Disclaimer
To clear any possible confusion right off the bat, I will say it loud and clear right now:
Private servers from this suggestion are separate from the main game, and have absolutely no connection to it. The player won’t be able to carry and data over from the private servers to the main game, as that isn’t the purpose of these servers. Why this is the case, I’ll get to soon.
Base idea
Arcane Odyssey, by itself, is a wonderful game, for all its flaws. It’s quite flexible, allowing the players to do many different things. Yet, certain things are still left to be desired.
First of all, the many various locations in the game are extremely scenic, and could make for excellent stories. Games such as The Wild West even had fanmade movies made in them. Yet, AO is still an RPG, meaning stuff like notoriety ships, randomly spawning criminals and other stuff takes away some control from the player, making the creation of such content much more tedious.
Further on, a big issue in buildmaking currently is a system that, for all its flexibility, is still utterly stiff. And while tools like the build maker indeed exist, the player is unable to properly test their builds in the actual game, unless they actually gather all the things they need. If the build turns out to be bad, they’ve already wasted a ton of time, money, enchantments and other items trying to get it.
These private servers that would give the player a level of control over the game would fix these two issue easily, and also offer up an excellent new way for the developers to make money.
Separation from the main game
As said in the disclaimer, the goal of these servers is to be completely split from the main game. Players would only be able to copy their slots from the main game to the server, not vice versa. Due to the intended access to commands in these servers, many checks should be put in place to ensure there is absolutely no way for players to transfer anything back into the main game, lest the consequences be disastrous.
Commands
The highlight of the private server. Upon joining their private server, the owner would be able to access a menu with multiple settings that would control the numerous aspects of the game. These would include but not be limited to:
- Changing the tier, amount and type of notoriety ships spawned, as well as their crews.
- Changing the tiers, amounts, types, strength and spawn rates of ships from each faction.
- Changing the rarity of various chests, their spawn times and drop chances.
- Changing the spawn rates and rarities of sea creatures.
- Changing the maximum levels, spawn rates, strength and spawning locations of enemy towers.
There would also be individual commands that allow the player to more precisely script events. These could include, but yet again not be limited to:
- Spawning villains, heroes and minibosses both at a chosen location and at a spawn points, former two being completely editable.
- Spawning editable ships at a chosen location.
- Giving the player desired items.
- Spawning enemy towers at chosen islands, with editable rooms, levels, enemies and even loot.
- Creating treasure charts with editable loot and locations.
- Initiating editable weather events.
- Controlling the list of players with access to the server.
The list goes on, and these commands are meant to be simple enough for quick use, but also allow players to greatly customize their experience.
This would allow players to create treasure hunts, shoot movies, hold tournaments and events, test their builds easily, and would also be an excellent source of monetization.