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Why is there only one MMORPG where you can play as a dragon?
Razeekster
Member UncommonPosts: 2,591
Literally, the only one is Istaria, which is a great game but it blows my mind that over ten years they are literally the only ones who have had the brilliant idea to use dragons as race. There are a few that tout this feature but the races are humanoid dragons, not real, awesome, fire-breathing beasts that come to mind when you think of dragons. I just don't get why developers aren't creating more races to play that are unique.
I've always thought that they should create an underwater MMORPG too where you can play as Mermen and Mermaids. Maybe this isn't even possible to implement, but with the technology now I'd think that it would be possible.
Some other ideas I've had for races are more simpler, like playing as a bird. Imagine an MMORPG where all the races were different bird species. How cool would that be? You could set up nests for housing, and it could be setup so you'd have to travel north or south to set up your nest and living area (habitat) based on the current weather. PvP could be based on the dominant bird. It could be made in a way that was almost realistic to show the hierarchy in the animal kingdom. There could be flight patterns and wind currents that you'd have to make sure you navigated through properly, and it could be made even harder and more challenging by adding storms once in a while that test your flying abilities amd survival capabilities. Guilds could be "flocks" and serve as protection from would be predators.
Again, maybe this isn't possible at this time, but with the technology that they have now... I would just think that they'd do something completely new and mind-blowing. What are your guys thoughts as players? Have you ever had an idea that you wished could be turned into an MMORPG?
P.S. Before people tell me that "Well, you're one person and just because you want a certain type of MMORPG doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the population want it," I realize this already. I'm just expressing my ideas and wishes for the genre.
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Just kidding... I not sure about birds and flocks though!
I've looked at that too, but I'm looking for something a bit more advanced in the graphics and technology department.
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And there you go.
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And there you go? I'm alright with Istaria's graphics but Furcadia is a 2D game... It's not capable of doing anything that I described.
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It's sad because it's defiantly possible to do.
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There is always room to expand the genre. Why would you want to play the same game the same way every time? That's boring. And playing as a dragon presents you with plenty of unique and awesome roleplaying options.
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So you can't roleplay as a dragon. Odd.
I think he was being tongue and cheek guys....could be wrong, but I took it as humor.
If you want to share armors between all of the different races, then it's a lot easier if the races are all shaped similarly. Pants on a mermaid won't work, for example. You can stretch a given texture to fit similarly shaped races that are fatter or skinner, or taller or shorter. But trying to fit a texture to a race that is topologically different just isn't going to work.
If you wanted all of the races to be shaped like a mermaid, with a fish tail instead of legs, then it wouldn't really be any harder than making all of the races be the usual humanoid shape of two arms, two legs, and a head. The same is true if you wanted all races to have four arms instead of two, or all races to have wings instead of arms. But how accepting would players be of a game where none of the characters looked terribly anthropomorphic?
Another alternative would be for each race in the game to only have a few armor styles, so that you don't need to share armor looks between races. If you're going to have 50 armors and 10 races in total, then it's not really any harder to have 5 armors available to each race with races that look very different than it is to have the same 50 armors available to all races. But how accepting would players be of a game where there were only a few armor styles that your character could ever have?
Also, a purely underwater game is probably a bad idea if it's going to have combat. No one has yet figured out how to make undewater combat work very well, as far too often, you get attacked by something off the screen and have no idea where you're taking damage from. That's fine if it's not going to be a combat-centric game, but that would mean you're wandering way off into niche territory.
It's not that what you want can't be done. It's that there are trade-offs that game developers typically aren't willing to make.
This has been an interest of mine for an age as well. I touched on it a bit in my thread on archetypes http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/379710/What-Character-Archetypes-Interest-You.html
Universal armor is hardly a legit concern, as many games have race and even class specific armor. Some have humanoids with tails, tentacles and all sorts of unique physiologies, and a few games have done non humanoid beside dragon from what I hear about LotRO.
While I don't think it would be that fun if they made an MMO all about one creature, I do think they need to explore a lot more unique characters. I described several in the archetype topic, a game could have dragons, griffins, sphinx, and giant mythical birds, all sharing the sky and battling, along with humanoid characters of equivalent power, like angels, demons, Vampires, and more. The ability to fight in 3 dimensions is not unique, many mech and flight games have something of that nature already.
They can also explore more variations of land and sea combat, like fast land creatures, centaurs and giant wolves vs mounted humanoids and such, sea combat is very simular to air combat except unique exceptions apply to what is most effective at mobility and breathing options.
A game with wildly different characters, that grow and "equip" differently and has different gameplay and experience for several different creature types has a golden opportunity to enrich the gameplay of classic humanoid character players while offering entirely additional content to play, and the golden word in this kind of game is Alternates. Sure, people will have their preferences, and they may not like one as much as the other, but they'd likely enjoy both, and the depth of content available, as well as several non repetitive alternatives to explore can greatly enhance the amount of entertainment in such game.
I'd love to discuss gameplay options further, but I like to keep some to myself. And I'd like yal to mention dragons more in my poor archetypes thread u.u
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.
Can breath fire/acid/lightning/frost.
Can cast spells.
Is resistant to spells.
Have darkvision.
Have strong armor by default.
etc.
It is as bad as letting players play Beholder or Mind Flayer as a race.
Just don't let them be that powerful. In Istaria there isn't that issue, they can breath fire/lightnight/frost and fly but are no more resistant to magic/weapons than others and many bipeds outdmg them.
you can play as a Dragon in Secret World !
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As for dragons power, there really isn't a point in playing a dragon if its not powerful, but since when are we playing weak human characters?, you build up to magical armors, summon meteors from the sky, and solo 5 small dragons with humanoids in some games, how is that not comparable in power? At the very least, several equivalent characters can be made to face dragons on equal terms, angels, demons, griffons, so on. Dragons can also be depicted many ways, like western, eastern, wyvern, and native American.
I'd go into mechanical possibilities, but those are personal, so not now. Point is, there are solutions and enablers for nearly anything in a virtual space. It's all about what makes a desirable game.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.
If they are not powerful then they are shit dragons
It will be like Beholder with no eyes, lol
So... The problem is that developers would have to work a bit extra hard to create different armors to fit different races... I really don't see a problem with that.Smile
Back when Huxley was a dream on paper,you could play as a Dragon..
sounded awesome.
I sprayed beer out my nose laughing at this. Seriously, made my night man. Great movie btw!
I guess thats one way to look at it, another way is I guess the bipeds are just really powerfull.
And how accepting would players be of "there's no visible clothing, so your character will look the same forever with little customization"? Some players would be fine with that, but again, it's about trade-offs.
If you're going to have a fixed number of total armor designs (as dictated by your budget), the more you can share them across races and classes, the more options a given player can have. That's not to say that you have to share all of them across all races and all classes. But again, it's about trade-offs.