Adding the ability to choose your religion in an MMO

Cryomatrix · September 2017

Would people like this? Or would it be like choosing a race with special characteristics. You can make up a religion to choose and give your followers certain bonuses and spells and perhaps group spells if everyone is the same religion. I'd prefer it that you have a built in class that starts a religion.

I guess it would be like any other thing like racial bonuses or guild bonuses.

I'd envision an MMO where if someone progresses far enough they become a prophet and they can start their own religion. I guess it would have to be different then a guild type, but the founder of the religion can craft certain boosts that all followers of his religion will have. Then they can try to promote themselves. The more followers the prophet has the more bonus the minions get as well as the more bonus he gets.

I'd make it so it is very difficult to become a prophet, it wouldnt' be as easy to form as a guild, this will take time and dedication. You'd have to build temples and such and do a terribly long quest chain to unlock it.

On a side note, I loved the lineage 2 long quest lines to choose your class as you hit every 20 levels, I thought that was fantastic.

Anyway, what are thoughts. I also think all real world religions or words associated it with it would be banned. Like you'd have to make it up completely. No links, and they would have to be approved by the devs.

Thoughts?

Cryomatrix

Nanfoodle · September 2017

Keep religion out of games IMO.

Octagon7711 · September 2017

A lot of games do this. GW2 you can choose a deity to follow, never have been sure of the benefits. ESO you have shrines that grant buffs. A lot of games the healer can pick a deity to follow for buffs, and Templars get skills from a divine source.

In picking real world religions depends on how it's done. I'll take Jedi and use the Force. But I can do that in a lot of games already, just put Jedi in front of your name and play a mage or put SithLord in front of your name and play an assassin.

I don't think you would get banned for playing a religious class as priests are in most games already.

I also like the class advancement in L2. In Aion I enjoyed becoming an ascended and getting my wings. You could become one at a certain level so you could go through the ceremony then come back and do the final starter zone quest as an ascended which was fun.

Quizzical · September 2017

If it's possible to create religions that are suspiciously similar to real-life ones, or even to caricatures of real-life religions, then people will do so. At that point, if it's an online game, you've imported the problems associated with having religious arguments on forums into your game. That gives an incendiary mess if you're hoping to cater to players of wildly different real-life religious views.

That said, it's not always the case that having religions in games, or even different races following different religions, is always problematic. WoW has different races following different religions to some extent, for example, though they (surely intentionally) don't flesh out the theology of what they believe in great detail.

Europa Universalis II (and possibly some other games in the series) even has real-world religions with historical religious wars, and some religions outright better than others as a way to push the game progress along historical lines. It worked well as a game, though that may have been partially because it was essentially single-player, and was surely partially because it didn't encourage players to view the game too much as needing their own personal religion to win.

Amathe · September 2017

In Dungeons and Dragons (pen and paper) you could choose a diety, and you then needed to act in accordance with that diety's principles or risk consequence. That carried over to mmorpgs like Everquest where you also could align with a diety. Nowadays, this feature is less common. Personally I liked it.

Eldurian · September 2017

Wurm has something like this. You can convert to a deity either by be converted by an existing follower or by visiting an altar known as the white light (for good gods) or black light (for evil gods.)

Being a follower of a god gives small bonuses based on the god and the ability to sacrifice items. Certain actions also lower your faith. They vary from god to god.

If you reach a faith 30 you can become a priest. Priests have far more restrictions than normal followers but it gives you the ability to cast spells. As your faith raises the rate at which it grows slows, but the rate at it which it is lost of you commit actions against your faith remains constant.

The cool part is magic is very uncommon in the Wurm universe. The spells you can get outside being a priest are much more limited and very costly to cast. Priests regenerate favor (their casting resource) naturally over time and get access to the best spells in the game.

So being a priest is a very worthwhile path to follow if you can deal with the harsh restrictions.

kruler · September 2017

Back in the day I would have and still don't have a problem with it, when I say back in the day, when MMO's were populated with a more predictable demographic, but to have any MMO nowadays HELL NO, wouldn't go near that subject with a very long stick, held by someone else.

dave6660 · September 2017

Sure, why not. Sci-Fi and fantasy genre games and books are where religion belongs. Keep it out of everything else.

Bestinna · September 2017

would absolutely love to be muslim in an mmo

Sovrath · September 2017

I would if there was a fleshed out pantheon of deities that would not only inform how you act/what you did but also generated ... wait for it ... actual quests that you did for that deity. Not just run here get me x of this and then you can go, but something like a vision quest or someone is profaning that deities name or that deity used to have followers who need to be brought back to the flock.

Think of the daedric quests in the Elder Scrolls online for an idea.

Cryomatrix · September 2017

Bestinna said:

would absolutely love to be muslim in an mmo

Out of curiosity, why?

Cryomatrix

Panther2103 · September 2017

I would not want modern religion in an MMO because that would bring nothing but issues and like other people said the same problems we have today in the world with opposing religions. But I don't mind the idea of made up deities to follow that could provide some sort of bonus to some stats or alternate quest line or maybe a group you could join based on that deity. But I'm not 100% sure how that would work because then the same issues may happen still that happen in real life.

Xarko · September 2017

Cryomatrix said:

Bestinna said:

would absolutely love to be muslim in an mmo

Out of curiosity, why?

Cryomatrix

Ability to use mounts out of the usual pathing system and a cool AoE spell.

Grunty · September 2017

No. In any game it just becomes another stat you have to keep track of. The min-max crowd will quickly work out which religions have the most in-game benefits and the rest of the players will blindly follow their lead.

Kyleran · September 2017

Grunty said:

No. In any game it just becomes another stat you have to keep track of. The min-max crowd will quickly work out which religions have the most in-game benefits and the rest of the players will blindly follow their lead.

Wait, "blindly follow their lead " sounds pretty accurate, perhaps not such a bad feature after all.

Grunty · September 2017

Kyleran said:

Grunty said:

No. In any game it just becomes another stat you have to keep track of. The min-max crowd will quickly work out which religions have the most in-game benefits and the rest of the players will blindly follow their lead.

Wait, "blindly follow their lead " sounds pretty accurate, perhaps not such a bad feature after all.

Well, I intentionally avoided writing the next sentence I was about to add. Tolerance and all that.

M1tankerr460 · September 2017

Everquest 2 has this and you get spells and etc..... EQ1 has this as well but it's really just for RPing

Sovrath · September 2017

Grunty said:

No. In any game it just becomes another stat you have to keep track of. The min-max crowd will quickly work out which religions have the most in-game benefits and the rest of the players will blindly follow their lead.

So don't make stats be a part of it.

Cryomatrix · September 2017

Xarko said:

Cryomatrix said:

Bestinna said:

would absolutely love to be muslim in an mmo

Out of curiosity, why?

Cryomatrix

Ability to use mounts out of the usual pathing system and a cool AoE spell.

Clever, but your sample size is 0.0001% of the entire 1.5 billion plus population. It is like killing one mob and getting the best unique and then telling everyone that the game only drops powerful uniques.

Cryomstrix

I'm more in line with having a religion be only founded by in game players that have a plethora of options that increase as you do quests specific for that religion. So if you make the kitten religion as you progress more in the kitten religion you do more kitten abilities, so to really gain bonuses, you have to invest heavily in a religion.

Iselin · September 2017

There are already guild systems in several MMOs that provide bonuses to guild members based on guild size, achievements, etc.

I fail to see what labeling those systems religions would add to the games.

Eldurian · September 2017

Iselin said:

There are already guild systems in several MMOs that provide bonuses to guild members based on guild size, achievements, etc.

I fail to see what labeling those systems religions would add to the games.

The ability to logically gain divine powers from that affiliation. For instance spells flavored off of the domains of the deity being worshipped.

The issue I have with (in-game) religions is personally I think there are already enough systems in which you belong to factions lead by NPCs. Short of players being able to rise to the status of deities I'm not in favor of having more useless NPC figureheads that do nothing for their followers (For instance faction leaders in WoW.)

KnightFalz · September 2017

Player designed and operated religions would be a recipe for disaster. People can barely even talk about the concept of religion without impending calamity. There is no way adding such a system to a game wouldn't result in endless angst and rancor among the players.

Eldurian · September 2017

KnightFalz said:

Player designed and operated religions would be a recipe for disaster. People can barely even talk about the concept of religion without impending calamity. There is no way adding such a system to a game wouldn't result in endless angst and rancor among the players.

Honestly the only type of people who have a conniption fit when they hear the word "religion" are the type of people who are overly sensitive and get freaked out by everything. Catering to those kinds of people only reinforces to them that other people are supposed to care about their tantrums. Just like children who act that way, they should be ignored, and absolutely never given their way.

Their opinions hold zero stock with me. It's a fictitious religion in a video game. Not a slight to your real life religion, and not something you should shrink back from like a vampire from garlic because you are so highly allergic to the word religion.

The Amarr for one show that put "offensive" things into fictional world and the vast majority of people can cope.

Kyleran · September 2017

KnightFalz said:

Player designed and operated religions would be a recipe for disaster. People can barely even talk about the concept of religion without impending calamity. There is no way adding such a system to a game wouldn't result in endless angst and rancor among the players.

I dunno, seems like a perfect background for FFA PVP game.

Loke666 · September 2017

Nanfoodle said:

Keep religion out of games IMO.

At lest any religion that has anything to do with a today living faith.

To have cleric characters pick a patron God and get some specific benefits is fine as long as they have nothing to do with real religion though. I don't think having a cleric that prays to Helm or Sune would upset anyone.

Religion is and have always been an area to thread careful no matter where it appears. It could certainly be used to make a gameworld more interesting (like the Forgotten realm story about "the Times of troubles" but I prefer if such Gods generally are silent and at best give their clergy spells like in D&D.

We certainly don't want to upset any real religious groups.

A historical MMO would be another thing (even if it would still upset people), if you use it as education and don't say a specific faith is "right" you are probably fine. If you use a real world 13th century setting not have churches in a European town for an instance would miss out how the setting really should be.

TalulaRose · September 2017

No, people would just make troll religions based on the real world...how could you not see this.

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Adding the ability to choose your religion in an MMO

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"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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Adding the ability to choose your religion in an MMO

Comments

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV