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Lets Build The Perfect MMO
Auzy
Member UncommonPosts: 611
It seems as though its a common trend on these forums to bash bash bash without any ideas how to fix the game.
So, I thought it would be interesting to see what we as a community consider the perfect MMO.
Below I will list each category and I want to hear from you how you think it should be done.
In no particular order....
Combat
My perfect time of combat would have to be a first person shooter. Maybe its due to my love for Planetside, but I feel as if it depends more on twitch skill than being able to do the perfect hotbar rotation.
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
I would prefer to see a near future setting, where it wasn't pew pew lasers, but rather improved bullets. The setting I am thinking of is somewhat like Mass Effect.
Crafting
Crafting should be rewarding, which means it should be challenging. I don't want to be able to craft something super awesome in one hour. It should take days, this would put much more meaning behind the item for me. While I understand this would be frustrating for some, overall it would prove to be a more rewarding experience for others. I hate to say it, but I am going to refer back to WoW, the quest around mid lvl 20's for strictly Paladins was epic. You had to forge a mace that involved you running throughout the entire world, while it didn't take days it did take several hours. This made me appreciate and hold onto that mace for years in my bank.
Dungeons
Dungeons are a touchy subject, instance or open world? I would love to see a mix in a MMO, however in the open dunegon zones I would enjoy some type of competitiveness for players. Rare ore or some type of mini boss at the end to encourage either grouping or pvp.
Economy
I think if the crafting is expansive enough and meaningful, a player driven economy will be easy to achieve. You will take pride in your crafting and in return demand a good price for your work. SWG had it right, I would come back to the same vendors for their higher quality products.
Player Levels/Skills
Skyrim....thats the skill model I would replicate, it doesnt define one specific path for you, you use a weapon...you level up in it. Simple and effective.
Questing
Questing should be meaningful, why on earth would I want to deliver a package to some wahoo. I want it to be an experience, I want it to change a small part of the world. People always say you can't change a world in a MMO, it would be too confusing... Well, why not? I think if I slayed some innocent people at a market, I should have a bounty on my head and a quest for another player to come and kill me.
Player Customization
I think feeling unique is a huge aspect in MMO's. The customization should be extensive for the character creation screen (Aion), but the armor models should also be unique. Why does it seem armor dyes have gone out the window (Props Warhammer)? I want some spore type of shit that I can craft and design my own armor models and apply them to my character (restrictions would apply).
Player Housing
Pleeeasse make me feel like I own a part of the world, even if its an instanced zone like LOTRO. This is huge to me, I remember in UO/SWG being able to sell goods at my front porch.
Raiding
Raiding shouldn't be about a gear grind... (RAN OUT OF TIME, gotta go to class! BRB WILL FINISH LATA)!
PvP
Out of categories, if you think of something I missed, please add.
Uhh... what?
Comments
Looking forward to reading more of your ideas.
The part about selling stuff at your front door in SWG really hit home with me. I could see how that would be a cool experience.
I'm game.
Combat
I like a third person perspective personally, since I like to have periphreal vision. I suppose an ideal game would offer the option to switch between first and third person perspectives.
As for the combat itself, I loathe the Holy Trinity -- by default it's an extremely static and boring system that requires gimmicks to liven it up. I want something more like old school D&D or other P&P RPGs in spirit. Positioning matters, movement matters, tactics matter, and battles are about working towards controlled chaos. No plan should survive contact with the enemy. Specializations should be more towards front, mid-range, and long range combatants who all have a decent amount of flexibility (e.g. not so specialized they are completely incapable outside of their chosen field).
I'd like tough encounters to be able thinking quickly and working together as a group to overcome (literally) unpredictable obstacles. That would keep combat fresh and interesting.
I wouldn't mind an FPS-like game per se, but obviously for things like melee combat you need to have various strikes that hit anything they would look like they'd hit (e.g. not just what your cursor is on). Things should ideally be balanced so that each class/whatever has a reasonable variety of balanced builds (that should be the aim anyhow). I quite like how GW2 looks to be handling a lot of this.
In short, I'd be happy with combat that focused on being fun and engaging, with peaks and valleys in difficulty (so that things build up to a climax now and then).
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
I like magic and technology mixed together. Perhaps steampunk with magic. Travel to other planes and worlds, stuff like that.
Crafting
This should either take little of the person's time (e.g. not be a grind) or be involved and require player SKILL (not just skill ranks). Either way can be made to have crafting be a somewhat slow process with cooldowns or other limiting factors (though personally I prefer a reserve of something would be built up and then used to make things, as that's more forgiving than a cooldown). I'm not sure how easily crafting can be made into a fun and engaging game in itself. It might be sufficient to just settle for having a lot of options on how to put things together.
At all costs, however, grind must be avoided.
Dungeons
If there's limited worldspace, then I think you need instances to provide highly tuned content for small groups (this is one of my favorite sorts of play with friends). If the universe is large enough however, perhaps with the aid of procederally generated content and terrain, then you could conceivably have dungeons out in the open that people find maps or the like to. Along with a fast travel system, and dungeons eventually being repopulated by other creatures, that could potentially work. Having a living breathing world like this might be a bit difficult, but GW2 has made some interesting progress there. Hypothetically, one could improve that system so that each group of bad guys has an AI determining what they do next, where they go, where they build forts/dungeons/etc, and all that could be generated on the fly in real time as they do it. I don't think this is technically impossible with current technology, but we certainly don't have all the software yet and there'd be a lot of effort required to make it work.
Figuring out how to have random dungeons with tuned content would be a bit of a trick, but not wholly impossible with the use of some reskins and the like (imagine a pool of forty level 20 encounters, five of them grabbed with proper skinning added to make a proper random dungeon).
Economy
I'm fine with a player economy, as long as crafting is fun. With limits on crafting amounts per week or whatever, you could make it so that grinding isn't possible (and hence grinding to make money won't be encouraged by the system). Like I said before, I'm against a game encouraging grinding. You should ideally choose what to do because you ENJOY the activity, not because you ONLY want a particular reward.
Player Levels/Skills
Skyrim would be hard to balance, I think. Class systems have an advantage here. In the end, I primarily care about offering a wide variety of viable playstyles to the player. Having classes to provide a bit of structure can be a bit more successful here. Skill-based systems can run into the problem where most skills suck and balancing certainly valid playstyles becomes difficult or almost impossible because of certain overpowered combos.
To help compensate for this, I'd be in favor of being able to adjust and modify cosmetic aspects about your abilities. If you like minions, but don't want robots, maybe you have plants or undead (a lot of work for artists, but worth it, imho). I think the TOR handles this in a fairly good way at times. Ideally you should find a playstyle you enjoy along with whatever theme you'd enjoy that style the most.
Questing
I think GW2 (and Skyrim, though it isn't an MMO) provide some light on what might be possible. Like I said above, you could have a larger, breathing world, potentially, if you give group AI to various entities in the world. They'd plan things out like in an RTS or TBS and move based on that. Questing would then be like GW2, dynamic and probably based around nodes of interest (that would attract AIs for various reasons). I think this would be difficult to program and make it work well, which is probably one of the reasons that GW2 is more structured (also, the voice resources might be difficult since artificial voices are still fairly primitive).
Player Customization
Customized skills, physical appearance, and some sort of appearnace tab for armor. I don't think allowing wholly custom armor appearances would work well without having a vetting process to make sure it is appropriate.
Player Housing
Housing can be nice. I'm not huge on it. I suppose instanced is best. While you might think I'd want housing out in the world and vulnerable to attacks by AI groups, I really don't want that at all. I've played games that marry the player to real time elements like that and it ends up running your life. You have to constantly watch what is going on, guilds have to make huge plans that rely on people logging in at a particular time, etc, etc. I hate it. I'd want a game you could take a week or even a couple months off and not lose anything.
Raiding
I think GW2 handles large group stuff well. Don't try to have it highly tuned. That just makes it so that you have to try for too finely tuned a balance between classes (otherwise you stack unbalanced classes/options to get a lot more power). I like cosmetic or similar things as the primary reward...well, really the primary reward should be because you bloody love doing it. I don't need a reward to play a fun co-op game with friends, and I shouldn't need one to enjoy an encounter in an MMO.
PvP
Hmm, not sure. I don't like open PvP across a whole world. I do kind of like GW2's approach here. By not having world PvP you can really encourage people to work together and make mechanics so that you always are happy to see someone else. I think generally segregating PvP to particular zones in some fashion is best, where fighting for areas and such occurs and affects the factions overall in some manner. I do think 3 sides is a good idea.
I think that we could spend all day debating about certain aspects of a game, but still we wont be able to produce a good game. We have to think of the different parts of the game as part of a bigger system. How well they interact with each other determines the internal value of the game. Then after that, we should consider how players will respond to it, which will determine its external value.
To illustrate my point, in console and pc gaming, there has been a recent trend with going multi-player and required DLC purchases. Even though the new game model is coherent and logical, a game using a different game model still managed to sell as high as these games using the recent game model. Watch this video to understand my point:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5014-How-Skyrim-Proves-The-Industry-Wrong
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take Asherons Call game play update the graphics keep the random loot and game engine that lets us dodge magic and missle weapons. keep it a huge open world with no instances and keep it skill based.
and make the pvp server as hardcore as the first one was.
Combat
A combination of Spellborns targetting system with Lotro wardens system combined with reactionals for mellee, a more FPS kind system for ranged classes and a speels would be a mix between spellweaving (some of Horizons/daggerfalls spellcreation) and insta spells.
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
A new setting of a paralel universe where certain factions like romans, WW2 Germans, egyptians, native americans, cold war russians and some alien races have survived intoo the future. Earth itselves is PvP with the exception of one metropole. Earth is connected to the rest of the univers with teleporting gates (
Crafting
Crafting with a non real time crafting engine like in Vangiuard. And even the best drops of high end gear can be improved by crafters.
Dungeons
Dungeons are a touchy subject, instance or open world? I would love to see a mix in a MMO, however in the open dunegon zones I would enjoy some type of competitiveness for players. Rare ore or some type of mini boss at the end to encourage either grouping or pvp.
Economy
A combination of Instanced and open world dungeons, combined with more story based (SWTOR flashpoints) and things like LOTRO's Skirmishes
Player Levels/Skills
Skyrim....thats the skill model I would replicate, it doesnt define one specific path for you, you use a weapon...you level up in it. Simple and effective. You get more powerfull in one of the paths... you copuld learn new skills and spelss tough through either finding the right trainer or learnign them rom mobs in combat, or even learning them from other players.
Questing
A combination of GW2 and SW;TORS quests combined with the GW2 dynamic events. Everyone starts out neutral in the main system, the story and quests have many branches and depending on your choices you end up with one of the PvP factions. If you start making the wrong choices later on or plot against your faction, your allegiance could switch.
Player Customization
At least 2 layers of clothing should be added(spellborn), full moddable with stats to the players liking.
Player Housing
Player housing like in EQ2, but allowing people to rebuild the instanced houses itselves too. On top of that there should be city building allowing factions to build their own citys and villages/ castles in the open world (Earth)
Raiding
Raiding should be part of the endgame and just as vialbe as other things.
PvP
Faction based open world PvP on earth. Your own decisions through the quest system decide what faction you end up with. Clear goals like destroying and capturing other guilds property and rewards for doing so availalbe. Both rewards for killing players as ahcieving faction based goals. Several factions can team up together through a political system and make peace treaties, certain factions however that are to far appart can never join eachother.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Agree to a certain extent but I'll take it a step further:
Combat
Combat would have the production quality of a WoW, wit hthe same fluid animations and sheer elegence it has but I would take it a step further. If you've played Asherons Call or Age of conan it would be a hybrid of the sorts with a little bit of Chronicles of Spellborne, I'll explain: Combat hot bar would have a 3 sided rotating bar similar to Chronicles of Spellborn with 5 buttons per side for a total of 15 in combat abilities. Each ability would be either a starter, an attack and a finisher. From here each press of the appropriate keybind would rotate the hotbar and upon hitting the ability you woul then have to decide if your attack will go high low or medium and the spell or ability will fire off. Its a very elegeant solution for in depth combat without having overpowering abilities being tied down to a GCD.
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
High fantasy in an original IP where it isnt constrained by the whims of another outside entity. But it would be very much similar to Dungeons and Dragons in appearence of characters and monsters.
Crafting
Crafting would play off of the dynamic loot system my perfect MMO would have. with the exception of having lockpicking for magical chests, cooking for food buffs, alchemy for potions and first aid for crafting in combat bandaging similar to Asherons Call. The rest of my crafting would consist of a Tinkering aspect, but do it in a much more subtle and believable fashion then Asherons Call (if you know the system then you know what I mean) a dynamic AC/Diablo loot system can drop any sort of item and it would be up to the crafter to to tinker or enchant that item based on the workmanship (10 being the maximum amount of tinks/enchants available) Say for example a Copper Deadly Flaming Broadsword dropped with random stats and random top-end, variance and modifyers with a workmanship of 6, then that sword can be tinked/enchanted 6 times. Each of the tinks/enchants can add stats, +crit, +hit, increase the damage, narrow the variance, or imbue a special property for example slayer, armor rending or crushing blow (increases critical strike damage) The last thing about my crafting is the resources need to craft would come from disenchanting or slavaging the dynamic loot. Each piece of loot would not only come in differing workmanships but also in different elements example Ebony bow, Steel chest piece, Gold trinket, or Teak crossbow. There would be many differing variations of the examples used and each type of loot would produce a different effect when tinkered/enchanted.
Dungeons
There would be no instances, instead the landscape, mountains, rivers edges, forests, canyons, icy catacombs, crypts, and any other type of dungeon setting you could imagine would litter world, like for example for every hamlet/city/village in the world there would be 10-15 dungeons nearby. For a world as big I want there would be litteraly tens of dozens of these such NPC hubs (but not in the linear WoW sense of the word) The dungeons are usually more attuned to groups the deeper you go but the early stages would contain solo friendly mobs and erratic spawning boss mobs.
Economy
The economy of my game would be based off Silver/Gold/Platinum but the real economy would be player driven, 1 week it might be loot based, the next it might be skeleton key based (thing sing keys or MFK keys in AC) or it could be resource based on what sort of tinks/enchants the players are in need of.
Player Levels/Skills
I would use a hybrid Skyrim/Asherons Call system. Experience earned is placed into skills to level them up, once you reach certain thresholds in the skill tree you would unlock perks or talents. But they would be much more expanded then Skyrims perks but look more like Titan Quest's talents/perk system. Everything in my MMO would be based off of experienced and since my combat system limits you to 15 slots for your combat hotbars it would balance itself out that way. Yea someone who played for years may have a lot of talents/perks but he is still limited to only using 15 of those combat abilities at any given time. ( I may even reduce this to a 4 slot rotating hotbar to limit the player to 12 abilities)
Questing
Questing should be engaging, with no or very little fed-ex quests. Isntead my quest system would work similar to Asherons Call but there would be NPC's situated in every little hamlet/village/city (A town Crier if you will) that will point the player to nearby NPC's who may have a quest to offer. And my quests would be detailed and on average take 30 mins ot an hour to complete. Sorry if your casual in time comitment you may not enjoy my MMO, as I truely feel an MMO is best enjoyed in the company of others and with time to commit to the task at hand, in all my years of playing Dungeons and Dragons Pen and Paper I never once set down at the kitchen table and had our GM tell us to go out and kill 10 rats, and most of our gaming sessions took 4 or 5 hours at least. Now I am not advocating that quests take that long but in my experience in Asherons Call a good and engaging quest with deep meaning can be finished in under an hour. If you cant play for an hour at a time I am of the opinion you should be playing console or other genres of video games. one thing I would add, is that questing and Solo grinding spawns of mobs in the wilderness would be near equal in terms of advancement, so in other words you may miss out on some nice higher quality loot found in dungeons or quest rewards you r advancement shouldnt be to much less if you decided to wander the country side killing spawns of mobs, so this is 1 avenue a more casual could take in my MMO.
Player Customization
Customization would play an integral role in my MMO, each character will have the option similar to a Skyrim or Aion in terms of character customization (barring the silly looks of course) but then I would take it a step further and allow the player to customize his starter gear based on the skills he selected at character creation. Similar to how City of Heroes does it, and that player has the option that each time he finds a piece of gear in the world on the dynamic loot system can keep his orignal appearance or take the new loot appearance. (basically the starter gear would act as a wardrobe slot)
Player Housing
I would take Asherons Call version of player housing a step further. I would keep the designated areas of the world for player housing, yes this means you couldnt build where you wanted but it could mean you can build how you wanted in each of the hundreds of designated land blocks devoted to player housing. The cost of a house would start out relatively small and increase in price based on the size of the foundation, how many storys, etc. Housing would use a monthly upkeep cost similar to AC.
Raiding
There would be no instanced raiding in my game, raiding would consist of certain select dungeons being harder but still non-instanced with bosses throughout on relatively long timers (6 hours at most)
PvP
PvP would be consentual and not supported on White servers, it would entail a flagging quest and anything goes, my MMO would be economy and PvE progression based. I would have a few red servers that would recieve ZERO updates, anything goes, if you want FFA then it will be at the whims of the madmen who plays and all content would be up to the characters themselves. Full on looting, any thing goes, no such thing as friendly fire etc. Maybe I would update it but I feel that PvP on such a server shouldnt rely on the developers to introduce new content as much as a white server.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
We see where this topic is going guys:)
We will never build a perfect mmo.
Becouse: I want it like this he want it like that and they want it differently hehe.
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Lol this is true, but if you notice...there are 1 or 2 things we agree upon. If this thread keeps up it would be a majority rules kind of thing. Not everyone will have the same point of view, but many will have similar ideas. These are the ideas that would help produce the perfect community MMO.
Uhh... what?
If the majority rules then WoW is already the perfect game by that comparison.
Would you like me to add a poll at the top asking this question?
Uhh... what?
Player driven economy.
Player created meta roles.
Player territory control including housing, city building.
Item decay.
Complex npc AI, with roaming mobs and randomised mobs.
Complex crafting, player crafting driven not loot based.
As little zoning and instancing as possible.
Skill based not class based but with a skill cap and a system which means that certain skills work in detriment to certain other skills and items to promote specialization.
FFA pvp within a larger frame factional war.
Full loot.
Npc "police" around certain larger cities to disuade random player killing in the "civilized" areas.
A meaningful "outlaw" system which you can't easily worm your way out of.
Twitch combat.
Virtually zero importance placed on itemization in terms of combat, which in turn means that getting looted has less impact unless you are hauling goods.
Decentralised trading.
No instanced pvp.
Challenging pve driven by AI, not by stacking ever larger health bars on mobs and making it a health grind.
For me and probably about four other people that is the start of the perfect mmo lol.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Free Realms with ships and UO's sea-based content (treasure chests, fishing, sea monsters, etc)
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
So to add everything from MMOs and other games I want to see combined...some ideas fit a sci-fi game more, others a fantasy or medieval game more, and others can work for both...I wouldn't expect EVERY feature to be in here.
Asheron's Call monthly updates...they do a huge or big update every month...with very FEW developers and the updates are actually good. Even whole new races and skills...for free
(minus the monthly fee)
EVE's expansions...being that EVE does not charge for expansions...now that is amazing in this day and age. AC"s content updates are pretty much like expansions too some of them.
EVE's Alliance empires
Minecraft building (including entire cities like you can do in multiplayer Minecraft)
Minecraft farming
Minecraft underground exploration (there is some rather awesome stuff to find when exploring underground)
Minecraft Nether dimension gameplay (PvP and PvE area, a big bad enemy can be here...see Istaria down below)
Ryzom style world (animals interact with you, interact with other animals, animals migrate, seasons, actual weather...)
Skyrim's exploration (so many cool dungeons and stuff)
Skyrim's sidequests
Skyrim's random event of a dragon (as an example) coming down to attack you
survival based (food, thirst, tiredness, have to really survive off the land)
Trine 2 realistic monster "spawning"
SWG crafting
Istaria's supposed "dynamic (lol)" main enemy expanding to create a big bad PvE enemy to defeat...but do it properly this time and make it so it isn't developer controlled and be a failed attempt. If enemy is defeated, come up with another one, if the players don't fight back and ignore it, it will take everything to the very last city and the players must fight back and re-take it
^relates to above a bit, as well as realistic enemy spawning, Tabula Rasa style enemies attack towns
Auto Assault's style car combat gameplay (do it properly, but at same time, not the main focus of the game)...if a fantasy game...what about chariot battles? Why aren't there ever chariots in a game?
Istaria's playable dragons
Free Realm's minigames...but make them fit the world and be more realistic for the world. Why aren't there more side things to do in games, that aren't about crafting or combat? Free Realms is only one that does that as far as I'm aware.
A proper Assassin class, that of Assassin's Creed. Actually feels like an Assassin...partly due to platforming, sneaking and what not...make it exactly like how the Assassin works in Assassin's Creed
Combat that of Mount and Blade (including fighting on horse back)...exactly like Mount and Blade. It is pretty much best combat system in a game, that I've personally played.
REAL cities, not tiny villages that are called cities, but actually aren't...if I can see the other side of the city on the same screen, then it isn't a city.
Underground realm, that of Forgotten Realms...different realm than nether from Minecraft.
Aether realm, that of a mod from Minecraft
I don't want it to be PvP focused, I don't want it to be PvE focused...I want both to be equally focused.
And...ah yes...I want ship to ship combat, and be a pirate. Able to build a pirate settlement, made solely for pirates raiding other players, villages, cities and what not...ocean/rivers/lakes etc should be a big thing with this. I want to be able to build it on an island (that would be among many islands)
For most of that to work, the world would be pretty big.
Now, all those features have been done before (be it in a RPG, RTS or FPS)...but to combine them and get it work in one game...would be a pretty...expensive and time consuming and near impossible task. But, it would be a very epic MMO or game in general, if done properly and if it wasn't a buggy unplayable mess. Not like they would have to do all of that all at once, they could release them as content patches or something.
:groans: Please, isn't fifteen years of them enough yet?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
My opionion, no company will ever be able to build the perfect game.....then no one would have anything to compete with!!!
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I guess since we're about a year from release we can do a quick sneak peak at some basic gameplay mechanics. I'm not going to go into detail mind you, however, our first release as a company will be an MMO. We're about a year out like I said.
Out game is going for a pleasent cross between Themepark and Sandbox, we'll call it, ThemeBox.
Combat
This will be third person. This is an RPG not an FPS. There will be collision detection while in combat, but it will be removed if you're not in combat to try to keep players from /afk in a doorway on you. Death has penalties. You loose progression towards your level, and towards your skills. Not a lot, but I don't know about you, but I'm tired of death meaning nothing other than a 2 minute run back from the grave yard. After you die you are taken back to the nearest town with a clinic/healer dedicated to it.This could be the main city if no one has spent the coin close by to upgrade it yet!
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
Fantasy.
Crafting
10 Main Professions, 3 minor professions. A player may choose any 2 major professions. A few will have some interesting mechanics. I.E. Herbs/Ore Nodes will spawn with a random quality (low/medium/high) and a random amount, of between 1 and 10 low, 1 and 5 medium, 1 and 3 high. Certain lower levels of ore will actually spawn in clusters in set areas. Mining isn't instant. You build a shaft. This shaft takes a certain amount of time to complete the mining based on your mining level and the amount/quality of the node. Opposing faction players can destroy your mine, however, it's protected from being stolen from a "friendly" player. This protection only lasts for up to 5 minutes after your mining operation is complete, after that...oh well a friendly can take it.
Dungeons
Most will be instanced. VERY few will be noon instanced, however those that aren't will mostly be in the neutral territories.
Economy
Only NPC vendors in the game are in the factions only main city. Everything else is completely player driven. It's all local. One blacksmith may have certain armor while another may have a different type. But they're on opposite ends of the map! They may or may not accept to buy your item. Depends on if the player thinks they'll get a little profit out of it. The NPC Vendors are actually suppliers for the NPC Mobs. Once an Item is vendored, it's gone for good! (barring unique items that are not sellable/tradable). However, this could go to supply what you'll see down in housing
Player Levels/Skills
This is actually a modification of the Oblivion style that turned out to be a lot like the Skyrim Style (except you still choose your skills at the beginning of player creation). However, these skills will level, and as they do, you gain XP. You get XP from quests, skill leveling, and mob grinding, and profession working. Each level you get a skill point to put into a specific skill you have to either unlock a new ability or some other interesting things (not just +% damage
)
Questing
Quests appear from NPC's, users can create certain quests at a town's Bulletin Board (see housing again :O ) but these are generally story driving (but not required to hit the level cap) There are certain areas of the world that are for higher levels and certain ones that are for lower levels.
Player Customization
A lot like Oblivion only a few less skills. And certain restrictions for balancing purposes.
Player Housing
A player can build a house anywhere they want. Houses take a little bit of time to build, and cost initial money. You must then pay a land tax every week for this house. When x amount of houses are within a certain range, all owner players get an ingame mail asking them to vote on becoming a town. If majority say yes, they become a town. They can expand if more people morve there (maybe better economy in that region?) A mayor is initially elected after the town forms. A townhall type building is spawned and players can go there and pay a fee that will go the the treasury of the town (and a chunk up the ladder to the king!) only a certain amount can enroll though, so you better hurry! And you CAN'T vote if you're running for office. Elections are held weekly. Mayors have certain duties they must performe (not going into detail). As the income for the town grows your Lord will send you guards and other defenses.
Players can set up shop anywhere in town to sell their wares. If they're away they will receive in game mail informing them someone wants to sell an item, which they can accept if the user hasn't found another buyer yet, or can decline and send a reason why...maybe to negotiate the price? hmmm???
However, wares can always be bought while you're away, even if you're offline. But don't get too greedy with land grabs, if your town is ransacked you loose everything there (your money is always carried on you and you keep items in your bags)
Raiding
Raiding is a core element of end game content. However, you don't get the best gear from here, you get the best recipes from end game raiding, but not the gear. The best gear can be made by a person with the best recipe.
PvP
Open world. No instanced BG's. Each faction controls a territory on one side of the world, while the middle is "neutral" (read: up for grabs and ever changing). It is FFA, you can kill your own people (not with AOE spells unless it's a self defense, there will be a flag/trigger for this if they attack you or heal someone that is attacking you, that way there is no accidental friendly kills if you're grouping or someone comes to help you out). HOWEVER, there's a crime based system. And after x amount of friendly kills you get caught for...your character goes to the block. This means, if you want to go around killing people, you will receive the death penalty, and your character will be killed...permanently. You will not be able to log back in. And it's a random number between x and y based on current political climate and warring between factions (if not much PVP is going on you get a little more leeway). There is no penalty for getting killed by a player other than you will loose some in game currency. This is a random number up to 50% of what you're currently carrying. There's a banking system use it!!!. It's random based on your level compared to the person that killed you, how many times you have died recently, and it is in tiers, i.e. <10% has a 50% chance, 11-30% has a 25%, 30-40% has a 20%, and 40-50% has a 5% (rough numbers with some tweaking needed) If you kill a player you will loose levels and skills (random number game could really screw you here).
Edit: The PVP system is completely done. It may be that there is no FFA, that is the biggest thing we're having trouble with right now. Once we figure out exactly how to get it right and we can get the algorithm for the RNG for all the penalties (b/c you could possibly not get caught murdering that player).
Asheron's Call's Loot system, Armor Dyes, Patron/Vassal system (without chains)
Horizons Crafting and Class mixing, ability to be every class on 1 char if you want, but exp scales exponentially hard the more you mix, some skills cross classes
Rifts soul trees, mixed with asheron's call's exp spending, mixed with Horizons
EQ2's AA earning system, EQ's AA spending availability
SWG Economy
Horizons World Building
Asheron's Call's Dungeons
Asheron's Call's PVP
Original Asheron's Call's spell learning component, trial and error was epic
I want to be able to kill people and take their stuff and have the BIG fear of dying.
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"Esport with tournaments is for hardcore pvp'rs that want to be competitive. Openworld PVP with ganking and griefing is for casuals that just wants their pvp mixed with pve from time to time."
otacu
Add Tera Graphics, Armor skins, EVE Inventory system
Let me guess, you also write letters where you change the language used in every sentence, so only a language genius has any chance of understanding what the hell you are talking about ?
Why exactly am I supposed to know and have played all these games ? Most entries are completely meaningless, even if I HAVE played them, because you dont actually say what the hell you are talking about exactly.
My current version of the ideal MMO:
- High security. Cant talk to people not on friend list (no goldseller spam). Friend list entries have to be agreed to by other party.
- Definitely subscription based. No cash shop, not even for "fluff" items. No real money gold / item / player character trading. No expansions, everyone plays the same game.
- Definitely needs 3rd person perspective and no aiming. Also preferably low ping dependency combat system with cooldowns on abilities and the ability to choose the next action during the cooldown, thus even bad connections may still compete.
- Definitely item focussed, with complex and powerful crafting system, and definitely not with anything like permanent item decay; items must be completely repairable back to full quality after useage. Preferably overenchanting like in Lineage 2 (items can get enchanted more and more, but every time there is the risk of destroying the item), including all items are craftable (otherwise overenchanting obviously doesnt make that much sense). Crafter level is linked to adventurer level, learning crafting recipes requires special, hard to get drops. Preferably there are crafting classes; crafters cant work alone, but need the input from other crafter types and might need to directly cooperate to create certain items. Crafting ingredients are not tiered, thus newbie drops are already useful for maxlevel players (like in Lineage 2). Player house and nation building supported.
- Definitely player cooperation, communication and competition supported: groups, player guilds, global auction house, chat channels. Also friend list, brotherhoods (xp sharing), caravans (travel sharing), raidgroups, guild alliances, PvP, mass PvP, etc. Meaningful and enjoyable casual solo play should still be possible. PvP save areas should be available. No RvR; Players should form alliances by themselves to battle each other. Player arenas with ELO system so people of compareable strength fight each other.
- Definitely FUN. Please interesting questlines and challenging dungeons, especially not endless grinds. No treatmil gaming (like aforementioned permanent item decay). SW:TOR had some great ideas in this area (crafting not a chore, a lot of story content etc). No annoying metagaming with inventory space and player trades please.
- Definitely BALANCE, obviously. Also, Classes should be of compareable performance in their main group task. Tanks and Healers can participate in PvP just fine, like in Warhammer Online (Dark Age of Camelot apparently did some of this too), thanks to abilities that actually annoy the player opponent (not just an aggro system, something more intelligent).
- CHALLENGE. Pretty please. Unless you can provide sheer endless story content, challenge is important to keep the game fun in the long run. Raiding / boss fights on all levels. Either no endgame / max level anyway, or it takes a long while to get there. No overly harsh or overly laughable death penalty, first one causes people never taking risks and second makes death meaningless.
- COMPLEXITY. Much like challenge. No character can only do one thing; all classes get secondary tasks that also have synergy with their main group task, and classes have synergies with each other as well. Combat is highly dynamic - abilities return with a certain random variance, such that one cant just learn one sequence of skills, even less just spam the same button, and special abilities open on different events (critical hit, critical fail of opponent, successful block or parry, opponent has negative condition, ...). Also abilities that are mutually exclusive, abilities that work on special point pools, special sequences of abilities cause certain effects (LotR Warden), etc. Preferably buffs work like Dragon Age: Origins: giving another player a buff removes a fixed part of your mana pool until you cancel said buff. Learning abilities might require attaining them through quests etc first. Crafting is also a complex game, not just a "press button and wait". Crafting might fail, and crafting might produce especially great results if you're good at it.
- STYLE. No xmas tree adventurers. Ability to play a simple mage with robe and staff and nothing else and still be competitive, by having a much more powerful robe and staff than the xmas tree adventurer in full robe, full armor, 12 amulets, 10 rings, 6 earrings, 2 cloaks etc etc etc.
- Seamless 3D world with no instancing and no loading screens. Realistic horizont (the ground is a large cube) and realistic viewing distances. Low demand graphics with support for large number of players or mobs on the screen at the same time. Graphic style definitely beautiful, stylized, manga-like (like for example Guild Wars 1, Lineage 2), with good character customizability (at least like Guild Wars; Vanguard, City of Heroes, Aion would be even more desireable). All details visible (like worn rings etc). Huge gameworld with all kinds of environments (jungle, iceland, desert, tundra etc, and many fantasy environments like flying cities, cloud castles, crystal mountains, lava pits etc) and support for different means of travel, each with their own usefulness. No collision detection.
- Interface skinnable and configurable, but NOT fully scriptable, i.e.: one keystroke, one action ! Changing the weapon is also an action. Changing armor in combat is not possible.
- Classic rulesystem (xp, levels, classes) with complex, interactive combat system and a large array of substantly different gameplay styles offered. All classic classes included (minimaly maybe Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Enchanter, Necromancer), plus some rare or unique extra classes (such as Dark Knight, Berserker, Monk, Bard, Shaman; Blood Mage from Vanguard, Mesmer from Guild Wars, Valkyr from Wizardry 8, Amazon from Diablo 2 ...), plus subclasses (esp for Priests, i.e. Cleric and Shaman: variants different deities). All classes should have distinctive main task in a party. A high configurability of classes is prefered, but shouldnt change performance in the main group task. I want to be able to choose any race I want, and races should simply offer modifications to the character, much like classes. No race should be simply the overpowered choice for any class, each deal should come with advantages and disadvantages for any class choice.
- Classic fantasy setting, because thats the setting that may contain any other setting (horror, steampunk, cyberpunk etc) and allows the best variance in classes, monsters, etc. All classic races (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, giant, feline) and subraces (esp my beloved Darkelves).
I think the title should be 'Lets build a perfect MMO and then go bankrupt'. Some very nice ideas even though not very practical. Some features look good only on paper.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
Some good ideas here. However, I'm noticing as I read, that 3 games coming up are going to cover a lot of these already, just not all in the same game. ArcheAge, GW2 and The Secret World and a few other smaller titles like Prime, Origins of Malu and the Repopulation.
Still, I just want worlds to play in. Start with that and go from there. Less invisible walls, static mobs and mindless grinding via killing or questing and more story, dynamics and changing worlds be it via phasing, dynamic events or a combination of the 2. More ambience to each zone via sound, music and lighting. Vistas that are breathtaking that I can actually go to instead of just viewing from a distance wishing I could go there. Build the rest of the game mechanics around functioning in that "world" such as crafting, fishing, cooking, combat that utilizes the world, similar to GW2s combat changing when you are under water.
Stuff like that. Get the big picture down first, then focus on the little but numerous parts like the lists above.