ZoE 3 Story/Gameplay ideas

[Vagrant]

Here are some of my ideas for a ZoE3 sequel, presented in a timeline form. Please note that I have not played ZoE1 nor did I watch the animes, so I might be missing some info. Nonetheless, here goes nothing.


~~~~~~~~STORY~~~~~~~~
2174: The events in ZoE2 happen as we know it.

2175: Earth and Mars finally resolves their conflict thanks to the help of Elena Weinberg's lobbying and political maneuvering. It was Dingo's wish to free Mars, and she accepted near the end of ZoE2. Also, both parties agreed to freely share energy ressources, including Metatron. War for ressources was one of the main reasons for the war to start at all, so unrestricted access to Metatron helped ease tensions and solve many problems back on Earth, which was suffering due to climate change and dwindling renawable ressources.

All information and other side project that stemmed from the Aumaan Project are taken by Mars and sealed away, including Jehuty and Anubis. However, the Urenbeck Catapult was freely shared with Earth to revolutionize space travel.

During 10 good years, both Earth and Mars thrived. In this decade, the solar system was completely mapped, however, no other sources of Metatron were found. Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter, remains the sole source for Metatron...

2186: With the population growth in both Earth, Mars and it's surrounding colonies, energy demands are higher than ever. Expert analyst calculate that there's less than 5 years worth of Metatron left on Callisto...

2187: Political tensions begin to rise again as Mars suddently impose heavy trade taxes for Metatron, pleading for everyone to reduce their energy usage, going as far as greatly limiting the quantities shipped. One particular event where one Earth mining ship ignored Martians border patrol helped drive this conflict further. Mars then accuses Earth of sending spies on Mars to not only steal Metatron but make a copy of the Aumaan Project data. Earth denies everything. For the next years, both parties remain hostile to each other. No war is declared, just very tensions.

One thing leads to another and Mars finally caves in, restricting any and all mining operations on Callisto... Remnants of BAHRAM begin to resurface and heavily drill for war. Mars then willingly accepts BAHRAM as their main military force, allowing them to patrol trade routes and borders. It's like 2174 again, daily skirmishes by both side results in military and civilian casualties. It's chaos all over again.

2188: Slowly, little by little, the sun's ray feel less bright and warm as weeks pass by. Not too long after everyone starts noticing something's wrong, Earth unveils Project Pheonix. The goal of this project is create a Dyson Sphere around the sun by using Orbital Frame technology and Metatron, basically creating an Aumaan Fortress v2.0 to harness the power of the sun. Pretty much, the Dyson sphere an Orbital Frame. ( omg D: ). By researching solar energy along with Metatron, Earth scientist are able to create a brand new form of energy called Pheotron Energy. With this new energy, along with the stolen Aumaan data, Earth will now be able to make Orbital Frames and machines far supperior than what BAHRAM did with Aumaan. Earth gains military advantage, meanwhile people in general worry about the fading sun...

2189: Project Pheonix is almost fully completed, but that didn't stop Earth from mass-producing war machines and new Orbital Frames. Only 30% of the sun can be seen now. Earth is now pressuring Mars into giving up Callisto, since Earth claims it will end the energy crisis with Pheotron, however, this is a ruse since Earth ran out of Metatron to fully build Project Pheonix...

2190: Mars' president (or leading political figure) goes to Earth to discuss peace term and Callisto's surrender. However, the unthinkable happens: the Martian president is assasinated. Then Earth launches an attack on Mars in the most brutal way possible. A part of Project Pheonix included a giant beam cannon that uses solar energy to fire a "planet-busting" beam. Right after the assasination of the president, the sun went 100% dark for a minute, letting out a monstrous beam that pretty much destroyed Mars (if not fully, the bigger half of it or punched a hole into it). After this catastrophe, Earth then begins taking other Martian colonies, one by one using Pheotron-powered Orbital Frames and machines.

One secret martian spaceship orbiting around Mars is someway, somehow able to escape back to Callisto with a very important cargo: Jehuty and Anubis... Turns out, Earth didn't really wanted the Metatron on Callisto, they wanted Jehuty and Anubis to complete Project Pheonix. Not only to make the ultimate war machine tethered on the sun's energy but also use an highly advanced Urenbeck Catapult that can propel an Orbital Frame across galaxies (!!!). Expert scientist on Callisto, who have been studying the Aumaan Project for the last decade, implore that using Metatron is such a way could be catastrophic: it could kill the sun or even make it explode, which means everyone could die...

As this secret ship succesfully returns to Callisto, Earth's offensive starts on the Jupiter moons and colonies... They send their best Pheotron-powered OF on Callisto. This OF is a sort of fusion between Jehuty and Anubis on a visual design. It would most likely be named OF-HELIOS. As Helios starts attacking Callisto, one lone grease monkey down in an OF hangar is woken up from his slumber by the sound of explosions...

Enter the 3rd runner... This lone grease monkey isn't a nobody. In fact, he/she's more or less like Dingo from ZoE2. He/she used to be an excellent OF pilot but then went into hiding, living in an OF hangar like an hermit, mirroring how Dingo became a miner hiding on Callisto. Unlike Dingo, this new runner's reason for hiding is different. More like demoted after the Border Patrol Incident in 2187, which let Earth spies take the Aumaan data... He/She was the one who greenlit access to this very same ship that helped the galaxy spiral into chaos. But there's a catch. The person piloting the ship was in fact the 3rd runner's bother/sister which is why the ship passed so easily. Not only the 3rd runner was betrayed by its own sibling, it was exiled by BAHRAM for what they called "the biggest mistake of his/her life". The 3rd runner has every reason to be angry at both Earth and Mars, as well as everyone in general.

So, after being woken by an explosion above, the building goes into emergency blackout mode, opening a previously unseen hatch in the floor. The 3rd runner goes in and finds the concealed Jehuty and Anubis. He/she goes in and ADA awakens once more. A transmission comes in... At the other end, a team of scientist down below the last deposit of Metatron on Callisto, tells the 3rd runner to go down there immediatly with Jehuty or Anubis...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a few gameplay elements that could complement this whole story above.

- Character creator. Or maybe choose between a man or a woman. In the last story paragraphs, I imply the runner and his sibling could either be a man or woman. What if roles were swapped? You chose a male runner, your traitor sibling is a woman, and vice-versa. This could complicate story-telling, so I'd understand if it was fixed characters like previous games.

- Limited open-world mechanic, travelling between planets and space colonies. In some way, the whole game would be a pilgrimage from Callisto all the way to the Sun.

- You could disembark your OF, talk to NPC and take sidequests, shop for OF parts/color, maybe play mini-games... maybe play some co-op/versus missions with others online... wink-wink

- The possiblity of piloting multiple OFs. Of course, Jehuty/Anubis would be nessecary for the main quest/story but piloting different OFs with different weapon moveset and subweapons sounds cool. Just look at Warframe for example. All sorts of different costumes, weapons, attachments and color schemes... It's impossible to not like what you're wearing.

- Multiple endings. Side with Mars or Earth... or chose a more sinister path by nuking everyone with Project Pheonix? Or maybe try to use the Urenbeck catapult to warp to another galaxy? Use power for the right things. Choose your fate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How about that? Feel free to input your own ideas.

[RAWRmonger]

That is a bit... out there, with the sun and political part.

I think one thing that needs to be said is: Anubis/Jehuty aren't that special. They are important in ZoE1 and 2's context because they're basically keycards for Project Aumaan, but they're not necessarily the ultimate OFs. If ADA is artficial, then it could make them even less special.

IIRC in the Dolores anime, which is kinda goofy BTW, the bad guy is using 0-Shift as freely as Jehuty/Anubis. The good guy attempts to counter that with something similar, if not the same. The good guy, a 40~50 year old dude has an harder time enduring something like that, which leads me to another point I'll talk below.

Speaking of Dolores, the bad guy's OF is a mutated version of it's original form. Much like Jehuty v2, or Testament's OF state (Fist of Mars). This mech and it's original form have a crystalized look, which I assume it's metatron? Anyway, it's design is kinda close to how "raw" ZoE3's concept art could be, kinda. What I am getting at is, we could just have new mechs with different designs even.

Dolores and Fist of Mars have the same plot device of their AI being like an upload from some living person. Hard to describe exactly. Nephtis AI was modeled after Viola's tenacity, but these are different, and it's almost like they were made from cloning/transfering their minds. In FoM's case, the person the AI is from is still alive, and it sort feels like a soul-clone, but without a human body. I could see them reiterating this plot device again.

Fist of Mars gets a bit darker than just the AI thing, like in ZoE2, IIRC, there are at least two cases of humans being linked to the OF, but in a much worse way. I forget exactly why this is done, but, again on the subject of 0-shift, it sounds like would be perfect to endure it and control the machines better. I have no idea how neither Dingo nor Nohman are affected by the dislocation with 0-shift. Dingo is clearly affected when Ken hops on his lap, so imagine having his blood pushed backwards would be worst.

---

As for gameplay, I'd be happy with more piloteable OFs.
ZoE2 could already have been like this. It had the mechs from VS, the animations were already done too, it's just nobody had the bright idea of using them on story (with cutscenes removed) or at least Extra Missions.

I don't mind if the game adopts a world map with enterables and optional side-missions. But it should stick to have a clear main path for pacing purposes (replayability). The enterables should remain relatively small and isolated. Open world has the bad tendency of complicating development and it would introduce a lot of downtime.

(Sleep now, may post more later)

[Vagrant]

Thanks for reading throught all of that. I know it's "out there", however I wrote it like this for 2 reasons. One, a lot of IRL time has passed since ZoE2, so advancing the story further in the future was kinda nessecary. 2nd, the 3rd runner needs a good reason to ride an OF, so I quickly weave a rather cliche backstory.

As for the gameplay, I agree with you on the open world; it should still be fairly limited and focus on quick skirmishes.

I really hope ZoE3 can be revived, someway, somehow...

[Vagrant]

The part about Orbital Frames fusing together sounds cool. In some way the final version of Anubis in ZoE2 is a fusion with both him and Aumaan.

With being able to ride multiple OFs, this would make an interesting mid-game/end-game feature. How about if you can only fuse 2 OFs together, but if you go higher (lore-wise), the result would be like those crystalized frames you mentioned? The way I described OF-Helios is sort like that: Jehuty and Anubis fused together, which was again fused with Project Pheonix, creating an half organic-looking, half cystalized monstrous OF. ADA would prevent the 3rd runner from fusing a 3rd frame.

Speaking of ADA, I forgot to mention something about AI's in the first post. How about different types of AIs that could be transfered from OF to OF? The fight with Viola in ZoE2 implies that transfering AIs is possible...

I read the backstory on wikipedia about Idolo/Dolored/Fist of Mars. The one that caught my attention was Idolo's story. I wonder why riding a Metatron-infused OF has the potential to render it's user mad. It happened to Raman and it clearly happened to Nohman, I mean really that guy is far gone.

How about a Sanity mechanic where failing missions or killing to many human OF pilots could drop your sanity, which could affect certain NPC conversations/quests. Saving them (stun, incapacitate) would make you a good guy and raise your sanity, etc...

There's just so many things they could do, but alas, I feel like I'm getting carried away. ZoE3 might never happen but it's still fun to dream tho.

[RAWRmonger]

Have you played but Ace Combat Zero? It did a sort of similar thing to that fifth paragraph of your last post, only instead of killing, it was the decision wether or not finish planes that had been neutralized (for combat). Sort of like an honor system that affected your pilot style, which in turn affected missions versions and squadrons fought.

IDK, whatever they do, I hope their main focus is to make the combat fast, and paced. Then build it from there.
They could reward fighting styles as well, which is nice to force players to adapt. For example, I rarely use GRAB related tactics, or Decoy, Geyser subweapons, so I could be baited into learning it.

[Bahamun]

Thats some hardcore fans we have here DAMN !

To respond to your thread :

Concerning the gameplay, maybe its just me but its sound a whole lot like Anthem !
add to that the fact that when i saw how they fly around in Anthem - it reminded me a lot of how OF move and fly around in ZOE ! They might have been inspired by ZOE actually !

Its EA so we always have to be careful but i like the concept and it might turn like a good replacement before any new ZOE game come out !