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Javak

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Low magic fantasy. Player actions change the world. (not individual phasing, but acutally affect geography/ factions)
 

IBlackKiteI

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Frehls said:
For those interested, I am making my design document in Microsoft OneNote. As far as organization and ease of use goes, its right on the money. You can put whatever you want where ever you want. It is pretty damn great for projects.
Booyah, I was actually going to recommend this.

Recently I've been writing stuff about a couple games I'm planning. While I'm obviously not expecting them to go anywhere, OneNote is a brilliant way of adding heaps of stuff and easily viewing and editing it as you see fit.
Anyway I found it much easier to 'design' the games after I'd created a setting for them, so I'd recommend getting the core ideas that are necessary for the background of your MMO, such as events, locations, characters, and expand upon them as you continue to add to the gameplay related aspects.
Might just make it easier to plan out overall, just a suggestion.

EDIT: Also try to think of some more ways to distance your game from what's already out there. What you've already mentioned seems pretty cool, and while you're probably intending to anyway, it'd be best to expand upon and add to your ideas as much as possible while making them unique. For an MMO in particular, having gameplay that no other one is quite like is absolutely essential.
 

Mordwyl

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Frehls said:
Mordwyl said:
Ditch levels and I'll pay attention.
snip
Not quite what I meant. The biggest problem with MMORPGs is that developers are still trying to assemble theirs from a traditional RPG model. As long as they keep that up MMORPG will never be treated as its own genre, rather a "roleplaying game, but with other people".

The very idea of levels imply that character growth is scalar; between one level and the next the player makes virtually zero progress. This isn't a fatal problem for single player games since levelling normally takes a short time, feels natural and meant to strengthen the player, by no means hinder them. Now try and correlate these points in a massively multiplayer game and you will realise none of them apply, in fact the very opposite things occur: Levelling up takes quite a lot of time, feels forced/padded/grindy and will be a detriment to the player without preparation.
 

Hamish Durie

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Frehls said:
PvE content should consist of RuneScape style que- HOLD IT. Did I say RuneScape? Damn right I did. The quests in that game were fucking long, epic, and generally awesome. If you played RuneScape, especially with a membership, you know what the fuck I'm talking about. WoW style quests, which I prefer to call "tasks", will exist in larger quantities for other purposes. Events, ala Rift and Guild Wars 2, should also exist.
PvE is not without its endgame. Here there will be more challenging, group oriented quests and events. WoW-style dungeons and raids should be included. The aforementioned combat philosophy, as well as other changes and improvements to the formula, should alleviate the common problems of dungeons and raids.




If you read all that, congratulations. If you didn't, it the following question still stands.


What would you like to see in an MMORPG, and/or what could my basic idea use?
if you do base the quests of runescape please follow the one rule that it taught me
griding yews for half an hour and only getting 10% xp is not good design and it will just lead to botters

do you plan to put cutscenes?
abd do you have a unique feature that will help yiur game stand out, case in point i wouldnt tried out rift if it didn't scream and point at the whole random spawning rifts and the whole using the souls of past heroes thing.

ok last thing please please please don't skimp on tha backstory, I don't pay much attention to backstory ub games but WoWs backstory sucked me in like an........cbf
anyway i started reading at 3PM and awoke from my coma around 7PM and without it i probably wouldnt have come back to WoW
 

SixWingedAsura

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https://sites.google.com/site/chaosflow/

XD, this. And this was just scratching the surface of what I wanted to do.

If anyone wants, PM me and I can give you more details on anything you want to know about. (I hadn't added my awesome Epic action system to that site either. Should probably get around to that.)

Captcha: ntezTe fertilizer. Nietzsche Fertlizer? Nietzsche Poop? XD
 

Human_Sacrifice

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Aug 11, 2010
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On the topic of PvP - Runescape's old free-for-all system just did not work. Teamwork should always be an essential part of competitive gameplay. With regards to two-faction games like WoW, TF2 (not an MMO but whatever) and the like, I personally feel it can become dull, repetitive, and in worst-case scenarios, one-sided.
No, what I think you should do is take a leaf out of the Pardus book - three factions, with constantly-changing relations, dependent on both player input and scheduled events, perhaps with a bit of random thrown in just for kicks. I can't honestly say I've seen it done anywhere else, and not the least bit as well as Pardus.
 

Fishyash

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Do you plan on having an attributes system? (strength, dex etc.?) That may possibly cover your skills? (kind of like oblivion?)

Also, what I would really think would be cool with your quests is that you have different ways of completing them, possibly affecting the reward afterwards.

A (probably unrealistic example) of what I am talking about would be something like this:

A classic RPG quest setup: You need to get the Knickknack of Awesome, which is in the hands of King Bob. In exchange for the Knickknack, Bob wants you to rescue Princess Nancy from another kingdom. Because he'd rather not start a war, he'd prefer if you didn't kill a bunch of prison guards in the process. So we have a quest with loot, risk, travel, and optional goals. If this were an old-school RPG like Fallout or Planescape Torment, then we'd probably have many, many ways we could approach this challenge:

1) Sneak or scam your way into prison and free Nancy, claim the knickknack.
2) Murder your way into prison and free Nancy, claim the knickknack.
3) Swipe the knickknack outright.
4) Kill King Bob, then take the knickknack.
5) Get Nancy killed (or kill her yourself) and then end up having to obtain the knickknack some other way.
6) Kill Bob, take the knickknack, but later rescue Nancy anyway.
7) Kill Bob, take the knickknack, enter prison, kill Nancy.
8) Free Nancy on your own, then meet Bob for the first time and get the knickknack.
9) Bribe Bob for the knickknack with a huge sum of money.
Pretty much the only example I could think of. I couldn't think of a more realistic example (for an MMO) on my own. You definately don't need this many choices. If you could though that would be amazing :p

I am interested in the MMO. I might look at this thread another time.
 

Pyro Paul

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Frehls said:
The core parameters are as follows:
1. Enjoyable, varied, challenging combat. This is a failing of the standard (read: WoW) MMORPG. It is where third-person reaction based combat comes in. You press button, swing sword. You press other button, you do special sword swing. You press other button, you perform fancy dodge roll. Everything can do stuff like this.
balance through skill and lag are the biggest problems with 'Real Time' combat methods. What you're describing is a real time combat system seen in any fighter, brawler, or real time melee game. you consist of 'Attack' 'Special Attack' 'Dodge/block/prevent damage' 'jump'.

Two problem with the real time mechanic, first is primarly balance through skill. Regardless of how well laid your plans or how complex your combat mechanic, there are people whom will disect it and discover something you didn't even imagine possible. this is seen mostly through Strategy games.

Company of Heroes, for instance, players calculated out cost effectiveness of each unit and found out that by simply spamming the Weakest unit in the game (pioneers- the axis building unit) they could effectively overwhelm and destroy Everything in the game up until the Heavy tanks. and by doing this you assure that the enemy never gets the time or resource to get the heavy tank.

such things will undoubtably occur with any game, exspecially MMOs (notice the 'most broken' class often becomes the most popular in any MMORPG). some one will figure out your mechanic then design a style around it which gives them the most success with the least risk.

this is why the 'MMO Standard' (ala WoW) is the most effective... You math out the most perfect rotation/set up/attack strategy doesn't mean you win.

The Second problem is Latency. or Lag.
the bane of ANY real time method. (see Strategy games) a players connectivity dictates how fast and fluidly they attack. If you want a fluid game the player must connect to the game between 20-75 latency. unfortunatly most MMO players connect to their MMO of choice ~200 latency simply due to the draw on the servers (it is called Massive Multiplayer Online after all).

From an FPS style of play 20-75 ping verses 200 is the diffrence of 2-3 seconds. thats the diffrence between getting far enough from a grenade to survive to getting killed by a grenade.

that is one of the primary reason the 'MMO Standard' (ala WoW) works is because it compensates for such lag providing an enjoyable experience for the 20-60 latency group as well as the 200-300 latency group.

2. Free-form, complex, customizable characters. Here is where my spin on the skill system comes in. (EDIT: There is no class system, you pick and choose skills. I am aware of potential problems and am working around them. Balance is key to multiplayer games.) You have combat skills (Blades, Heavy Armor, etc.) and non-combat skills (Forging, Enchantment, etc.). Within each skill there are specializations, not unlike WoW's talent trees. Skills can be learned and unlearned at will, but at cost and with consequences. I have expanded on this myself, but want other input.
This just screams bandwidth and balance issues

the bandwidth issues will only compound latency issues.

if you look at Eve online, the game used to support the capability to change the decal of your ship making you have your own custom paint job. Although this was not a feature, because it took the ship information from the players computer people figured out that they could tinker with the art files and make the game upload unique skins.

this was patched out and now all the information of a ships skin is drawn from the server and uses files on the players computer. While you can still make unique ship skins, only you see it. The reason for this... Bandwidth. uploading a 255 bit art file may not sound like a lot, exspecially since that is the size of most Valve multiplayer sprays, uploading unique 255 bit files between 32 players is very diffrent then uploading 255 bit files across 32,000 players.

balance issues on the other hand.

Class balance is critical if your thinking about a PvP or any sort of competative game. 'free classes' just throw that idea of balance out the window, which is primarly why you only see free balance in single player games. Brink has pretty much been a shining example of why this doesn't work.

if your 'class' is dictated by choice and your choice in weapons and armor is dictated by another option you lead to imbalanced choice options such as a heavy tank, high dps Healer... in which... why would you be any thing else?

3. Other stuff. I want to include some of everything, so to speak.
PvE content should consist of RuneScape style que- HOLD IT. Did I say RuneScape? Damn right I did. The quests in that game were fucking long, epic, and generally awesome. If you played RuneScape, especially with a membership, you know what the fuck I'm talking about. WoW style quests, which I prefer to call "tasks", will exist in larger quantities for other purposes. Events, ala Rift and Guild Wars 2, should also exist.
PvE is not without its endgame. Here there will be more challenging, group oriented quests and events. WoW-style dungeons and raids should be included. The aforementioned combat philosophy, as well as other changes and improvements to the formula, should alleviate the common problems of dungeons and raids.
As for PvP, both structure and world varieties should exist. In addition, a Dark Ages of Camelot/EVE style of territory and resource control could exist on an isolated continent.
The aforementioned details are the very basics. I'm working on fleshing out each field and paying close attention to balance and fun factor.

EDIT 2: Basic ideas, people. The game mechanics come first, the setting comes later. I could be playing a game set in a glass of water, but its the game that matters. Setting is very important, but the game comes first.
EDIT 3: I have zero programming skills, but I'm working on it. These are basic ideas for a design that I just might be able to make a game out of in the future.

If you read all that, congratulations. If you didn't, it the following question still stands.

What would you like to see in an MMORPG, and/or what could my basic idea use?
while a lot of these mechanics work, the problem is primarly with context and focus. Each of the MMOs you drawn influnce upon have their own flaws which are worked out on in other capabilities.

Eve, for instance, the Territory style conflict only works so well because technically no single one spot in space is 'safe' so long as you're undocked you are a target. you avoid this by being surrounded by friends or powerful NPCs, and even then that some times doesn't stop people from trying (suicide ganker)

the WoW style dungeons work because of the basic class composition formula. Tank>Healer>DPS>DPS>DPS. now while this formula is tried and true, it is also flawed when you use a 'free class' mechanic as you don't have very 'focused' classes which could fufill any of these roles specifically.

---

I'm not knocking your idea for an MMO or out right saying 'you're bad, this won't work'. This is just Direct Criticism and pointing out specific problems you'll run into that you need to take into consideration
 

Nudu

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Jun 1, 2011
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Yeah, Runescape gets a bad rep. Primarily because the quests were god awful and the community was ...Runescape. But the quests were better then any other MMO I've every played.

However, I doubt making an MMO is the best idea. Were are you going to get your funding?
 

Rack

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I typed out a rant as to why you can't just say "Lets have action oriented combat" but Pyro Paul put it in way better detail. If you're going to design a game you need to know all this and much much more. You can't even call it a design without this, let alone dream it could ever get made. If you want to blog about your great idea that's written by robots and fuelled by unobtanium it can still be interesting but a design knows how it's going to be possible, you can't just say "Hey, wouldn't a glass bottomed plane be awesome!"
 

Rack

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Jan 18, 2008
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Frehls said:
I'm not designing my game around technology because I have no time frame. You can understand that.

EDIT:
Rack said:
I typed out a rant as to why you can't just say "Lets have action oriented combat" but Pyro Paul put it in way better detail. If you're going to design a game you need to know all this and much much more. You can't even call it a design without this, let alone dream it could ever get made. If you want to blog about your great idea that's written by robots and fuelled by unobtanium it can still be interesting but a design knows how it's going to be possible, you can't just say "Hey, wouldn't a glass bottomed plane be awesome!"
What I've posted can hardly be called a design. Maybe part of a pre-pre-pre-pre alpha build of a design, but I certainly never called it a full design.
One thing I've been telling myself is that you can make a video game without touching a computer. Limitations of what technology you may be using aside, a completed design is the game. It lacks graphics sound, but it is a game. That's all I'm trying to do for now.

I've already posted about this above, but I agree, you can't just say "let's have action oriented combat". You have to say that and make it work. And with time, it can be made to work. And if it did work, wouldn't it be awesome?
The thing is it will never be a design because you've admitted you aren't using real world constraints. Now that's okay if you understand it, if you accept that you are making a thought experiment that can still be quite interesting but you can only make a computer game without touching a computer if you build it around limitations. (Incidentally that's how Assassins Creed was designed.)

Without considering these things you aren't designing an MMO you're fantasising about one. That's okay, that can be interesting, it can be more interesting if the design is grounded in reality but it can still be interesting. If you want people to look at this and think "wow this guy really knows his stuff" then you're probably being unrealistic anyway, but doubly so if you're not designing anything that could ever exist.
 

Sixcess

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Feb 27, 2010
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Not Fantasy.

If I'm taking my first look at an MMO now and I see swords, dragons, pointed ears or chainmail bikinis any interest I had just dies. In MMOs at least fantasy really has been done to death and beyond.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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I would say first of all ditch the MMO aspect, because the main problems of MMO's are unavoidable.
- repetitive combat (even the most exciting combat will wear real thin after 1000+ hours )
- shitty combat (due to high server load the latency can never allow for precise positioning and timing )
- lack of atmosphere ( you may feel something the first time in an area but after 10000x times it's all dead )
- lack of immersion ( as with all multiplayer games as soon as you interact with people from the real world there is no way to fool yourself you are somewhere else )

I say design an action RPG with your ideas and you got a good start, when the gameplay is fleshed out enough you can start thinking how to interlace it with multiplayer.