I've always wanted a massive space ship battle. Have like a guild of folks (we'll call them a crew) controlling a battleship of sorts. Captain, engines, weaponry, radar, communications, etc. Put them up into space against other ships controlled by the same (or NPCs, whatever). AND FIGHT.
With real world damage and physics...I.E ramming into people actually does realistic damage.
I'd love to do an MMO. If I was a billionaire I'd fund one out-of-pocket. Seriously.
I'm picturing three server networks. Each of them dedicated to a country in the game. So technically the game has three servers to play on, but each server may interact freely with the other in the game world.
It seems to me like certain games escalate their conflict far too much. Warcraft, for example, went from being about some orcs in the woods raiding rural outposts to being about the titan Sargeras and his mad quest to remake the world. Who the hell wrote this crap? Sargeras is so distraught about the rampancy of demon activity that he...enlists them in his army and then proceeds to destroy the entire universe with them...and his goal is ultimately to be rid of demonkind forever. He's using them to destroy themselves? Really?
Anyway, local conflict, politics, skirmishes, and the dynamics of a rich and detailed world far, far outweigh the drama of 'mortals vs mortals vs gods'. In my opinion. So, ending this tangent, what I'm getting at is three 'functional countries, with provinces, with their own economies, their own crafting specialties, a player based export system that works around region-exclusive technologies, and perhaps even their own systems of government. It is possible for something to be realistic and still interesting, and I think that's probably the right stance to take in MMO worldbuilding. I'm thinking each landmass should be in the neighborhood of 40,000-250,000 square miles. (200x200ish - 500x500ish). Why? Because I feel that it's important to have something to explore. And because I don't think that conflict really has the flavor of conflict without that scale. What happened with MMOs last generation was people weren't happy with having to go places. They wanted to get things done instantly, and be rewarded just as quickly. Well, I say too bad. There's lots of crap to do and plenty of time to do it, so take a break and see the sights.
Which brings me to my next point. The environment of an MMO should not be focused entirely on the story of that particular game. What ever happened to just finding a cave and taking a look? Or venturing into an area that's dangerous by its own right? I have to bring up world of warcraft again as an example. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, every quest, every zone, every person has their own story, their own motive, their own thing happening. But for some reason that thing is invariably tied to the larger conflict somehow. There's no room for personal adventure or personal accomplishment is what I'm saying. Nobody does anything for themselves in WoW. Everyone's a hero, everyone's in the military, everyone has a shiny weapon and shinier armor and all they use it for is exactly what the game tells them to. Nothing else.
In my game, character customization would be incredible. It would put city of heroes to shame. Age, height, weight, construction, muscle mass, breast size, and proportions would all be adjustable (And calibrated to fit within fairly realistic boundaries) The crafting system would allow blades, hafts, hilts, clothing, armor to be shaped, colored, designed by the people who crafted them. Any given crafter could create a unique item and then 'patent' that item so that they were the only supplier for a while. And there you have incentive to craft. Different eyes, long hair, short hair, cheekbones, brow arc. All adjustable.
A world that makes sense - So that not every area is encircled in mountains purely for the sake of controlling the players.
Some say that my vision is ambitious. Too ambitious. If I'm ever a billionaire I'll show 'em.
I'd like a Shadowrun MMO. A good cyberpunk mmo would be awesome, especially if they had a good hacking system. There was a half-life two mod i played a while back that was really awesome that had a really badass hacking system...
Which brings me to my next point. The environment of an MMO should not be focused entirely on the story of that particular game. What ever happened to just finding a cave and taking a look? Or venturing into an area that's dangerous by its own right? I have to bring up world of warcraft again as an example. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, every quest, every zone, every person has their own story, their own motive, their own thing happening. But for some reason that thing is invariably tied to the larger conflict somehow. There's no room for personal adventure or personal accomplishment is what I'm saying. Nobody does anything for themselves in WoW. Everyone's a hero, everyone's in the military, everyone has a shiny weapon and shinier armor and all they use it for is exactly what the game tells them to. Nothing else.
This is a good point. I've often felt that exploration was one of the driving strengths of an MMO, but most MMOs I've played recently sort of don't do that anymore. There's always a quest for every part of the game these days. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I remember playing this game Clan Lord a bunch of years ago on my old Mac, and really enjoying exploring really dangerous places where I probably shouldn't have gone.
I can't cast final judgement yet, but Spellborn has the credo "What lies hidden must be found" and they seem to go for a world full of things to explore.
I often just play a free MMO to check out their world, I'm the James Cook of MMOs. :P
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Captain ElevenThe last card is a kronkRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
I've always wondered why someone hasn't done an Old West-themed MMO.
I can't cast final judgement yet, but Spellborn has the credo "What lies hidden must be found" and they seem to go for a world full of things to explore.
I often just play a free MMO to check out their world, I'm the James Cook of MMOs. :P
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that one, I made a thread about it here.
I've always wanted a massive space ship battle. Have like a guild of folks (we'll call them a crew) controlling a battleship of sorts. Captain, engines, weaponry, radar, communications, etc. Put them up into space against other ships controlled by the same (or NPCs, whatever). AND FIGHT.
With real world damage and physics...I.E ramming into people actually does realistic damage.
That would be cool.
The problem is everyone wants to be either a pilot or a gunner. Making sure the engine doesn't overheat, or watching blips on a screen? Yawnfest. It would work if you just had a ton of guns for people to control, provided you had NPCs to fill in for missing spots, but I'm not sure if it'd work as an MMO since few players would really feel in control of their progression and goals if they were stuck manning someone else's ship all the time.
The problem is everyone wants to be either a pilot or a gunner. Making sure the engine doesn't overheat, or watching blips on a screen? Yawnfest. It would work if you just had a ton of guns for people to control, provided you had NPCs to fill in for missing spots, but I'm not sure if it'd work as an MMO since few players would really feel in control of their progression and goals if they were stuck manning someone else's ship all the time.
I've always wanted a massive space ship battle. Have like a guild of folks (we'll call them a crew) controlling a battleship of sorts. Captain, engines, weaponry, radar, communications, etc. Put them up into space against other ships controlled by the same (or NPCs, whatever). AND FIGHT.
With real world damage and physics...I.E ramming into people actually does realistic damage.
That would be cool.
The problem is everyone wants to be either a pilot or a gunner. Making sure the engine doesn't overheat, or watching blips on a screen? Yawnfest. It would work if you just had a ton of guns for people to control, provided you had NPCs to fill in for missing spots, but I'm not sure if it'd work as an MMO since few players would really feel in control of their progression and goals if they were stuck manning someone else's ship all the time.
Yeah, thats what I've always thought would be the major downfall of something like it. Nobody wants to do bitch work. Another suggestion would be to have a captain handling the piloting of the larger gunship, communications, radar etc...have players opt to be Gunners manning the torpedos, weapon batteriesm etc. Then you could also have a ship hanger and let players man fighters to go out and buzz around the battleship.
I used to hope for a Dune game online. Think of all the crazy characters you could make. Mentats, Tleilaxu, Reverand Mothers, Navigators, Smugglers, Fremen, Sardaukar, Fish Speakers, Zensunni doctors and shit. You have a bunch of guilds and houses that are all in conflict with each other, openly and covertly. Lots of politics and intrigue. Lots of hand-to-hand combat. Then I cry and realize that this game would be way too complex and fucked up. Not to mention shitting all over canon to get anything to work at all.
I used to hope for a Dune game online. Think of all the crazy characters you could make. Mentats, Tleilaxu, Reverand Mothers, Navigators, Smugglers, Fremen, Sardaukar, Fish Speakers, Zensunni doctors and shit. You have a bunch of guilds and houses that are all in conflict with each other, openly and covertly. Lots of politics and intrigue. Lots of hand-to-hand combat. Then I cry and realize that this game would be way too complex and fucked up. Not to mention shitting all over canon to get anything to work at all.
I can just imagine the trade channel of dune:
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
...
S> Water for Spice!
--
The game could work as long as they keep it simple and keep the current writers far far far away from it.
Y'all remember that old Xbox game Crimson Skies? Something like that. A world where everyone and anyone has an airship and flies around to cities based around the airships. Also does airplane thingies, like dogfighting and all that.
I'm slowly trying to develop a game engine of some sort using XNA and whatnot, and my ultimate goal is to eventually make an MMO. I'll never get there of course, but it's fun to work with that in mind
The idea I've been working on mostly is a sort of dream world filled with lots of fantasy and steampunk elements. The dream world element comes into play in that parts / all of the world don't always function as normal laws of physics would dictate. So, there might be one area where around 5:37 PM gravity decides to go in reverse and slightly to the left just because it can.
What I would like to do is make it so the world is mostly procedurally generated. So, developers / content creators would input different patterns, pattern interactions, art assets, basic story elements and a few magic numbers into a blender and out pops an infinitely expandable world (a fractal of sorts). Different parts of the world can sometimes be connected by stuff like rabbit holes or weird phenomena to make exploration a bit more interesting (going from point A to B isn't always as simple as plotting a course across a continent). I love exploring large worlds, and I think it would be incredible to have a world that can keep going on and on. The key issue is making sure that the world generation has enough interesting content to use and that it uses the content in ways that are fairly unique (making it difficult for players to see the patterns at work).
One of the biggest things I would like to have though is for players to be able to have some real effect on the world their characters live in. So, instead of constantly trying to amass more loot so that you can more easily amass more loot, players would be able to form their own towns, cities and countries whose livelihoods depend on their residents.
An mmo shouldn't just be about creating "fun" grinds for players to go through to advance their characters. I want to try and include as many fun things to do as possible by making the game as flexible as possible. I want there to be enough fun stuff to do that players wouldn't feel the need to push towards max level and would instead find activities they want to do at their own pace. So, instead of a progression treadmill I guess this would be more like just creating a virtual world for characters to live in. Players might choose to become craftsmen, traders, warriors, politicians, explorers, etc.
Also, with the world generation, it might be possible to generate new content on the fly based on the player base's interaction with the world. So, if a player succeeds or fails in a task given to them by one of the game's authorities, certain events might follow that. With such a large world that's changing over time it might be possible to spread out the content in such a way that every character in the game can have a fairly unique experience instead of doing the same things as every other character has done before.
It's all very out there at the moment, but I think that's close to what I'd like to see in an ideal mmo.
If they made a Pokémon MMO similar to the gameboy games (and before there were 500000 different species because I'm all out of the loop since 151 or whatevs) I doubt I'd ever go outside again.
Ive always wanted a Jet Set Radio MMO. With an actual live Jet Set Radio streaming to all the players with awesome music, your own graffitti, tag battles and insane rocket skating in a huge seamless city. Hell more than one city. Have a tram take you between cities ( or skate the rails if you iz hardcore ).
Ive always dreamed of that. Shame it will probably never happen.
Y'all remember that old Xbox game Crimson Skies? Something like that. A world where everyone and anyone has an airship and flies around to cities based around the airships. Also does airplane thingies, like dogfighting and all that.
Or MechWarrior MMO.
I loved that game, but I never managed to finish it. Fuck that mission in NYC where you first have to follow around some sort of cab driver and then bomb the shit out of a factory while being chased by a bunch of interceptors. If I wanted to win from the cab driver I needed a very fast plane, if I wanted to bomb the factory I needed a very heavy plane but if I wanted to dodge the interceptors I needed a faster plane again.
I never managed to develop the skills to do that mission or fine tune a plane to be just right.
It would be great to have a MMO on this game, they could just copy/paste the creator-thing from the original, it already offered enough options to satisfy my needs.
If they made a Pokémon MMO similar to the gameboy games (and before there were 500000 different species because I'm all out of the loop since 151 or whatevs) I doubt I'd ever go outside again.
They must be stopped.
Oh, man.
My own little trainer, a wide world of pokemon...that's it. That's all I got.
Levels in these kind of games need to work differently though.
And will someone explain to me why melee damage in RPGs seems to invariably be (WPN damage + unarmed damage = total damage) or (ATK + STR = the variable for some hidden formula)? Why isn't it something like a base value derived from the quality, material, and size of the weapon, modified by strength and mitigated by armor to create a final value.
A Pokemon MMORPG would destroy society as we know it. People die leveling / pimping out one character in regular MMOs. Add a stable of 150 (33000 with expansions) pokemon plus a trainer you can level with gym badges, etc and shove in breeding and random trade skills, like cooking for pet food and then an honour system and arena leagues and team battles and so on and you get to watch as people simply fade away in front of a screen for weeks on end.
Clans would become Gyms with the raid leader being a gym leader. Instead of ears from Diablo, you could take other gym's badges as tropheys. The game just makes itself. If Nintendo wasn't allergic to the internet, they could probalby make $texas and buy Sony and MS in 5 years or something if they made this.
I was agonna say pokemon earlier in my posts, but its such a straightforward deal it should not have to be said. Everything is there for a great MMO, but as someone said... they are allergic to the net and fail when it comes to it.
Starcraft MMo like warcraft would end population as we know it for everyone in korea... they are fanatics about the rts... imagine what a MMo would do.
Id like to see a MMO without credits, gold, gil, whatever have 0 currency.... and all items be bartered for ala diablo where money is useless. Have to trade items for items. Yes its a downfall, but lets see gold spammers spam stuff for gold than.
Because most of those things are still part of the weapon, you could treat weapon damage as a total of those qualities.
I'm not sure you understand. What I mean is that in most RPGS (Console especially), your weapon merely adds you your power. This is true with WoW, too. But before I get to that I'll cite final fantasy.
You pick up your sword at the shop, right? Its attack power is 87. Your strength is 30. Now you have a total attack power of 117. Okay, fine. So you hit an enemy and your damage is 300-400, 750ish Crit. Right? Now bring it up. Now your strength is 80 and the weapon power is 100. You hit an enemy, 3500-4500 damage. Your attack power hasn't even doubled but your damage has been multiplied by 10. Another 75 points of attack power and you're doing in excess of 100,000 damage in one shot, except it's capped. 75 more points from 180 has multiplied your damage by 20-30, and your initial damage by just over 300 times. And it's just barely doubled at this point.
Now how is that balanced for growth? It's not. It's ludicrous.
World of Warcraft does the same crap, although it's a bit different and it's not as terrible. Your strength is 500, that's 1000 Attack power which comes out to 71.42 DPS or roughly 143 damage for punching someone.
A geared tank has 20,000 HP. At the low end. At level 70. You know how many he had at level 60? Maybe 8,000. At 50? Not even 4,000.
And how many will he have at 80? Well, if the DPS ratings on level 80 weapons are any indication, the damage output on weapons at level 80 quality will increase three times as much on average as it did during the lift from 60 to 70.
Just like in the first example, the growth is following an almost exponential curve.
Here's a better way. You take a loot generator, assign a weapon a base material, a workmanship, and a modifier based on what kind of weapon it is (A polearm hurts more than a dagger). And maybe even a penalty for wear. (Until it's repaired)
Let's say you're prancing about at level 10 or so. You kill a guy and he drops his weapon. He's just some lowly ass of a thug, so it's an iron short sword.
So it's a short sword. That would be an effectiveness rating of 3, vs say 2 for a smaller blade. It's made of iron as opposed to bone or some other material so it gets a +1 for each material it exceeds. (Bone, stone, bronze) It's craftsmanship indicates that it was forged by someone completely inept, so neutral or -1 there.
It's a 5 or a 6 rating overall. In the hands of a character with average strength, it's going to do average damage. In the hands of a character with superhuman strength, it's going to be more effective.
Okay. Yeah? Duh? That's kind of obvious. What am I ranting about? This system is simpler, easier to develop around, more intuitive, and just generally makes more sense.
The bottom line is that I want to see a game where the power of your character depends on the choices you made while playing that character and not the shiny gear you have. A novice with the most exquisite sword made should always lose to a master, even if that master happens to be wielding a stick. Or something like that.
How does this contribute to the thread? My MMO would be carefully balanced.
I've always wanted a massive space ship battle. Have like a guild of folks (we'll call them a crew) controlling a battleship of sorts. Captain, engines, weaponry, radar, communications, etc. Put them up into space against other ships controlled by the same (or NPCs, whatever). AND FIGHT.
With real world damage and physics...I.E ramming into people actually does realistic damage.
That would be cool.
The problem is everyone wants to be either a pilot or a gunner. Making sure the engine doesn't overheat, or watching blips on a screen? Yawnfest. It would work if you just had a ton of guns for people to control, provided you had NPCs to fill in for missing spots, but I'm not sure if it'd work as an MMO since few players would really feel in control of their progression and goals if they were stuck manning someone else's ship all the time.
Yeah, thats what I've always thought would be the major downfall of something like it. Nobody wants to do bitch work. Another suggestion would be to have a captain handling the piloting of the larger gunship, communications, radar etc...have players opt to be Gunners manning the torpedos, weapon batteriesm etc. Then you could also have a ship hanger and let players man fighters to go out and buzz around the battleship.
I have never understood this attitude in MMOs.. You don't need the bitchshit jobs to be done by players. Just let the players be awesome and have the npc's pump gas.
It's the same problem in the matrix online. Remember all those parts in the movies where the code mages were casting code fireballs and code healing? Oh I guess you don't because that never existed in the movies.. But no developers have to add in the dumb ass crafting class and mage class to every game ever regardless of whether or not it fits the game.
I agree with pretty much everything said. While I would not be quite as ambitious as that, I agree that a large and more realistic world would make so much more sense than the tiny areas crammed full of quests and "epic story" we get in games like World of Warcraft.
I would like four major features for my MMORPG that I find current MMO's are sadly lacking in.
1) Dynamic and realistic world.
Farmlands where crops are actually grown, mountains and plains that are more than borders and spaces between zones and quests and cities that are more than a couple of dozen houses filled with vendors and quest givers but rather hundreds of houses with NPC's going about their daily business. Mines and lumber camps that can be won or lost depending on regional safety and political conflicts. A world where character actions can make regions safer and richer, allowing towns and factions to prosper or dwindle. Trade routes and industries that can be started and need to be protected.
2) Multi-layered fame and reputation systems.
Any quest or important action a character does will earn him fame both locally and globally if the task is large enough, as well as making him either more liked or hated by relevant factions. Killing a goblin chieftain will give him much local fame, a little fame with the faction that the local town is linked to, bonus reputation with the same faction and a loss of reputation with the goblin faction.
A character is not bound by his initial choice of nation or race and can switch freely assuming he is not too disliked by the faction he wishes to join. Becoming a renegade and working for "evil factions" should also be an option.
3) Politics.
A players actions will not only affect his own standing, but also further peace or war between the factions of the game. Political relations will change both by world events and the actions of the player base. Skirmishes, banditry and raids by players may bring two nations into full-blown war. After a declaration of war weeks of skirmishes and battles will follow, eventually leading up to a final siege on one of the losing sides cities that will either end in the agressor retreating due to too heavy losses or them actually capturing the city.
In a similar fashion relations with "NPC"-factions can be either fostered or damaged by player actions. Trading with the mysterious underground Farnlah people could further the wealth of the nation while allowing characters access to their excellent swords and pikes, while a conflict with them would prove disasterous to the local mining safety. On the other hand raids into their towns would provide players with all the Farnlah armor and weapons they want.
4) Unique quests and events.
While many quests can still be very generic, I am sick and tired of killing vancleef for the tenth time only to see him mysteriously yield 5 heads. When named enemies are killed they should be replaced by new leaders from the lower ranks with new names and appearances. If an escort quest is failed, that quest NPC now lies dead in the forest. Through long-term efforts of players a monster faction can even be driven from an area or wiped out, later replaced by new dangers. And if you after killing orcs for a few hours for the townsfolk of a village are given a quest to kill their king you can be almost certain that you alone have been charged with that task. Gathering allies and friends to kill him becomes all the more important because without you sharing the quest with them they would never get the chance to do it. And who knows, the added security from weakening the goblin tribe and the trade from the lumber mill that could be founded after clearing the forest they inhabited might actually give the town enough money to build that town hall they had been saving up for.
One thing I'd like to see, other than a much more expansive world, is a bigger role for guilds. I haven't played many MMO's (ok so just one, WoW) so this may have been done before.
But remember in Baldur's Gate, and other RPG's, how a "guild" would have it's own headquarters? It's own personal fortress? I'd like to see player created guilds have the ability to do that.
Think about it, currently guilds are nothing more than "gangs". They meetup wherever, and don't have a place of their own. But what if you start as a gang, and eventually have enough members to become a full blown guild. Now you find this little spot in the middle of nowhere, some place not easily found, and you start building. The guild members chip in money can you start with a little shack. As more money is invested, the building can be upgraded. Eventually you can employ NPC guards and laborers, defensive structures, etc. etc.
Now as you grow in size, another guild see's you as a threat. They send out scouts to locate you're base of operations and orchestrate a raid on you. Guild vs. guild. But what they don't know is you've formed an alliance and now they're fighting two guilds.
As your guild grows in size, you also get a reputation with NPC's as well. Say eventually you reach a size where you become lords of the land for a certain area. NPC's villagers pay you taxes. The "law enforcement" turns a blind eye to shady dealings your members are involved in. You're informed of other guild activities on your "turf". And so on.
One one the old Isometric sprite games I used to play (Darkages, not of camelot) had a completely player run political system. Player elected judges, officials, guards, councils, etc. Everyone was elected. Players wrote the laws for the game, players enforced the laws for the game. It worked fantastically, I loved it so much. The game wasn't THAT great, but it was the politics that kept me in. Roaming around my jurisdiction as a guard and making sure no one was doing anything wrong. If I found em, I arrested them, hauled them to jail, filed a guard report on my findings, etc.
If people wanted to contest, or major crimes were committed (murder), a hearing date would be set and the town would gather, the judge and council and jury would all sit in the justice hall and determine the fate of the player. All very fun. And the best part was, it wasn't just roleplay. Guards when elected were given actual spells and commands to lock up a players character and send them to jail. They could log out, but log back and they'd still be in jail until court or release.
I always thought a Wheel of Time MMO would be cool, except everyone would want to be Aes Sedai, of course. I guess the best thing to do would have some sort of thing where 3% of all chars created would manifest the ability to channel at like, level 20...but people would still complain.
If you could get the Aes Sedai thing worked out it would be cool, though. You could customize your character's background/appearance depending on what country you're from, join the Children of the Light, or be a brigand and rob people in the wilderness. I'm not sure what time period would be best though, probably after the first book but before some of the latter ones, so if your char was an Aes Sedai you could make ter'angreal and stuff like that. It would probably never work as an MMO, but it's interesting to think about.
Planetside meets Air Buccaneers (UT2004 mod) with Eve style politics and RvR conquest and UO character skill progression (modified for decreasing high end gains and casual play).
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Ramen Noodlewhoa, god has a picture of me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2008
If they made a good attempt at a Mass Effect MMO I'd never leave my computer.
I always thought a Wheel of Time MMO would be cool, except everyone would want to be Aes Sedai, of course. I guess the best thing to do would have some sort of thing where 3% of all chars created would manifest the ability to channel at like, level 20...but people would still complain.
If you could get the Aes Sedai thing worked out it would be cool, though. You could customize your character's background/appearance depending on what country you're from, join the Children of the Light, or be a brigand and rob people in the wilderness. I'm not sure what time period would be best though, probably after the first book but before some of the latter ones, so if your char was an Aes Sedai you could make ter'angreal and stuff like that. It would probably never work as an MMO, but it's interesting to think about.
Forget that noise, I'd rather be Aiel. Aes Sedai can be all snooty by themselves.
Besides, I'd want to play a male character. I wouldn't want to be hunted down in world PVP at level 20 just because my character is one that happens to channel.
I always thought a Wheel of Time MMO would be cool, except everyone would want to be Aes Sedai, of course. I guess the best thing to do would have some sort of thing where 3% of all chars created would manifest the ability to channel at like, level 20...but people would still complain.
If you could get the Aes Sedai thing worked out it would be cool, though. You could customize your character's background/appearance depending on what country you're from, join the Children of the Light, or be a brigand and rob people in the wilderness. I'm not sure what time period would be best though, probably after the first book but before some of the latter ones, so if your char was an Aes Sedai you could make ter'angreal and stuff like that. It would probably never work as an MMO, but it's interesting to think about.
Forget that noise, I'd rather be Aiel. Aes Sedai can be all snooty by themselves.
Besides, I'd want to play a male character. I wouldn't want to be hunted down in world PVP at level 20 just because my character is one that happens to channel.
Aiel all the way.
The major problem is that if the MMO of Wheel of time, ended up anything like the book, it would start off awesome, but each expansion would offer less and less real content (but more threesomes) and eventually you'd start to feel like it's just some big cash grab. Then finally you'd get near the end of the game, and all the servers would die.
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With real world damage and physics...I.E ramming into people actually does realistic damage.
That would be cool.
I'm picturing three server networks. Each of them dedicated to a country in the game. So technically the game has three servers to play on, but each server may interact freely with the other in the game world.
It seems to me like certain games escalate their conflict far too much. Warcraft, for example, went from being about some orcs in the woods raiding rural outposts to being about the titan Sargeras and his mad quest to remake the world. Who the hell wrote this crap? Sargeras is so distraught about the rampancy of demon activity that he...enlists them in his army and then proceeds to destroy the entire universe with them...and his goal is ultimately to be rid of demonkind forever. He's using them to destroy themselves? Really?
Anyway, local conflict, politics, skirmishes, and the dynamics of a rich and detailed world far, far outweigh the drama of 'mortals vs mortals vs gods'. In my opinion. So, ending this tangent, what I'm getting at is three 'functional countries, with provinces, with their own economies, their own crafting specialties, a player based export system that works around region-exclusive technologies, and perhaps even their own systems of government. It is possible for something to be realistic and still interesting, and I think that's probably the right stance to take in MMO worldbuilding. I'm thinking each landmass should be in the neighborhood of 40,000-250,000 square miles. (200x200ish - 500x500ish). Why? Because I feel that it's important to have something to explore. And because I don't think that conflict really has the flavor of conflict without that scale. What happened with MMOs last generation was people weren't happy with having to go places. They wanted to get things done instantly, and be rewarded just as quickly. Well, I say too bad. There's lots of crap to do and plenty of time to do it, so take a break and see the sights.
Which brings me to my next point. The environment of an MMO should not be focused entirely on the story of that particular game. What ever happened to just finding a cave and taking a look? Or venturing into an area that's dangerous by its own right? I have to bring up world of warcraft again as an example. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, every quest, every zone, every person has their own story, their own motive, their own thing happening. But for some reason that thing is invariably tied to the larger conflict somehow. There's no room for personal adventure or personal accomplishment is what I'm saying. Nobody does anything for themselves in WoW. Everyone's a hero, everyone's in the military, everyone has a shiny weapon and shinier armor and all they use it for is exactly what the game tells them to. Nothing else.
In my game, character customization would be incredible. It would put city of heroes to shame. Age, height, weight, construction, muscle mass, breast size, and proportions would all be adjustable (And calibrated to fit within fairly realistic boundaries) The crafting system would allow blades, hafts, hilts, clothing, armor to be shaped, colored, designed by the people who crafted them. Any given crafter could create a unique item and then 'patent' that item so that they were the only supplier for a while. And there you have incentive to craft. Different eyes, long hair, short hair, cheekbones, brow arc. All adjustable.
A world that makes sense - So that not every area is encircled in mountains purely for the sake of controlling the players.
Some say that my vision is ambitious. Too ambitious. If I'm ever a billionaire I'll show 'em.
I seriously think that if the trilogy is successful (and it will be), an MMO is the next logical business step. It will probably happen.
This is a good point. I've often felt that exploration was one of the driving strengths of an MMO, but most MMOs I've played recently sort of don't do that anymore. There's always a quest for every part of the game these days. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I remember playing this game Clan Lord a bunch of years ago on my old Mac, and really enjoying exploring really dangerous places where I probably shouldn't have gone.
I often just play a free MMO to check out their world, I'm the James Cook of MMOs. :P
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that one, I made a thread about it here.
Have I mention Spellborn at least five times today? I think not!
Spellborn Spellborn Spellborn.
There.
The problem is everyone wants to be either a pilot or a gunner. Making sure the engine doesn't overheat, or watching blips on a screen? Yawnfest. It would work if you just had a ton of guns for people to control, provided you had NPCs to fill in for missing spots, but I'm not sure if it'd work as an MMO since few players would really feel in control of their progression and goals if they were stuck manning someone else's ship all the time.
Yeah, thats what I've always thought would be the major downfall of something like it. Nobody wants to do bitch work. Another suggestion would be to have a captain handling the piloting of the larger gunship, communications, radar etc...have players opt to be Gunners manning the torpedos, weapon batteriesm etc. Then you could also have a ship hanger and let players man fighters to go out and buzz around the battleship.
So I heard there's this game called Spellborn...
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
B> Water!
...
S> Water for Spice!
--
The game could work as long as they keep it simple and keep the current writers far far far away from it.
Or MechWarrior MMO.
The idea I've been working on mostly is a sort of dream world filled with lots of fantasy and steampunk elements. The dream world element comes into play in that parts / all of the world don't always function as normal laws of physics would dictate. So, there might be one area where around 5:37 PM gravity decides to go in reverse and slightly to the left just because it can.
What I would like to do is make it so the world is mostly procedurally generated. So, developers / content creators would input different patterns, pattern interactions, art assets, basic story elements and a few magic numbers into a blender and out pops an infinitely expandable world (a fractal of sorts). Different parts of the world can sometimes be connected by stuff like rabbit holes or weird phenomena to make exploration a bit more interesting (going from point A to B isn't always as simple as plotting a course across a continent). I love exploring large worlds, and I think it would be incredible to have a world that can keep going on and on. The key issue is making sure that the world generation has enough interesting content to use and that it uses the content in ways that are fairly unique (making it difficult for players to see the patterns at work).
One of the biggest things I would like to have though is for players to be able to have some real effect on the world their characters live in. So, instead of constantly trying to amass more loot so that you can more easily amass more loot, players would be able to form their own towns, cities and countries whose livelihoods depend on their residents.
An mmo shouldn't just be about creating "fun" grinds for players to go through to advance their characters. I want to try and include as many fun things to do as possible by making the game as flexible as possible. I want there to be enough fun stuff to do that players wouldn't feel the need to push towards max level and would instead find activities they want to do at their own pace. So, instead of a progression treadmill I guess this would be more like just creating a virtual world for characters to live in. Players might choose to become craftsmen, traders, warriors, politicians, explorers, etc.
Also, with the world generation, it might be possible to generate new content on the fly based on the player base's interaction with the world. So, if a player succeeds or fails in a task given to them by one of the game's authorities, certain events might follow that. With such a large world that's changing over time it might be possible to spread out the content in such a way that every character in the game can have a fairly unique experience instead of doing the same things as every other character has done before.
It's all very out there at the moment, but I think that's close to what I'd like to see in an ideal mmo.
If done even moderately half-assed, it would be glorious.
I'm astonished that Nintendo hasn't realized the potential for the beeellllyuunnns of dollars that could be made off of licensing alone.
They must be stopped.
Ive always dreamed of that. Shame it will probably never happen.
Not saying, LETS DO IT IN 2 MONTHS AND BE DONE AND WE GUN BE RITCH AS HELL.
Just sort of a side-thing, I dunno.
I never managed to develop the skills to do that mission or fine tune a plane to be just right.
It would be great to have a MMO on this game, they could just copy/paste the creator-thing from the original, it already offered enough options to satisfy my needs.
Yes.
Oh, man.
My own little trainer, a wide world of pokemon...that's it. That's all I got.
Levels in these kind of games need to work differently though.
And will someone explain to me why melee damage in RPGs seems to invariably be (WPN damage + unarmed damage = total damage) or (ATK + STR = the variable for some hidden formula)? Why isn't it something like a base value derived from the quality, material, and size of the weapon, modified by strength and mitigated by armor to create a final value.
...Quite a tangent.
Clans would become Gyms with the raid leader being a gym leader. Instead of ears from Diablo, you could take other gym's badges as tropheys. The game just makes itself. If Nintendo wasn't allergic to the internet, they could probalby make $texas and buy Sony and MS in 5 years or something if they made this.
Starcraft MMo like warcraft would end population as we know it for everyone in korea... they are fanatics about the rts... imagine what a MMo would do.
Id like to see a MMO without credits, gold, gil, whatever have 0 currency.... and all items be bartered for ala diablo where money is useless. Have to trade items for items. Yes its a downfall, but lets see gold spammers spam stuff for gold than.
I'm not sure you understand. What I mean is that in most RPGS (Console especially), your weapon merely adds you your power. This is true with WoW, too. But before I get to that I'll cite final fantasy.
You pick up your sword at the shop, right? Its attack power is 87. Your strength is 30. Now you have a total attack power of 117. Okay, fine. So you hit an enemy and your damage is 300-400, 750ish Crit. Right? Now bring it up. Now your strength is 80 and the weapon power is 100. You hit an enemy, 3500-4500 damage. Your attack power hasn't even doubled but your damage has been multiplied by 10. Another 75 points of attack power and you're doing in excess of 100,000 damage in one shot, except it's capped. 75 more points from 180 has multiplied your damage by 20-30, and your initial damage by just over 300 times. And it's just barely doubled at this point.
Now how is that balanced for growth? It's not. It's ludicrous.
World of Warcraft does the same crap, although it's a bit different and it's not as terrible. Your strength is 500, that's 1000 Attack power which comes out to 71.42 DPS or roughly 143 damage for punching someone.
A geared tank has 20,000 HP. At the low end. At level 70. You know how many he had at level 60? Maybe 8,000. At 50? Not even 4,000.
And how many will he have at 80? Well, if the DPS ratings on level 80 weapons are any indication, the damage output on weapons at level 80 quality will increase three times as much on average as it did during the lift from 60 to 70.
Just like in the first example, the growth is following an almost exponential curve.
Here's a better way. You take a loot generator, assign a weapon a base material, a workmanship, and a modifier based on what kind of weapon it is (A polearm hurts more than a dagger). And maybe even a penalty for wear. (Until it's repaired)
Let's say you're prancing about at level 10 or so. You kill a guy and he drops his weapon. He's just some lowly ass of a thug, so it's an iron short sword.
So it's a short sword. That would be an effectiveness rating of 3, vs say 2 for a smaller blade. It's made of iron as opposed to bone or some other material so it gets a +1 for each material it exceeds. (Bone, stone, bronze) It's craftsmanship indicates that it was forged by someone completely inept, so neutral or -1 there.
It's a 5 or a 6 rating overall. In the hands of a character with average strength, it's going to do average damage. In the hands of a character with superhuman strength, it's going to be more effective.
Okay. Yeah? Duh? That's kind of obvious. What am I ranting about? This system is simpler, easier to develop around, more intuitive, and just generally makes more sense.
The bottom line is that I want to see a game where the power of your character depends on the choices you made while playing that character and not the shiny gear you have. A novice with the most exquisite sword made should always lose to a master, even if that master happens to be wielding a stick. Or something like that.
How does this contribute to the thread? My MMO would be carefully balanced.
I have never understood this attitude in MMOs.. You don't need the bitchshit jobs to be done by players. Just let the players be awesome and have the npc's pump gas.
It's the same problem in the matrix online. Remember all those parts in the movies where the code mages were casting code fireballs and code healing? Oh I guess you don't because that never existed in the movies.. But no developers have to add in the dumb ass crafting class and mage class to every game ever regardless of whether or not it fits the game.
I never asked for this!
I agree with pretty much everything said. While I would not be quite as ambitious as that, I agree that a large and more realistic world would make so much more sense than the tiny areas crammed full of quests and "epic story" we get in games like World of Warcraft.
I would like four major features for my MMORPG that I find current MMO's are sadly lacking in.
1) Dynamic and realistic world.
Farmlands where crops are actually grown, mountains and plains that are more than borders and spaces between zones and quests and cities that are more than a couple of dozen houses filled with vendors and quest givers but rather hundreds of houses with NPC's going about their daily business. Mines and lumber camps that can be won or lost depending on regional safety and political conflicts. A world where character actions can make regions safer and richer, allowing towns and factions to prosper or dwindle. Trade routes and industries that can be started and need to be protected.
2) Multi-layered fame and reputation systems.
Any quest or important action a character does will earn him fame both locally and globally if the task is large enough, as well as making him either more liked or hated by relevant factions. Killing a goblin chieftain will give him much local fame, a little fame with the faction that the local town is linked to, bonus reputation with the same faction and a loss of reputation with the goblin faction.
A character is not bound by his initial choice of nation or race and can switch freely assuming he is not too disliked by the faction he wishes to join. Becoming a renegade and working for "evil factions" should also be an option.
3) Politics.
A players actions will not only affect his own standing, but also further peace or war between the factions of the game. Political relations will change both by world events and the actions of the player base. Skirmishes, banditry and raids by players may bring two nations into full-blown war. After a declaration of war weeks of skirmishes and battles will follow, eventually leading up to a final siege on one of the losing sides cities that will either end in the agressor retreating due to too heavy losses or them actually capturing the city.
In a similar fashion relations with "NPC"-factions can be either fostered or damaged by player actions. Trading with the mysterious underground Farnlah people could further the wealth of the nation while allowing characters access to their excellent swords and pikes, while a conflict with them would prove disasterous to the local mining safety. On the other hand raids into their towns would provide players with all the Farnlah armor and weapons they want.
4) Unique quests and events.
While many quests can still be very generic, I am sick and tired of killing vancleef for the tenth time only to see him mysteriously yield 5 heads. When named enemies are killed they should be replaced by new leaders from the lower ranks with new names and appearances. If an escort quest is failed, that quest NPC now lies dead in the forest. Through long-term efforts of players a monster faction can even be driven from an area or wiped out, later replaced by new dangers. And if you after killing orcs for a few hours for the townsfolk of a village are given a quest to kill their king you can be almost certain that you alone have been charged with that task. Gathering allies and friends to kill him becomes all the more important because without you sharing the quest with them they would never get the chance to do it. And who knows, the added security from weakening the goblin tribe and the trade from the lumber mill that could be founded after clearing the forest they inhabited might actually give the town enough money to build that town hall they had been saving up for.
But remember in Baldur's Gate, and other RPG's, how a "guild" would have it's own headquarters? It's own personal fortress? I'd like to see player created guilds have the ability to do that.
Think about it, currently guilds are nothing more than "gangs". They meetup wherever, and don't have a place of their own. But what if you start as a gang, and eventually have enough members to become a full blown guild. Now you find this little spot in the middle of nowhere, some place not easily found, and you start building. The guild members chip in money can you start with a little shack. As more money is invested, the building can be upgraded. Eventually you can employ NPC guards and laborers, defensive structures, etc. etc.
Now as you grow in size, another guild see's you as a threat. They send out scouts to locate you're base of operations and orchestrate a raid on you. Guild vs. guild. But what they don't know is you've formed an alliance and now they're fighting two guilds.
As your guild grows in size, you also get a reputation with NPC's as well. Say eventually you reach a size where you become lords of the land for a certain area. NPC's villagers pay you taxes. The "law enforcement" turns a blind eye to shady dealings your members are involved in. You're informed of other guild activities on your "turf". And so on.
I dunno, just thought that would be cool.
If people wanted to contest, or major crimes were committed (murder), a hearing date would be set and the town would gather, the judge and council and jury would all sit in the justice hall and determine the fate of the player. All very fun. And the best part was, it wasn't just roleplay. Guards when elected were given actual spells and commands to lock up a players character and send them to jail. They could log out, but log back and they'd still be in jail until court or release.
I wish a game did that these days
If you could get the Aes Sedai thing worked out it would be cool, though. You could customize your character's background/appearance depending on what country you're from, join the Children of the Light, or be a brigand and rob people in the wilderness. I'm not sure what time period would be best though, probably after the first book but before some of the latter ones, so if your char was an Aes Sedai you could make ter'angreal and stuff like that. It would probably never work as an MMO, but it's interesting to think about.
Forget that noise, I'd rather be Aiel. Aes Sedai can be all snooty by themselves.
Besides, I'd want to play a male character. I wouldn't want to be hunted down in world PVP at level 20 just because my character is one that happens to channel.
Aiel all the way.
The major problem is that if the MMO of Wheel of time, ended up anything like the book, it would start off awesome, but each expansion would offer less and less real content (but more threesomes) and eventually you'd start to feel like it's just some big cash grab. Then finally you'd get near the end of the game, and all the servers would die.
Too soon?