Design Document (Draft 1)

In One Sentence
A Post-Apocalyptic MMORPG based around humanity's drive to survive.

Abstract
In Shatterpoint, players cooperate to rebuild a world destroyed in an alien invasion while fighting off raiders, monsters and enemy players who want to be the most powerful survivors in the world. Starting in Kent, England, Shatterpoint will eventually allow players to rebuild civilization across the world. Unlike most MMORPGs (and, indeed, most games), I envision Shatterpoint to be more free form than directed, with a few ideas of where to go and what can be done, but with a more or less blank slate as to what the players actually do.

Target Audience
While the Post-Apocalyptic genre tends to be quite a niche market for books and films, it comes into it's own when applied to games. The success of titles such as the Fallout series and Borderlands show that gamers want Post-Apocalyptic games, and with games such as Rage and Fallout : New Vegas coming soon (late 2010, early 2011), desire for more games in the genre seems to show no signs of diminishing. Shatterpoint would differentiate itself from most of these games by being more about the rebuilding than simply going out and fighting mutants, which might also interest less “hardcore” gamers – the people who usually like management games like the Sims.

If given the chance, I'd like this to be marketed to a wholly new target audience, too – aspiring designers of various disciplines. If handled properly, Shatterpoint could become a launching pad for other artists to display their work, either through their clothing/weapon/building designs, or maybe even making shows for in-game TV stations.

Platform
Shatterpoint is intended to be a cross-platform game, being on PC, 360 and PS3. Ideally there should be cross-compatibility between all three platforms with each providing clients to access the same servers, effectively allowing players to sign in and play from any platform that has the game installed.

I realise this is a large and mostly untried idea, but I understand that SquareEnix are already planning something similar for the next Final Fantasy MMORPG and, if they can do it, it would be a small step from that to including the PC as well.

Unique Selling Points

 * The option to go non-violent. While violence is an answer, it's not the ONLY answer. Stealth and charisma can be used to bypass most enemies, or you can stay at home and build while other survivors go out for you.
 * Advanced political system. Players can become members of the various groups that are in the world of Shatterpoint, from the all-powerful Factions to the tiny cults. A player's actions and choices determine what groups see him as a friend or enemy.
 * Full “Guild” control. The Clans of Shatterpoint are entirely player-run. It's their choice if they will work for a larger group or go it alone, invade other Clans for resources or stay under the radar, or even if they will become the local trading hub, becoming neutral territory for other players.
 * The ability to build your own settlements. While only in predetermined locations, settlements can expand as the controlling Clan sees fit, both in regards to the physical buildings, and the growing NPC population that inhabits them.
 * Professionally-made player-designed content. The designers should be proactive in implementing player-suggested ideas, hopefully involving them in their own process and giving them the credit.
 * Optional realism. As an optional extra cost, players can buy character slots in a “Realistic” server, where death is permanent and “gold” farmers are shot on sight. Players on this server will determine the storyline of the game, and the overarching politics between the NPC groups.

Game Mechanics
Shatterpoint is not a real-time game. It is a turn based game (like most MMORPGS), but one that has fluid animations that give the appearance of real time gameplay. An overarching theme I would like to stress is the reinforcement that players are controlling a character, rather than the player being the character themselves. This is due to the fact that, while the game is nominally non-violent, violence in the game is still meant to be remarkably graphic (some might say realistic), and a dissociative factor would go a long way toward making it more agreeable to groups that will always attempt to protest such things.

Controls
Shatterpoint is designed around the controller, rather than the keyboard (although the keyboard is still used in a social capacity for non-vocal communication and emotes). The following control overview is in the following format; 360 Control/PS3 Control (where appropriate) – Action. Specific uses of these actions can be found on the game's wiki page.
 * Left Thumbstick – Movement.
 * Left Thumbstick Button/L3 – Sprint.
 * Right Thumbstick – Camera Control, Menu Navigation.
 * Right Thumbstick Button/R3 – 2x Camera Zoom.
 * Start – Menu.
 * Back/Select – Character Menu.
 * A/X – Standard Action (Recovery action in combat).
 * B/Circle – Heavy Action (Strong attack in combat).
 * Y/Triangle – Precise Action (Accurate attack in combat).
 * X/Square – Fast Action (Defensive attack in combat).
 * D-Pad Up – Draw/Return Item 1.
 * D-Pad Down – Draw/Return Item 2.
 * D-Pad Left – Draw/Return Item 3.
 * D-Pad Down – Draw/Return Item 4.
 * Right Shoulder/R1 – Examine.
 * Right Trigger/R2 – Attack.
 * Left Shoulder/R1 – Sneak/Stealth action.
 * Left Trigger/R2 – Talk.

Character Creation
Characters in Shatterpoint are all made in the same manner, hailing from a larger Faction, with a few specialist skills and a handful of Traits to start them off. Important for new characters is the options for Faction, Advantages and Disadvantages and Morality.

All characters start as members of a Faction. While they don't need to stay in that Faction, their starting equipment and clothing is determined by their starting Faction, as well as a set Advantage and Disadvantage. The Factions are detailed later in this document.

Advantages and Disadvantages are innate bonuses and penalties that characters start with, and can, by and large, not be changed during gameplay. These include things such as starting with a ruined/missing arm, having excellent vision and being generally more likable/unlikable.

Moralities are the answer to other game's moral choice systems, and are the closest Shatterpoint gets to a class system. They determine how focussed on team playing and killing the character is, and give bonuses depending on how well the player follows their own morality. There is an option to opt out of moralities entirely if the player is unsure of how they want to play, or if they want complete freedom to act.

Character Advancement
Shatterpoint does not use a level system as such, but instead rates certain skills that are useful in the game from 1 to 100, indicating the base percentage that any action that needs that skill will succeed. For every five ranks (in any skill) that a character gains, they get a new Trait that either improves their existing abilities or gives them a new one.

New Traits are unlocked when a character reaches a new Tier – Tier 2 is unlocked when their first skill reaches 25%, Tier 3 is unlocked when their second skill reaches 50% and they have unlocked two of a set group of achievements and Tier 3.5 (the Transhuman tier) is unlocked when the character gets four skills to 50% and eight of the achievements needed to unlock Tier 3.

On top of improving statistics, Characters also advance by gaining new and improved equipment. All equipment is measured in the same Tiers as the characters who wield them, and can only be wielded by a character of the same Tier or higher. Unlike in most games where the same equipment model can have different skins and statistics, all models and skins of the same item have the same statistics in Shatterpoint – all pistols, from revolvers to desert eagles, have the same amount of shots before they have to reload, do the same damage and have the same range.

Level Design
Shatterpoint is a game with multiple instanced “hubs”, split into three separate types; the Scraplands, Faction Strongholds and Battlegrounds.

The Scraplands are the main areas of the game, and are the basis of most of the PvP and Clan politics in Shatterpoint. They are named after the large landfills they are sited on which provide most of the materials the survivors use. The basic design of Shatterpoint includes ten Scraplands per server, two between each Faction Stronghold, each of which can hold five settlements. On top of the PvP elements, they also have various strongholds and areas that have been taken over by NPC enemies that must be cleared from time to time to keep the surrounding area safe (and get some of the better non-crafted items)

The Faction Strongholds are just that; strongholds for the largest Factions in the game. While fighting isn't banned in the strongholds, they are policed by heavily armed guards who will not hesitate to gun down everyone involved in a fight on stronghold soil. They are relatively safe trading, crafting and healing hubs, as well as the starting areas for all new players. There are six Faction strongholds, one for each major Faction.

The Battlegrounds are the main areas of PvE combat in Shatterpoint, and are on the battle lines between the Factions and an enemy group that they are opposed to in some way. Players can come here to track down bounties on NPC enemies to gain standing with the relevant Faction. Being mostly urban, battlegrounds are also the best place to find intact, non-crafted items such as guns, clothes and medical equipment. There are six battlegrounds, one for each major Faction.

Story
Over the course of the five decades leading up to 2050, the U.S.A. made itself unpopular among the rest of the world. Forced to remain in the Middle East with a combination of terrorist threats, public opinion and the threat of destabilization if they left, global sympathy plummeted, replacing the U.S. with several other countries as the superpowers of the world – Japan, Canada, Germany, Russia and the U.K. experienced a new golden age as the new innovators and economic centres of the world, and America languished in an economic rut. Eventually, in the late 2030's and early 2040's, the U.S. government commissioned Hollywood to make a series of great American propaganda pieces to boost the morale of American citizens and to put on a show of defiance to the rest of the world, but no one cared, no one watched.

Well... Almost no one.

The satellite signals that desperately beamed these films around the world caught the attention of a race floating through space just outside of the solar system. In 2041, a large object is noted on scanners on the far side of Pluto, with several others following in 2043. On the 9th of June, 2050, a large pyramid lands in the centre of America and the world watches. Ten days later, the pyramid opens, spewing forth toxic gas that kills everyone within several miles instantly and spreads out further with each passing minute. Global response is unanimous – the surface of the United States of America is scoured with nuclear weapons, killing billions but burning up the gas and sending enough radioactive dirt into the atmosphere to block out all natural light for just under five months. The sky is permanently scarred a deep red, and the world is in full scale war against a technologically, physically and mentally superior alien race.

After almost a hundred years of systematic genocide, the alien Invaders leave Earth, and the remains of the human race come out of hiding. Two decades of conflict among groups of survivors battling for the few remaining resources almost threatens to wipe out all life on the planet before two adventurers in England find an abandoned military base and accidentally activate an army of ancient robots programmed to destroy humanity, giving yet more proof that humanity must work together to survive.

Now, humanity is divided, leaderless and, with at most five-six thousand people in Kent, near extinction. In the future, scholars will look back at this time and see that now, more than ever, humanity stood on the edge, on something that could not be simply called a breaking point.

This is humanity's shatterpoint.

Characters/Factions
Due to the reliance on player-created characters, there is no one singular character. The main characters are the six major Factions and their leaders, who I shall detail instead. Each faction leader has been based on an actor who, in a perfect world, I would prefer to see in the role.

The Eagles are the descendants of refugees from the American continent who fled their respective countries when the Invaders first landed, fearing that something bad could happen. Their only history of the countries they hail from are the ancient propaganda films from ancient America, and they are committed to finding the American Dream in their new homeland. They are led by Silva D'Acier (played by Ellen Page), a young woman who believes more in keeping her own followers safe than the other “not American” groups alive.

Eternal War are a Faction of Darwinists who believe that humanity must strengthen to survive, and therefore have set about fighting both amongst themselves and with everyone else to ensure only the best are allowed to live. While there are many doomsday and suicide cults who believe (and act on) the same principles, Eternal War has managed to get to full-fledged Faction status by recognising that not every battle is fought with weapons, and that not everyone who is weak should die. They are led by a man known as Devastation (played by Noel Clarke), a first-generation transhuman and one of the few people who remembers life before the Invasion.

The Maintenance Crew are a group of scientists who believe in the mixed teachings of all the Abrahamic faiths, and who have resolved to make the world a better place to bring Heaven to Earth. While they maintain a small force of soldiers who primarily patrol the Clean Zones to keep wild animals and Futurshocked packs to a minimum, most members of the Maintenance Crew are doctors and technicians who attempt to keep both the people and the machinery of the world in full working order. They are led by Jamie McCrimmin (played by David Tennant), a man who, in any other time, would be considered a medical genius.

The Radslummer Outcasts are a group comprised from the criminals, lunatics and general exiles from the radiation-mutated Radslummer tribes. They are some of the few Radslummers who come to the clean zones where normal humans can survive, initially to trade and act as mercenaries, but now as their own Faction. Radslummer Outcasts are identified by three prominent features – as Radslummers, they were born with radiation scars and eyes so big they need shaded goggles to see in regular light, as outcasts, they have had the crime they were accused of branded prominently onto their forehead and, as Radslummer women are so rare, all Radslummer Outcast adventurers are male. They are led by Overseer Granck (played by Jason Statham), the first Radslummer to realise that cooperation would make all outcasts stronger.

The Trojans are the largest and most individualistic of the Factions, and exist to gather and restore technology, although even as a Faction they are divided, with some turning to raiding and piracy, and others using trade and diplomacy. Whatever methods they use, the Trojans have been responsible for 90% of all the technological development in Kent for the last three decades, including nanogeneration and the new breed of nanotech guns. They are led by KarnEvil, a cyborg from before the Invasion who has been driven insane and believes he's a clown.

The 143 Freehold are descendants of a large group who gathered in Canterbury after the first natural light reached Earth after the blackness that had existed for 143 days. Somehow surviving through another ninety-nine months of war with the Invaders, the Freehold maintains that their mixture of ancient Celtic, as well as more modern Wiccan and Druidic beliefs keep them strong (with a little help from their control of the drugs in England) where technology and politics have failed them. They are led by Jared Lortech (played by James McAvoy), a man who has been trained for leadership since birth.

Visual Style
As a purely online game, Shatterpoint should be built from the ground up to be less graphically taxing on machines than most modern games. Cel Shading, simple lighting effects and lower poly count environments should be championed over ultra-realistic graphics. Anything that can reduce lag should be considered.

A large part of the game's visual aesthetic is the use of warm colours – the sky is a deep red with white and pink clouds, the ground is rusty browns and oranges and even the plants are maroons. The overall effect should make the player feel warn just by watching it. Still, care should be taken to ensure that everything doesn't blend together, and other colours should be used generously.

Audio Style
The game has two separate styles of backing music, as chosen by the player. The ambient music of the game is “tribal punk”, a mixture of 70's punk and tribal music (Native American tribal music is best). This should be played using simple instruments and without any complicated flourishes – the idea is the kind of music that could be played in an apocalypse.

The other type of backing music in the game is from the automated radio stations that still play songs on a random loop. This is a good chance for unsigned British bands to get some coverage, especially if there is a list of the last five or so songs in the menu somewhere. This should allow for several playlists to be filled quickly and cheaply, especially if the game's stations have more then just the rock, techno and classical staples of most gamer's playlists – branching out to genres such as R&B (especially England's grunge scene), chillout and club would allow more artists to get their songs to the public, and playing them in NPC-owned areas would allow most players to get a chance to hear them.

An important note to voice acting – all speech should be in English with subtitles for other countries. This is because when the game expands to other countries, their voices should be fully spoken in their native language and subtitled for other nationalities. French and German people should be speaking French and German, not English with bad French and German accents.

Marketing and Expansion
Although Shatterpoint is an MMORPG, I feel that it should follow the more recent trend of microtransactions rather than subscription fees. While subscription fees will get some steady income, there is no reason to think that because it worked for World of Warcraft, it can work for any other MMO on the market (and the fact it hasn't speaks volumes). On the other hand, the option to pay more for items that provide a larger degree of customisation (new skins, new weapon models etc) would give more money from people that actually want to pay – this could be extended to exclusive items that are unlocked to purchase some time after the exclusivity has worn off. I feel it is important to maintain that in-game items purchased for real money should NOT give an in game advantage, as this will show integrity that will gain more respect among gamers.

On top of microtransactions, Shatterpoint is designed, as a reasonably modern setting, to facilitate in-game advertising. The radio stations could easily play a pre-recorded advertisement every few songs, and the battlegrounds and faction strongholds are meant to have barely-working holographic billboards that could easily have stuttering adverts for real world products and companies still showing. This would help alleviate the cost of running the servers. This could also be achieved by having artist's songs played on the radios as discussed above, which would provide mutually beneficial if the aforementioned list of recently played songs was included.

As far as expansion goes, Shatterpoint has three different avenues it can pursue; historical “simulations”, new areas in England, and completely new countries. Historical “simulations” are the quickest and easiest – small single player games that allow the player to take control of characters modelled on various personalities of Shatterpoint's history, performing the deeds that formed the game they are playing now, with completion giving new cosmetic items and upgrades they can use, as well as in-game leaderboards for fastest time, highest score or whatever.

New areas could be included in DLC for the main game, giving new Scraplands and Battlegrounds and NPC groups (new Faction Strongholds should be restricted to the main expansions themselves). The ones I have planned for The Broken Kingdom are Red Tarmac (Surrey, Devon and Cornwall, introducing vehicles and mounts), The Great, Wild Radlands (Mildlands and Wales, focussing on the Radslummer Tribes and the mutant animals they fight), Caledonia Calling (Northern England and Scotland, primarily showing the world touched only by radiation and not the Invasion) and, finally, The Capital Warzone (London as a series of battlegrounds between the major Factions and the Westminster Royalists, a group that believes their leader has been chosen by God to rule England).

As far as new countries go, the best idea for these is to release them as full expansions, especially if they can be used independently of each other. Each country has it's own language (see Audio above), technology, starting Factions, internal politics and enemies – in fact, the only real similarities are some of the animals, plants and the red sky. Characters from other countries can go to other countries in the Shatterpoint series if the player has both games and there is a “physical” connection between the countries – A player in England can get to France through the channel tunnel, but not straight to Germany because they're not connected. Current planned countries include France (inc. Belgium and Holland), Germany (inc. Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary), Spain (inc. Portugal), Italy (inc. Switzerland), Greece (inc. Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria), Russia (inc. most former Eastern Bloc countries) and China (inc. India, Thailand etc...).