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.
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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