What if hackers become Operators? Heresy? Mean people stay away.

4 posts · 2005-09-07 08:37:00 to 2005-09-08 07:31:00

#10400014891 09/07/2005 08:37 Re: What if hackers become Operators? Heresy? Mean people stay away.
Seriously. Copy-and-pasting that long of a post into 3 different places
on the forums is a little ridiculous. But my gripes about forum
etiquette aside...



I think the kind of class you're talking about would be a very cool
feature. I don't think it should take the place of hackers, or have
hackers somehow merge into Operators... if anything it seems like it
should be a Crew-specific type of role, where the player who's the team
Operator stays on the HvCFT rather than jacking in.



Somebody replied to this post elsewhere (you know, one of the other 500 times you posted it :robottongue:)
saying that a feature like this should be part of an expansion. I agree
with that. It seems like the sort of thing that would require a decent
chunk of coding/testing/balancing time, and isn't really the sort of
basic maintenance that would show up in a patch.



There's been various threads suggesting topics for expansions, some of
which suggested that an expansion  should give crews some variety
of player "housing" through Hovercrafts, and I think now that we've
merged with the SWG crowd (which I used to be a part of) you'll see
more people wanting this feature. (Some have gone so far as to suggest
access to The Real, but I think it would make more sense to have
housing via in-ship constructs or something "jacked-in" like that. But
I digress.) But if such an expansion were to come out and focus on
making the HvCFT feel more like "home", it would make sense to play up
the role of Operator in the sort of manner you're suggesting, possibly
as an extra skill tree. (Again, I *don't* think it should replace
Hacker.)



In my head, the way I would see it playing out is like this: the crew
Operator can do for the team anything they would be able to do at a
hardline or satellite, such as swap out abilities, code/compile
anything that a currently-jacked-in team member knows how to code,
provide mission-map blips showing where mission targets and guards are
located, etc. Having this be a crew-specific ability might help boost
the team-play atmosphere a little more (personally, I'm a soloing
fiend, but I'd be all about running Op for my buddies). I think it
would probably require the addition of in-game voice chat to be really
effective and immersive (but hey, Ventrilo's just as good.)



Thoughts?

#10400014906 09/07/2005 09:15 Re: What if hackers become Operators? Heresy? Mean people stay away.

Smike_ wrote:
2) This game takes place in the
Matrix. Nobody wants to be an operator sitting on a ship...even if we
had ships we could go to. Just think of hackers as mobile operators
inside the Matrix.

I dunno... I think as long as
there was enough stuff for the Operators to do to keep interactivity
sufficiently high, it would appeal to some people.
(Can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'd be down for it.)
Some of the stuff Paragonith mentioned about being able to see things
that you can't see when you're jacked in, etc. would help with that.



If they were able to design it in such a way that you don't *need* an
Operator but they're very helpful to have around (a-la Patchers) then
it could be a fun way to jump in and play with your crewmates even if
you didn't feel like actually going and running missions. *shrug* Maybe
it's just me though.



And to Paragonith... after thinking about it for a while, I'm less
opposed to Operators taking over some of the Hacker-type functions.
That's easy for me to say, 'cuz I haven't TOUCHED the hacker tree since
about level 4, but the REASON I haven't touched it is because it
completely destroys the feeling of being in the Matrix... if I wanted
to see players running around casting big shiny spells, I'd be playing
WoW. In looking at the Hacker tree, it looks like there's a ton of
specializations in there, and I wonder if some of those wouldn't be
better served being part of this Operator tree of yours. To be fair
though, it's not just Hacker abilities that would fit well in Operator.
I play a lot of Spy, and the Mission Map skill definitely seems like an
Operator ability. I'm sure there's others. *shrug*



Man, the more I think about it, I want to be able to do this. Seems
like a good "downtime" way to chill but still play with your friends. I
just picture sitting there with a beer in my hand talking over a
headset on Ventrilo... watching my buddies run around in a mission area
like I'm watching an ant farm and occasionally yelling "I wouldn't go
through that door to your left if I were you".... :robotvery-happy:

Message Edited by Friar on 09-07-2005 01:18 PM

#10400014915 09/07/2005 09:32 Re: What if hackers become Operators? Heresy? Mean people stay away.
I think that's a great idea but instead of the operator being jacked in ie. RSI in the matrix - it should be a tab on the loading area which comes about after the skills are loaded.


I think operarors are one of the most importent aspects of the Matrix in general because not only does it represent there actually being another world it also shows the person's connection with that other world.


I think the part about codings cloaking devices to stop the machines seeing them as quickly and when agents are coming the operatror could get a timer on how long it'll be till the agents show up.


Ehen I was following the game's dvelopment I naturally assumed that the only way you could have hackers jacked in was to have them plug into some sort of the console - none of this fire workks stuff - the only thing close to this first hacker vision of mine is Access node hacking which isn't difficult - or as difficult as some coding.


But because hackers are a just a core part of the Matrix in general it is important that they exist.


It's all very well suggesting changes all the time such as Operators, player owned constructs but these thingstake time so for now lets just stand back (whilst SOE make our changes, hopefully) and marvel at the city landscape and be thankful we got this far...
#10400015309 09/08/2005 07:31 Re: What if hackers become Operators? Heresy? Mean people stay away.

I have nothing against opinions.


What don't u like about the idea?