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In a nut shell: Open RPG-style game where players wander a relatively non-linear environment embarking on mini-quests to fulfill people's material needs. You travel the world searching for items, and more importantly, tools and methods to combine them to make new items for fulfilling various purposes.

Items come in 4 varieties: Bases, Generics, Organics, and Rare. Base items are stuff you can find in plentify supply in the world (like water, sand, wood, etc.). Generics need to be purchased or synthesized, and have special properties that allow players to bend the rules of reality in making new items. Organics are stuff that can be grown or harvested, like medicines, foods, etc. Rare items are things that are not meant to exist in the mortal realm, and require very specialized and arcane knowledge before use can be made of them. Rare items, in the right hands, can be a source of great power, and are widely sought after the world over.

Since most items don't do much on their own, the heart of the game will involve mixing them in some fashion. Tools for mixing may include:

• Portable forge: For metals and other meltable stuff (glass, etc.).
• Mortar and pestle: For grinding or mixing powders.
• Centrifuge: For 'unmixing' certain mixed items, though not all can be unmixed.
• Portable cauldron: For mixing/heating liquids, primarily.
• Flask: For raw mixing of liquids/substances, and storing them.
• Molds: For shaping things, like molten metal or water being frozen, for instance. Comes in many varieties.
• Splicer: Sub-atomically combines items into new ones with shared properties (with a risk of destabilizing). Items spliced are not necessarily the same as mixed.

Each player has a unique ultimate goal, which they can choose at the onset. Their ultimate goal decides what pools of knowledge they can access at the start, thus affecting their direction throughout the game. Knowledge, in this case, is instructions on how to make various item combinations, including ingredients and tools, among other things.

Ultimate goals can be many things: General strength/power, immortality/youth, truth, resurrection of the dead, mass destruction, etc. I have yet to make a good list.

The world you exist in is basically a problem-ridden mess, where nearly everyone has some kind of quest to give or needs to fulfill. Quests can be anything from making a aphrodesiacs for old people to overthrowing an empire, with much variety in difficulty/rewards (though the later may involve a bit more than mixing a single item, for instance). Each quest brings the player closer to accomplishing their personal goals, as they acquire information and clues on what they need to accomplish them, in addition to monetary or other rewards in general. If there's room, a system could be added for quests to count toward some kind of alignment or social status, in turn affecting access to future quests or the trials involved in them.


Anyway, here's why I put this map in the Ideas forum instead of the Map-in-Progress one: I'm not sure whether I'm going to make it or not. Basically, I've already got my hands full with two other big projects (A&O included), as well as RL issues to attend to, so I'd like to ask for help with this. For now, I need ideas for items and item combinations, as well as their possible effects or properties. Not all items or combos need yield results, and in fact only a small percentage should, as then players will have to rely more on knowledge they acquire during their journey instead of repetatively and wastefully combining items to unknown effect.

There's plenty of room for ideas for quests and items/item combos, so fire away for any ideas you have. I'll be sure to give credit where it's due, for those that I use (and I'll give credit anyway even for those I don't).

Something to do with that arcane knowledge and something not of our world: an item called 'Method' and it's powers do this:

• When used, an auto chosen enemy near you is chose, and with that enemy, it will continuesly recall on him, and freezing cool effect by giving it to different players at random at a fast speed, while doing damage each time by destroying a bit of it's soul.

Now that would be the coolest thing ever!

Day #3 without posts. Guess I either put this in the wrong forum or no body cares for it.

Well, one less thing to consider doing, at least.

Not a bad idea... you going to make it RP style?

Ever play Desert Castles? They had an alchemist type player in that game. I think what he did was mix certain stuff together to make units and stuff to fight with.

Alchemists sounds better in my opinion.

Yeah, too bad Full Metal Alchemist is playing now. Maps should be poping up all over that have stuff like that.

Well, since base items are the easiest, i'll start with them first:
You could have a mold for creating icicles and could be used as weak 1-time weapons. (easy to make so good when you have nothing else right?)
You could forge magical staffs by getting a "large wood", getting a carpenter to turn it into a staff, then synthesize some water into holy water and bless your staff.
With a splicer you could use water and diamonds to make some sort of "water ball" and use synthesizers to turn it into a deadly weapon. Without a splicer you really couldn't make anything out of it.
Will there be spices that you could place on food to give it odd properties? For example, placing a synthesized spice on a chili pepper temporarily allows you to breathe fire?
Will mud (water + dry rocks) or clay (mud+heat) be used? Mud could be used for potions, and clay could be used as weak trinkets or be used as a type of heat shield. (ie ceramics)
I guess centrifuge would be used to separate metals from rocks you find in mines, or it could be used to separate parts of a "single" item. (ie turn salt back into Na and Cl, be used to test if water you obtained is tainted in any way, shape or form)
With normal powder (rock + sander) you could add water to it and put it on a "small wood". Then, in dark areas, you could use it as a torch. Since the powder is mixed with water, the torch wouldn't burn the wood as fast (but the wood would still burn) so you could use it longer, or you could use synthesized powder with fire or some other base element for some sort of doomsday, magic, healing spells.

Well, I need to go to bed. Good luck on making this map in your spare time! I'll add more deatails later!

Very good. Yeah, something like that. I had a small list of items made up awhile back, but they weren't very interesting so I got rid of them. If I were to do this I'd need a specific list of items in terms of what they're made of, what unique properties they have, and then a seperate menu list of for mixing them, including not only which items but what tools/preperations would be needed.

Actually, what would make more sense would be to come up with quest ideas, then make the sets of items that fit the quest purposes. Filling in the blanks would be better than adjusting the world on according to a limited static menu after the fact.

First off, Alchemists sounds cooler =P.
Spell ideas...Hrm...

Well, I'm horrible at this.

Usually I rip spells off of other games, and use at least one grid system spell. Wait..if there are spells at all >_<...

Well technically Chemists is more 'correct', but Alchemists works too.

Anyone wanna help me out with terrain?

Sounds AWESOME... but WAY TOO MUCH DAMN WORk for my liking.

For what cause I wonder.... to be recognised, or to make an awesome game?

To make something cause it hasn't been done yet. I've seen similar concepts, but nothing that really works like this. I think it has some potential.

Of course it have potential!

Maybe a quest idea:

-You have to create an unstoppable fire (napalm) for a great attack, the king will reward you with a secret "something".

an RPG i was making 6 months ago had this feature, but sadly i quit bnet and reformatted my comp so its gone forever, but it moght show up in a future map of mine hint hint

I can do terrain and triggers (and sounds if you need em') Just PM me if you want me to do anything. I love this idea!
(Alchemist is cooler)
Alchemy Ideas:

Healing Potion:
Mix:
-1 Forest Herb
-1 Flask of Water
-1 Medicinal Root

Mana Potion:
Mix:
-1 Flask of Water
-1 Forest Herb
-1 Lotus Petal

Flame:
Mix:
-1 Flint Rock
-2 Papyrus Reeds
-1 Length of string

I could come up with more, but don't want to get ahead of myself.

I was gonna use the idea of forging items into useful things like you, but you posted it first! Now it'll look like I stole the idea.
I DLed some of your maps, they're great. hopefully this'll just as good/better than those.

Sounds great, I could help, If you like my style of terrain, but i dunno if It's good enough. PM me cause this would be fun, i havn't yet had a group project. SMT is still full

ubernewb had some nice ideas going...

ADDED:

I was just thinking having a shop, where you have to buy items like...

Shovel: (for digging roots from mud terrain areas)

Axe: (To chop some wood near trees)

So once you have enough money to buy one of these items, you don't have to pay to get "Bases/Basics", instead you can just go and harvest your own... I think it would be fun to save up for these items so the duration of the game you save up money instead of having to buy seperate Bases/Basics.

ADDITION:
Won't this require alot of triggers, for every wrong combination of items...

Unless you make certain rules like in desert castles, so if the rule is broken it doesn't work. I dunno, I'm sure tux will come up with a solution.

Hmm, reminds me of full metal alchemist.
I don't see the point in making this unless people are actually very committed to spending hours on mental thinking. O>o not everysone as smart as you tux.

Illusion seriously, I don't think you know what you're talking about. This has NOTHING to do with full metal alchemist or "mental thinking" (oxymoron?). I think you're just scared of new stuff.

Triggermaster, if you want to help then you're more than welcome. For now I want to get together a team first and then I'll make an 'official' thread in the map production forum to begin working out stuff like the terrain, item mixing tables, quests, etc. I'll end up doing the brunt of the trigger work, so anyone scared of "too much work" *cough* needn't worry about that end. If anyone else is interested, PM me.

You should try getting DemonicDragon to help you, he afterall, made Cooking Master =/ It's basically the same basic concept, cept this is chemist concotions now.

K, i guess that makes me on the team. I'm okay with terrain, so when we start i'll do that.

Cooking Master? Never heard of it, is it on SEN? ill look.

I said this REMINDS me of it, I never implied it had anything to do with it. No I am not afraid of anything new O.o. I actually want this to come out. All I was saying about mental thinking is that people for the most part would rather leave a game then learn the gaming curve.
PS: Don't call me a oxymoron... yet another thing you know that I don't maybe it means im a moron that breaths oxygen .. yes .... YES! Oh the beauty of simplicity, *Don't ruin my parade* btw id like to be on the team if your not mad or anything at me Im pretty good with terrain,dedicated to maps. and very good with concept ideas to go around a problem. btw i was 2 lazy and "afraid" of pming you because thats new to me

What kind of inventory system will keep track of all these items? And will some items not be actual units? Like 'wood' or 'water'. Like if you cut down a tree it would just display a text message "Wood Gathered!" and it adds a counter. Iono maybe save some units that way. But ya, this project is really interesting. I hope you guys go through with it. Good luck!

Oxymoron I think means contradicting words, but "mental thinking" isn't really contradicting so much as redundant (because if you're thinking then it implies a mental function). Well whatever I was just grumpy last night.

Anyway, sure you can join if you want. I'll need to arrange a time to get on to go over ideas and such, which is the first step before terrain. I'd like to get a few more people before I start though, so if anyone else wants to join up, if only to discuss and help with planning, then you're welcome. Remember, I'll be handling the brunt of trigger work, so anyone afraid of anything too hard or complex needn't worry.

Also, I'm officially going to call this Chemists, because Alchemists isn't entirely accurate and seems to remind people of a certain TV show that has absolutely nothing to do with this. I know this'd probably get more attention with the later, but I for one can't stand seeing movies and media that borrow others name or concept for their own benefit, which I'd like to avoid doing myself.