those.
Gear: Only Soviet and Warsaw pact military gear
Quest types: Missions to sabotage military installations, take over mines, kill army leaders; a particular of this faction is that if you control zones in their name you do not paid for it, since they claim the money belong to the workers; you do get to unlock supply caches on the map and get paid quite well for doing missions; they will also have very cheap Soviet ammo for sale.
Friends: Pit Smugglers, Oyster Cult, Lilitu Inmates, The Syndicate
Enemies: Army

Army
Backstory: The army garrison is led by a crazed Generalissimo, who claims to be a nephew of Franco by mother and Mussolini, by father. In reality he's a full nutcase, who plans to build himself a nuke and declare San Hermanos a nuclear power. He has control of the local Uranium mines, which puts him closer to his plans than you expect. He also controls Souza garrison, K10 garrison and OSIM base - where he's building an army of super soldiers and his little nuke. His final doom is to be triggered by a spectacular explosion of a nuke (Nuka) that levels off everything in the sector in a very spectacular way.
Control & HQ: Krasnodar-82 Base, Souza, K10, OSIM
Gear: Western standard military gear, uses grenades and Generalissimo's bodyguards are high on meth.
Quest types: Capture and destroy rebel farms and bases, find and execute rebel sympathisers in the civilian population, control and defend the mines
Friends: Pit Smugglers
Enemies: The Rebels, Oyster Cult, Lilitu Inmates, The Syndicate


Perma EVIL/GOOD Quest as a Morality System
Quote:
This is a quest line that stretches across the entire campaign and includes all possible evil/good choices you make as goals. When you go evil, an EVIL goal is set as "Completed". As you advance, other quests will check up on this and determine if you're morally fit. Each further faction will have a set of goals they care about, depending on their affiliations. If you betrayed someone's friends 2/3 times, you're evil to them. And viceversa.


GANG FACTIONS

First island: Lilitu's Inmates
Backstory: A gang of former prison inmates who took over the Lilitu prison long time ago and transformed it into a virtual fortress for their operations. Led by Shifter Drifter, a notorious murderer.
Control & HQ: HQ is Lilitu Prison. After they overpowered the prison guards, they took control of the entire island ore or less. They raid local farmers who do not pay protection (Smile) and they have toll points on the Badilla roads.
Gear: Relatively poorly armed, they are mostly with makeshift prison shanks and a few guns (with limited ammo) they captured from prison guards. They do have influence over Marino area.
Quest types: Getting rid of them gives the player much better deals from Badilla shops; atm is too complicated a double-agent mission but if code changes, supporting the bandits should give the player a few cool side missions such as Treasure Map and/or alternate access points into towns. Shaking farmers for money or robbing local business owners are the types of bandit missions that could work. Also weapons and drugs supply runs.
Enemy: Syndicate (cause exploiting civilians is profitable), Pit Smugglers (they refused to supply weapons to Inmates gang), Army (cause the state put them in prison)
Friends: The Blue Oyster cultists (they provide drugs to them), Rebels (they bully the farmers into growing hemp crops for rebels)
Recruitable mercs: tbd


Quote:


Merc Recruitment Quest
This type of quests has the player returning twice to the same sector, for two different rewards and outcomes. In one run he gets to do Vicky's quest. In another he gets to do Larry Roachburn recruitment. In the very first run, he'll do one of them. Soon though the info about the hidden Larry quest will spread out (from players who did it by accident). And the player will return a do the zone again, to recruit Larry.

Well, we can check inventory for a certain item, that means we can play dress-up a bit. So we get a warning about the gang running Lilitu from Miguel and we need to infiltrate the prison to check it out, maybe free Vicky without causing a stir. So we ask Miguel for ideas and he tells us would be smart if we used some of the inmate uniforms that the bandits we just killed dropped. We equip one of those (know how to edit a DDS and make a piece of armor look like all orange) and we head off to Lilitu.

Once we enter the sector we get a stopped by their guards, who trigger a dialogue event and an inventory check. If inventory check fails, they get replaced by their aggro selves AND spawn a few buddies nearby. If inventory check is ok we talk about coming back from Marino with some news for the boss. We could do this dress-up check... or have one of the dead bandits a piece of paper saying "Pasword today: Ur mum's ass is so big she has her own gravity"... a much easier option (no DDS edition). So the guard yells back at your "WHAAATTT? YOU MOTHEFKER! YOU ARE DEAD!"... you go "WHAT? WAIT..".. and he goes.. "hehee.. I gotcha crap your pants, didn't I?". And no aggro prisoners spawn, sector is filled just with normal NPCs.

You get to Vicky's cell and she tells you to buzz off, she's not going back to work the farm with that old fart which isn't even father, but just an old man who offered her a home.. in return for some favors. At which point you get to chose between beating her into submission (see Prince quest for how a dead enemy resurrects) and gain one EVIL point yet get her as free merc for a month (tempting, eh?) or offering to help her set the record straight with Miguel. She tells you to go back to the farm and ask Miguel about his preference about young girls, preferably when he's drunk.

You go back, tell Miguel you found Vicky dead. When he starts sobbing you offer him a shot of booze. This opens up a (see Priest quest) new dialogue tree and he starts to open up about how he regrets such a fine piece of ass is lost. When he admits it, boom! the last dialogue option spawns a truck on the back road. And Vicky near it. They have an NPC dialogue (see the two crazy dudes in Angetta harbor bar) and Vicky tells the old fart you promised to help her get revenge. Which triggers Miguel being aggro. You kill him. And you talk back to Vicky who tells you you're basically her pimp now and you can do whatever you want with her life.

To which you get again a choice: EVIL - you tell her "Don't worry, I'll make full use of your services, you're much better than Sissy the goat", check. Or GOOD: "I am not a pimp lady, you're a free girl now..." to which she replies "I'll hang out with you for a month, until I get my own thing going". If you picked evil, she tells you "Ok bos, I am gonna go work the streets in Tio now, come check on me later", despawns and later you find her in the Brothel (and you can talk to her to get a large sum of cash, your cut, grats you are officially a pimp). If you picked GOOD, you get her as a free merc for a month. Also if you use Vicky to talk to the Pimp you will get extra information out of him (condition check for name, to see if it works reversed).

CHECKS: What happens if the player goes straight for Lilitu? Guard stops him, asks for password, quest checks inventory for password note, finds none, gives no dialogue option to say the password but some mumbo jumbo ("You look pretty in pink!"). To which the guard yells "BOYS, WE GOT FRESH MEAT! GET HIM!". And either all chaos breaks loose or (if possible) we teleport player to an underground prison sector with cells and 1-2 guards. And remove his weapon.

Inside the cell there's an drunk to whom you befriend. He tells you about his drug/drinking problem. He says he has a way out, if you help him take out the guards. You agree and he gives you a shank he made. You tell him to follow he sais.."Uhmm.. ok mate.. just hold that door still, it's moving so much...". You tell "Ok, nvm, I'll take care of this myself". When you are done with the guards, you go back to talk to the drunk (sector check Clear). He's amazed at your skills and tells you about the tunnel he dug out and tells you to follow him. You get teleported to a nearby safe sector with the drunk in tow. You talk to him and he says he's offering his services for a week if you just give him a drink. You happen to have a bottle of beer in your inventory. You give that to him and he respawns as our good old Larry Roachburn, the greatest drunk in JA history. His particular trait makes him very sad when he's in certain locations and does't have a drink in his inventory. If possible we'll code in extra boosts from booze just for him.



Second island: Pit Smugglers
Backstory: A gang of very dangerous weapon smugglers, known for their habit of feeding their victims to their trademark vicious grizzly bear. Their camp is run by a lunatic transexual called Beavis. Their true leader is rumored to be one a respectable businessman (Fred Bearpit) who lives in Tio. Option: if code will allow, would be cool to have a boxing bear fight for money. We could also tie them to the 2nd wanted murderer (and transform the bounty quest into a quest to eliminate all gang leaders for a huge reward and major bonuses)
Control & HQ: Bottom part of Garcia (Tio area) with HQ @ Bear's Pit. They're rumored to be in good ties with both the army and the rebels, like true businessmen - they supply everyone.
Gear: Armed to their teeth, with even better gear than Army itself - they are the only source of illegal munition and weapons such as the infamous "Dum Dum" hollow-point bullets (uranium depleted ammo was legal in 1988 and they have that too) or military grade "hunting gear" such as .50 BMG Barrett rifles or soviet Spetsnaz special gear (VSS, As Val).
Quest types: They will be the toughest group to get rid of and a real bonus challenge to any player. They will have gear beyond anything a player can ever dream to have (except what he buys from them). They pay good money for smuggling runs, but they also send out "death squads" to take you out if you cheat them. Being in good terms with them will give the player access to very special weapons (.50 cal, 9x39, all the fancy stuff like .50 AS Desert Eagle). They will occasionally give you a free weapon as reward for smuggling runs. They also have access routes into both rebel and army zones so they make it easier for the player to get in and out those zones using secret routes.
Recruitable mercs: tbd
Enemy: Lilitu Inmates who want a piece of the smuggling business, Syndicate (townsfolk hate them for feeding the war)
Friends: Army (good clients), Rebels (good clients), Oyster cultists (they keep Fluffly The Bear well fed)

Second island: Cult of the Blue Oyster
Backstory: Canibalistic cult, running what used to a former luxury resort, they hold captive an entire boat load of a Carribean cruise ship tourists (which allows us to put there almost anyone we want from the JA2 roster). They sell the tourists for ransom and those who do not pay end up as ritualic sacrifice dinner. Led by (introduce the 3rd murderer?) Dr. Lecter.
Control and HQ: Blue Oyster Resort only, but they have a presence in every town, base and faction. Through quests those cult members will reveal themselves.
Gear: They do not believe in guns so their weapons of choice are melee weapons. VERY strong melee weapons. Basically this will hit the player who thinks melee is worthless (after fighting Lility inmates armed with shanks) like a train. Also the cult members are on some very potent drugs so their stats are way way overpowered. But they do not wear any armor. The only paralel that comes to mind is the fight against bugs in JA2. A fight where if you didn't bring HE ammo you were pretty much fucked.
Quest types: Moored to the shores is a Carribean cruise ship, where they hold prisoners all kind of (future) AIM mercs that came to San Hermanos as tourists. We don't have a proper ship level in this game but if we get good Unity experts we can make multi-level maps here easy (do not confuse with roofs and roof fighting, I am talking about Unity layer system here - levels like Dead State has, with teleports in between). This group is dealing in very potent drugs if you consider earning their faith. But for that you will have to sacrifice all the tourists. You will get to recruit Dr. Lecter and a nice plethora of murderers and assasins, hidden among the general population: The Pimp, The Whore (Sofia), The Impotent (Willy), The Child Assassin (Amin chick), The Devil's Priest (Tio Priest), The Brutal Chess Player, etc. Basically this will abandon the idea of recruiting old mercs and follow the alternative path of using dark characters (like recruiting Kingpin assasins in JA2UC). You will gain access to a plethora of boosters and drugs but no ranged weapons (maybe bows if they add that type). So this will be for those who want to try out melee combat and the most shady missions involving sex, bribery and corruption.
Recruitable mercs: tbd (lots, from tourist or cult)
Enemy: The Syndicate (because they townsfolks don't taste good), Army (because they don't do drugs)
Friends: Lilitu Inmates (drug supply runners), Pit Smugglers (the pay good money for dinner left-overs), Rebels (cause they plant good crops)

Second island: The Syndicate
Backstory: The undeground syndicate of the San Hermanos workers, who include every NPC who runs a business. This faction is the one who counter-balances the player's actions for the bandit factions and it's the faction with whom you lose reputation if you choose that path. They run all civilian business INSIDE towns so they're pretty much under siege from everyone. You have the option to liberate them by killing the bandits who control their neighbourhoods, thus giving you a white knight status and access to local shops at a large discount. They do not posses military equipment, but they do have hunting gear, repair shops and medical facilities. And bars that sell light boosters such as spiced beer.
Control and HQ: Each town is run by a mayor, usually either the local barkeeper or the shopkeeper.
Quest types: If you manage to get past the bandits and sneak into towns, they will give you missions to take out the bandits and large cash rewards for that. They will NOT allow you to dictate how they run their lives, so you won't gain money from controlling their zones and you will not be allowed to train militia. But they will provide you with hireable mercs
in the end. And if we can figure out base building, also with a base location plus base staff (repair/clinic, etc). Gaining faction with them will also open transportation (free insertion anywhere) and truck inventory (when code will allow to toggle on/off squad inventory). You will be able to recruit the NPC that drives the Ice Cream truck for example. Also they will provide water access routes around San Hermanos through fishing boats.
Recruitable mercs: tbd
Enemy: Lilitu Inamates (scum of the earth), Pit Smugglers (death dealers), Oyster cult (canibals aren't popular), Army (opressors)
Friends:Some sympathize with the socialist/communist ideals of the Rebels

Third island: Angetta's Elite
Backstory: Angetta is the where the nobility and the business elite of San Hermanos live in peace, comfortably chewing the cash that comes from exploiting the population of the main island. It's a location where you can have a lot of R&R, with posibility to add casinos, brothels and other Vegas style businesses. It also has an international airport, which means it has the potential for an alternate start of the game - maybe given as a reward after first completion of the main campaign. Here you will find the true figures behind each faction, the master puppeteers and discover that what goes on on the other islands is actually a sinister game of chess between some very wealthy and bored individuals. Who are actually quite friendly, at least on the outside, with each other.
Control and HQ: Angetta, but they are actually those behind Rebels and Army factions - for them it's just a game of chess with human as chess pieces. One will be a Russian (former KGB), the other an American (former CIA).
Initial Quest: On first campaign, you won't get here until the end of the game. The 3 OSIM characters will still be in OSIM. Basically this will be just a reveal when you finish the game, maybe the best ending ever written for a game, showing that there is no such things as "good and bad" sides in a war. You were just part of a massive plot, manipulated by the puppeteers. Your so called CIA mission was a farce. You find out that in the grand scheme of things, your true codename and mission was called "The Pawn". Meaning if you succeed to reach Angetta, you get to decide which of the chess pieces on the board turns into Queen and check-mates (kills) the enemy King. If you had failed, you were to be just a sacrificial pawn like all the others before you. So you decide to whom you hand over the reigns, kill the end boss and get to play a reversed campaign.
Recruitable mercs: Baron, Dr. K and the other guy, maybe others
Enemy/Friends: They are The Powers To Be. They control the game. They play it for fun. Death is a game to them. You and only you can be their Nemesis or their best ally.

Reversed Campaign
When you start from Angetta, you will be aware of this chess game scenario. You have the option, if you start from here, to get involved in this sinister eye-opener game of "real politik". You can auction your services as an assasin to the highest bidder. If you accept a contract, you will be sent out to eliminate certain "chess figures" from the oponents side: the knight, the bishop, etc. You will be given hints, but not full names. Because the Masters love to play mind games. If you kill the wrong target (the dead target will drop a chess piece) then you will lose the contract money, but you will suffer no other penalty. And you will get to play another turn, until the chess game ends with the victory of one of the sides. Then they will all turn aggro on you and order their assassins (the 3 characters that are locked into OSIM in the vanilla campaign and who helped you so far) to turn on you. You will have the option to "turn good" during this reversed campaign and play the masters at their own game. After the first few unimportant kills, a certain target will reveal you the possibility to play against the masters, turn the assasins on your side and actually "fake" every contract you get. You will be able to get the chess pieces without killing the civilians. In this alternative ending, the assasins won't turn on you, but the bosses will BOTH aggro and you will have to eliminate everyone on the map, take full control of the island and decide which of your friends gets to rule the country (depends on which faction leader you befriended). If you play along and/or not discover the way to turn the tables, you will play out the assasination contracts, take over sectors for one side or each other (but this time you will know you're actually moving pieces on a map - there's no "fight for freedom" involved) and complete the campaign up to the point where you're back to Angetta with "The Pawn" you picked. And the final battle of Queen vs King plays along normally, with the other boss just clapping and cheering. So easier fight, but more dubHoios moral choice.

How this all fits into creating AIM? It fits perfectly, because AIM was never about justice or freedom fight. It is a mercenary for hire organization. That's the cold truth. The mercenaries don't give a shit about who is right and who is wrong, they work for the highest bidder. And they're pretty much aware that there's no good or bad in war, just two different sides who want the same thing: manipulate the innocent, kill the opponent and gain power. It's more of an eye opener than the weak story of some rebels you found on San Hermanos. And the real founder of AIM isn't Spice or Marion. It's YOU. That's the backstory of AIM, the one every JA player knew but couldn't put it in words. White Asian, Monhamed or Spice or just your codenames, depending on the faction you pick to support (we need to tie this idea into the above quests, it just hit me!). Yes, they existed as real persons on San Hermanos, you they never made it out of there, except in lending you their indentities.

THE END. You get to play 3 games in one. Easy.

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 04:43] by Moderator

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Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition": Base building[message #338390] Wed, 17 December 2014 21:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Base Building Concept

Prerequisites: Multiple rooms with teleports from one to the other with various NPC spawns and dialogue options. Area triggers will generate snicker comments from mercs. The mercs here will be in a pre-recruitment phase, just like NPCs at Spice bar, able to do dialogue with the player and negociate jobs. A script that controls "non-perma death" aka when losing a merc in a battle, he needs to be respawned in the Clinic and kept there for a week or so until he recovers. Permanent death is an option, too, but we need extra layer of coding that differentiates between the two. We also need code that toggles on/off squad inventory depending whether you hire a driver in your squad or not. We also need to setup a repair NPC, maybe a master gunsmith who improves weapons, we'll see.

The access quest concept can either be based on Treasure Map quest concept (automatic trap door opens when you step into a certain area) or on OSIM base door concept (you need to be in possession of a certain item to unlock the zone).

The base should have unlockable levels:

Quote:
Level I: Comms Room - a quest to find computer parts activates computer mainframe and power the communications. Your pool of mercs will sit in Level II HQ, but the computer interface will allow you to radio them and call them in. Which in turn makes more sense deployment wise - they do not beam up from space, they actually come from the base now.


Quote:
Level II: AIM HQ - a room with all the contacted (but not recruited yet) mercs that allows you to chat with them (think Spice bar) and get them on your team without using computers. Zone triggers in front of the mercs can allow certain funny comments and rambling from them, either about you or about their friends/enemies. Certain actions will make them to tell you to buzz off (possible since they're quest NPCs), like death of X mercenary or certain shady story choices...


Quote:
Level III: Garage - opens up squad inventory and vehicles in game. Provides a supply of repair kits; the mechanic NPC will also take in broken weapons and repair them if you provide parts (two broken weapons = 1 good weapon) after a day or two, but for free. He also sells repair kits. Maybe player can also recruit a master gunsmith that improves weapons.


Quote:
Level IV: Clinic - set to trigger healing (if possible); provides free medical supplies; if possible non-fatally wounded mercs end up here for a long recovery after which they can be reused. It will also have a morgue with the names of the REALLY dead mercs. Optionally the doctor can sell drugs, if the player teams up with certain factions.


Each level should be unlocked by recruiting and doing quests for various factions and NPCs.

[Updated on: Wed, 17 December 2014 21:59] by Moderator

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Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition": Base building[message #338393] Wed, 17 December 2014 22:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Story NPCs

Quote:
Damion 'Shifter Drifter' Weathers
LOCATION: North of Badilla
DESCRIPTION: Bald, no facial hair and wears gloves
CRIME: Kills victims and then takes over their lives for a short while.


Quote:
Diego 'The Skinner' Gonzales
LOCATION: NorthWestern Coast of Garcia
DESCRIPTION: Dark skinned male,bushy mustache
CRIME: Likes to flay his victims, usually two at a time.


Quote:
Tajo 'Bloody Hands' DaSilva
LOCATION: East of Gazorro Mine
DESCRIPITON: Short brown hair and wears sunglasses
CRIME:Brutally murders his victims by disemboweling them with his bare hands.

[Updated on: Thu, 18 December 2014 02:15] by Moderator

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Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition": Base building[message #338394] Wed, 17 December 2014 22:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Reserved for possible quest ideas, the Lua reference was moved to its own topic: http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/338430

Conclusions on what can be done, in theory using Lua scripting
  • You can do checks on items, stats, quest goals
  • You can add money, items, NPC to squad
  • You can change the status of an NPC to hireable
  • You can trigger a story panel or an info text
  • You can enable/disable game objects
  • You can spawn enemy units (named or not) in specific tiles
  • You can teleport squads to a given sector
  • You can lock/unlock sectors
  • You can trigger a dialogue either by entering a zone (area defined in the editor) or by clicking on an NPC

Quest type A:
a) If player has X item in inventory
b) If player has X value in y stat
c) If certain quest goal is Completed
d) If player clicks on NPC
e) If player walks in a trigger zone
f) If player has talked to an NPC

- lock/unlock a zone (open a door basically)
- directly teleport squad to a certain sector
- sets an NPC as hireable and puts him in your team
- open next quest goal or trigger completion script
- trigger a dialogue with an NPC
- spawn an enemy / group of...
- spawn/destroy a game object
- display notification (such as reward notification)
- open/close a storyboard panel
- give/take money from player
- give a specific merc specific amount of EXP

Possible but not confirmed: reward with a skill upgrade a specific merc for performing specific actions (like we have now while sneaking through enemy sight). You can reward points in all secondary skills.

A quest can have as many intermediate goals as we want.

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 02:48] by Moderator

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Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338399] Thu, 18 December 2014 01:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Perks Legend:

The four perks are unlocked at level 1, 3, 6 and 9

Quote:
Gunslinger
Reduce reload cost with {0} AP
Spray 'N' Pray
Accuracy bonus ({0}) when shooting automatic/burst fire
Aim for the stars
Longer range for guns (+{0})
Finisher
Get an accurracy bonus ({0}) when attacking adjacent enemies
Maniac
Burst {0} extra bullets with SMG's'
Teamplayer
Never accidentally shoot your own mercanaries
Decapitator
Increase critical chance ({0}%) for shotguns
Monetary Aid
{0}% chance to not use aid kit unit
Doctor
{0} bonus to healing
Mechanic
{0}% chance to not use repair kit unit
MacGuyver
Repair 2 durability units per tick
Don't Mine If I Do
Using grenades cost {0} AP less
Find the Soft Spot
Critical chance increased when using melee attacks ({0}%)
Spec Ops
Increased stealth bonus when equipped with melee weapons ({0}%)
Adrenaline Rush
After a melee kill {0} AP's are gained'
Smoke and Mirrors
Sneak bonus {0}%
Spotter
Increase viewcone range ({0})
Naive
Morale Pool increased ({0}%)
Sleight of Hand
Inventory manipulation cost reduced reduced by {0} AP
Hawkeye
Increased chance ({0}%) of spotting and detecting enemies
Over pretentious
Gain {0} extra AP
Field Medic
Bandaging cost {0}% of the normal AP

NPC/RPC Bios

Quote:
Classic JA Mercenaries

Monica

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 00:44] by Moderator

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338401] Thu, 18 December 2014 02:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mauser is currently offline Mauser

 
Messages:756
Registered:August 2006
Location: Bavaria - Germany
Wow, that sounds pretty damn impressive Shanga!

Also a lot more complex and mature than what we have now and what is regarded as standard in usual game story terms.

The idea to expand the scope and duration of the game despite the limited map size through multiple stages of the story unfolding is rather brilliant.

I especially like the idea of the player being a single undervover operative all by himself, having to find support and mercs on the islands, with no access to any kind of existing mercenary roster or other outside support. The current implementation of the merc hiring system is just pathetic, rudimentary and ruins any atmosphere because of its detached, superficial feel.

And making JA:F more about the origin and formation of AIM, with the local conflict and its factions merely being the framework, is actually what i had expected JA:F to do from the very beginning.

If this can be pulled off as envisioned, for which i give my full support and blessing (for what its worth), it surely will improve JA:F by a couple of magnitudes and finally make it a worthy prequel to the JA series.

Although it will need a LOT of rather complex dynamic scripting to pull off, this could become essentially a total coversion and the mod to end all mods. Or rather, the base on which future mods and conversions will be built upon.

Lets hope the JA:F/Unity engine will be able to pull this off.

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First Sergeant
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338403] Thu, 18 December 2014 05:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
fathamburger is currently offline fathamburger

 
Messages:27
Registered:October 2006
Location: USA
By the way, I think it's worth separating out the scripting calls you've found into its own post and making a programming/scripting sub-forum too

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Private 1st Class
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338405] Thu, 18 December 2014 07:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
fathamburger is currently offline fathamburger

 
Messages:27
Registered:October 2006
Location: USA
Yes this concept would be best as completely dynamic an AI driven as possible. It would be way too hard and also easily broken to try and script.

This might be asking a bit much from FC to add, but we can explore it. What's needed is Faction Entity Controller and above that, actions (possibly turn based) at the campaign map level too. Not just at the tactical level. The faction would need to be able to act on its own, examining its own weapon and troop inventory, there could be a simple AI model logically similar to the "Simulation" they use on the Deadliest Warrior TV show and most importantly it would need to be able to make decisions to attack other sectors, other factions including you. The faction at a meta level would be its own entity with some basic needs and wants to drive it and some "competency values" to seed their success and motivation to attack. You'd need a lot of coding to pull this off but it is probably beyond how the base engine is architected for at the moment

At the code level this ties back into something that the older Jagged Alliance games could do anyway, and could be essential as a modding base. I have a rough idea how much programming it would take. It definitely wouldnt be trivial and is probably too big of an ask for FC depending on where they are at. To me it seems like they are just trying to wind it up and give us any "low hanging fruit" features that are obviously missing or may have been promised that they can do but would stop at continuing development.

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Private 1st Class
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338408] Thu, 18 December 2014 14:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
I am approaching this "the good old way". As we did with JA2UC and v1.13 and everything else. We first study what the game offers, we bug the devs for the stuff we lack, then we draw the line on what's possible or whatnot.I plan to pull out the entire Lua quest scripting triggers and then see how we can create more of those if needed. It falls under promised modding capabilities of the game.Based on these Lua scripts, I will build my final draft. The biggest drawback of my plan, as we stand today, is the fact that we only have 3 factions: player / enemy / civilian. I might be wrong though and maybe you can trigger aggression through scripting.

I'll keep everyone updated on my research (which is what this project is about before anything else).

[Updated on: Thu, 18 December 2014 14:40] by Moderator

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338413] Thu, 18 December 2014 17:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Chris K is currently offline Chris K

 
Messages:13
Registered:March 2012
Location: Germany
I actually teared up a little bit while reading this, because I like it a ton. It would be great if you could pull this off.

What I would love to see is a faction system that's not completely black and white. I would love to be able to be part of (almost) all factions to some extent if I put some effort into it. The relations ideally should have several layers. Just because I've done one quest for a faction, I shouldn't have access to their full arsenal.

There should be at least 3 layers:
- enemy: every member of the faction (except one or several persons that can help you turn things around) attacks you, you don't get anything from them, possibly positive effect on factions that consider them their enemies.
- neutral: you don't get attacked by them, you can have simple trading relations, but you don't have access to higher level gear they can offer, no influence on other factions.
- friend: you get access to everything they have to offer, this should have a negative effect on factions that are enemies of the particular faction.

Ideally there should be a couple more layers that offer different boni and mali for all the factions, possibly something like a points system (for example -100 to 100; quest 'a' gives you +10 points towards faction x, -10 points towards faction y etc.). It also should make a difference what kind of job you do for the factions. If nobody except 'your current employer' knows about it, it shouldn't influence the other factions, although it would be great if there were ways for them to find out about it. Ideally, this system would go for all NPCs as well, some might not mind all that much if you hurt 'their' faction, because they don't have the highest rating with them, for example because they are just aligned with them for what they have to offer, not because they agree with their agenda, so it wouldn't hurt them quite as much as someone else in that faction.

This is probably way too much to ask, but it would be great.

I still have to read fathamburger's thread, but so far I really like what I read here.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help that doesn't need a lot of modding/coding experience.

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Private
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338414] Thu, 18 December 2014 17:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
A bonus/malus system would be awesome, but I haven't got any clue if its possible yet.

Enemy / Neutral / Friend is easy to make. Since the "faction" is actually represented by a NPC or two (the quest giver and the trader), you can have various checks scripted in their dialogue that judge if they're Neutral or Friendly. For example, they can ask you to clear 1 sector, deliver 1 item and kill 1 guy and at the end of that quest line they become neutral. All those 3 checks can be coded in the dialogue and you will get the "Friend" status when you complete all 3 goals.

I need to buy myself ChatMapper when the script is ready and start cranking up some test quests. I am glad you like it, I was wondering if i didn't make it way too "serious". I do plan to add a lot of humor to the dialogue and descriptions, but i want to backstory to be a bit more hardcore and deep that usual JA scenario.

[Updated on: Thu, 18 December 2014 18:00] by Moderator

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338416] Thu, 18 December 2014 18:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Chris K is currently offline Chris K

 
Messages:13
Registered:March 2012
Location: Germany
I for one wouldn't mind a serious story at all. If you go to the very basics, the stories of JA1 and JA2 are pretty serious as well. Important is that the characters are a lot of fun. Just because the story is serious doesn't mean that the execution has to be.

At the moment my mind is too occupied with work to come up with anything good, but if you don't mind, I might chime in once in a while in case I got an idea about something new or about how to maybe improve what you are working on.

I realize that what I wrote is very (possibly too) advanced, so no worries if it's not possible, but imho it would give some great depth to the game if it was possible. It would give some importance to every single thing you do and you would have to carefully think about whether to take on a certain quest. Is helping a certain faction really worth alienating another one? Am I in good enough graces with the faction I'm about to alienate that I can afford doing it without losing them? I think it would also give a lot of replay value because dependent on your choices everything could turn out very differently.

The text based system of JAF has its obvious disadvantages, but it has the advantage, that you could bring a ton of different story lines into the game dependent on your choices that would be way too expensive to voice. It could give us the opportunity to create really complex and different story arcs. Maybe a quest could have a lot of different results dependent on your standings with the different factions and what you did before.
Of course this would mean a lot of work, just bringing up some possibilities if people are willing to work on it.

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Private
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338419] Thu, 18 December 2014 19:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
I fully agree and I'll appreciate constructive input from anyone.

I find the JA:F text window very ... how to put it... un-involving... As a web UI designer I will never put my most critical info to the right side of the screen. That's reserved, in usability manuals, for the least important pieces of information, at least for LTR readers (left to right).

So that kinda bugs me out a bit, but I guess we have to deal with it. What I would try to do to compensate is find a very good narrator voice. I watch a lot of streamers lately and I found myself pleasantly surprised how much it helped when SplatterGaming read the DS texts in various voices. Game simply came alight with life.

I know a few very good people at this stuff. I will try and get them to voice-act as many lines as possible. And I think that will boost immensely the immersion.

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338422] Thu, 18 December 2014 19:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Chris K is currently offline Chris K

 
Messages:13
Registered:March 2012
Location: Germany
That sounds great Smile. I was always hoping that they would be able to give voices at least to the characters in the main story line Sad (along with the mercs obviously), so if you could manage to bring in some decent (doesn't have to be perfect imho) voice talent, that would be great, even if only for a couple of characters and maybe not even all their lines.

It would hurt the immersion a bit, but we could still add additional written-only lines to make the quest lines more diverse in case we come up with a really complex story. I wouldn't mind keeping most of the quests completely text based, especially if they are just side quests that don't or only influence the main story mildly, although obviously the more voices the better.

Different quest outcomes could still make it into the main story to some extent. If it was possible to have a layered system similar to the one I described, you could have for example 3 different lines dependent on how great your standing with the faction is. That should make it feasible to have a very complex quest system with influence on the main story and still have it completely voiced (having the whole game voiced is probably impossible, but main story would be great) without posing a too heavy work load on possible voice actors. Of course what is possible depends heavily on what people are willing to do.

Well, first we (or you and fathamburger Very Happy, but I hope I manage to contribute something) have to come up with a good, hopefully great, script, but I think we got a great start here, especially if it is possible to execute everything the way you imagine. Thank you very much for that.

[Updated on: Thu, 18 December 2014 19:42] by Moderator

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Private
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338429] Fri, 19 December 2014 00:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Good news, I've got a confirmation from my streamer, who agreed to be the narrator. Back to working on statistics, numbers and charts.

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338437] Fri, 19 December 2014 03:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Mauser

I especially like the idea of the player being a single undervover operative all by himself, having to find support and mercs on the islands, with no access to any kind of existing mercenary roster or other outside support. The current implementation of the merc hiring system is just pathetic, rudimentary and ruins any atmosphere because of its detached, superficial feel.


That particular part shouldn't be that difficult. My main issue is with placing new NPCs on old maps. That's a question devs need to answer (or provide us with original Unity editor scene maps). Otherwise...hmm... thanks for nothing. We could do it "trial and error" and just place spawns numerically but it's way way more complicated.

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338438] Fri, 19 December 2014 03:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mauser is currently offline Mauser

 
Messages:756
Registered:August 2006
Location: Bavaria - Germany
Shanga

That particular part shouldn't be that difficult. My main issue is with placing new NPCs on old maps. That's a question devs need to answer (or provide us with original Unity editor scene maps). Otherwise...hmm... thanks for nothing. We could do it "trial and error" and just place spawns numerically but it's way way more complicated.


The thing with having RPCs on the maps only is, that we'll need a proper reason for every single one to be there. Some may be on vacation, some for business, others in the service of certain employers or simply as soldiers of fortune. Others may be washed up, unable to leave by themselves or be available by pure chance or because they are fed up with certain factions or the general situation on the islands. Shady loyalities and possible double crossings included.

And to make it really interesting, every RPC should have certain prerequisites to meet or quests after which they'd become available for hire. THAT would give the whole thing a LOT more substance.

Building a good squad shouldn't be merely a question of money, but also personalities and loyalities and managing those.
What JA:F needs most is a lot more soul and substance in the RPG department, because right now you could slap any generic name on it, rebrand it completely and it would make little difference.
A few changes of ingame texts and personalities and nobody would take it as a JA game, that's how little JA style and flavor it has right now. It is all there, just way too rudimentary and superficial.

So yeah, a LOT to do for both modders and devs i guess.

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First Sergeant
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338445] Fri, 19 December 2014 12:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Yep, that's basically my idea too. Since maps can get pretty crowded with the whole AIM roster, I do want to explore creative alternatives that would also encourage replays.

RANDOM/FACTION BASED RPCs

If you lean towards rebels, for example, you get Ivan. If you help the army, you get Len Anderson (sort of like Spiga quest, but expanded). Also, a certain number of mercs will have randomized appearances. Another set will appear only if your Morality perma-quest leans toward EVIL or GOOD. Playing the game differently will always get your a different outcome, merc-wise. I'd put on this EVIL/GOOD timeline especially the new KS mercs and a few classic mercs not included yet in the game. Reuban for example would be a perfect candidate for a Lilitu Inmates reward.

HIDDEN RPCs

What could also do, for fun, is to have different profiles for "civilian mercs" and "recruitable mercs". A civilian state will not reveal the full name of a merc, just give you a hint. Like Buns, she'd be just a kindergarten teacher as civilian. Buzz would be a journalist and Lynx a hunter. They'd be working "undercover" and giving your quests around San Hermanos and reveal their identities only when you finish their quest. If you care enough for the JA lore, you will know who is who, but it will be a game in itself to locate each merc. Technically this is perfectly possible, because you can transform any NPC into any RPC at will. Taking this into the absurd, you can stretch it as far as having an undercover character who is female as NPC and transforms into a male when recruited (and viceversa).

I've done a lot of reading on the Lua triggers last night and the posibilities are pretty interesting. It will come down to testing everything in real action, though.

RADIO NARRATOR

I plan to trigger more Lore and narrator panels through the game, too. Once a key event happens, you should get the narrator voice reading the story. Since the main radio NPC has never been made, my plan is to have the narrator drop in as a radio host:

Quote:
Radio panel pops up.

"Thssshk..Crrrrr... *a bit of music*... Hey folks, this is Free Angetta Radio with some coool soul music and the best news for ya. Today we learned that our Miss Lovebuns, dat lovely kindergarten teacher from Marino, is a former Olympic champion, man! Ya, man... she's gold medal and all! And guess what she is champion at? That babe is a top shooter! She so good she can shoot the balls of a daddy mosquito and she won't have to squint her lovely eyes to aim, man!... Let's now listen to some more chill music man and reflect on that... Peace man...*a bit more music*... tshhk... crrrr".

Radio goes off
.

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 12:30] by Moderator

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338449] Fri, 19 December 2014 15:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
TEST UPDATE:

After much keyboard chewing I got this test to work ingame:

Quote:
tactical.TeleportSquad('C12', 0, '')

on Zone enter. Scotty reports success with the beam-up!

Btw, I got this clarification from FC that I must share with you: I couldn't find a TileZone asset in the editor, basically the zone you enter to trigger something. So here's how you find it:

Quote:
We found the issue - he has to look for the tile zones in the ProjectAssets, not in the AssetsPanel - it's EditorAssets/Prefabs/TileZone
He drags the tile zone to the scene, same way as a trigger from the asset panel
The thing is that editor related assets like tile zones are in EditorAssets, and all the game related assets are in the AssetsPanel

[Updated on: Fri, 19 December 2014 15:41] by Moderator

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338451] Fri, 19 December 2014 16:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Slax is currently offline Slax

 
Messages:1411
Registered:July 2006
Location: People riding polar bears...
I'd gladly voice act a gunrunner at some point. Gimme a scenario when the time comes and I'll cook up some lines myself. Works best that way.

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Sergeant Major
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338452] Fri, 19 December 2014 18:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Slax
I'd gladly voice act a gunrunner at some point. Gimme a scenario when the time comes and I'll cook up some lines myself. Works best that way.


Sure, will do.

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338482] Sun, 21 December 2014 01:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
One problem which I will need to ask assistance from the devs with is linking the dialogue/storyboard pop-up with sounds. Since they had to internalize the sound files due to Unity leaking memory badly, there's no way yet to add any tiny bit of sound.

They never got around to fully implement the radio guy. Because the dude who payed that huge lump of cash never even bothered to check back. Arghh..

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Captain
Re: Shanga's "JAF Community Edition" Concepts and Ideas[message #338874 is a reply to message #338482] Fri, 09 January 2015 23:51 Go to previous message
Shanga is currently offline Shanga

 
Messages:3482
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia
Random quest ideas:

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Captain
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