I believe this has long been talked about.
I’d rather retire as a bandit instead. Cheeki breeki.
To be clear, there’s a big difference between “retiring”, implying your player is in a stable enough situation where they will probably survive, and “winning”, which implies that the scenario itself has been overcome (in this case, the monsters are gone).
There are a number of scenarios where retiring would be reasonable, and there’s no problem with that, it’s just “winning” that’s problematic.
Aye. Retiring is one thing that would be interesting, especially if DF-style shenanigans were a thing.
Winning though? As I’ve said, you can’t unfuck the planet. XP
I like this idea, it sounds like a good way to test a character who you think can survive anything. Suicide/deleting the save is a really lackluster way to end off your run in my opinion, and this seems like a much better alternative for the hardcore survivalists who think they can withstand whatever the game throws at them.
Maybe when you retire a character, have an option to make them into an NPC?
I had been thinking about that actually. I went and changed “Commit Suicide” to “Abandon your Survivor” in my game(hard code not mod) and thought it would be a good idea to have them stay in the world as an NPC with whatever gear/stats you had at the time. Additionally their level of hostility would be determined by the number of NPC’s you killed. Unfortunately I have no clue as how one would go about implementing this since I know nothing about json,lua or how CDDA is structured. (I’m just good at tinkering with things)
[quote=“Gil_Amar, post:25, topic:10761”]I like this idea, it sounds like a good way to test a character who you think can survive anything. Suicide/deleting the save is a really lackluster way to end off your run in my opinion, and this seems like a much better alternative for the hardcore survivalists who think they can withstand whatever the game throws at them.[/quote] Speaking of the game testing your character, why not use the retiring option as a perma-spectate thingie? Basically, from the moment you retire you let the AI take control of the character, moving him around and doing regular stuff NPCs would do. If it gets killed, then so be it. If it doesn’t, the game moves it on its own and does various tasks, and you get the basic after-death e(x)amine options without the ability to control the character or do anything else to it. Pretty much letting the game do its own thing without intervening.
What about escaping? Either into space or in to an alternate reality that hasn’t been taken over by the blob… Yet.
There would be a huge crafting chain to make a space craft, and it would need parts made only by CVD machines, and Mr. Stem Cell machines, and enough mini-nukes and missiles and RDX to choke a legion of horses.
I would make it a vehicle, and have the game calculate how long you would be able to stay alive with the resources you bring.
With some flavor text if you bring enough stuff and people like, “It was a close one when James died during the takeoff and turned, with an epic hand to hand battle in zero-gs, but the colony has grown and safeguards have been put in place to deal with death and the resulting zombificiation. We sit and watch the battered remnants of the human race die out, though some did escape and have joined us. Now the monsters mostly battle with each other, and we hope, we pray, they will destroy themselves and we can rejoin the earth.”
One of the quest lines makes a reference to a fleet of ships that has gathered in the Atlantic. I’d imagine something like that might be a reasonable retirement scenario, but probably not after doing a huge set of quests.
They actually say cabins on a cruise liner are given to those who retire after their service.
We do have zombie sharks though, so the ocean may not be as safe as some might think.
Imagine if a giant squid or a whale got zombified…
They actually say cabins on a cruise liner are given to those who retire after their service.Yeah. I don't particularly care for this tidbit, or at least for the way it's currently implemented, since you can run into that line of dialogue much earlier than it really makes sense. I wouldn't expect whoever was in charge of those decisions would even be considering letting those who serve retire until at least the point where it has fully set in that life after the cataclysm is just the way it is now, which I wouldn't expect would be for at least a year or so after the start.
One thing that had been brought up in the past was if portals periodically appeared that created issues for the character. I would be interested in some sort of long story arc where you can retrieve scientist NPCs and escort them to secured government facilities where they could continue their work. After acquiring whatever exotic materials they needed to perform their research, you could eventually start closing portals that crop up. Naturally, you wouldn’t be able to stop the zombies that already exist, but you’d at least be able to slow the progression of bizarre creatures spewing forth. It would give the player the feeling that they are making some sort of progress, while at the same time not straying too far from the notion that the world is still pretty well screwed.
I feel like something like that would give the player a goal that encourages exploration and dungeon diving (materials and scientists) without necessarily chaining them down to it as required part of the game, and without saying “this is how you beat the game”. That said, it might be interesting if your actions could somehow influence whatever epilogue you get upon “retiring” a character. Something like, “Through your heroic actions, you have managed to create a somewhat peaceful enclave for your community. They have over eighty members, and rescue teams bring in more every week. The science team you have rescued works tirelessly towards producing a safe water supply, in an effort to bring some bit of normalcy back. You have retired from your role as marshall and now serve a quieter role as the quartermaster. There are still many dark days ahead, but they appear to be brightening.”
Enclave, absolutely, fixing the world or escaping it, not so much.