List ideas for features for SocioTown Next!
Hey everyone! I thought I'd make a thread where we can list the ideas we have for features in SocioTown Next. While we can't know for sure how much SocioTown Next is going to be and function like the original, we can assume that it likely is going to function in quite a similar way!
New Ideas!
The Day/Night cycle 2H = 24H (Under Review) - The old system had a 24 hour cycle based on EST. This was alienating to people from all around the globe. People in certain countries lost a lot of privilege's like attending events, being able to access stores, unable to work and difficulties enjoying the game in the constant gloom of night. Setting the 24 hour cycle to 2 hours means that 5 Minutes = 1 Hour and there would be 12 day/night cycles in an earth day. This would still give people the opportunity to catch rare night bugs/fish as well as work their jobs.
Creating a Minor Currency - One of the best aspects of old SocioTown was that SoBucks were incredibly rare. Outside of just outright purchasing them, you had to have your character work a job once a day. This meant that having fashion items actually made you feel like you had earnt what you had or had some kind of hierarchical prestige for being around for a long time or having social connections in order to obtain your goods. As much as this is somewhat shallow, this is a reality of humanity, we don't want to feel like the special things we obtain are too easy to get so much that everyone has them otherwise we lose interest in competing. Probably one of the best ways to manage this is to create a minor currency and a major currency. Like with SocioTown, you should still be able to obtain major currency but only through strenuous efforts of extreme time waiting or straight up purchasing them. And when you earn them, you shouldn't be able to get too much. This will heavily promote people coming back to the game and spending hours playing as well as spending real money on the game which will help fund the game to create better experiences. There's no shame in it, the game needs money to get better that's reality and unless we want to spam the game with ads people will need to pay for both a membership option and a currency option like with SocioTown. The minor currency however, is something that needs to be added to get "Lower quality goods". The basic haircuts, daggy clothes, basic emotes, common pets, cheap food etc etc. If people want better stuff, they have to grind or pay, but they don't have to worry ever about having their needs met with a minor currency which can be earnt with mini-game points etc for that easy to obtain currency.
The Crafting System - Discussed on the Discord server was an idea so simple but brilliant it could work and I'm starting to see how it's a must have. If you can harvest minerals from a mine, wood from different tree types, get buckets to put sand in etc, you can basically create some kind of Minecraft/Animal Crossing crafting system that would give players so much more gameplay time. You also have the option of creating Major Currency purchases to help them get the resources faster if they choose to do so which can increase in game profits (Basically if it takes 20s to harvest clay and they want a lot of it, they can use SoBucks to cut the time by 50% for 1 hour with a special energy drink lol). Extremely rare crafting materials will create a huge user-interaction motive and also make people purchase more Major Currency to trade for materials in game. All around, this is a brilliant idea. However, I see this as something that will take quite a lot of time and effort and likely can be implemented at any point. I would rather the game be created before the crafting system is just in case it chews up too much time and halts game release. The Crafting System IMO is a necessary feature but ought be put off for the sake of release.
Change Race/Eye Color - In SocioTown Classic, we were stuck with the default Race/Eye color we picked for our characters. Some people made their characters quickly, without realizing they would continue to play the game and be stuck with the selection they made. They wanted their characters to represent them more, some people wanted their freckles removed or added, others wanted their eye/skin color changed, some the thickness of their lips or how large or small their eyes were. The original selection had a great cast of "Races" that did a magnificent job at representing the unique diversity we see on earth today. The only problem was that once we selected it we couldn't change it.
Increased Rewards For Total Memberships - This one is a bit trickier and hard to implement. If anyone has a good idea for a way that we can reward people for how many times they've purchased Permanent Residency let us know. We can't do something where it gives you a multiplier on earnable cash, it'll make the game too pay to win. Potentially there could be an XP multiplier on character level, so long as character level is just a bragging right and doesn't do any more than allow you to get particular jobs at different places etc. Personally, I think the best way to do this is to give people special in-game items for how many total times they paid for Permanent Residency. To be fair, we shouldn't make it "Consecutive Payments" because someone may not be able to pay until a few days after it expires, we may end up losing players if we do it this way. So total times purchased is a better way to implement this kind of reward system. There's also the option that after someone pays for 5 Permanent Residencies the 6th one is free. Meaning people could obtain a total of 12 per year at the cost of 10, however for the sake of the game, I don't think this one is a good idea. Outside of SoBuck random discounts once every few months, I highly advise against this.
Purchasable Name Change Token - Not much to say here, just a good way to get some extra cash for the game. This IMO should be an In-Game item that appears in the players inventory, that way people can purchase it for other people safely and more money can be made. I also suggest that on the players profile, it has a log of all their previous names on a clickable button. This is just for the concept of keeping people safe, some people could pull off some intense social manipulation without a prior name log on their profile for people to peek at.
Customizable UI Colors - If we're able to change the color of the UI for menu's within the game, then players will have a better time. A lot of women might enjoy a pink UI and some might enjoy the default blue UI as it's probably the most pleasing to the eye. A lot of more edgier players like myself would really enjoy switching the UI to red or black.
Purchasable Name Color Changer - Similar to the idea above, however this one would be better as something to make a profit from. Players can select any name color for a fee of $5 USD. There's no need to worry about Admins/Moderators being impersonated like this if we simply put an image next to their player names. For Admins/Moderators that wish to remain undercover we can create a special tick box in the options menu for them to activate said badge.
Emotes - In games like League of Legends, you can set up an emotes hot bar, similar to a function like the weapons wheel in GTA 5. In League of Legends, when someone types something in the chat, sometimes it's just easier to press the "G" key on my keyboard and have a thumbs up emote appear above my head (This could likely be done similarly to when you catch a bug and it makes that ding sound and appears over your head). Adding in this feature is a great idea, especially if the public want to make their own emotes, we can do contests for good emotes and people can win prizes. The emotes can be sold in the stores! Purchasable by SoBucks and even handed out after attending events, think, the spooky scream face painting head for the Halloween event, Uncle Sam pointing that he wants you for the 4th of July event.
Quick Buttons For Hand-Held Items/Vehicles - Rather than clicking on your characters feet and having to pull out your net, fishing rod, moped, boxing gloves etc. Perhaps we could also make a GTA 5 wheel like function for our hand-held items? By using the keyboard keys 1-9 we can set it so that when key items appear in your inventory there's a little drop down menu to set the item from 1-9. Or you can click on the image of the key item and it'll say (Press the Number you wish to set the item to). This function could potentially also just be an all in one, not only can you set items to this menu but also emotes! This will make implementation a bit easier and it can be changed later at any time!
The original SocioTown was restricted to the web browser, but SocioTown Next will be on multiple platforms. The initial target is mobile, desktop (PC & Mac) and the Web browser. So we will be casting a wider net this time and of course it will all be cross-play.
Comment