- Subscription based, no shop etc - Third person perspective - Absolutely no permanent item decay (needing repair is perfectly fine) - Classic fantasy - Multiple races such as Human, Elf, Dwarf, etc, with subraces, such as High Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf etc; races add flavour but also change the gaming experience substantly, for example a human wizard should play substantly different than an elven wizard; all races are sentient and not per se good or evil - Classic class system with a fixed number of classes like Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, etc; classes play substantly different, i.e. aspects that are very important for the gameplay of one class will be completely irrelevant for another (which is why I want such static classes - cant do that with a more free system); classes have fixed party tasks (tank, healer, or supporter); subclasses can be chosen at a later point; changing subclass is possible but a major undertaking; subclasses keep the same party task, for example a Paladin stays a tank and wont ever be a valid choice for a full healer no matter what subclass one picks; no class or subclass gives a per se alignment to the player even if there are certain behavior rules for specific classes, namely Paladin. - There are a number of deities the player can choose from; each deity give their followers different benefits. Priest classes change substantly depending upon choice of deity. A Death Cleric for example will not have many regular heals and wont be able to wear any armor but wizard robes, but they will deal a lot of spell damage and get powerful lifetaps heals. Chaning deities is also a major undertaking. Deity choices are limited by class choice, sometimes also by subclass choice. Necromancer (a Wizard subclass) for example gets very limited deity choices. - Name, Gender and graphical representation freely chooseable; people who choose high strength will however look correspondingly bulky unless they choose the Monk class - Very powerful crafting system that allows to ever even more improve an item, with diminishing returns and increasing danger to break said item - High quality, highly dynamic combat system. - Lag equalization through round based with cooldowns. - Sportive PvP events, like arena, castle sieges etc. Player characters can turn into bandits that no longer can interact with regular cities etc (Kill on sight) but can attack other player characters. - Complex diplomacy. In order to gain access to certain areas, players of wrong race will have to solve certain tasks to gain sufficient faction.
Awesome stuff in this thread, here's my summary and please correct me if I noted something wrong:
Combat System
- Tab-targeting (coretex666)
- First Person Shooter (iixviiiix)
- Skill-based (Amaranthar, cameltosis)
- Complex with large variety of stats (cameltosis, Xatsh)
- Change classes/jobs whenever (Xatsh)
Just want to correct you slightly here.
My requirement is a "deep" combat system, not necessarily skill-based or complex. It is a concept I often struggle to articulate properly.
Depth defines how difficult it is to determine your next move. It is a measure of the number of meaningful decisions you have to make.
In a shallow combat system, deciding what to do next is easy. It may be shallow for a variety of reasons. In action combat games, for example, you typically have very few skills available to you so deciding what to do next is very easy. In a game with short cooldowns on all skills, again the choice is easy because it doesn't matter what you choose, if you get it wrong you only have to survive a few seconds and you can try again. Even a game like SW:TOR, where each class has tons of skills to choose from, the choice is easy. This is both because the skills are on short cooldown, but also because the overwhelming majority of skills form part of your rotation, so your choice is typically just between continuing your rotation, or using 1 of your few "special" abilities to get you out of a bad situation.
With a deep combat system, deciding what to do next is hard. The difficulty can also come from a variety of sources. Perhaps you have lots of options, each with varying outcomes, so there is the opportunity cost to consider. Perhaps the skills you can choose have long cooldowns, so if you get it wrong you might miss an opportunity later or fail now.
The point is, in a deep combat system you have to think hard about what skill to use next and that success or failure is, to a large degree, dependant upon you making the correct decisions.
As a final note, a deep combat system requires suitable content to be worth anything, i.e. the content must be challenging. If the content is easy then it doesn't matter how deep your combat system is, with easy content your choice of next skill is really easy because your choice doesn't matter, you'll succeed anyway. Even with challenging content, the content might funnel you towards specific decisions. For example, if your character has an emergency heal skill on a 10m cooldown, deciding when to use it can be hard and thus adds to depth. However, if a boss fight mandates using the skill at a specific time, then that skill is effectively removed from your decision making choices and thus depth is removed.
If I was going to build a MMO (Which I am NOT and we covered that elsewhere) I would do the following (which would probably suck anyway):
First of all I would make a multi-faction world (probably 3 or 4) with each faction is basically player ran. The fact that each faction needs the resources of the others to survive but control of all factions would not be possible by the player base because the NPC faction would never be capable of aligning all of them (except maybe diplomat which is needed in every faction) . I would make the world entirely open PvP but if you see the faction separation of NPC and the interaction of the player to NPC then if a player decides to attack and kill his own faction (including NPC) they would be considered enemy of said faction aligning up with either one of the other factions. Gaining faction back takes more work so losing faction faster than gaining faction leads to be outlaw (seen as all factions hate said player). At a certain point in distance (most likely the very center of the world) the world takes on a no holds barred open warfare (Call it outlaw world where no faction is adjusted through players actions NPC faction in this area is controlled by the faction that controls the main outpost.) In these areas things get difficult because things get destroyed and settlements get over taken but the rewards are very much worth the effort. Control of these areas gives a boost to the faction that controls it.
The second thing I would do is make the world entirely salvageable. Resources are renewed slower than they are consumed if no one invests in renewable resources (a farmer becomes a MUST for food and renewable resources). This leads to having to manage your own factions resources yet having a trade between others is a necessity.
The third thing I would do is have maybe three or four main cities, a few smaller established outpost but the rest of the world needs to be built and ran by the players. Inside a certain limit things are fairly stable but as I said before, outer limits are subjected open no hold barred and no faction adjustments and in these areas are the main resources which are more abundant. Player would need skills to craft but can only craft certain items which means someone else needs to depend on others skills to get the finished product. Food becomes a must. Weapons and armor degrade. They still have to buy the land from their main cities so a faction is necessary to establish ownership. They have to gather resources and build their own settlements and maintain their own. Since they would need NPC of their faction for transactions such as selling their wares, being guards, buying non resource items and so on. Each seller has player items and not a global market.
I would make a limited introduction tutorial and beyond that is kind of a quest system of randomness based on NPC wants which may include PvP- opposing faction hit jobs against leading players of opposite factions which give very good rewards (more guards available to hire for the players city or better prices from trades across the faction) PvM - Quests that require exploration of remote areas, recovery of artifacts that can be used to make powerful items or books that contain special creatable recipes only found in random quests) maybe a mix PvP/PvM where going to enemy territory to gather something very unique and powerful.
Removal of combat levels as we know them like very narrow level span with concentration on craft as the main theme.
As you can see from your summary post, dreams are very different to each I'm shallower maybe, or I just don't dream "big" enough, but my dream MMO would be LotRO around the f2p change, with all the later added content and fixes, but without the stat revamp, the class changes and the trait trees. My other dream would be TSW without the scenario and AEGIS grind (the mechanics could stay, just the grind part toned down a lot)
Those two were as close to perfect (at least for me) as possible in practice, since let's face it, no perfect games are out there. I think that's why the "dreaming big" way in such threads is counterproductive, the more you detail your perfect game, the narrower your target audience remains... You have to find the balance between being great and niche, and being perfect and a ghost town. (and since popularity chasing is requires to aim at the lowest common denominator, if you want quality, you should go after niche. Popularity almost always equals shite quality, just look around the current market )
As you can see from your summary post, dreams are very different to each I'm shallower maybe, or I just don't dream "big" enough, but my dream MMO would be LotRO around the f2p change, with all the later added content and fixes, but without the stat revamp, the class changes and the trait trees. My other dream would be TSW without the scenario and AEGIS grind (the mechanics could stay, just the grind part toned down a lot)
Those two were as close to perfect (at least for me) as possible in practice, since let's face it, no perfect games are out there. I think that's why the "dreaming big" way in such threads is counterproductive, the more you detail your perfect game, the narrower your target audience remains... You have to find the balance between being great and niche, and being perfect and a ghost town. (and since popularity chasing is requires to aim at the lowest common denominator, if you want quality, you should go after niche. Popularity almost always equals shite quality, just look around the current market )
While I absolutely agree that catering to too many people will inevitably reduce the quality of a game, I think that what people posted could actually be summarized (roughly) like so:
Character delta is significant, with no cap (progression of Character)
Creating items and gaining resources should matter (progression of Crafting)
Wealth should be acquired through player action (progression of Economy)
Player organizations should be able to compete and advance (progression of Community)
Combat should be skill-based [numerical, complex, reflexive, etc.] (progression of Combat)
PVP shouldn't exist or should have clear goals (progression of PVP)
Exploration should lead to discovery (progression of World Design)
Getting from place to place should improve with gameplay (progression of Travel)
it is a high level thread. I will add to the high levelness of it.
I will make a game that is the following:
It will include all the ideals that were spoken of above however, the monetization scheme will be the following.
B2P with a subscription based and extreme P2W elements, with loot boxes being dropped that require keys to open. I will take every single P2W element and implement it on top of the B2P and subscription based. The loot boxes can also give loot boxes that require high level of keys which can then beget more lucrative loot boxes.
On top of that, I'll charge $20 per expansion. You'll only get one loot bag and massive amounts of loot will drop which will require extra stash tabs that you rent for a monthly price.
On top of that, I'll sell ad space on the armor of NPC's. So you'll face the big bad ogre king and he'll have a Tide sticker and a bud light sticker on his pauldrons. His spells will sound like amazon Echo.
You'll have a side scrolling ad ticker on the top. In order to level up your skills, you'll have to watch a short video of an advertisement.
There will be loading zones between zones which will feature ad space that can be sold. Instead of legendary items called the hammer of akraban, it will be the hammer of bud light or the hammer of pepsi cola. That can be sold to the highest bidder.
There will be a flying potion in the game, called Red bull, which looks like the red bull can. Other potions will also be sold under trademarks.
When you kill a mob, it will shout a company name, like "ahh, i'm dead, I should have eaten my Wheaties" or "damn, I should have taken 5 hour energy".
There will be billboards in the game that will break immersion completely. A big nice Chevrolet billboard on the side of an epic castle. Each race will be behind a pay wall of some sort as well as classes to choose.
You will have housing but those will require insurance that will be sold by in-game companies conveniently called nationwide, aflac, geico, etc. When you have a mount, it will need health insurance and mount insurance, also given by Blue shield, Aetna, etc.
When you buy boots, they will be called adidas, nike, jordan's, or whatever other brand buys into it.
This will be the best game ever. Don't forget that you could be an undead dragon for 100k usd .
I hope people realize this is a joke, or else i'll get more "WTF" than the usual Delete's posts.
Cryomatrix
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
My ideal MMORPG would *start* with the basics we've seen in other efforts. Combat and Crafting. Then there would be other ways for the player to interact with the game -- Religion, Communal Magic, Government, Natural Healing, Role Playing, etc., that would more accurately simulate the game world. Then expand on that game world to include mechanics that could simulate natural disasters and other things. If I want to sit in a tavern, I want that to be a viable means of spending game time. And there is a reason to sit in that tavern. Oh, and someone let me climb a tree. Any tree.
I'll never see it. Not in the next 20 years, anyway. Maybe sometime after my 147th birthday, maybe.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
As you can see from your summary post, dreams are very different to each I'm shallower maybe, or I just don't dream "big" enough, but my dream MMO would be LotRO around the f2p change, with all the later added content and fixes, but without the stat revamp, the class changes and the trait trees. My other dream would be TSW without the scenario and AEGIS grind (the mechanics could stay, just the grind part toned down a lot)
Those two were as close to perfect (at least for me) as possible in practice, since let's face it, no perfect games are out there. I think that's why the "dreaming big" way in such threads is counterproductive, the more you detail your perfect game, the narrower your target audience remains... You have to find the balance between being great and niche, and being perfect and a ghost town. (and since popularity chasing is requires to aim at the lowest common denominator, if you want quality, you should go after niche. Popularity almost always equals shite quality, just look around the current market )
While I absolutely agree that catering to too many people will inevitably reduce the quality of a game, I think that what people posted could actually be summarized (roughly) like so:
Character delta is significant, with no cap (progression of Character)
Creating items and gaining resources should matter (progression of Crafting)
Wealth should be acquired through player action (progression of Economy)
Player organizations should be able to compete and advance (progression of Community)
Combat should be skill-based [numerical, complex, reflexive, etc.] (progression of Combat)
PVP shouldn't exist or should have clear goals (progression of PVP)
Exploration should lead to discovery (progression of World Design)
Getting from place to place should improve with gameplay (progression of Travel)
That sounds pretty good, cj, but I'm not clear what you mean in a couple of ways.
1) By "progression", do you mean compared to the current game designs? Or in player progression? Or both, depending on the subject?
2) "Delta". I'm not sure how this term is used. One definition is : "variation of a variable or function." Are you talking horizontal progression? Or a mix with vertical? (Delta being a triangle.)
I like best the concept of a mix, but with a clear dedication to low power gaps on the vertical side of it. Let ability increase in both, but primarily through expansion sideways.
I think this can allow players with less time to play to focus and thus be relevant in the bigger picture.
As you can see from your summary post, dreams are very different to each I'm shallower maybe, or I just don't dream "big" enough, but my dream MMO would be LotRO around the f2p change, with all the later added content and fixes, but without the stat revamp, the class changes and the trait trees. My other dream would be TSW without the scenario and AEGIS grind (the mechanics could stay, just the grind part toned down a lot)
Those two were as close to perfect (at least for me) as possible in practice, since let's face it, no perfect games are out there. I think that's why the "dreaming big" way in such threads is counterproductive, the more you detail your perfect game, the narrower your target audience remains... You have to find the balance between being great and niche, and being perfect and a ghost town. (and since popularity chasing is requires to aim at the lowest common denominator, if you want quality, you should go after niche. Popularity almost always equals shite quality, just look around the current market )
While I absolutely agree that catering to too many people will inevitably reduce the quality of a game, I think that what people posted could actually be summarized (roughly) like so:
Character delta is significant, with no cap (progression of Character)
Creating items and gaining resources should matter (progression of Crafting)
Wealth should be acquired through player action (progression of Economy)
Player organizations should be able to compete and advance (progression of Community)
Combat should be skill-based [numerical, complex, reflexive, etc.] (progression of Combat)
PVP shouldn't exist or should have clear goals (progression of PVP)
Exploration should lead to discovery (progression of World Design)
Getting from place to place should improve with gameplay (progression of Travel)
That sounds pretty good, cj, but I'm not clear what you mean in a couple of ways.
1) By "progression", do you mean compared to the current game designs? Or in player progression? Or both, depending on the subject?
2) "Delta". I'm not sure how this term is used. One definition is : "variation of a variable or function." Are you talking horizontal progression? Or a mix with vertical? (Delta being a triangle.)
I like best the concept of a mix, but with a clear dedication to low power gaps on the vertical side of it. Let ability increase in both, but primarily through expansion sideways.
I think this can allow players with less time to play to focus and thus be relevant in the bigger picture.
For me, game design boils down to designing meaningful progress for the player. It is a human drive and when we change ourselves for the better we are progressing. This is what I meant by progression and delta: poorly worded ways of describing positive change in the player. The way this is done in an MMO often takes the form of learning the ins and outs of skill-based combat by tackling harder and harder enemies. It also takes the form of joining player organizations and building relationships and gathering resources and wealth through in-game activities. A popular method of highlighting and emphasizing the progress is the classic XP bar, but it is only an aid to the actual progression in the game.
Basically, when I design any game I'm trying to first find the core of the fun for the player. In an MMO this is a complicated beast because it seems to come from so many different angles and be different for each player. But my belief is that as long as meaningful progression is conveyed in gameplay, people will want to play the game. So basically, I'm just curious about what different people's ideas of meaningful progression are so I can try to figure out what the commonalities are between the things in an MMO that people find fun. I just realized I haven't shared my own ideas for a game as well so I'll do that too.
Take Ultima Online , Asherons Call or Anarchy Online , keep all the great features and mechainics in place , improve the UI , and give it an updated engine ...
As for my own ideal game (though not necessarily one I'd develop myself)...
Character
-No classes and all skill lines, each of which contains several abilities, can be trained. Acquisition of all abilities in a skill line is possible at an early level but power progression is unlimited with severe falloff at higher levels. For example, level 100 has all abilities while level 200 is marginally more powerful. The difference between level 200 and 300 is much less than between 100-200.
Combat
- Action combat system with a global cooldown, area of effect (weapon swings) and ground-targeted (cast spells) abilities. Movement is dynamic and fast-paced with a rechargeable dodge roll and rechargeable sprint.
World Design
- Massive open world with grasslands, plains, desert, forests, and mountains. There are two major areas: the smaller core where PVP is strictly limited to structured instances and the larger wilderness surrounding the walled-off core where it is a PVP free-for-all. Getting to the wilderness area requires going to the top of a border tower or a cliff and taking a temporary glider past the wall. A return ability is granted in the form of a consumable item that will transport the player back to the tower. If the player has not built a home, or there is someone in it who recently killed them, the player will be transported back to the tower on death (or the closest city in the core).
Construction
- Stake a claim in the open world (for a price within the core) and construct a building of a custom design. Buildings are created by forming foundations with rectangular prisms of a specific height, potentially chaining them together to increase complexity. Walls are created with further drag-able, hollow rectangular prisms with a fixed height and snapping to the foundations by default. Interior walls can be deleted. Windows and doors are placed and then the roof. The construction items that populate the building will enable various actions like crafting or creating a spawn point. After the design is completed, the player will have to hire construction workers and supply them with the needed materials.
PVP
- Inside the core, PVP is limited to 4 vs 4 arenas or duels. Outside the core, in the wilderness, there are no rules of engagement and everyone is a target (friendly fire is in effect). The loot from a PVP kill is everything the player was wearing and carried except for anything that was soulbound. Making an item soulbound is only possible with crafting (except for return stones) and is fairly expensive. Buildings around the wilderness are fair game but a toggle must be selected for abilities to do damage to them. Generally, most buildings cannot be destroyed by a single person with a standard weapon, it would require the building and using of siege weapons.
Items
- No color-coded items, item rarity is determined by the number of items in the world at any given time. Loot drops are not static and pull from the global table based on chance and item availability. All items have a decay rate based on the frequency of use and time. At most, any item lasts for three months of real time. When an item is destroyed, it adds one more to the global available loot drops.
Crafting
- All items in the game are craftable but some recipes can only be discovered by reverse engineering rare items for a small chance at learning their recipe (and destroying the item). Certain items can only initially be acquired by crafting from rare lootable recipes. All basic recipes are sold in various shops throughout the world.
Economy
- Local auctionhouses in every city (existing or player-built markets). Interacting with any merchant in the marketplace brings up the auctionhouse but selling requires listing items with a merchant, with fluctuating prices based on demand. Items are heavy and beyond a player equipping themselves with a few sets of gear, beasts of burden and wagons need to be used to transport items.
Resources
- Building/Harvesting/Gathering requires more input than clicking a button and watching a progress bar. Skinning an animal, for example, requires tracing cuts on an image of the animal's body. There is no guiding line but training the skill will give you a book to see where the line should be on a given creature so it can be memorized. The closer you get to the line when tracing, the better the result will be. Certain rare creatures may not have entries in the skill book but after successfully harvesting a few a guide will appear in the book. Speed, and consecutive speeds, are recorded and achievements granted for different feats.
Community
- Guilds are central with friendly competition encouraged within the guild as well as war declarations for the wilderness where both sides get an equal damage boost against the other (if both sides accept). Guilds track individual contributions in the form of resources, combat, and general participation and display a ranking. Unique buildings are available for guilds to construct by ranking members.
As for my own ideal game (though not necessarily one I'd develop myself)...
Character
-No classes and all skill lines, each of which contains several abilities, can be trained. Acquisition of all abilities in a skill line is possible at an early level but power progression is unlimited with severe falloff at higher levels. For example, level 100 has all abilities while level 200 is marginally more powerful. The difference between level 200 and 300 is much less than between 100-200.
Combat
- Action combat system with a global cooldown, area of effect (weapon swings) and ground-targeted (cast spells) abilities. Movement is dynamic and fast-paced with a rechargeable dodge roll and rechargeable sprint.
World Design
- Massive open world with grasslands, plains, desert, forests, and mountains. There are two major areas: the smaller core where PVP is strictly limited to structured instances and the larger wilderness surrounding the walled-off core where it is a PVP free-for-all. Getting to the wilderness area requires going to the top of a border tower or a cliff and taking a temporary glider past the wall. A return ability is granted in the form of a consumable item that will transport the player back to the tower. If the player has not built a home, or there is someone in it who recently killed them, the player will be transported back to the tower on death (or the closest city in the core).
Construction
- Stake a claim in the open world (for a price within the core) and construct a building of a custom design. Buildings are created by forming foundations with rectangular prisms of a specific height, potentially chaining them together to increase complexity. Walls are created with further drag-able, hollow rectangular prisms with a fixed height and snapping to the foundations by default. Interior walls can be deleted. Windows and doors are placed and then the roof. The construction items that populate the building will enable various actions like crafting or creating a spawn point. After the design is completed, the player will have to hire construction workers and supply them with the needed materials.
PVP
- Inside the core, PVP is limited to 4 vs 4 arenas or duels. Outside the core, in the wilderness, there are no rules of engagement and everyone is a target (friendly fire is in effect). The loot from a PVP kill is everything the player was wearing and carried except for anything that was soulbound. Making an item soulbound is only possible with crafting (except for return stones) and is fairly expensive. Buildings around the wilderness are fair game but a toggle must be selected for abilities to do damage to them. Generally, most buildings cannot be destroyed by a single person with a standard weapon, it would require the building and using of siege weapons.
Items
- No color-coded items, item rarity is determined by the number of items in the world at any given time. Loot drops are not static and pull from the global table based on chance and item availability. All items have a decay rate based on the frequency of use and time. At most, any item lasts for three months of real time. When an item is destroyed, it adds one more to the global available loot drops.
Crafting
- All items in the game are craftable but some recipes can only be discovered by reverse engineering rare items for a small chance at learning their recipe (and destroying the item). Certain items can only initially be acquired by crafting from rare lootable recipes. All basic recipes are sold in various shops throughout the world.
Economy
- Local auctionhouses in every city (existing or player-built markets). Interacting with any merchant in the marketplace brings up the auctionhouse but selling requires listing items with a merchant, with fluctuating prices based on demand. Items are heavy and beyond a player equipping themselves with a few sets of gear, beasts of burden and wagons need to be used to transport items.
Resources
- Building/Harvesting/Gathering requires more input than clicking a button and watching a progress bar. Skinning an animal, for example, requires tracing cuts on an image of the animal's body. There is no guiding line but training the skill will give you a book to see where the line should be on a given creature so it can be memorized. The closer you get to the line when tracing, the better the result will be. Certain rare creatures may not have entries in the skill book but after successfully harvesting a few a guide will appear in the book. Speed, and consecutive speeds, are recorded and achievements granted for different feats.
Community
- Guilds are central with friendly competition encouraged within the guild as well as war declarations for the wilderness where both sides get an equal damage boost against the other (if both sides accept). Guilds track individual contributions in the form of resources, combat, and general participation and display a ranking. Unique buildings are available for guilds to construct by ranking members.
Well, without knowing a lot more detail (and it would be unfair to ask for such a time consuming thing), that sounds like a pretty good game. There's some stuff that I wonder exactly how it would work (I mean the design, not if it would work). And some that isn't what I myself am looking for. But in the absence of my own desires, this looks pretty good.
One one big peeve is wide open PvP. Sectioning off a safe zone just isn't enough. Players will want to experience the entire world, and wide open PvP is going to make that a frustrating experience for most.
And that's why I want a working justice system, world wide. What exactly that justice system is is critical. It has to allow a few random events, but limit it so that players save up their uses for times when they really want it, like taking out a "spam griefer". And it has to impact the criminal so that they don't do it unless they actually want to roleplay it out, knowing they'll be roasted in the end. And warfare has to be separate, of course.
My dream mmo will have a real facebook account connected to it , where all the players in that mmo world can only team with me or be in the guild, if they are able to connect to me in real life also. This way that mmo can do away with fake players , support players , arrogant kids. That same social website will list all my achievements and thumbs up and down from other players for helping them in team content or irritating them for some reason. This system will also control the loot system with polite better players gaining more chances at dice rolls and players not liked enough in that game hardly makes more than one dice rolls. Whatever the other features are , this feature will create a better chance with the community and refrain that mmo from dieing within couple of months.
Cheers Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
There is definitely a lot wrong with it, mostly in that it would end up appealing to a very niche crowd. Personally, I enjoy wide open world pvp where I have to hunt down an opponent for a fight, it feels satisfying. That said, while I would love to play it, I probably wouldn't develop it if given a choice (I think I like making games more than playing them). If it were a game I was going to develop I might not even include PVP at all or have it solely in a structured format. While justice systems are nice on paper I have yet to play with one that actually felt like it added to the fun of gameplay instead of just coming across as gimmicky (i.e. ArcheAge, Eve). Instead I think the focus would be better served on the AI and making combat against it feel engaging and entertaining. Basically it boils down to the fact that AI mobs don't mind getting beat up constantly while PVP requires winners and losers, and the more regulation there is in terms of keeping people from losing too much, the less it feels like "real" PVP.
There is definitely a lot wrong with it, mostly in that it would end up appealing to a very niche crowd. Personally, I enjoy wide open world pvp where I have to hunt down an opponent for a fight, it feels satisfying. That said, while I would love to play it, I probably wouldn't develop it if given a choice (I think I like making games more than playing them). If it were a game I was going to develop I might not even include PVP at all or have it solely in a structured format. While justice systems are nice on paper I have yet to play with one that actually felt like it added to the fun of gameplay instead of just coming across as gimmicky (i.e. ArcheAge, Eve). Instead I think the focus would be better served on the AI and making combat against it feel engaging and entertaining. Basically it boils down to the fact that AI mobs don't mind getting beat up constantly while PVP requires winners and losers, and the more regulation there is in terms of keeping people from losing too much, the less it feels like "real" PVP.
Ahh, so you're a predatorial type, eh? Hehe, I like it too. But I saw right away in UO what it does to the player base. So I didn't do it outside of guild wars.
There is a way. If you read all my posts in this thread, and think about it in a positive fashion (i.e. how can this work instead of applying scenarios from past experiences that are taken care of in this system), you should be able to see that it does in fact work. There will always be a small percentage of gamers who won't accept any PvP at all, largely exactly because it's never worked out well for them in the past.
The big secret (evidently) is that past "efforts" at "justice" systems have always allowed outs for the PKers. Ludicrous! Save the PKers and lose large portions of the other players. It just boggles the mind. And even in the proof in the pudding, the lack of retention in wide open PvP games and servers, people still won't see it. But there are many game designers and developers who want wide open PvP and won't do what's needed. And what is needed is true punishment for PKers (as opposed to PvPers).
My system separates the two. It allows PvPers to have their fun in the regular world, mixed in to the player developed history of the game world. PART of the game world.
There is definitely a lot wrong with it, mostly in that it would end up appealing to a very niche crowd. Personally, I enjoy wide open world pvp where I have to hunt down an opponent for a fight, it feels satisfying. That said, while I would love to play it, I probably wouldn't develop it if given a choice (I think I like making games more than playing them). If it were a game I was going to develop I might not even include PVP at all or have it solely in a structured format. While justice systems are nice on paper I have yet to play with one that actually felt like it added to the fun of gameplay instead of just coming across as gimmicky (i.e. ArcheAge, Eve). Instead I think the focus would be better served on the AI and making combat against it feel engaging and entertaining. Basically it boils down to the fact that AI mobs don't mind getting beat up constantly while PVP requires winners and losers, and the more regulation there is in terms of keeping people from losing too much, the less it feels like "real" PVP.
Ahh, so you're a predatorial type, eh? Hehe, I like it too. But I saw right away in UO what it does to the player base. So I didn't do it outside of guild wars.
There is a way. If you read all my posts in this thread, and think about it in a positive fashion (i.e. how can this work instead of applying scenarios from past experiences that are taken care of in this system), you should be able to see that it does in fact work. There will always be a small percentage of gamers who won't accept any PvP at all, largely exactly because it's never worked out well for them in the past.
The big secret (evidently) is that past "efforts" at "justice" systems have always allowed outs for the PKers. Ludicrous! Save the PKers and lose large portions of the other players. It just boggles the mind. And even in the proof in the pudding, the lack of retention in wide open PvP games and servers, people still won't see it. But there are many game designers and developers who want wide open PvP and won't do what's needed. And what is needed is true punishment for PKers (as opposed to PvPers).
My system separates the two. It allows PvPers to have their fun in the regular world, mixed in to the player developed history of the game world. PART of the game world.
I've re-read your posts but I don't think I understand how the system is supposed to work yet. Let me recap my understanding of it: a flag for pvp that will enable you to fight anyone, anywhere. The justice system comes into play if a flagged player attacks an un-flagged player and they are labeled as a PKer. Inevitably, the results are harsh to discourage the PKer from repeating the action.
What I don't understand is, what would the punishment be exactly? If it's "jail" time, what is the comfort to the person who got ganked? For the PKer who wants the open world PVP, how does it not feel like they're getting punished for PVPing?
The class complexity of Warhammer Online, a special continent for OPVP, lots of que-able group content (pvp/pve dont matter), skill synergy from d2, and some sort of instanced housing, all set up in a Star Wars themed setting. That would be epic oh and just as much crafting as in SWTOR lol. I really like SWTOR but TBH the numbers have really dropped.
I'm not a designer, but I do play mmo's and first this is what I want gone: real life currency for player advantage. I really hate doing quests, because they feel like a chore or some movie script walk-through. What they need to create is a system that would allow the players to actually sell services for real money, I bet that business model will generate a massive fan-base. I know it all sounds impossible and who would want to pay players just for playing, but why not use the new supercomputers AI that's supposedly 7 million times smarter than a human to figure out a solution. I mean we already mine cryptocurrencies, so why not make a game that is based on that. Graphics cards play a key role anyways, might as well make bank on their potential instead of stupid-looking same old medieval garbage that's been overdone a million times. People are poor nowadays, so why not play a game where you can't lose money and only gain it over time? Game developers failed to notice the key to success in recent years, and that is global popularity across all demographics. I want to be able to go somewhere and hear people talking about a game that I actually play and then not feel ashamed of myself for being a nerdy loser, but instead a successful wage earner.
Well right now it's been a one way street and not in favor of the players. It's only fair to expect virtual currency for time spent in the virtual world. Since I want to get addicted to a super fun game and play non-stop for many hours, why not make a career out of it as well and save me the hassle of going to work. Yeah well it's only human nature to want to be able to afford one's own survival at the least. What's the point of being the richest and most popular MMO player if no real life reward is given? Even Runescape and WOW pay cash to winners (that's probably why they might have been the most influential). The economy is bad, I can't think of any new games worth delving into, new tech is here and yet there's clearly a lack of innovation and creativity in the gaming industry going on. The market is too divided and it needs to bring gamers together with better motivation instead of gamble trickery that drains the player's funds and results in a completely unproductive waste of time.
- Minimal Narrative (aka not story driven) .. this means you can disregard "all" mmos since WoW - Pve focused sandbox (pvp is fine but should be part of events and not carrying the game) .. think EqNext - Living Breathing world .. You are in a world now, not in a game environment - Dynamic events (not gw2 but actually dynamic), time limited dynamic events, gm controlled events (directly and indirectly) - Dynamic and changing world controlled by gm .. think EqNext with GM/Gods controlling and intervening (not micromanaging, but from a sky view) to keep the world interesting as a playground (because there is no amount of smart coding systems that can prevent players messing a dynamic world up, only real people can correct that) - RNG in as many aspects of the game as possible, all stuff must be earned in game and that will produce feeling of accomplishment. - No shop whatsoever, there must be no direct connection to what you can get in game and real money.. it must be financed in other ways, and yes that is possible and yes that alone does mean better game design. - CO-OP and tactical combat (not forced grouping), with flowing roles (aka not static class roles) with versatility and many different situational tactics
If the things above are kept as basic principles, then specific features and systems are less important as long as it doesn't break down the base vision. Because this is far from how current live mmos are, comparisons are hard to make.. It is the dreams of the mmo future we(I) had in early 2000, and boy did it move in total different direction.. only the ideas of EqNext have touched on those dreams so far.
Comments
Once upon a time....
Under "character progression" you listed:
"Class influenced/determined by quests"
That's not what I meant.
It would be better stated as:
"Skill based system with specialized classes (Paladin, Druid, Master Sculptor, Master Engraver, etc.) with skill requirements and a quest to enter."
I added a little to round out the idea.
Once upon a time....
- Third person perspective
- Absolutely no permanent item decay (needing repair is perfectly fine)
- Classic fantasy
- Multiple races such as Human, Elf, Dwarf, etc, with subraces, such as High Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf etc; races add flavour but also change the gaming experience substantly, for example a human wizard should play substantly different than an elven wizard; all races are sentient and not per se good or evil
- Classic class system with a fixed number of classes like Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, etc; classes play substantly different, i.e. aspects that are very important for the gameplay of one class will be completely irrelevant for another (which is why I want such static classes - cant do that with a more free system); classes have fixed party tasks (tank, healer, or supporter); subclasses can be chosen at a later point; changing subclass is possible but a major undertaking; subclasses keep the same party task, for example a Paladin stays a tank and wont ever be a valid choice for a full healer no matter what subclass one picks; no class or subclass gives a per se alignment to the player even if there are certain behavior rules for specific classes, namely Paladin.
- There are a number of deities the player can choose from; each deity give their followers different benefits. Priest classes change substantly depending upon choice of deity. A Death Cleric for example will not have many regular heals and wont be able to wear any armor but wizard robes, but they will deal a lot of spell damage and get powerful lifetaps heals. Chaning deities is also a major undertaking. Deity choices are limited by class choice, sometimes also by subclass choice. Necromancer (a Wizard subclass) for example gets very limited deity choices.
- Name, Gender and graphical representation freely chooseable; people who choose high strength will however look correspondingly bulky unless they choose the Monk class
- Very powerful crafting system that allows to ever even more improve an item, with diminishing returns and increasing danger to break said item
- High quality, highly dynamic combat system.
- Lag equalization through round based with cooldowns.
- Sportive PvP events, like arena, castle sieges etc. Player characters can turn into bandits that no longer can interact with regular cities etc (Kill on sight) but can attack other player characters.
- Complex diplomacy. In order to gain access to certain areas, players of wrong race will have to solve certain tasks to gain sufficient faction.
My requirement is a "deep" combat system, not necessarily skill-based or complex. It is a concept I often struggle to articulate properly.
Depth defines how difficult it is to determine your next move. It is a measure of the number of meaningful decisions you have to make.
In a shallow combat system, deciding what to do next is easy. It may be shallow for a variety of reasons. In action combat games, for example, you typically have very few skills available to you so deciding what to do next is very easy. In a game with short cooldowns on all skills, again the choice is easy because it doesn't matter what you choose, if you get it wrong you only have to survive a few seconds and you can try again. Even a game like SW:TOR, where each class has tons of skills to choose from, the choice is easy. This is both because the skills are on short cooldown, but also because the overwhelming majority of skills form part of your rotation, so your choice is typically just between continuing your rotation, or using 1 of your few "special" abilities to get you out of a bad situation.
With a deep combat system, deciding what to do next is hard. The difficulty can also come from a variety of sources. Perhaps you have lots of options, each with varying outcomes, so there is the opportunity cost to consider. Perhaps the skills you can choose have long cooldowns, so if you get it wrong you might miss an opportunity later or fail now.
The point is, in a deep combat system you have to think hard about what skill to use next and that success or failure is, to a large degree, dependant upon you making the correct decisions.
As a final note, a deep combat system requires suitable content to be worth anything, i.e. the content must be challenging. If the content is easy then it doesn't matter how deep your combat system is, with easy content your choice of next skill is really easy because your choice doesn't matter, you'll succeed anyway. Even with challenging content, the content might funnel you towards specific decisions. For example, if your character has an emergency heal skill on a 10m cooldown, deciding when to use it can be hard and thus adds to depth. However, if a boss fight mandates using the skill at a specific time, then that skill is effectively removed from your decision making choices and thus depth is removed.
If I was going to build a MMO (Which I am NOT and we covered that elsewhere) I would do the following (which would probably suck anyway):
First of all I would make a multi-faction world (probably 3 or 4) with each faction is basically player ran. The fact that each faction needs the resources of the others to survive but control of all factions would not be possible by the player base because the NPC faction would never be capable of aligning all of them (except maybe diplomat which is needed in every faction) . I would make the world entirely open PvP but if you see the faction separation of NPC and the interaction of the player to NPC then if a player decides to attack and kill his own faction (including NPC) they would be considered enemy of said faction aligning up with either one of the other factions. Gaining faction back takes more work so losing faction faster than gaining faction leads to be outlaw (seen as all factions hate said player). At a certain point in distance (most likely the very center of the world) the world takes on a no holds barred open warfare (Call it outlaw world where no faction is adjusted through players actions NPC faction in this area is controlled by the faction that controls the main outpost.) In these areas things get difficult because things get destroyed and settlements get over taken but the rewards are very much worth the effort. Control of these areas gives a boost to the faction that controls it.
The second thing I would do is make the world entirely salvageable. Resources are renewed slower than they are consumed if no one invests in renewable resources (a farmer becomes a MUST for food and renewable resources). This leads to having to manage your own factions resources yet having a trade between others is a necessity.
The third thing I would do is have maybe three or four main cities, a few smaller established outpost but the rest of the world needs to be built and ran by the players. Inside a certain limit things are fairly stable but as I said before, outer limits are subjected open no hold barred and no faction adjustments and in these areas are the main resources which are more abundant. Player would need skills to craft but can only craft certain items which means someone else needs to depend on others skills to get the finished product. Food becomes a must. Weapons and armor degrade. They still have to buy the land from their main cities so a faction is necessary to establish ownership. They have to gather resources and build their own settlements and maintain their own. Since they would need NPC of their faction for transactions such as selling their wares, being guards, buying non resource items and so on. Each seller has player items and not a global market.
I would make a limited introduction tutorial and beyond that is kind of a quest system of randomness based on NPC wants which may include PvP- opposing faction hit jobs against leading players of opposite factions which give very good rewards (more guards available to hire for the players city or better prices from trades across the faction) PvM - Quests that require exploration of remote areas, recovery of artifacts that can be used to make powerful items or books that contain special creatable recipes only found in random quests) maybe a mix PvP/PvM where going to enemy territory to gather something very unique and powerful.
Removal of combat levels as we know them like very narrow level span with concentration on craft as the main theme.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I'm shallower maybe, or I just don't dream "big" enough, but my dream MMO would be LotRO around the f2p change, with all the later added content and fixes, but without the stat revamp, the class changes and the trait trees.
My other dream would be TSW without the scenario and AEGIS grind
Those two were as close to perfect (at least for me) as possible in practice, since let's face it, no perfect games are out there. I think that's why the "dreaming big" way in such threads is counterproductive, the more you detail your perfect game, the narrower your target audience remains... You have to find the balance between being great and niche, and being perfect and a ghost town.
(and since popularity chasing is requires to aim at the lowest common denominator, if you want quality, you should go after niche. Popularity almost always equals shite quality, just look around the current market
I will make a game that is the following:
It will include all the ideals that were spoken of above however, the monetization scheme will be the following.
B2P with a subscription based and extreme P2W elements, with loot boxes being dropped that require keys to open. I will take every single P2W element and implement it on top of the B2P and subscription based. The loot boxes can also give loot boxes that require high level of keys which can then beget more lucrative loot boxes.
On top of that, I'll charge $20 per expansion. You'll only get one loot bag and massive amounts of loot will drop which will require extra stash tabs that you rent for a monthly price.
On top of that, I'll sell ad space on the armor of NPC's. So you'll face the big bad ogre king and he'll have a Tide sticker and a bud light sticker on his pauldrons. His spells will sound like amazon Echo.
You'll have a side scrolling ad ticker on the top. In order to level up your skills, you'll have to watch a short video of an advertisement.
There will be loading zones between zones which will feature ad space that can be sold. Instead of legendary items called the hammer of akraban, it will be the hammer of bud light or the hammer of pepsi cola. That can be sold to the highest bidder.
There will be a flying potion in the game, called Red bull, which looks like the red bull can. Other potions will also be sold under trademarks.
When you kill a mob, it will shout a company name, like "ahh, i'm dead, I should have eaten my Wheaties" or "damn, I should have taken 5 hour energy".
There will be billboards in the game that will break immersion completely. A big nice Chevrolet billboard on the side of an epic castle. Each race will be behind a pay wall of some sort as well as classes to choose.
You will have housing but those will require insurance that will be sold by in-game companies conveniently called nationwide, aflac, geico, etc. When you have a mount, it will need health insurance and mount insurance, also given by Blue shield, Aetna, etc.
When you buy boots, they will be called adidas, nike, jordan's, or whatever other brand buys into it.
This will be the best game ever. Don't forget that you could be an undead dragon for 100k usd
I hope people realize this is a joke, or else i'll get more "WTF" than the usual Delete's posts.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I'll never see it. Not in the next 20 years, anyway. Maybe sometime after my 147th birthday, maybe.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
1) By "progression", do you mean compared to the current game designs?
Or in player progression?
Or both, depending on the subject?
2) "Delta". I'm not sure how this term is used.
One definition is : "variation of a variable or function."
Are you talking horizontal progression? Or a mix with vertical? (Delta being a triangle.)
I like best the concept of a mix, but with a clear dedication to low power gaps on the vertical side of it. Let ability increase in both, but primarily through expansion sideways.
I think this can allow players with less time to play to focus and thus be relevant in the bigger picture.
Once upon a time....
Basically, when I design any game I'm trying to first find the core of the fun for the player. In an MMO this is a complicated beast because it seems to come from so many different angles and be different for each player. But my belief is that as long as meaningful progression is conveyed in gameplay, people will want to play the game. So basically, I'm just curious about what different people's ideas of meaningful progression are so I can try to figure out what the commonalities are between the things in an MMO that people find fun. I just realized I haven't shared my own ideas for a game as well so I'll do that too.
Take Ultima Online , Asherons Call or Anarchy Online , keep all the great features and mechainics in place , improve the UI , and give it an updated engine ...
Winner
There's some stuff that I wonder exactly how it would work (I mean the design, not if it would work).
And some that isn't what I myself am looking for. But in the absence of my own desires, this looks pretty good.
One one big peeve is wide open PvP. Sectioning off a safe zone just isn't enough. Players will want to experience the entire world, and wide open PvP is going to make that a frustrating experience for most.
And that's why I want a working justice system, world wide. What exactly that justice system is is critical. It has to allow a few random events, but limit it so that players save up their uses for times when they really want it, like taking out a "spam griefer". And it has to impact the criminal so that they don't do it unless they actually want to roleplay it out, knowing they'll be roasted in the end. And warfare has to be separate, of course.
Once upon a time....
Endgame of GW2/WoW/BDO
Sandboxyness of BDO
Talent system of POE (even though its not an MMO...make it work).
This way that mmo can do away with fake players , support players , arrogant kids. That same social website will list all my achievements and thumbs up and down from other players for helping them in team content or irritating them for some reason.
This system will also control the loot system with polite better players gaining more chances at dice rolls and players not liked enough in that game hardly makes more than one dice rolls.
Whatever the other features are , this feature will create a better chance with the community and refrain that mmo from dieing within couple of months.
Cheers
Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Once An Addict Always An Addict .
There is definitely a lot wrong with it, mostly in that it would end up appealing to a very niche crowd. Personally, I enjoy wide open world pvp where I have to hunt down an opponent for a fight, it feels satisfying. That said, while I would love to play it, I probably wouldn't develop it if given a choice (I think I like making games more than playing them). If it were a game I was going to develop I might not even include PVP at all or have it solely in a structured format. While justice systems are nice on paper I have yet to play with one that actually felt like it added to the fun of gameplay instead of just coming across as gimmicky (i.e. ArcheAge, Eve). Instead I think the focus would be better served on the AI and making combat against it feel engaging and entertaining. Basically it boils down to the fact that AI mobs don't mind getting beat up constantly while PVP requires winners and losers, and the more regulation there is in terms of keeping people from losing too much, the less it feels like "real" PVP.
There is a way. If you read all my posts in this thread, and think about it in a positive fashion (i.e. how can this work instead of applying scenarios from past experiences that are taken care of in this system), you should be able to see that it does in fact work. There will always be a small percentage of gamers who won't accept any PvP at all, largely exactly because it's never worked out well for them in the past.
The big secret (evidently) is that past "efforts" at "justice" systems have always allowed outs for the PKers. Ludicrous! Save the PKers and lose large portions of the other players. It just boggles the mind.
And even in the proof in the pudding, the lack of retention in wide open PvP games and servers, people still won't see it.
But there are many game designers and developers who want wide open PvP and won't do what's needed. And what is needed is true punishment for PKers (as opposed to PvPers).
My system separates the two. It allows PvPers to have their fun in the regular world, mixed in to the player developed history of the game world. PART of the game world.
Once upon a time....
What I don't understand is, what would the punishment be exactly? If it's "jail" time, what is the comfort to the person who got ganked? For the PKer who wants the open world PVP, how does it not feel like they're getting punished for PVPing?
- Pve focused sandbox (pvp is fine but should be part of events and not carrying the game) .. think EqNext
- Living Breathing world .. You are in a world now, not in a game environment
- Dynamic events (not gw2 but actually dynamic), time limited dynamic events, gm controlled events (directly and indirectly)
- Dynamic and changing world controlled by gm .. think EqNext with GM/Gods controlling and intervening (not micromanaging, but from a sky view) to keep the world interesting as a playground (because there is no amount of smart coding systems that can prevent players messing a dynamic world up, only real people can correct that)
- RNG in as many aspects of the game as possible, all stuff must be earned in game and that will produce feeling of accomplishment.
- No shop whatsoever, there must be no direct connection to what you can get in game and real money.. it must be financed in other ways, and yes that is possible and yes that alone does mean better game design.
- CO-OP and tactical combat (not forced grouping), with flowing roles (aka not static class roles) with versatility and many different situational tactics
If the things above are kept as basic principles, then specific features and systems are less important as long as it doesn't break down the base vision.
Because this is far from how current live mmos are, comparisons are hard to make.. It is the dreams of the mmo future we(I) had in early 2000, and boy did it move in total different direction.. only the ideas of EqNext have touched on those dreams so far.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0