Additional setting suggestions for the use of Wayfarer (31/01/01)
By MN
Based on: Story Suggestions (15/01/01)

DotBall

Setting

A version of the “Iron Man” game but even more competitive and much faster.

Two teams compete against each other in a game called “DotBall” for which the whole of Wayfarer County is the virtual sporting ground. 
Each team controls one character in Wayfarer County and both of these competing characters are equipped exactly alike (compass, map, running equipment). 

Both teams receive a copy of the hardcover map but there are no fixed checkpoints marked on this map.
Instead, both teams receive the bearings of special markers simultaneously. These numbers indicate the positions of “balls” and the positions of “dots”. The teams have to find the positions of the “balls” and “dots” in the map, reach these places in the VR representation and pick up the “balls” to deliver them to the “dots”.

Gameplay 

The game tasks are:
•	find the precise positions in the hardcover map and mark it as your checkpoints
•	develop a good strategy (e.g. avoid the swamp, use a river draft downstream, navigate along the streetlights …)
•	reach one of the “balls” in VR, pick them up 
•	deliver it to one of the “dots”, the virtual goalposts
•	repeat with the next targeted “ball”
•	keep within a certain time limit
The more balls they find and score at the dots, the more points the team gets. 

Instead of sub-games there might be free roaming “wild balls” that are rolling around the map and can be found, but to chase a “wild ball” the player has to forget about the chosen navigational path and go for the ball. Once the ball is captured the player has to orientate anew in the environment.

Another option as sub-game replacement would be warp gates. If one ball is delivered to a dot a warp effect could catapult the characters to a new position in the Wayfarer County. The team has to define the new position and decide on the next strategy to make points.

There is no help function at all.

Reward

Obvious goal is to be better than the other team. One either achieves this goal and leaves the room as a winner or not. There could be DotBall ladders and leagues, as well as proper tournaments keeping track of the performance of the players.

Special: Teamplay

To achieve the competitive team against team mode there are three set-ups possible:
1)	one team plays after the other on the same computer
2)	both teams play simultaneously on two separate systems
3)	both teams play simultaneously on two machines but in the same shared VR
This setting, therefore, implies possible shared environment and multiplayer options.

MTV

Setting

The local newspapers report about a rock band shooting their latest music video in Wayfarer County. 
On the set everything is set up for the shot, the director realises that the band member themselves are not present. They obviously got lost on the way to the set and are somewhere out in the environment. 
Players can chose from one member of the film crew. Each one has some strengths and weaknesses: 
•	the young set assistance has sneakers, but no binoculars, 
•	the older cameraman has the camera as binoculars, but is slow 
•	the producer has the best compass
•	the lighting operator has the best stamina 
They will receive their orders from a raging director to find the band members as soon as possible or the whole video-shot is off. Certain designated locations have been defined – you have to check them and find all the missing band members.

Gameplay

If the player finds a designated checkpoint and the band member hiding there, one enters a sub-game
•	one has to assemble certain landmarks on a very rough map so that the rock star will find his/her way back to the film set; as a symbol of the little success one receives a reward e.g. in a autograph with some nice words that mirror the speed of the discovery, the faster you find the band member, the more friendly the “thank you” note
•	one has to point towards the exact direction of the film set and the found band member will head of to this direction automatically; this rescued member might leave a reward e.g. a new equipment element such as food that will make the player character walk faster
•	one has to create a way description from a multiple choice form and leave part of one’s equipment with the band member (e.g. the binoculars or sneakers – depending on what you have in your inventory)

The help function here is the crackling short-range radio often used at film sets. The director can call you from time to time and demand faster progress (demanding motivation), give hints were you are at the moment (classic help), or report that thanks to you another band member made it back to the set (rewarding motivation).

Reward

If one fails to find the band members the newspapers appear again, mentioning the tragic break-up of a promising newcomer band because they did not finish their most important video. If one succeeds newspapers tell about the sudden rise of a new super group and thank a new member that brought them back together and was included in the group afterwards. 
(If somehow possible, it would be good to receive a song of the band in the end.)

Special: Music

Offering a strong MTV related narrative content allows the implementation of a variety of user motivating music tunes as well a references to young video clip culture icons.

Treasure Hunt

Setting

Aerial photographs of Wayfarer County showed some strange marks that could be ancient burial grounds. Based on these photographs a historic expert suggests some checkpoints, but it is basically up to you, the player, to make up your own strategy to explore the site. You can choose your own targets from the aerial photo and if you chose wisely this targets will match the invisibly implemented “checkpoints”. 

The task is to sense metallic burial gifts with a special metal detector. Everybody starts in the beginning at the same level and with a certain amount of money for equipment. The players can spend this money on the movement, compass, food supply … and on the quality of their metal detector. The more money one spends on the detector, the worse will be the rest of the mainly navigational and movement-equipment but the deeper one can search.

It is an almost endless setting, because players can come back to the base and sell their equipment in order to buy new metal detectors and search the same places (or new ones) again. Different detectors will find different sorts of coins and an expert in the camp reconstructs the history of the site. More and more secrets get revealed and add up to a mayor historical discovery (e.g. this could be the a long lost city). 

Gameplay

The aim is three-fold: 
1.	read and interpret the aerial photograph and decide where to search for items (= define your own checkpoints)
2.	find the checkpoints in the VR with the help of a second map
3.	optimise your equipment so that you understand the map better and better even without the technical assistance, but improve on the item search

Help functions would be provided by the “expert” in the home base. For example, as an option one could bypass the first step by offering a variety of possible digging sites. 
Another task of this expert is to analyse the found relicts and hint to probably more, still hidden artefacts.

The sub-games would consist of small metal-detector simulating games. They would be Director Lingo games simulating simple search functions.

Reward

Each found artefact adds up to a major picture of a sunken civilisation. Little secrets are spread throughout the collection of these elements. The expert interprets the found relicts and spins a more and more complex storyline around them.

Special: Cross-content

This approach combines the 3D navigational nature of Wayfarer with the option of additional information. This additional information can be part of other courses (e.g. history, art, geography). Putting the Wayfarer County in a historic, social, and cultural context would add another layer of information handling to the process of orientation.

New World

Setting

Back in the ancient past … 
It is the age of the great adventurers and discovery journeys. Your ship reached unknown shores of Wayfarer County. The sailors are exhausted and your captain sends you, his trusty navigator, to discover the yet undiscovered land and find the urgently needed resources for the sailors:
•	water
•	wood
•	shelter
•	food 
•	minerals
There exists no map of the complete place. Nevertheless, using his binocular, the navigator character was able to draw a map of the near surrounding (for the player this happened automatically). This map is printed out via a simple printer connected to the computer.
Your navigator character has spotted a church that could serve as a save home for the sailors (or a lake that could provide drinking water, or some trees for the wood, etc. whatever the order might be).

Gameplay

Using the print out of the map, the player has to steer the navigator character to the specified next checkpoint. Once the player has discovered this checkpoint and found another resource your navigator character automatically draws the next part of the map and sets up the next checkpoint, the next spot where one will find another resource.

This automatically drawn map will be printed out from the computer. All the print outs have to be assembled by the player in reality to a coherent map of the Wayfarer County. 

If some help function is needed it would be delivered via voice over from the navigator character. As if he was mumbling to himself (“Hm, I thought the river was to our right …”).

Reward

The last checkpoint could include a hidden treasure. The navigator character can discover some information about it in the church, add some more near the entrance to an iron mine and finally suspect, that the mentioned treasure is hidden at a last checkpoint. 

As a sub-game the player could name the different landmarks s/he discovered. The map unfolds part by part (mirroring the idea of a re-usable puzzle VR), from one checkpoint to the next, and the player has to combine the print outs to one reasonable hardcover map of the whole environment. The printout includes the player-defined names and it will be handed to the player as final reward to take home.  

Special: Growing map

During the game the position of the player to the character s/he is steering is a more complex one. You are not the navigator as this character has a mind of his own and serves as a help function. The navigator delivers the growing map parts that have to be assembled in reality. Only a perfectly assembled map will enable the player in reality to steer the navigator character precise in the virtual environment.

Delivery

Setting

In the not too distant future … 
Wayfarer County is a dangerous place. It symbolises a country right after the end of a war. Throughout the virtual environment futuristic mines threaten the player’s life. Each mine has an “active” radius. These are the wide “checkpoints” that have to be avoided by the player.

The good news is that the player has an exact computer generated map showing each single mine and its danger radius.

The bad new is that desperately needed medicals were dropped from an aircraft and got carried away from their original target right into the middle of the minefields. 
The package has a radio signal that can be tracked but it is lost somewhere in this environment. Nobody knows its precise position.

You, the player, receive the mission briefing from your medical task force chief telling you about the package and the situation in Wayfarer County.

Gameplay

You enter the shores of Wayfarer County as special task operator. You are not allowed to carry any kind of weapons or special equipment except for navigating, due to the difficult and delicate peace negotiations. So you cannot destroy or defuse the mines.
Nevertheless, the lost package has to be delivered to the medical station.

Your task: 
•	avoid the mines all the time
•	find the medicine package by using the radio-tracking device
•	bring the package to the medical station

You can receive help from your commander via the radio and each mine radius could have a certain alarm sound; if you step into a mine radius this alarm sound starts and you have a few seconds to step out of it again before the mine attacks you.

The mines do not have to be killing mechanisms, but could instead paralyse the player, if the dying aspect is too harsh.

If the radio-tracking device proves to be too technically demanding, one could replace it with the exact position of the package.

A more complicated future special feature would be to include “moving mines” so that instead of fixed checkpoints one has to keep in mind that the mines are actually slowly travelling in certain patterns in the environment.

Reward

If the player succeeds, s/he receives a special congratulation message from the medical task operator. If the mission is a failure and the player gets “caught” by the mines a newspaper report might refer to another mine victim lost in the aftermath of the war.

Special: “negative” navigation

Instead of going to a special location here the player has to avoid special locations to reach the designated goal.