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
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You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
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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.
"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
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.
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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.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Think of the daedric quests in the Elder Scrolls online for an idea.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Out of curiosity, why?
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
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.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I fail to see what labeling those systems religions would add to the games.
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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.)
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.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
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.