Out of the Past

Ha! You thought I was going to talk about the cool Robert Mitchum film from 1947, didn't you? Well, actually I just have, so you'd be right I guess.
However, in my noir mmo (just like in this and numerous other cool-azz films) the past always catches up to you.

How would this work?

Here's what I'm thinking:
At some pre-determined level (say level 40/80), a person from your past suddenly shows up and of course has something on you. Depending on how you've played the game so far (on a scale of coldblooded vs. sweetheart) determines how the next series of missions is constructed. For instance, you've chosen to play a Mob character and your mother shows up @ lvl 40 and you've been a sweetheart. She may be like Tony Soprano's mother and demand you to kill everyone at X location. Say you've been a coldblooded murdering fiend, when your mother shows up she only wants 1 guy roughed up a little, and you can't kill anyone at X location.

Who shows up could also be a random roll. As a Mob character there would be 3 possible persons from Out of the Past; your Ex-girlfriend Janice, your mother Eunice, or Tommy 2-Tone, an ex-business partner.
If you were playing a different race, it would be 3 other possible folks from your emerging back story.

All of this hinges on the 1 absolute fact about Los Angeles: Nobody is born here.

So everyone starts the game by getting off the bus in L.A. (or whatever the city name will be). But there is no better name for Los Angeles than Los Angeles.

Nouns and Verbs

So how would our items and actions be implemented in my noir mmo?

Lets start with items:
Clearly we would need to plumb the depths of 30's & 40's fashion which many have to make movies like L.A. Confidential, etc.
There would be Fedoras, Dungarees, Overalls, Pinafores, Jumpers, Cami Knickers, Mackintosh, Frocks, etc...
As well as various shoes and boots ... Jackets, and Formal wear.

But here's a cool thing: People in the 30's bought "Patterns" for clothes (my dad actually made us winter jackets from these patterns while we were living in Alaska), which are rice paper-like thin sheets with dotted lines detailing where the fabric should be stitched, and little marks for inserting pins.
This continued into the 40's because of war rationing. Unlike today (despite being in a war), people were encouraged to repair their clothing, not continue to spend freely.

Now we've got Tailoring as an historically apropos profession, and one that spans the 2 decades.

These Patterns ("recipes" in WoW) can be bought and sold, learned by tailors, etc.
But I think it would be cool to have non-tailors be able to learn low-level patterns not unlike how the "First-Aid, Cooking, and Fishing" professions are implemented in WoW.

Tailors, on the other hand, could em beau their creations with added benefit to the wearer: Shoes with increased Speed, Fedora with increased Diplomacy, Overcoat with added intimidation.

Other items would of course include weapons.
Pistols: Derringers, old Peacemakers, pocket model Smith & Wesson .22, and many more...
Shotgun: yes, they had sawed-off shotguns then, and lighter models like the 4-10.
Rifles: Remington, Winchester, etc.

So Gun-smith should be a playable profession.

But here's where it could get real interesting: In the war years, people often remember seeing trucks loaded with anti-aircraft guns and other large-caliber stationary munitions traveling through town.

I can picture a mob related mission to steal one of these things and use it to take out a rival's hide-out, or yacht...

Other items: books, magazines, newspapers, cigars, cigarettes, pocket-watches, monocles, wrist watches, rings, suspenders, cuff links, ties, eye glasses. And each of these things can be "enchanted" to boost a players abilities.

Other thoughts?

First things First

I don't have a name for this game. Team Bondi and Rockstar are working and on a single-player game called L.A. Noir, which has nothing to do with this. That is a real game, this is wishful thinking. Despite how excited I am for the game to come out, I'm a little disappointed in the title...I mean, the term "noir" wasn't used then to describe itself, and since you're asking the player to immerse him/herself in the character of the time, it seems odd to misrepresent the era that way, but whatever.

The point is I need a name, and clearly it shouldn't have the word "noir" in it.

Ok, the history of the word begins in the 50's in France (hence the french word...yeah), with writers like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut who weren't filmmakers yet, just brilliant journos. This is their description of an American Cult film that was NOT a genre. Odd, but true. Probably is now, I guess.

So the entire scene requires/is defined by an outside perspective. Interesting. Something we'll revisit.