What? The virus infected the motors?
The Thought: Motorbikes/Bicycles could be stolen from enemies, built from blueprints, upgraded, stored, helicopter-dropped etc etc. The specifics are not important at this moment.
Philosophy: I believe that while traveling, the number of buildings you pass per minute will dictate how fresh, alive and interesting the Game-World appears. It is common to hear the complaint that the Game-World is uninteresting and not diverse. I think this is a false perception. A perception generated by the fact that it can take 30 seconds to walk by a single building. Let New York wiz by our faces, and we will feel your Game-World come to life! Hell, we might even learn our way around without a map. Game immersion people!
Game Play Uses & Ideas: The game has a bit too much boring travel right now. Mix that up with bicycles, motorcycles and bad-*** "High-End" Ninja Bikes.
*It would certainly be possible for the bikes to follow the quality system from "worn" to "high-end" etc. Buffs and bonuses associated with the bikes could be possible. Lower Threat Levels or other buffs could be toyed with.
*Some bikes could allow two players to ride; one player could sit behind the other. The passenger player could fire on enemies as the fly by. I think the driver should be pistol only, perhaps only at slower speeds... Perhaps aiming the pistol limits the max speed/acceleration.
*Helicopters could drop motorcycles in the Dark Zone as a special power-up.
*Gear-Sets could be made that improve your motorcycling experience.
*Etc Etc Etc Endless Possible Uses. The details will need worked out, toyed with and dialed in.
Story/Suspension of Disbelief:
Story-wise, the whole no bikes/motorbikes thing breaks my suspension of disbelief. I don't believe in an apocalyptic New York City that isn't strewn with bikes of all types. There should be JTF motorcycle scouts and roaming bands of biker bandits alike.
If you wanted to avoid dropping bikes in the game cold, there could be a whole mission where a gasoline cache is captured or a motorcycle store is captured and made a safe zone, or whatever. There are 1000 ways to work bikes in without just dropping them in cold.
Well, those are my thoughts on bikes at the moment. What do you think?
I have a technical objection to this idea.
It has to do with spawn distance and similar constraints. Even today (I play on PS4) it happens with some regularity that I'm walking along - not even running - and suddenly a group of enemies essentially spawn around me. If I understand correctly, this is because it took the game engine a few seconds extra after I entered the group's patrol area to determine my location, the enemies' relative location, gather all the assets and actually materialise the enemies.
And this is when I'm walking.
If I was travelling at bike or motorcycle speed, it would cause even more problems of that nature.
Also, I suspect that the developers intended for players to be a bit more vulnerable in the game world than we would be inside a car or on a bike.
I do agree, however, that it would be good to see a few active vehicles such as a JTF truck convoy that we would have to defend, or one of those APCs rolling around being a general menace. Not sure if I'd want to be driving one, though.
@deCarabasHJ
I see your thought process. I am sure there are programming hurdles to be taken into account; i don't think those automatically invalidate the idea. Spawn distances and locations are important, but unless you are on the actual dev team, we don't really know if that is an issue or not.
I like the idea of some other NPC vehicles. It would make sense that some of the various groups have cleared a few streets so they can get from place to place.
@Carthalion
Thanks for the noob love lol. As for the idea that ALL the bikes and motorbikes have left the city is just silly talk. Wolfram Alpha says that in 2009 there were 345,400 motorcycles in NYC. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...+New+York+City
Not to mention that the agent's themselves just might have happen to own a motorcycle.
While I like the idea, and I did vote yes on it -- there exists a problem. The world's not big enough yet for a mount system, the Engine likely can't handle that amount of Movement speed, and Fast Travel is so prevelent as to make it a non-option.
If we get expansions that give us other boroughs, I'd agree, I'd prefer a Motorcycle (Dirt bike I imagine so its not too fast and has a very loud sound profile for the DZ) over expanding the Fast Travel system.
EXACTLY. Thank you sir.Originally Posted by Sgt.Saddler Go to original post
Destiny's sparrow vehicle demonstrates perfectly how to allow their "motorcycle" to be used in some spaces and not others. I don't see any problem with letting us get around the open world quickly on a motorcycle; we can already "fast travel," which frankly is not all that fun, and purely a necessary evil.