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dvd30
Member Posts: 20
MMORPG
THE NEW BREED
1) NO LEVELS
-The moment you begin the game, you are potentially capable of anything, given you have the resources to accomplish anything.
-Learning spells, incantations, etc. is a matter of finding a master that will teach you. Masters will teach you, each with his/her own requirement. Perhaps he/she will want you to become their apprentice, or maybe they'll want you to do a quest, or want a large sum of gold. Maybe even you can steal their spell scroll/book, hopefully you'll know how to read the spell. Masters will have, ofcourse, friends in many places, enemies, etc. Pissing off a Master may cause you to have a bounty on your head, may have you assassinated. As well, being a friend of one Master will gain you enemies.
-Certain Spells will have prerequisites. As well weopons and armor.
-Learning how to wield weopons requires learning from a master as well. Each Master as his/her own requirements from you, some may want gold, others a favor, etc.
-Armor wearing also depends on learning from masters.
-Crafting will go as follows: Learn from a Master, gather/buy the resources, and then craft.
-Special Weopons will be one of a kind as well as non-craftable. So goes for any spell, armor, or item.
-Special Weopons will be forged and given by masters, found during quests, etc.
2) LIVES
-A Player may lose or acquire lives. Permadeath is a possibility. Life caps.
-MOBs have infinite lives, yet may or may not grow/decrease in numbers.
-Special NPCs will have lives as well. Though are extremely hard to kill. They are Masters, and most of them will have "bodyguards".
-Lives will be hard to come by, thus all Players will in the long run, most likely die.
3)Questing
-The entire game is quest based.
-Players determine their own quest.
-Through your actions you determine your friends, enemies, personal alignment, etc. It will not be possible to (openly) have friends among the elves and the orcs at the same time. When you make friends with the elves, you make enemies with the orcs.
-PvP will be an open affair.
-There is no repeat of quests. Each quest will impact the game world. Each quest is open ended. If a Wizard asks you to slay the dragon that is routinely attacking the village to the South, in exchange for him teaching A Special Spell, then if you want the spell, you will need to succeed. Ofcourse dragons are smart, you might want to be befriend the dragon instead, and somehow convince the dragon to stop his attacks, and then play dead. Or maybe you already befriended the dragon, and you and the dragon are tricking the Wizard.
-It's all up to you.
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WOULD YOU PLAY A GAME LIKE THIS?
Comments
No I would never play a game like that since you dont level there is no point to the quests.
The point to the quests is: Whatever the point is to the quest.
It's like this: You want to learn a certain spell. The only place you know where you can learn this spell is from an NPC Master Wizard in the tower to the north, across the marshes and up the snowy peaks. You get there and the Wizard agrees to teach you the spell, IF you go and find a princess being held captive by an ogre somewhere in a cave to the west of the Wizard's Tower. You find the ogre's cave and slay him, escort the princess back to the Wizard and he teaches you the spell. The Spell makes you more powerful and now you can have your revenge on a PKer who killed you not to long ago.
Later you find out the princess is from a kingdom to the south, and the King is looking for his daughter, you know where she is, and if you return her you will be awarded a large sum of money.
If you don't quest, you won't progress, and then you'll be inferior in PvP battles. And you won't have an impact on the game world.
The bottom line is, the point to quests = Fun
This seems like a really cool idea. I can picture a game with no end based on these criteria. I would definiatly play it. Allthough there still needs to be a compelling story to keep people interested, and that would be kinda hard with such open-endedness.
Just another gamer...
A valid and very common viewpoint whose frequency strikes me as astounding!
I consider it quite the opposite: If your character only gains levels then the levels have no purpose. It is how you use them in the game that matters. However, the current games are built around leveling, max level is the endgame. If you sat down with a offline single player RPG you will find a storyline developing as you play, quests that must be solved for the sake of the world, or for your own sake, and you gain strength which allows you to succeed at greater quests. The goal is to save the world.
In MMORPGs you perform quests and "save the world" in order to gain levels. Very backward. The levels, skills, all the numbers, to me they are just a tool to make the game work. The purpose of the game lies in story and gameplay. A persistent world where a completed quest is complete and may only be repeatable if it is in its nature makes quests more meaningful beyond leveling.
Repeatable quest: Wolves cross the ice every winter, and they repopulate too, so the village on the "safe" side of the river will need your services often.
Non repeatable: 200 years ago the dragon XXXXAXZZZZ (you know, dragon names) razed ten miner's villages and claimed all the gold he could find. He still keeps it within his lair, guarding it night and day and protecting it also with devious traps. Two objectives serve as separate quests: 1) Recover some of the gold, reward by 10% increments, "repeatable" ten times, or you can take it all in one. 2) Kill the dragon, get revenge. Or killing could be the objective, and the gold could be a bonus.
The point is: The treasure diminishes when somebody makes it away with part of it. The dragon can only be killed once. The one who succeeds at killing the dragon (where others might have failed before) is thus unique due to his completing a quest.
The future: Adellion
Common flaw in MMORPGs: The ability to die casually
Advantages of Adellion: Dynamic world (affected by its inhabitants)
Player-driven world (beasts won't be an endless supply of mighty swords, gold will come from mines, not dragonly dens)
Player-driven world (Leadership is the privilege of a player, not an npc)
Look, it's real simple people, your posting limitations on people. You have to this this and that in order to get to this, no if, ands, or buts, about it. When you restrict the player, and limit them to what they can and can not do, they will eventually get bored, fustrated, and leave.
This is the number one problem with MMOG's of all types, they restrict the player to spacific things, can only do this and that, must do this quest and dozens of others in order to be any good. We are controlled and guided through out the majority of our real life, why continue to impose the same if not more strict guidelines and rules on us in the games we play.
Freedom people, it's that simple.
Gotta say i love this idea, me and my friends have thought of this before as well. It is exactly what we want in a MMORPG.
BUT... if the fighting is point and click i would never play it.. it's got to be aim and dodge.. Morrowwind/FPS shooter style.
I would never touch an mmorpg that isn't lvl based. call be old school, but i much rather read:
"Congratulations, you are now lvl 78"
then "Congratulations, your swordmanship has improved by 1"
I want one member to be the healer(Priest), and the other member to be the tank(warrior)
not one who can do both.(result of skill system)
Double post -_-
i like it
Good,Bad, I'm the guy with the gun!-Ash
Nice game and nice ideas.
But no, I would never play this game. I am an achiever (a hoarder if you prefer). Unless you manage to motivate me, but levels/skills are easy to access, to hoard, to achieve. A vague system is more realist but it also lack the driving goal I have...to accumulate...I guess I could accumulate items, gold or something, but then it would require extreme depth to motivate me on this.
I would be extremely unlikely to be converted. I doesn't play Sims and this sound like an hybrid between EQ and Sims.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Nope, wouldn't play it. I expereinced the whole "no level" idea in Eve and it sucked.
U can do anything, but do not take away class and level , these two are the most important things in MMORPG that keeps people from playing. However, being able to be a warrior as well as a mage at the same time is totally different thing. If u take away the levels , u take away the majority of people who will play . (although i will play such a game)
By the way, having quests that are not repeatable is not practical in anyway, u are only thinking of the present but not the future, ure only thinking for the pioneer players, the pioneers will get all the fun and the later players will come in and like, hey wtF? .. XXX XXX XXX all die ?.. then we do what? .. WTF all the pros take all the good quest liao - get my point?.. and it'll be hell making so many different kinds of quest..
I love PVP and open PVP is a good, i would love to see permanent death too ^^.. Looting of corpse etc..
Sigh, since the OP is spamming this same post all over mmorpg.com, i guess i'll spam my reply as well:
This sounds like the past of MMOs, not the future. UO launched in september of 1997 without levels. Yet nearly every commercial MMO that has launched since then is a level-based affair. I do agree that a leveless/classless design is much better than the standard AD&D rip-off that most games use. I do not agree, however, that MMO designers are trending toward leveless design.
Take SWG for example. It *was* a leveless design, but once Raph Koster was removed (or left willingly) from the project, they converted the game into a level-based affair. SWG never gained as many players as SOE/LA thought it should, and with WoWs 5+ million subscribers compared to SWGs 250k, they figured that the way to high subs was to copy WoW.
Permadeath? Many of the early MUDs had permadeath. There's not a single large commercial MMO developer that will put PD in their game. Infact the trend in MMOs has been to steadily reduce the cost of dying in their games. The death penalty in WoW is laughable. More than once in WoW i allowed myself to be killed instead of using a healing potion because i figured the cost of the potion was higher than the durability loss i would incur on my items (NOTE: this was when WoW first launched and i was fairly low level. At that time healing potions were fairly expensive to either buy or make).
Again, in the "New and improved" SWG they have all but removed the death penalty. SOE/LA figured that there was basically no death penalty in WoW and again with all their subs they must be onto something right. Once again the trend in MMOs is away from permadeath not toward it.
Personally i'm for PD in a MMO. My DEV team and i spent considerable time contemplating PD for our game. In the end we decided against it not because of gameplay reasons, but because of technical ones. Dying because you were outgunned or outplayed is one thing in a perma death game, but dying because of the lag monster is quite another. I played EVE Online which doesn't have permadeath, but does have substantial death penalty. It became clear playing EVE that many people would grief the system if they died in order to get their stuff back.
Internet connections are improving in both speed and quality, but how would you feel if your beloved character (again remember you want permadeath) dies because your cable modem loses sync? Again you died not because someone outplayed you or because you tried to kill something that was too strong, but because your connection dropped. In PD, you lose your character. That's it. Do not pass go and do not collect 200 dollars. If your solution is to have "exceptions" then your system is NOT a permadeath system.
Thus is the technical problem with PD. If you say your game has PD, but if your internet connection tanks the GMs will rez your character, then all players have to do is pull the plug on your cable modem as you as it's clear you are going to die. To the server you lagged out either way. What the server cannot tell is whether your ISP was having troubles, or whether you pulled the power cord yourself. In the end you don't have PD at all, just players who keep their power cords close to their keyboards.
That is the only reason our game, Rebel Factions, does not have Perma death.
Static and or "dynamically generated quests" are the bane of MMOs. What's the point of playing online with thousands of other players when all you do is interact with computer-controlled NPCs killing computer-controlled monsters? How is this different than playing a single-player RPG where you interact with computer-controlled NPCs killing computer-controlled monsters? Answer: there is no difference from a gameplay standpoint. There is a huge difference, however, to the developer/publisher.
In the single-player game all they get is their $50 retail box fee. In the Massively Single-Player Online RPG, however, they not only get their $50 from the retail box, but they also get to collect an additional $15/month. It's great for them. They sell you the same old RPG experienc, but slap "MMO" somewhere on the box, and get an additional $15/month for their trouble. To the player, you get the same experience, but have to endure lag and shell out the additional cash.
NPCs and computer-controlled monsters are NECESSARY in a single player RPG. NPCs are there to facilitate the story and to help move the game along; it makes sense they would be there. Likewise, since you are the only one in the game there's a reason the computer commands the monsters. Without it, there would be nothing to do in your single-player RPG.
Since MMOs have thousands of players online concurrently, there is NO (absolutely NO reason whatsoever) that you need NPCs and computer controlled monsters. The key isn't making "better" quests, or "dynamically generated" quests, or -- insert adjective here -- quests. The key to making MMOs better is to get players to interact with each other in a such a way that promotes players to naturally roleplay. This is the solution.
Sadly, most MMO studios think the way to make social gaming better is to making the NPC generated quests better. In reality, the solution would be to design a game where players make content by virtue of their actions. EVE Online got this partially right with their Market->escrow missions. Those were missions of pick up something here and deliver it to there. This is no different than the hundreds of NPC quests where some nameless NPC gives you something to deliver to such and so on the other side of town. The difference in EVE, however, is that those quests were generated by real-life breathing players, and not NPCs. Their system was not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction.
PvP too has become somewhat of a readheaded-stepchild of MMO gaming. UO shipped with fully open PvP at launch. Since their gameplay mechanics were easy to grief in a PvP environment, players complained until they removed PvP to their own servers. It's not that PvP is bad, it's that Devs half-baked gameplay mechanics don't work with PvP. Full, open PvP can be done and done well. EVE Online is a perfect example of such a system. You can PvP anyone, anywhere, at anytime. There are consequences. If you are in empire space when you decide to kill some helpless n00b or your sworn enemy, the authorities will show you the door. If, on the otherhand, hapless n00b decides to venture into the lawlessness of deep space (or your enemy for that matter), then have at them.
PvP and non-PvP players player together and get to choose their level of participation. No seperate servers, no GMs to moderate a losing battle. Just PvP as it was meant to be.
Again, the trend in most MMOs is away from PvP. DDO, for example, will ship with no PvP at all. Yay, you mean all i get to do is kill computer controlled monsters and accept quests from computer-controlled NPCs. It's like playing gold-box TSR games on my commodore 64!
/sarcasm
~PD
www.TheChippedDagger.com My 90-day 2D Java MMORPG project
They that can give up essential liberty for temporary safetey deserve neither. -- Ben Franklin
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. -- Milton Berle
I don't agree with everything you said, but you did a supurb job of stating your opinion and many valid points, great job!
Your mind is like a parachute, it's only useful when it's open.
Don't forget, you can use the block function on trolls.