Shalmendo: I'm dearly hoping for more minion variety, and actual working bonuses for Maximillian. I'm not sure how many people know this, but Max was SUPPOSED to have a deep discount on purchasing research shortcuts but it was never implemented properly so he literally ended up as the 'vanilla' villain with no bonuses.
I'm also hoping we can choose our lair location from several options. The whole lair in the mountain/volcano thing is pretty sweet, but i'd like to see variations like an underwater base (Dr. No anyone?), all the way to a MOON BASE. Each could come with some special kind of bonus, like cutting down on agent arrivals, or preventing certain kinds of agents (or even super agents) from showing up because of it's location or other factors, or offering specials like a place to mine your own gold, or a special resource you could sell for more, or use in minion food to brain boost them or somesuch. I'm just throwing out some ideas, but I think they could REALLY go all out with this and make it a true worthy sequel that could blow us away. A lot of the base mechanics would be fine to reuse, trap building, building the lair, a major superweapon research project, but I'd like to see things expanded and offer us more variety and choice, and possibly some new mechanics as well. I'd also like to see trap combinations in which you can combine the effects of different traps in nefarious ways that offer bonuses to the trap effects if you create a good combo, or possibly some unique temporary effects on the enemy agents like 'dazed' or 'stupified' that would help protect your base even more (Does anyone remember the temporary loyalty damage the diplomat minions could do to make agents forget their mission for awhile and turn into tourists for a bit? I relied on that heavily!)
I do agree that DK2 was a bit of a dissappointment in some ways, but I actually liked both games and they kind of felt like slightly different takes on the same game idea, while each was very good in it's own right. As a direct sequel, DK2 was...not super great at being a sequel. I did enjoy a lot of the game improvements though, and the improved graphics were very welcome. Still, it was a bit more like a do-over then a sequel, and if you look at it that way it makes more sense and is just as enjoyable.
Don't get me wrong, DK2 is a good game, it's just not one that inspires me to come back to the way that the original one did.
Personally, I'd love it if there were a third island or as you suggest some choices. I do think they're starting with a really strong game, but I totally agree that more variety would be nice.
Different rooms and possibly not being able to have all types of minions would be interesting as well.
More room types would be good but I'm kind of blanking on what you would need beyond the existing ones from the original? Possibly some of the unique bases could offer access to a unique room type exclusive to each base that fits the whole theme, or uniquely styled items.. maybe the entire base would be a different style, unique walls and floor textures for the underwater base to match the theme or something.
Higher population count is probably going to be necessary. It always was in the original... It was difficult to run a base properly and still operate on the world map unless you edited the config files (or got a mod) to increase the pop cap. Hmm, not being able to access all the minion types doesn't sound like a good idea, but I can see each villain possibly having access to unique variations of certain types of minions with bonuses? Like Max could have construction minions that construct faster, or produce better reinforced rooms or something. I'm not sure of the other villain names, but there's one who looks very military and could have better trained military minions that could potentially carry upgraded weaponry and be more deadly and efficient. The 'science lady' could have an improved version of scientists that can chew through the research trees faster.
I'm hoping the new villains have interesting bonuses. I'm also hoping they let us put cameras in the hotel areas XD I never understood that decision... Thankfully mods can make a lot of quality of life improvements for the original so that helps A LOT. Actually, it would be really nice if there were some special traps or varieties of traps, for hotels that wouldn't freak out tourists....or at least have a smaller chance of freaking them out, and being more difficult to spot. I remember soldiers rumbilng through my hotels and shooting up EVERYTHING including my helpless social minions.. That was annoying to deal with XD. But hotel variety traps could somehow operate in a way that conceals their operation from third parties nearby by throwing up screens/curtains or something to block the action for a moment before the trap cycle ends and drops down again. They could also be pretty harmless traps that don't do physical damage but instead daze or confuse the enemy agents instead so they're like 'wait what happened?' instead of 'Ow I got a piranha biting my arse!'
Personally, I'd love to see more 'stylistic' choices. I.e. you could focus your combat against enemy agents more on the dazing and confusing end, or the pure deadly end instead based on the variety of traps you have available, and the minion types. I know you could create a swarm of social minions to just confuse the heck out of everyone en masse, I recall having like 20 social minions standing around a target agent waiting for their turn to razzle-dazzle them. I'd also like to see customization options for minion outfit styles and colors, and I'd like to see this extend to customizing the base styling... having different wall and floor style options for the corridors and rooms, and different furniture style skins would be nice too! I get that would be a lot of extra work, though, but it was always on my wishlist since playing the original. The existing style is nice, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the retro 70's aesthetic, but i'd like to see more takes on that kind of style with various themes. Like what about a bunch of japanese style lamps and furniture everywhere? Or super sci-fi everything-glows with blinking lights, or a more industrial reinforced style with metal furniture bearing rivets and trusses. You could do a lot with 'retro 70's' if you look to various cultures of the era to get inspiration from.
I'm so excited about this game I really want to preorder it the second it becomes available but I REALLY want to wait and see if it comes on gog, too... Or maybe a gog connect option? I haven't seen anything offered on Connect for awhle...
(God I could ramble about this all day XD)
