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Describe and Discuss Your Dream MMOG

Sanity888Sanity888 Member UncommonPosts: 185

Imagine you had unlimited time, money, resources, even infinite knowledge. You are the complete architect of your creation. You can negotiate with any company to use any kind of lore you want. Simply put, you could make any MMOG you want. I specifically say MMOG and not MMORPG because if you want to make a MMOFPS (first-person shooter) or MMORTS (real-time strategy) you can do that too.


 


Describe what you would do with that here. After you do so, discuss your concepts and ideas with other people. If you just want to discuss other peoples’ ideas here you can do that too. I’ll start up:


 


Sid Meier’s Civilization Online


 


*A MMORPG based off of Sid Meier’s Civilization.


Sid Meier’s Civilization is a game where you choose to be something between a civilization leader and a God. You are a leader of a nation, you are always the leader of that nation, and you never die. It is a turn-based strategy game where the objective is to conquer the world. In older reincarnations of Civilization, you could only conquer the world by going to war with the other nations, but In the newer games you may also win diplomatically by establishing the U.N. or win the Space Race.


 


*One server, one world


Everybody plays on the same server, in the same world. The world is equal to Earth in size, climate, animals, and resources, but it will not be identical. Nothing in the beginning is named, the map is only as big as what you’ve seen, and people will have to re-label everything themselves, including areas in the game, flora, and fauna. This will be the scouting and exploration side of the game. Every human is a player character; every animal is a non-player character. Everybody starts off as a simple caveperson in a cave; there are many different caves throughout the world and which one you start off is designed to be random but if a player wants to be in the same cave as his or her friends he or she can type the number ID of his or her friend and he or she will play in the same cave as his or her friend. (More on number ID later) There is no instancing.


 


*Create your own tribe, civilization, cult, religion, organization etc.


This is what the game will be all about. Right from the beginning you’ll be able to create or join a player-made tribe or cult. When the leaders (being you if you created it) have gathered enough information, developed enough leadership skills, and obtain enough people, either by their own or grouping with other tribes, they will then be able to create a Civilization or Religion. A Civilization will be the equivalent to factions in other MMOs. Civilizations will be able to advance further in the game much faster than a person going solo, but in return the people must conform to the standards of that civilization. Civilizations will have their own culture, language, currency, etc. Religion will be more about developing culture within a Civilization.


 


*Maintain groups of friends the way you want to


Outside of leadership skills, you will also be able to create groups of people built into the game. For example, you could have a group listing all your friends, and then make sub-groups and divide them into real-life friends and in-game friends, or make a subset of best friends. Your avatar can also develop romantic interests inside the game and you can designate another avatar to be your significant other. However, the other person must accept being friend/best friend/significant other as the game will automatically create a chat channel for your various groups of people. You are allowed more than one significant other, and developing on the religion you choose in-game you can be married to one or more avatar, male or female, at a time. Eventually when culture evolves the nonreligious will be able to get civil unions.


 


*Advance your avatar from ancient times to modern technology.


There are no classes or levels. There are only skills to acquire. In the beginning the skills will be very crude and basic; learning ancient technology will start off with only a few skills such as making fire, fishing, hunting, sharpening tools. Those technologies will rapidly branch out into more current technologies. Nobody has to do one of anything if they don’t want to; you’ll be able to advance in different skills to your choosing, including cultural, economic, combat, crafting, and leadership trees. Everybody has memory which will serve as how you advance. If you do something a lot, you will remember it and get better at it, but fail to do it and you’ll forget it. If a Civilization becomes advanced enough schools/universities will be built, allowing players to become teachers to teach other players how to do things without the need for them to start from the beginning.


 


*Grind will feel natural within a learning curve


There will be a learning curve built into the game. Combat will be a mix of button-mashing and twitch-based combat, as you will develop your own fighting animations for your avatar. What I mean about that is that you’ll be able to go into your characters movements and designate what moves and how fast it moves when you hit a certain button. If you go too fast, your avatar will easily get tired and uncomfortable, and if you go too slow your avatar will die in combat. You will cycle buttons either using your mouse wheel or Ctrl and it will be twitch-based aiming.


 


Crafting will be trial-and-error. You’ll get no stats on what you make until your avatar learns scientific notation, but even then you need to test it and give results to that notation. Even if you try your hardest to make something identical, unless your avatar is far enough skilled to completely measure things out things will always behave differently, especially in the beginning. For example, if you are making a sharp tool out of stone, you must twitch-based actually hit the sharp tool with the stone until it looks fine enough to you to cut through things, or you can test it out in the sacrifice of comfort: if it is dull it will not pierce or will take a great force to pierce so you must hold the button longer and if it is sharp it will cut and hurt you before you even get to use it.


 


Leadership skills will be about trusting people. Leadership skills will be divided into social and economic scales. As a leader you have the ability to give people in-game tasks (like quests) and you get rewarded with skill points by giving tasks, having them complete the task, and then the learning process by having them return to you afterwards. For example, as a leader of a tribe, you want to build houses for your people. You give the task to your crafters to build five houses. In return you say you will give them a feast for them to eat. To give them their food, you hire combat people to kill deer and then you use your own skill of making fires to cook it. As a reward, you give your combat people those five houses to live in. As a reward for exchanging one good for another the leader gets many economic leadership points he or she will be able to use to advance the tribe to a civilization and create currency. Eventually economic power will divert from leadership to entrepreneur skills as people will be able to make companies and eventually corporations.


 


Cultural skills will first be about exploring in a tribe or an early civilization, because people with culture will be able to claim land for a tribe or a civilization by putting crude posts made by crafters into the ground. These posts will eventually be replaced by roads, made by cutting forests down and laying paths. Cultural skills will be the most diverse, because it will also be about things like designing the civilizations’ currency, creating languages, creating and playing sports and activities, and adopting national styles like pillar architecture or domed buildings. Countries with high culture can dominate and take over tribes lands without going to war with them, but instead adopting their land into their culture simply by maintaining it. Someone with cultural skills will simply be able to make cultural unto any kind of organization, although it is most useful within a civilization.


 


There will be more and more skills and different play styles available the longer you play, including forging that will turn into harvesting crops or mining ore.


 


*Names will never be taken


You must have a first and last name, with an optional middle name (that you will be able to change when your avatar learns language and joins a Civilization), but the way you will talk to people in the game will be with an identification number, that will automatically translate to the person’s name when you type it.


 


*Support for in-game talking


There will be no need for Ventrilo because you’ll be able to talk in the game, which will serve as an identical match to typing. Just scroll down and push a button and you’ll be able to speak out-loud or have a phone/Skype-like conversation with someone else or a group of individuals of you’re choosing.


 


*A natural aging process (“Perma-death”)


When you first enter the world your avatar will be 18 years old, but as you play in-game your avatar will get older and older and eventually will naturally die and you’ll have to create a new character. Getting killed by a player will not cause permanent death, as you will be able to reincarnate inside your cave or house. Houses can be destroyed but caves cannot, so if your house(s) are demolished you will always be able to reincarnate inside your cave. When you are not playing the game your avatar does not age.


 


*Every avatar will look unique


In the character creation process you’ll be able to customize your avatar human into anything that looks like a normal human being. There will be dozens of different sliders for different attributes, and it will go further than that: you’ll be able to change your avatar’s “DNA” attributes as well, allowing you to customize anything that your avatar can be born with, outside or in.


 


*Avatars will have needs


Like the Sims, avatars will have needs. Needs will include sleep, hunger, thirst, comfort, fun, and social. Avatars will naturally sleep every time you log off, but if you play too long your avatar can get tired. Your avatar will need to eat and drink water to replenish hunger and thirst. Comfort can be easily changed just by changing stances. Fun comes in by doing different things – if you do one thing too much you’ll avatar will get bored and uninterested in what you are doing, unless you pre-defined it not to in the DNA. Social interactions will be in the game, and will be encouraged and required for all players that choose not to have the “schizoid” gene in their DNA. Hunger and thirst are primary needs, and sleep, comfort, fun, and social are secondary needs. Your avatar will die (although not permanently) if hunger or thirst is not replenished.


 


*A built-in language system


Everybody will be able to type and talk in their own native language at start, but once your avatar learns language and writing you’ll be able to make your own codes. For example, if you want to say something nobody understands, you create the language in-game with your cultural abilities and designate every letter you type to act and behave to other people who don’t know the language one to three different letters. So, it will ask you a = [insert one to three letters here], b = [insert one to three letters here], c and so-on forth. When you type in that language to you it will look like English, but to everybody else who does not know the language it will look like gibberish! Cultural linguists will be able to teach their language to people they know, and leaders will be able to adopt that as one of the national languages. This feature will be especially useful during war between two or more civilizations.


 


*Unlimited storage


Your avatar will be able to carry anything to an infinite point. However, if you die you are vulnerable to being looted, but you will be able to go from your house or cave to your body and retrieve anything that wasn’t lost. Tribes and civilizations will be able to have laws to avoid killing and then looting the corpse. Leaders specialized in law will be able to put criminals to justice. The game will support banks that will be able to store currency or items, and you will be able to keep your valuables safe in your own house.


 


I think you have an idea of it by now.


 


EDIT:


 


*Expansion Packs


There will be expansion packs expanding the technology/skill tree even farther and will allow players to go “into the future”.

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Comments

  • InzraInzra Member Posts: 679

    I'd like a game with more credibility and more freedom than mainstream have anyway. Or credible(realistic) freedom.

    For my game I'd like to have one character only, having alts or multiboxing seems ridiculous to me as a concept.

    With that character you could do anything, including changing race/gender between lives -when your character dies and gets respawn- or through advanced rare magic/sci-fi.

    I guess my dream mmog has alot of the concepts from Darkfall and Mortal Online, except the grind and the bugfest...

     

    Anyway I tried to describe my dream mmorpg long ago, but noone seemed to care much about it so cba to repeat it in detail.image

  • Sanity888Sanity888 Member UncommonPosts: 185

    Originally posted by Inzra

    Anyway I tried to describe my dream mmorpg long ago, but noone seemed to care much about it so cba to repeat it in detail.image

    I promise you if you type your ideal MMOG in detail I'll read it and respond. Your ideas right now are too vague to bring up a conversation, but I bet we can have one if you flesh it out a little.

    P.S. I do lean towards my MMORPG being a one-avatar only game but I'm not completely sure....

  • JoliustJoliust Member Posts: 1,329

    I would just like a game that comes up with truly fun, and innovative alternatives to the set in stone type of gameplay we see in MMOs. Easier said than done but it has been done.

    Something that breaks the traditional style of combat, crafting, and adventuring. As well as the interaction between the three. I would also like to see just new ways for people to interact, I mean look how silly things have gotten in MMO's. All of them have 6 players per party. Who the hell set that in stone? Why do we have to be a single avatar, why can't we be a platoon leader, or control a small group of avatars from above? There are just a lot of little things I would like to see stepped away from in an MMO, as well as some big things, that would really change the feel and experience of the game.

    Also with the popularity of small tycoon games, I don't see why any developer hasn't picked up on that and used that as the basis for crafting. It sounds like a great alternative to click this craft button until you run out of resources.

    Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.

  • asdarasdar Member UncommonPosts: 662

    I think it's different for everyone, but for me I start with a game like Darkfall. Aiming to shoot, full loot so that crafting/trading is important, non-instanced so you have to be more aware of your surroundings, fully shaped world with different environments, i.e. water, swamp, mountains, desert, skills and not levels or classes, and very limited insta-travel so the world is real.


    I'd completely wipe out the grind. From zero to max in my game might take a month of average, not hard core play time. PvP should be a battle that starts very close to equal. The winner should be the one that fights/plans better, not the one who had higher stats/gear. GW did this part right even if they messed up the MMO part.

    The other things that I think my game would have are cheap boats so that the smallest guild could build one a day easily, along with way more PvE spots. I want people wishing they had more time so they could try things they'd never done before. Instead of making the game last by forcing long grind I'd have it last by having so many PvE mobs that you couldn't do them all.

    The last thing I'd do would be to add tons of non-functional rewards. Trophies to add to your house like dragon horns and lion heads, plaques/banners/flags for outside, gear that displayed victories, titles, leaderboards, maybe k/d stuff anything that would add more to the fame type aspect of PvP/PvE in a game, but not hurt equality in PvP.


    I'd also have Trading centers that were super safe zones, but no auction. You'd have to buy and sell your own stuff, or at least have a dummy salesman. I don't like the whole search for items from a huge list, it makes it too fake. There's no internet in my world. I admit that it's less convenient to look around for a deal, rather than just scroll down a list, but that trading is what makes crafting/trading have some meaning, and not just be a dumping ground for every piece of crap a player picks up.

    Asdar

  • wallet113wallet113 Member Posts: 231

    Wow.

    I'm a HUGE civ fan, this would  be a interesting idea.

  • TruthXHurtsTruthXHurts Member UncommonPosts: 1,555

    Perma-Death zombie survival MMO. P2P a survivor F2P a zombie. I don't wnat another running the streets with a chainsaw type game. I want it to be FFA PVP with the constant threat of zombies, and starvation.

    "I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"

  • wallet113wallet113 Member Posts: 231

    Originally posted by TruthXHurts

    Perma-Death zombie survival MMO. P2P a survivor F2P a zombie. I don't wnat another running the streets with a chainsaw type game. I want it to be FFA PVP with the constant threat of zombies, and starvation.

    I'd like a Updated version of Ultima Online  Pre-Trammel

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247

    Originally posted by wallet113

    I'd like a Updated version of Ultima Online  Pre-Trammel

    ... in 3D.  I'd settle for pre-AOS though. I'm easy like that.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

  • QuasiRainQuasiRain Member Posts: 125

    Quest-based MMORPG with really hot characters. Blade-and-Soul quality, low specs, and mass warfare. I want something which has mass PvP like this game:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6tcySf-VqE

    <TBA>

  • wallet113wallet113 Member Posts: 231

    Originally posted by Loktofeit

    Originally posted by wallet113



    I'd like a Updated version of Ultima Online  Pre-Trammel

    ... in 3D.  I'd settle for pre-AOS though. I'm easy like that.

    I just want to grey flag, run into town , and see how many people chase after me out of town, so I can PK them with friends =)

  • PigozzPigozz Member UncommonPosts: 886

    Tabula Rasa with bane as playable race, seamless zoning and budget of SWTOR, thus creating much more versatile environments and richer content..simple as that

    I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them

  • JoliustJoliust Member Posts: 1,329


    Originally posted by TruthXHurts
    Perma-Death zombie survival MMO. P2P a survivor F2P a zombie. I don't wnat another running the streets with a chainsaw type game. I want it to be FFA PVP with the constant threat of zombies, and starvation.

    In Zombie MMOs there is unPerma-Death. UnPerma-dead roaming the country sides in search of brains. :-p

    I agree though. What are your views on controlling your zombie after he dies? I think an interesting idea is that you can keep track of your dead characters afterlife. Get little reports on who killed him, how he died, what he does. Especially if your undead character ends up being rampantly successful. Perhaps your success in life would have an effect on the stats of you after you turn. Would also make interesting player interactions. Scary to hide out with body builders because if they get bit they can tear you apart, ect.

    Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.

  • TruthXHurtsTruthXHurts Member UncommonPosts: 1,555

    My plan for the afterlife was sort of a all black world and players showed up as heat signatures and sound waves coming from directions and through walls. You really wouldnt know where the doorways or anything were. You would only know that there is meat and you have to find a way to get to it. THat is the only way I could figure out how to make it zombie griefer proof. As for progression of zombies i dont't know. I was hoping to keep them all generic shamblers, but maybe some zombie leadership skills would be in order. 

    "I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"

  • JoliustJoliust Member Posts: 1,329


    Originally posted by TruthXHurts
    My plan for the afterlife was sort of a all black world and players showed up as heat signatures through walls. You really wouldnt know where the doorways or anything were. You would only know that there is meat and you have to find a way to get to it. THat is the only way I could figure out how to make it zombie griefer proof.

    That is very creative. I would have never thought of such a great idea. Really puts you in the mindset of zombies being mindless bodies driven by an unquenchable hunger for flesh. Would keep the game from getting stale since you wouldn't just be a melee version of a human walking around the game would but to you, you would be in a whole 'nother world from your point of view. Also would keep from player ran zombies from acting too intelligently and human like.

    Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.

  • TruthXHurtsTruthXHurts Member UncommonPosts: 1,555

    Yes and they would have no way of determining players from one another. THey would have no means of communication with the living, and I would almost have to consider them spawning in random locations after death to prevent someone keeping zombie guard dogs in their lair.

    "I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"

  • ZekiahZekiah Member UncommonPosts: 2,483

    Random stat items

    Random colored items

    Open world-no instances

    No childish quest system (glowies to hold your hand)

    NPCs that give you clues for quests instead (no ! or ? over their heads)

    Tameable pets/fighting companions

    Random colored skins/stats for tameable pets/fighting companions

    Extremely customizable housing including the foundation

    No bazaar or universal trading system so people have to shop/socialize

    Player vendors

    Advanced crafting system similar to SWG with random stats/colors

    Certain loot items requiring crafters to create or add to an existing item

    Crafting interdependance but not overdone

    NPC bartering

    Realistic medieval look, no anime

    DAOC/Shadowbane like PvP system but more advanced

    Decent death penalty, not too hard or too soft

    PvP-free zones (bonuses for housing in PvP player cities)

    Player skill advancement system based on useage (no levels)

    Multi-player mini games like poker inside taverns etc. (where players sit and play together)

     

    I could probably think of more but this would be an awesome start. I doubt we'll ever see anything like this but one can dream.

    "Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky

  • sfc1971sfc1971 Member UncommonPosts: 421

    I have actually being doing a thought excersise for my own fun in which I try to create the "ultimate" MMORPG and then look at it through the eyes of a griefer to see if it can ever exist.

    Because one fundemental for any would be MMORPG is, how does it deal with people that just want to upset other players.

    It really doesn't matter how clever you make your game if nobody wants to play it because all its clever bits are ruined by an asshole. You can't run a 3 star restaurant if someone goes around crapping on your guests dinner plates. 

    But lets give an idea I had for an ultimate MMORPG experience a try:

    Imagine a very large world, so massive that no player can realistically explore all of it. In this massive world locations spawn that are of intrests to players, say a Goblin mine. The Goblins, NPC's, want to keep the mine, the players want it as well.

    Now because the world is massive, unless a player who enjoys solo style exploring comes across it, it would never be found. the longer it goes unfound, the more metals will be mined, the richer the loot. 

    The solo player now has a very valuable piece of knowledge but no real way of exploiting it himself. He has to share this knowledge with other players. 

    The group based fighters would love to know about a rich price but as group players they don't want to spend ages wandering the wilderness fighting off solo monsters. So they just know some explorers who might share their discoveries. The mine will need to conquered. Two types of fights will occur. General area fighting, come as you are, join a group near you and defeat the horders and special defences fighting like defeating the Goblin pet dragon for the raiders.

    Then the crafters will need to come in, some fighters might make their money protecting the miners while they get their stuff out, in a PvP world the massive wagon train with the stolen^H^H^H^H^Hliberated goods  would have to defended from other players as it is brought back to town. 

    --- The goal

    Why all this? Because any MMORPG will be played by people wanting different styles of gameplay. Only the simplest become general shoot-em-up style games were everyone is the same even in different classes. 

    How do you create a game where the solo player, the groupie and the leader can have fun together? By making them dependent on each other for maximum profit to themselves. 

    This is about more then just making a raid party need a hunter class and the hunter class being the class of choice for solo players. It is about making a solo player PART of the whole game to the benefit of himself and other players.

    --- Can it work?

    Yes, it can. To a certain extent. This type of gameplay CAN work when you are willing to accept that not all content is for everyone. Most games just do not have enough content to satisfy their players so they hate the idea of content only being available to a portion. The massive world needed for a solo explorer to have a solo explorer experience in isn't going to be of any intrest for the guy who just want to sign on, find an escort quests (put up by the mine raiding party) and do some battle for the evening. 

    It is the trains having to run empty to be efficient paradox. A train service will always run at minimal total capacity because for a train service to off use during peak hours it must run at the off hours. You wouldn't use the trains to commute if the last train ran at 17:30 making overtime impossible. 

    A rich game world must have areas you never go to, to give a sense of space. For exploration to feel real, it must have unexplored paths. You can't have exploration in WoW because every single centimeter has been trodded upon by millions.

    Star Wars Galaxies came closests but in a bad way. There were plenty of areas nobody ever went to but there also was little reason to go there as well. 

    Make the solo explorer the discoverer of the raiders raid areas.  Let the small group player clear the road. The PUG grouper clear the area. The warrior/crafter make the transport hub so the big raiders can come in and do their job.

    Everyone is happy doing their own thing, together. 

    Everyone is happy. Except the "me too" crowd. 

    But hey, you can't please everyone.

  • TruthXHurtsTruthXHurts Member UncommonPosts: 1,555

    Originally posted by sfc1971

    I have actually being doing a thought excersise for my own fun in which I try to create the "ultimate" MMORPG and then look at it through the eyes of a griefer to see if it can ever exist.

    Because one fundemental for any would be MMORPG is, how does it deal with people that just want to upset other players.

    It really doesn't matter how clever you make your game if nobody wants to play it because all its clever bits are ruined by an asshole. You can't run a 3 star restaurant if someone goes around crapping on your guests dinner plates. 

     

    If someone is crapping on plates in a restaurant they are removed by the police (Banned) If they are beiing loud or obnoxious then they are generally allowed to eat their meal and you are allowed to mind your business. If you want them to stop engaging in the bahviour that disturbs you so much YOU can ask them to stop and risk them beatign you in front of your family. It's the same basic principle. If you getting griefed makes you so sad you have to quit it probably wasn't the right game for you in the first place. Maybe the carebears will come out with an MMO someday and then people who don't want to be griefed can make rainbows and sunshine allday.

    "I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"

  • MeowheadMeowhead Member UncommonPosts: 3,716

    I'm a little sad that given parameters such as 'unlimited time, money, resources and infinite knowledge', the game most people appear to want to play is 'Much like another game I already play, only not as buggy and with more content'.



    You know what?  I'm going to remove some of the more game breaking ones.  Infinite knowledge would basically allow me... well, anything.  That's too far.  I don't even need unlimited time (A game that's 10 billion years in development could be ridiculously good).  All I'm going to ask for is a mind boggling amount of money.  Say the GNP of a major country, for a few years.  Not unlimited money/resources, but good enough for the purposes of what I'm going to propose.  This isn't even my dream game (I refuse to go into all the systems and such), but I thought it'd be fun to stretch the limits of what people are considering an acceptable dream game to make.



    Okay, first off, anybody familiar with Google maps?  The street level view?  Yeah, basically I'm going to want a considerably more exhaustive version of that.  Not just streets, but other areas as well.  So I'm going to have to hire a lot of people to go around a lot and take panoramic views of as much as possible, using a combination of normal cameras and infrared cameras along with GPS to build some rudimentary 3D maps of as much of the world as is feasible.  Then I'm going to need teams of people (Thousands of people, I suppose, or more) to tag each object roughly and give them designations like 'tree' 'house' 'skyscraper' and so on.



    I'll need a great team of programmers to create some procedural rendering programs that take this tagged and GPS-coordinated information and rebuild them (Possibly with a fantasy theme.  Skyscraper becomes tower, and so on).  It's okay if it's out of date by the time they're done, and if it's only rough approximations, that's all I need for the base of the game.



    Now, we're not really going to be able to play the game I have in mind using normal hardware, so I'm going to need teams of people creating various devices.  First, I'm going to need some sort of GPS-boosting system to allow people to use GPS indoors.  Something sort of like a network of cell towers, that can tell where a person is in relation to it through triangulation.  Next, I'm going to need the displays.  I figure for starters, probably only need two types (More could be possible, but let's not make this entry a whole encyclopedia of device building) of game units.



    First, the most basic version of the portable unit would basically be something along the lines of a tablet like the iPad.  Probably quite a bit bulkier (Even with my big budget), but if it looks like a big magical book, that's only a bonus.  It's going to need at least 8 different cameras.  Two infrared and two normal on the back, and the same on the front.  This is basically a combination of the technology used in the Kinect and the 3DS... taking 3D pictures and having 3D infrared to help with positioning and motion sensing.  By holding the book up, you can see the real world... and over it, an overlay with parts of the game world.  Some of the more major landmarks and various magical effects such as magical ley lines crossing the skies, sources of magical energy that one can tap into, and various spirits.  You'd be viewing everything in game using enhanced reality (Basically normal reality with a virtual overlay), including the equipment other players have if you run into one.  Magic would be done by either sketching runes, or grabbing and manipulating magic like ley lines.  Movement would be done through GPS tracking, and I guess if you really wanted to be precise, there could be a few motion sensors you wear under your clothing to give a rough idea of where the game wants to paint you into the game world.  Note, people using the tablet version of the game will not see the virtual version of you, since you're actually physically there, they'll just see the game painting the right equipment over the body (This is where the Kinect style technology comes in handy).



    A lot of the exploring would be much like geocaching... magical things would be hidden across the world, magical events, even dungeons mapped out over some buildings (Note to self.  Procedural generation of dungeons in buildings?  Might be fun to have the game layout not actually match the real layout... can make for awkward placement of bosses, like half in the men's bathroom, half in the women's bathroom.)



    Now, you may be wondering why there's a virtual body... or why I hired all these people to go around googleMapping the whole world.  That's where the second type of game player comes in.



    Some people aren't going to want to get outside and actually move from place to place.  Kind of crazy if you ask me, but hey!  I love lazy game players too.  In fact, I love them so much, they'll get a whole different sort of gameplay!  Rather than navigating the real world, they get to navigate the approximate-version that was made.  This has the immediate advantage that they don't have to worry about pesky problems like 'I really want to cross that bridge, but in the real world they got rid of it.'.  Rather than it being their real self other players will see, they will be represented by an avatar.  In game mechanic terms, they will be treated as a spirit, rather than a 'real' person, which will have some advantages and some disadvantages so far as game play go (I'm not going to go into all the whys and wherefores of this, just mentioning it in passing)



    I would prefer they also use some sort of motion control setup, but let's face it, these people don't even want to bother to go out door to kill ghosts and demons, so I might have to get people to design some sort of replacement mouse + keyboard setup (That would deliver inferior gameplay, but hey, whatever.)



    Oh, the stay at home players are going to need at least some sort of 3D monitor, because... hey.  Immersion and what not.  Plus, 3D is more meaningful when you're really traversing a version of what the real world is.  To play 'properly' (ie, without keyboard and mouse), they're going to also need at least a 4 camera setup (Not the 8, because they're not seeing the real world with an overlay, they're only seeing the virtual world).

    Oh, I'm aware all this would be expensive, which is why I'd need a pretty good chunk of my MMO creation money just to subsidize all the players, basically selling the equipment for shockingly cheap prices.  Yes, I'm fully aware this game wouldn't make me any money, but I just spent trillions of dollars, what do I care about making money?



    I could go more into detail over systems like conquering territory, buying accessories that work in the real world (Buy a motion sensing sword hilt, get to kill ghosts the old fashioned hack and slash way, and so on), the economy created based off of magic hot spots, PvP (or 'how not to punch the guy playing next to you'), crafting and how it alters the virtual world to slowly diverge from the real world, and so on, but even though I'm writing this in notepad, I'm starting to sense this post might be getting a little long.



    tl;dr:  I want to make a game that takes trillions of dollars to be brought to life.  Enough said.

  • Sanity888Sanity888 Member UncommonPosts: 185

    Meowhead: You do realize that out of all of us, you have the most elaborate and expensive project to date? For one saying you don't need certain things to do this, you sure would need the most out of any of us in order to do it. But I do sympathize with you; because I find it kind of sad too that at least half of the respondents just want a better version of a MMO that is already out.


     


    I’ll admit you have some great ideas, and you did not break any rules that I established (because there was no such rules, mind you), but when I originally wrote this thread I designed my own dream MMO to the extent that it would be impossible to make. Fearing that it would never be made (well, it still probably won’t), I changed some of the unrealistic aspects of the game to a less hard-core version of itself.


     


    The only way I could see your MMO being made is somehow GPS, infrared, and 3D technology becomes so cheap that you would not need to subsidize your products. I don’t think something like that would cost trillions of dollars to make, because you could make all towers/houses/whatever identical to each other. Remember the game True Crime: Streets of LA? Sure, it was buggy, but it contained most of Los Angeles but most of the houses were duplicates of each other. Unless you want to painstakingly craft every house uniquely based on its GPS picture, I could see this being made with probably 500 Million or so.


     


    But I do not know all the features your game would have and I don’t know how deep they go, so I could be wrong. I am kind of disappointed with the answers here I thought I could get deep, detailed, unique ideas like what I posted but instead I got lazy answers with barely any detail besides “it would be like this MMO”, save your answer, Meowhead, but I still don’t think you fleshed out some of your key ideas far enough with us. I would like to hear more. 

  • LarsaLarsa Member Posts: 990

    Originally posted by Sanity888


    Imagine you had unlimited time, money, resources, even infinite knowledge. You are the complete architect of your creation. You can negotiate with any company to use any kind of lore you want. Simply put, you could make any MMOG you want. I specifically say MMOG and not MMORPG because if you want to make a MMOFPS (first-person shooter) or MMORTS (real-time strategy) you can do that too. ...

    I would make DAoC 2.

    And it would be a traditional MMORPG from the pre-WoW era.

    Few changes compared to DAoC (I'm talking about the DAoC from around the first expansion, Shrouded Isles I believe it was called?), updated graphics obviously, a better crafting system, more of a player economy, i.e. less loot drops. More PC animations to support role-playing. More fluff. More pubs. :)

    I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.

  • MeowheadMeowhead Member UncommonPosts: 3,716

    I'm fully aware my game would be the most expensive to make, that was pretty much the whole point to it. :D  Most of the money would be going into hiring the huge teams of people you'd need to translate the whole world into 3D, and the infrastructure you'd need like improving GPS, and creating a world wide dedicated 4G network solely for the purpose of letting people play this game.  Well, that and paying for everybody to be able to get the equipment.  I mean, just for the glasses free 3D we're talking several thousand dollars per stay at home player.  :)

    One thing I was thinking of, is that you would be able to have a rather large amount of crafting done... you could chop down virtual trees, virtually mine, and destroy/create objects in areas that people somehow manage to claim.  One could either rebuild an in game house to more closely match their real one, for example, or work together with friends to create a fortified castle that exists solely in the virtual world. 

    Actually, one problem I was thinking of, was it would be hard to deal with cities in this game.  If you have enough game players in a city, the monster density might end up overwhelmed, and of course there's the minor problem that I can't imagine any city being happy with tens of thousands of people stumbling down their streets, waving their hands in the air and casting spells.

    Since I was thinking of magic energy being an actual resource, I suppose that the powerful crossing of ley lines that cities would be built upon in the virtual world would be drained and overwhelmed... meaning that city gameplay would be fairly different from rural gameplay.  In a city, everybody would have less overall magic, and it would be more about subtlety and skillful use of resources to combat, perhaps more team efforts to take down any big threats.

    I think I'm rambling a bit, I woke up just a few minutes ago.  Did you have anything specific you wanted me to expound upon more?  There's a lot of ideas behind the game, and I can't really put it all in a single post. :D

  • TharzidunTharzidun Member Posts: 8

    Shadowrun...and not just as FPS, a full-fledged MMORPG.

  • kalimahkalimah Member Posts: 44

    DAOC 2...

  • TraceGaleTraceGale Member Posts: 45

    Im trying to make my dream a reality for the whole world to enjoy.

    My MMO is titled Realms.

    I'd like to take out the leveling system by implementing a knowlegde system as said in some posts which i believe adds the ''real'' aspect to a mmo, what most fans want.By doing this the weapons in the game would lvl as armor and things of that nature but your characters knowlegde would matter on everything you do from confronting the forces that bid you ill to crafting a lvl 5 armor piece,its all knowlegde

    Unique System...this is the next big thing i believe in the MMO world. Accomplished this would add a huge unique feel that i've noticed fans complain about just about as much as they do about bugs. People are tired of seeing their armor set,their weapon,and most of all the same face. Basically this allows the user after reaching a certain knowlegde to create and shape their own armor and weapons and adding procs and things of the sort.

    If your tired of seeing your toon swing his sword left to right with a thrust parry or dodge thrown in for accent then the Defense System is something you've been waiting for. This makes battles enjoyable to watch and be apart of. Tucks rolls ducks leaning and swaying dodges and parrys. The defense system will make battles seem more epic as you raise in whatever skill you chose.

    Realms will span across a huge landscape and it's my goal to find a way to do all this and players still be able to run with low reqs without instances everywhere.

    Monthly fees would be stationed but only 5 bucks..seeing as how i have three other games im currently working out also.

     

    This is a real game so i cant release to much information but these are key features i think done correctly any MMO fan would be consumed in. Adding a truly unique and real aspect..something other companys only BS about.

    Some more intresting ideas ive had...

    Wizards will be born by finding spellbooks instead of created with skill sets. You find the spells you use them and as you use them they grow in power and they become easier to use..as real wizards do.

    I dont think a game of this calibur would be hard to balance out or run and i think it would be easily accepted by old inbetween and new MMOers.

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