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The Wishing Well MMO
Talleyrand
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The idea is that this couold be where everyone talks about new and exciting features coming in MMO's that are trying to find their niche. And more importantly to talk about what you wish they would do.
So if came together to design our own dream MMO what would it be like? What genre would we want? What sort of combat? What sort of classes? What sort of monsters and quests? I just want to hear everyone's cool ideas and two cents worth.
So if came together to design our own dream MMO what would it be like? What genre would we want? What sort of combat? What sort of classes? What sort of monsters and quests? I just want to hear everyone's cool ideas and two cents worth.
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The end.
The graphics of Guild Wars. I really hate seeing all the cookie-cutter graphics in new fantasy MMOs. Especially in their character models that scream "generic 3D" to me.
The "choose your own career" from EVE.
The "let's just go blast stuff" pick-up-and-play ability of City of Heroes.
The quest and mission writing from FFXI. Whoever did the original writing (in Japanese) was a genius, and whoever did the translation to English was even more brilliant.
The "PVP only if you want it, but it's good and can help you in PVE" from Guild Wars. Contrast with EVE: PVP with high risk even if you don't want it.
Avoid strict adherence to the "holy trinity" character classes (tank, healer, mage). And don't make any class require bot-like repetitive button pressing.
The user interfaces of Guild Wars (minimal, functional, customizable) and City of Heroes (condensing many actions into clear groups).
A leveling system that rewards questing or bigger missions, not grinding kills.
I could think of more, but there you go.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
That would truly allow players to create unique characters instead of just having a wider range of classes available.
-Setting would be a Renaissance city (i.e. similar to the upcoming Sword of the New World/Grenada Espada), where opposing noble families vie for control of the city (i.e. DAoC RvR battling)
-All combat would be skill-based, and the combat mechanics would allow for physical, magical and (here's the kicker) social combat (i.e. a mix of Puzzle Pirates and the Diplomacy mechanic from Vanguard)
-Players could engage in PvE missions to gain power and prestige for their family, which could take the form of direct combat or political maneuvering, or could combat other players in PvP. In some cases, missions could start as PvE and become PvP (i.e. attack a location held by a rival family, and players of that family could be alerted to your attack), or vice versa (i.e. during a fight between two families, members of other families move in to eliminate both groups of players, which now have to work together to escape/eliminate the third family's group).
-Optional idea: Players would be middle-ranking members of their chosen family, and would be able to order around a group of NPC bodyguards/minions. (I only really put this one in since I love having pets in MMOs.)
Switch: nin.codes/roldford
You are the man.
And the Renaissance one sounds pretty cool. Kind of like Warhammer but with more cross PVP between groups with more diplomacy. But...the Renaissance....does that mean everyone's character will be wearing tights and wigs?
1. Base game revolving around 3d platforming (think ICO, Mario 64, Prince of persia)
2. A combat system that is based around ranged attacks and the dodging therof. (Continuing the platform gaming motif)
3. A leveless, flat advancment system (Ala guildwars).
4. An evolving player driven storyline with actors for... acting.
5. A unique setting (I have one, but It's my baby and I refuse to share it.)
6. An evolving central town hub that encourages community defense and growth.
7. A place within this hub for each individual player to build a home that has meaningful gameplay value.
8. A reward system that encourages random acts of kindness type stuff (Help a guy out with a monster, up to a ledge, get rewarded. Needs to be safeguarded aginst exploits.)
9. A metric shiton of minigames. (You hear that mmo genre? Growing bars is just goddamn unacceptable. (IMHO))
10. A quest system that tries to keep things fresh and involving both in looks, gameplay and story.
11. Electric guitars used as one of several weapons included in the game.
So, yeah i'd love an mmo that incorperated as much of this stuff as possible.
Edit: I've just reliased I neglected to mention PvP in there somewhere, so uh Just pretend I put a point that says "Challenging and meaningful (story wise and gameplay wise) PvP for all those who wish to take part in it."
Basically this game would have hundreds if not thousands of character classes, only they would not be "balanced classes" in the way people are used to in games but rather your character assumes a different "life" in the game with different motivations.
For instance you might start as a regular citizen, but become the Sheriff class, and have to police the streets with your in-game powers of summoning the law enforcing npcs, shooting evildoers, jailing appointing players as Deputies etc.
Positive performance in this class would earn you points in some fashion, perhaps the number of crimes stopped, modified by votes of those players you police, keeping them safe from random ganking etc by other players.
These points would expand your police powers, and at some point you could move out of the class if you wished into let us say the Duke class.
The Duke would now be in a zoning, Sim City style game, again earning positive or negative influence from the whole playerbase in his city, making money with taxes perhaps.
The powers of each class are expanded and dependent in some way by the playerbase of the levels below them. Each class has different motivations. The corrupt Sheriff who abuses their powers could accumulate negative "faction" with the players and move to the Crimelord class for instance. Now he has to score the hookers and drugs and extort money to hire players as Enforcers to keep his powerbase expanding.
This chain continues up to the Gods themselves. Perhaps the God of Nature needs to protect his or her natural resources from the God of Technology and appoints Druid players to destroy people tearing down the forests. The Gods expand or lose to use their powers based on the faith of the people, and are behooved to take on Priest classes, work the occasional miracle to earn Faith (think mana points).
So basically it's a multiplayer game, with a tremendous amount of diversity and hierarchical social structure. The players constantly have intersecting and opposed goals they need to meet in whatever class they happen to be in. This equates to PVP, but would weave a tapestry complex enough to feel like a real world and thereby not a continual gankfest since the characters in it would mimic real world motivations beyond "kill get loot and level up". There is always a current of higher level players needing the support of lower level players to achieve their goals as well. Kings need soldiers & knights, Politicians need taxes, Gods need followers, followers need their Gods.
In a reverse example a regular player is dungeon crawling and finds the altar of the God of War, prays to it, gets no response (The player playing the God of War is busy, or doesn't have enough power to grant the request). The player changes faiths on the spot and the God of War loses a follower and that much more power.
Then you duplicate these classes across nations. Players of King A generally get along with each other for what is nearly a PVE game until war breaks out and they find themselves fighting against the players following King B.
There are micro games and macro games, a player could still adventure through dungeons or whatever on the micro level, let's say they are a warrior, but when they are ready to go beyond that they could aspire to be King (divine right and bloodlines be damned, it's a game mechanic).
If someone becomes bored at the macro level they could always step down from the class into one of the more micro oriented classes. Today's God of War could perhaps be tomorrow's footsoldier. The very highest levels of classes could be forcibly removed by failing their jobs (If too much of the natural world is destroyed, the God of Nature is forcibly removed and the position goes to the highest level druid).
I've used generic fantasy examples here to get the game mechanic across easier but I would personally like to see a new game from White Wolf's World of Darkness setting (with or without my idea) since I just finished Bloodlines and I am jonesing for vampires 8). I'm sick of generic, lack of style fantasy. Truly unique or well done fantasy settings are still ok.
So anyway, this idea is pretty grandiose and probably nearly impossible to code due to so many overlapping but separate game engines but it is the wishing well so there you go.
Edit: A Shadowrun MMO would kick ass too, think of the style of the NES game and not that crap FPS coming out now.
addendum: and the magic system of White Wolf's Mage.
Also, I like KingMole's idea. Sci fi that doesn't suck.
E.V.E.
Exalted MMO :shock:
In the Thief universe. >_>
EVE doesn't qualify. While it is Science Fiction, it's a space sim first. That's a subdivision of the Science Fiction genre.
When I think Sci Fi MMO, I think something along the lines of Anarchy Online or Star Wars Galaxy (before the NGE). Kind of like the zillions of fantasy MMO's out there (WoW/EQ/EQ2/DAoC/AC/L2/FFxI etc.) except you know...not in some fucking "olde world" magical setting.
Anarchy Online with updated graphics, a better community, and a better mission system would be my dream MMO. Something like SWG was like back in the good ol' days.
-Permanent character death (perhaps with a certain number of "lives") and full PVP. There are game mechanics that work sort of like Mutually Assured Destruction to allow this setup to actually work.
-A system wherein the strongest characters are the ones who have risked the most, not those who have spent the longest time in the game. For example, researching the more powerful magics in ToA involved a real risk of spell backfire (either due to a wrong recipe or a failed skill check) that could easily kill your character a few times. This is only possible in a game with real consequences like Permadeath.
-Full, detailed, painstaking and rewarding item crafting like in Tale in the Desert.
-Certain restrictions on player activity that prioritize local communities over server-wide guilds. For example, long travel times between different regions of the world, no teleportation, requirement to eat and drink, etc.
While there are other important features - like player-driven economy and player-owned settlements - I think those four are the most important to me.
The game takes place in some sort of fantasy setting where magic is powerful, feared and misunderstood. People don't walk around casting spells all willy-nilly. Wizards spend their entire lives in exile, perfecting their art.
Gameplay focuses on a number of kingdoms battling for dominance over the world. Players choose to align themselves to one of these kingdoms, and aid them in their struggle. Strongholds and castles are dotted across the landscape, and are the focus of the game. When a stronghold or castle is captured, the kingdom that currently owns it gains bonuses, such as an exp bonus or a stat buff. These bonuses benefit every character in the kingdom, no matter where they are.
A very limited amount of items are supplied by NPCs, instead players create most of the items available in the game. The pinnacle of crafted weapons and armor are made from dragons, the most powerful enemy in the game. Dragons are extremely hard to kill, making bonuses from castles and strongholds very important in order to slay them.
Only players that choose to be crafters from the start can make items, sacrificing the ability to fight. Their job is equally important as the soldier's as they supply the entire kingdom. Fighters collect materials and sell them to crafters, and in turn crafters use these materials to create items that they sell back to fighters.
Players can choose from three classes: Soldiers, Wizards and Crafters. Classes merely outline the role of the player, however. For example, Soldiers can be melee fighters, knights mounted on horseback, archers, siege-weapon operators etc. Gear is extremely important, and a player's choice of weapon and armor can effect battles greatly.
Armor ranges from light to heavy, and there are no class restrictions. Wizards can choose to wear plate armor, if they so choose. Heavy armor requires a high amount of strength, however, and Wizards should not invest into such attributes.
So yeah, that's all I have.
Exalted MMO, yes, but why put it in anything other than the Exalted universe? It's freaking huge!
If they did do that, they could have it work something like CoH and CoV, where each type of Exalted (Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, etc.) would have their own "game" within the larger world. The only problem is what region the Solars would get, as the rest are pretty obvious (DBs get the Blessed Isle, Lunars get the Wyld, Siderials get Yu-Shan, etc.).
It's also the kind of game that would really benefit from a wide-scale use of the Diplomacy mechanics from Vanguard. Otherwise, social types (I'm looking at you, Eclipse caste!) just don't work, but with it, social conflict could feel just like physical conflict, just with less HP loss and more Willpower loss.
Switch: nin.codes/roldford
"This must be our lucky day, brothers! A lone Anathema has wandered into our sights! Let's show him what the blood of Hesiesh is capable off!"
*CRUSH RAPE MAIM KILL*
"Yeah, so that's when he picked up the tree and used it to pummel the shit out of my dinosaur, punched Delan so hard his soul fell off, used that Avonis kid as a material component for creating a new universe, headbutted Puzza so fast he went back in time allowing him to kill her grandfather to remove her from existence itself and for some reason her little dog too."
"No, he let me live so I could tell you guys not to mess with him anymore, unless we brought about 2000 more of people along. It annoys him, apperantly."
"What? No, this happened over half a minute or so." :<
In the beginning, the game world would consist of one or more small towns surrounded by randomly generated wilderness. The towns would always remain the same, but when a player leaves the town, the rest of the world is created on the fly, with the player running into enemies and possibly dungeons or other points of interest. Once a player leaves an area (or possibly until they enter a non-randomly generated area), the places that they explored completely disappear from existance.
While the terrain normally disappears once everyone has left the area, there would be a cartography skill that locks a region into place for every who is using a map that contains that region. If you find something interesting, you can record its existance, and once you become skilled enough, you can make duplicates and give them to other people, and modify or patch together existing maps. This way, if you find a dungeon that looks interesting but is too tough you can either come back later with help or sell the map to someone else. If you find a good spot for a town or a base, then you could lock it into place and build on it, and if you wanted to keep it secret then you can give out the map only to people you trust. This would also have the advantage of reducing clutter, since all of the scattered developments could be hidden simply by not using the map that contains them.
Since content would be continously generated, there would be no need to force areas to reset. Once a dungeon is cleared, it will stay cleared, with the possible exception of a few random monsters creeping back it if you leave it alone. An empty dungeon can be treated like any other structure; in fact, modifying an existing dungeon to suit your own purposes would probably be more cost-efficient than contruction something yourself.
In order to not have everything be a scattered mess where no one ever sees anyone else, if you move into a region that is inhabited by someone else there is a chance that you will enter their version of that region. This chance would increase based on the number of people in that version, so a player would be very likely to stumble across a bustling town if the player enters the general area of that town.
I'm not sure if today's database technology would be able to handle this sort of thing, unfortunatly.
I really can't see any way that crafting makes sense in the general MMO setting. I mean, the average blacksmith spends years upon years as an apprentice before he's allowed to do anything more important then pumping the bellows or fetching a hammer and after he learns his skills he has to practice for years before he could be considered proficient, let alone a master.
So how is it that some musclebound thug who spends his days slaughtering gnomes and dragons should be able to walk up to a smithy and throw together a better sword then any blacksmith anywhere can hope to make?
Of course, it would likely be boring playing a smith (hit it with a hammer, heat it, restoke the furnace, oh metal is red take it out and hit it with a hammer again, work the bellows...etc...). I'd rather be able to take special orders.
You give them whatever components you want in your weapon and they craft these into the pieces of equipment depending on what you give them. A certain amount of time passes and you go back to the smith and pick up your new gear. Give him some spider fangs, feathers and some high quality wood and tell him that you need arrows and he can make you a bunch that are more accurate then normal arrows and poison the target.
And I definently think more companies should move as far away from Ye Olde World as much as possible unless they have a viable reason for using that setting. It's great for a Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, or Warhammer game, but if you're trying to make something new like Vanguard of Heros then give us something we haven't seen before. I'm dying for a steampunk world like China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Or a magical technopunk world like Shadowrun despite it still using elves, trolls, and dwarves for races.
Have your general classes that would fit the setting, spy, thug, police force, merc, whatever, but the kicker would be to have some fundamental portion of a class change it's role in different periods of time. Say a spy would be more of a diplomatic type character in a Victorian time period, an FBI agent in the late 1900's, etc; a merc could be a marine grunt in the 1900's or a knight in the crusades, and have the gameplay change accordingly. Allow different players to "spec" in a time period so some players could be particularly stronger in their class in the 1600's than they are in the 1900's.
Make like 7 different distinct time periods, say....rome, dark ages, crusades, imperialistic 1600's, 1800's, 1900's and for the hell of it have a "modern" (future) world where players can have limited participation (special "raid" missions to sabotage another nations time-travel capabilities, locking players in a time period for 3 hours or something). Or you could make the base setting in the game in the year like 2700 and make one of the "history" time periods 2250 or something so players get a futuristic setting to play in to.
Players would need to fit into their time period, so there could be some internal rating system that judged a players actions for a week and determined how well they "fit in" and reward them with some period appropriate reward, this would let the players who "spec" in the 1800's to get into character and earn era appropriate gear, which would be powerful for the 1800's but weak in a different time period. Also, there would need to be some drawback to using "future" abilities or otherwise using any periods abilities in another period, so that while as an agent you might have a laser sniper, to use it in the dark ages, you'd have to "spend" a signifigant amount of your "era points", but have it be a super-powerful attack to offset this. To make it so it wasn't abused, just put a "recharge" on future-weapons so that they can only be used a handful of times before they need to be recharged, and that you can't use them at all unless you have enough era-points. Or maybe instead of using "era" points for the future weapons, there'd be a "future point" pool that you could allocate era points to if you want and you'd have to spend those, but that pool could also be used to buy like genetic enhancements in the future, so you wouldn't want to just throw them away.
Eh?
EDIT: Yes, I'm completely ignoring time paradoxes blah blah blah. I don't really care, and think that it's not a necessary concept to introduce into the setting. Also, no side would be "good" or "bad", just trying to make themselves more powerful and improve their respective way of life. In war, no one thinks they're the bad guy.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
1. Make it a post-apocolyptic world in the future complete with city ruins, crazy factions, cool technology and awesome magic.
2. Make the terrain completly changable (like red faction). If you fire super fireball of doom and hit a wall, there should be a hole in the wall. You could use this to try and set traps for people, but there would have to be some sort of safeguard against people just digging the whole world away (eg flying bots that come around and fill in holes every so often).
3. You should be able to combine efforts to cast spells (eg 5 mages could channel a giant energy beam to try and take down a building etc).
4. No gaining levels like normal, your skills in a specific thing raise the more you use them (I think darkfall has this anyways).
5. You can join any faction you wish (as long as you follow their rules they wont kick you out) or deside to create your own faction and try and get some followers.
6. You can use almost any weapon/machine/magic at any level, but the lower your level then the more likley it is that you will screw up and it backfires. Also the backfires would be more than just getting hurt by it, they would be things like chance of accidently summoning an assrapeing demon to kick your butt or getting possessed among other things. This could be used to your advantage, eg if you find yourself surrounded by a large gank group about to pound you into the ground then you could attempt to cast level 300 fireball in the hopes that it will either fire and hit them or some massive demon spawns and takes them down with you (of course theres always the chance that it could just fizzle and nothing happen).
7. Murlocs.