Active Day Jobs anyone?

After hanging out at the Winter Chalet recently, I've come to realize that City of Heroes/City of Villains has an active downtime community. I've been exposed to people who are happy walking around in plain clothes while doing what heroes and villains do when not fighting each other. I figured that if zones could motivate players to gravitate toward them, more people who are resting from a TF or who are looking for new friends to team with could hang out in otherwise vastly unpopulated zones and maybe get something for it. Thus, my idea: Active Day Jobs! It's my general term for participating in an activity that is not related to being a superhero/supervillain. However if the current day job themes could be incorporated, that would be great.

What if zones actually "attracted" us for something other than combat based events such as raids, giant monsters and burning buildings? Active Dayjobs might bring a social element to the game that otherwise exists on only one or two servers. I'm not talking about having a zone fall into ruin if neglected or physically changing based on player interaction like Recluse's Victory though.

Imagine a group of ten or more people gathering around a specific group of benches at a specific park in a specific zone for a specific amount of time. The group would unlock that location's temporary buff granting aura (or temporary emote granting aura) which would stay active for a short time. Anyone who enters that location before the "granting timer" runs out could get the buff or emote. The buffs could be the same as those from the supergroup base empowerment stations I suppose. Remember, this is for downtime when you don't feel like running missions but still want to hang out in-game!

I like the idea of a character posing as a street musician using an emote to play an acoustic guitar (or cello). If enough people camped out in that area long enough, they would activate that areas's temporary endurance boost granting aura. This aura would be on a timer and would give maybe a 1 hour endurance buff based on the buff given by the SG base empowerment station. Perhaps the acoustic guitar (cello) emote could also be obtained here or at a similar location in another zone.

I figured that certain "theme" buildings or locations in a zone could unlock a temporary emote related to that theme. For example, having ten people standing around a motorcycle shop long enough would cause the area to grant a "sitbike" emote that lasts for an hour or so. When the building's "emote granting aura" is unlocked, any player who made it to the location before the "granting aura" expired would get that emote. /e sitbike would pop up a motorcycle that the player would straddle and sit on (facing forward) or lean on (facing perpendicular 90 degrees away from the bike) until the player interrupted the emote... like the /e laptop emote.

There could also be "temporary" costumes (like the Halloween one piece costumes). These would last until that character logs off and would be granted by many players hanging out at a certain location related to that theme for a certain amount of time (five minutes?). Examples could be a black and white striped prision uniform or undercover cop costume for heroes hanging out inside a police station or a "Family" gunner costume for villains staying inside or near the Marcone building in Port Oakes, or some designated spot in Sharkhead Bay, Nerva or St. Martial. I'd ask for gender specific costumes but enough is too much already.

There can be only one or two unique places like this per zone so that people would have to visit different zones to get the different temp emotes, temp buffs and temp costumes.

I wanted to make this appealing to more than just roleplayers (I'm still 80% SMASH!), hence the temp buffs. Yet, I'd also think it would be cool to hop into Potter's Field or Dark Astoria and see a large group of future grave diggers hanging out while they wait for their temporary "gravedig" emote "OR" one hour (non-combat) Mask of Death or Totem boss pet summoning ability.

Personally, I'd like to unlock temporary emotes of rock band instruments (bass, lead guitar, drum set, keyboard, and microphone on micstand). These could be obtained either by hanging out at the ampitheater in Perez Park or the PaWN shop in Kings Row (is there an ampitheater or pawn shop in the Rogue Isles?). These won't make any sounds! If they did, they would be unpopular very quickly. My friend wishes she had a band at her mock wedding in Talos. Maybe the ampitheater could grant temporary costumes that resemble characters from the works of Homer and Shakespeare?


On another note... Please, you wonderful, great smelling, sexy and socially captivating developers! Please consider selling temporary band instrument emotes at the consignment shops and black market or maybe a rockband/theater booster pack with those instrument emotes and clothing? Name it "Band and Stage"

The Cursed Sorcerer approves.

I really don't see this as being a particularly useful feature. People who want to spend some downtime hanging out with other players (whether RP'ing or just shooting the breeze) will generally prefer to do in a convenient location rather than going somewhere special for a minor bonus. It basically feels like an attempt to bribe players into participating in an activity that they wouldn't normally engage in and we all know how well that worked for PvP.

I wouldn't mind some sort of active day job system but I'd prefer it to be something you actively play rather than getting a bonus for going AFK in a particular location (and yes if the bonuses are at all useful people will do it, trying to prevent it is almost impossible).

I don't see this as being any less useful than the PVP system for people who don't PVP, the MA system for people who don't like the MA system, or even the offline day job system for people who don't care about the badges, accolades or buffs. The people who do use those systems enjoy them well enough, however. I do like the caveat of having to be "at the keyboard" in order to get the buff/emote/costume though. I think being forced to do something that breaks the emersion of "hanging out" like having to click on the ground to whack a gopher every ten seconds may be fun for some and annoying for others. It would draw a more active crowd though.

As for being a bribe to visit a zone, that's exactly what I intended. Some groups do enjoy gathering in remote places to hold certain events that aren't fitting to be held at a super base. This active day job system would provide added incentive to occupy "hot spots" for the sake of livening up under-used zones as well as more active zones. It would also give people who like special emotes or costumes something to play with when they don't feel like running missions. The other point of this is to promote the idea of life when you're not being a "super!"

It's not meant for everyone as most players would probably just run from mission to mission until they're tired and log off. This is for those who want a break from combat but still feel like interacting in some way, show off their new outfits, hold events and contests and maybe get a buff to take to the next mission.

I will admit that this system, like many of the existing systems would see less use on sparcely populated servers. If anyone has ideas about how to make it more active, you have the floor! It's something that would be there for anyone to use so the more input, the better.