Several things on the agenda today, class. First of all, I'd like SOMEONE out there to help me with some concept art designs and such. I've been doing most of it on my own, but it's more than a little tricky coming up with unique designs for 84 vehicles and hundreds of components, not to mention all of the other characters, NPCs, enemies, weapons and monsters that I want to be present here.

If you're interested, hit me up with a message. All credit will be given where credit is due.

Next, I was going to discuss some more brainstorming that's hit me.

Something that was bothering me in my class and skill system was personal customization. I mentioned something about wanting people to be able to respec their skills, but I wanted it to be sufficiently inconvenient to where it wasn't their first choice; they'd rather figure out a solution with their current skillset than spend a bunch of points or money on a new one. I also wanted the leveling up to be relatively unique from all of the games that it could be compared to: Oblivion, Borderlands, Diablo, Fallout 3, etcetera.

I'm not sure if this is a good one, but I had a thought at work the other day.

There would be two types of points to spend every time your character leveled up: Class Points and Ranks. Ranks are regular old skill points, and they would increase your talents or proficiency with a certain skill. Class Points will increase your level in a certain skill class; Technological, Mechanical, Gunplay, Finesse, and Conditioning.

So here's how they mesh: Class Points will do nothing for your character's attributes. You could be level twenty in Mechanical and still not know a thing about operating vehicles. They don't increase your experience points, and they don't modify anything that you do in the game. That's what the skills do. Class Points, however, UNLOCK the ability to BUY skill points with your Ranks. Rather than operating on a skill progression (you have to buy the previous skill in the track to access the next skill in the track), skills would become available after you reached the necessary level in that Track (using your Class Points).

(I might change Class Points to Level Points or Class Ranks, or something, to avoid nasty CP jokes.)

In so doing, players would still be able to access high level skills (if they want them) without having to spend their ranks on a bunch of skills that they'll never use in their play style. You can invest your level points in tracks you wont yet use without wasting ranks on skills you don't need.

Every time you level up, you'd get maybe 2 Level Points, and 25 Ranks. Individual skills would peak at 100 ranks or something, allowing me to operate them on a percentage system. I guess. I'll figure it out later.

The point is, this ought to be fun, and worthwhile.

SOUNDTRACK

Every good game needs a soundtrack. For this one, I want it to be chock full of rockabilly, hip hop, space jazz and big beat electronica. I started to write down track names for the game more as an idea for locations than for actual music inspiration. But it can works as both.

I've got City Sixteen, Clifton Carbo's shop, the Gun shop, Courtesy Diner (which will be a badass easter egg of an instance), The Dunescape, Cavernous, The Hive, Battleaxe, the ICS Sabrina, Nurkwise, Skrewery, the Feeder Foray, the Digger Colony, and Picturesque. Most will have different music for ambient, battle, car chases, and all three at night. I'm most interested in creating the intertior of the ICS Sabrina, a huge warship that the character will end up on around the time that they start exploring the Hive.

I love video game music.

So how've you all been?

[Clifton Carbo's monkey's name is Hemingway.]