MissionProgression

Game Progression

The chart below illustrates the following ideas for the mechanical progression of the game.

The idea of the player hiring Mercenaries for his company is something that I thought could happen either mechanically in game or purely within the fiction of completing missions. I think the former is more interesting.

Player Start

Player needs to earn money and reputation in order to progress through the game. He can earn these units in a number of ways:

Taking Small Contract Missions

Small contracts are jobs offered by the tertiary groups active in the Mercenaries 2.0 game world. The player will earn money by completing these contracts. Groups include organizations like:

• The local police and government.
• Small scale crime organizations.
• The local churches.
• Average Joes with no other options.

These contracts would be available at one (or more) central locations established early on as mission hubs for the player.

In these hubs the player will also be introduced to the primary factions in the game through developed (i.e. story) NPCs. Each of them will acknowledge the player’s actions within the world (i.e. “I heard about you killing the Twilight Slasher. Good work. I may have some use for you if you get your act together”) and make reference to the player’s need to start a Merc company.

The player will not be able to take bigger contracts until he has a Mercs company.

Boasts

This is an idea from 'Fable'. The player can choose to try for a greater reward (and increased difficulty) with a mission by "boasting." Following the formal acceptance of a contract other local Mercs, or Mercs within his own company, will allow him to bet on his current contract. These bets would include handicaps or goals like:

• Completing the contract without air strikes.
• Completing the contract with only a handgun.
• Completing the contract under x amount of time.
• No civilian casualities.
• Complete the contract without using weapons.

Minigames

Matt Colville says: As a rule, I think all minigames and bounties should be activities that make sense for the setting and are grounded in the core fantasy of Mercs. The people, in the real world, who live in places like San Andreas really do work out, trick out their cars, etc... Whereas real Mercs do not really winch cars into nuclear reactors.

I think a good source of minigame action could come from the 'scrounging' idea others have talked about. Minigames that get you fuel and ammo, for instance, would be perfect.

Bounties

Starting a Mercenaries Operation

Once the player has enough money he’ll be able to start a Mercs company. The Mercs company provides the following:

• The ability to take larger contracts.
• A central reward that is easy to understand, allows the player to take the smaller contracts in any way he chooses and helps us strengthen the pacing of the content.
• A mechanic/story element that serves to embolden the fiction (i.e. establishing your own small company outside of ExOps?.)
• A sub game within the larger scope of ‘Mercenaries’:
• At first the Mercs Co is a money sink.
• As the player acquires a) more money and b) more reputation by completing contracts he’ll be able to hire more Mercenaries.
• The more Mercenaries he has, the more money the organization brings in. Eventually it starts turning a profit.
• The amount of money the organization brings in is dependent upon the upkeep of the company by the player.

At its simplest the Mercs Co is simply a beat in the story that allows us to open up to Chapter Two. More involved, it is a mini game the player can be involved with to gain more capital.

Taking Bigger / Faction Contract Missions

Once the player has a Mercs Co the main factions in the game will deal with him. These cool characters have been dangled out in front of him for a short while and now he’ll be able to figure out what they’re all about and what they’re worth to him.

These bigger contract missions have bigger stakes and will involve considerable expenditure on the player’s part. Some of them will require more resources than the player currently has at his disposal for him to be successful at them. This will allow the player another way to tailor the difficulty of a contract to his own level (i.e. Can I complete this without a Cluster Bomb or do I need to take a few smaller contracts to earn the bread to buy one?)