Your Wildstar Legacy

As I was perusing my morning readings of WSC, I came upon the topic of First/Last name discussion - that's where I started shoring up memories of TOR and the time I spent in that game. SWTOR, with all its flaws and irritations, did one thing extremely well: Account Rewards. This came in the form of a legacy system which worked wonders for experiencing the game from different viewpoints.

For those of you not familiar with the legacy system, here's a quick overview:

For every enemy you kill, every quest you complete, you get two types of XP - character XP and legacy XP. You level up your legacy through playing your main as well as your alts. As you level up your legacy you can unlock some unique buffs, abilities, and passives that go account wide. In addition, you also have the ability to unlock new race/class combinations which alters how the game is played.

With that out of the way, I want to make one thing very clear up front: I don't want a copy of this system in Wildstar. I'm looking at two very cool things that you can pull away from their system:

A "Legacy" name - this goes toward the first name/last name discussion, but it would be nice to be able to display that title/last name with those characters you wish to add it to.

Account wide buffs - See XP bonuses, crafting perks, taxi speeds, etc. increasing for each character that reaches max, making it easier and just as enjoyable to play alts through the game for the bazillionth time.

Of course we don't want to see an exact replica of their system, and we certainly want the system to be so Wildstar esque that it feels like a natural and integral part of the game. To that end, Wildstar has some super cool things that could be done within its own Ecosystem (within the announced features):

Shared Housing/Banking - Every character will be able to have their own house. This is awesome! Why not also have the option to have all your characters "share" a house, even making them a pseudo family? Let them all put together the different decor parts in the house, and share the benefits. Allow for an account-wide bank (faction specific, obviously) inside the housing plot that every one of your characters can deposit, withdraw, etc. You could even have your offline characters chilling out on the house doing various tasks (working at a crafting station, tending a garden, etc.). You know that summonable dungeon boss you can have on your plot? Why not let your offline characters help you down it! Yeah, I know this is a pipe dream as far as we know, but that would be pretty sweet, no?

Path Bonuses - Leveling a scientist, and have a max level explorer? Why not have a button (on a cooldown) that allows you to find a passageway nearby to help you traverse the zone faster? Have a soldier at max, but are leveling a settler? Why not let your soldier buddy drop by and help guard your newly constructed outpost from mobs while you upgrade things? The possibilities here are endless, and would allow for some really neat interaction if tuned and designed well (which I have complete faith in the team at Carbine to do so).

The entire goal is to make your characters feel like apart of the world while benefiting your enjoyment of the game as a whole. You can do a ton of really cool things with just the few features we have confirmed with Wildstar and a system like this. So the question I have for you, community, is two fold: Would you like a system similar to this in Wildstar, and if so what features would you like to see in a system like this?

I actually felt the legacy system was rather bland, sure you could unlock different race/class combos but since all the races were the same just different colors it wasn't that great, and due to animations and other concerns wouldn't be in WS anyway. The cross class abilities were on a long CD and basically novelties more than anything else, I guess you could do this with path abilities as you suggest but I think they'd rather have people work together towards that end. Shared bank is good but we might have that anyway, not sure.

Really the only thing of it that I think would fit WS would be account wide buffs and I don't think you want to start a game with those anyway maybe after an expansion or two.

I'll admit I really do like the Legacy system in SWTOR. It wasn't enough to keep me playing, but it was a good idea. There should absolutely be some sort of small shared banking options between characters, it tends to make things a lot simpler when switching between alts.

There are still plenty of unannounced things and who knows, maybe some kind of legacy ish system is one of them. If not however, it might be something to add down the line, if the devs can find a neat Wildstar-esque way of doing it.

If it is done well it can be a major boost to the game, but if it isn't it can really put lots of people off. Unless they've already planned for it I wouldn't want them to redesign now.

Swtor's legacy system had it's perks, but it certainly wasn't the knockout feature they built it up to be. It was nice having unlocks that would be used by all your characters and I'd like to see something like that in Wildstar.

Perhaps a family tree would be cool too. Except instead of being half ass'd and pointless, maybe allow you to link other players on the server to your tree. Sharing last names and so on.

While I like that option of a family tree (give RP players stuff) I don't really feel any benefit in a non-RP environment. Maybe if they gave certain bonuses for different positions in the tree (aka if you have a knowledgeable guy you put him as the grandfather, he give xp boost to those below him in his party). This could make it really interesting and build cool group dynamics, but would take a lot of time to implement for very little boost.

Edit: " of a family tree "

^ I think you're over thinking it a bit. I'm also a bit confused as to why you think some of these things wouldn't be handy in a non-RP environment, could you elaborate a bit?

I'm a big fan of legacy systems, especially how SWTOR implemented (and had hoped to implement) the system. The only issue I've ever had is that I tend to try to roll alts, but quite often end up petering out on them. SWTOR was nice in that I was rewarded account-wide even if I stuck with one character. So long as a system doesn't make multiple toons seem mandatory to fully realize the rewards, I think a legacy-style system can add a fun meta layer to an MMO.

I liked the idea behind the legacy tree, I really did. But it was very lacking at least at the start.
However, I can definitely see it taking the place of heirlooms in wow, aka as you unlock your legacy tree and pick certain things, your alts have an easier time leveling in a zone with loftite or can move a bit faster from level 1 to 10 etc. Completely level a settler and scientist and you unlock a new visual for a settler turret that functions exactly like it did previously but its more gadgety looking. Small things like that add flavor so Id be for something like that.

Oops meant to be of the family tree. Doesn't bring much to non-RP.

I'm all for account based bonuses though, but they can really hurt your player base if they aren't done right.

Well, one example could be that if two player married their characters to each other, they could share access with each others house. Perhaps you could make use of your brothers crafting skills while he's logged out. Maybe even issue a challenge to a arch rival from the other faction.

Yeah, there would be many things you could do for it - but many of them would be exploitable. Also have to consider how much time it would take for the implementation of family trees (probably not THAT long, but still quite a while when they could be working on other wider use things).

It could be interesting in the future but it really needs a long hard think about different restrictions and the benifits of having it in the game.

Personally, I find the idea behind a legacy quite appealing. The thought that its not just about having that one awesome character, and any alt starts out as a nobody. The idea of account-wide mounts and achievements ties into that neatly as well (the former perhaps only once you reach cap or something). I like the thought that your whole account contributes, and that the sum of your accomplishments is being tracked rather than making you appear a different person whenever you switch characters - although some people might like that kind of anonymity of course.

But either way, the SWTOR legacy was nice once it finally was in, except for the utterly obscene currency requirements. The free unlocks were all gravy, but the rest was pretty much a) pointless and b) expensive beyond belief, costing 10x more money than I ever possessed, so I said "nah, eff that noise". On its own, it also wasn't enough to keep me playing after having beat the "single player" story on both empire and rebels along with two friends, thus having witnessed most of the class story paths anyways.

But personal grievances with obscene money sinks aside, the system has its perks. Be it a small exp buff for every character at cap, titles, the ability to have say, a larger, shared housing plot when you are really into it.. it has a draw to it, and your legacy name can also serve to spread your rep onto other characters, which might certainly be nice.
(This is where I again suggest that the option to friend a player account rather than just their character also is a cool idea, personally)
So little gadgets, niceties and whatnot, even mild cross-path ideas as have been suggested would be pretty cool, and be rewarding to those who play often, and also to those who might just be altaholics. I definitely favor the idea, and it would add quite a bit to the game. Of course, if Carbine decides to pick it up, I'm fairly certain they would do a great job with it, as they have proven with other elements so far.