Non-MMO Fans! What would get you to play one?
- Thread starter PedroSteckecilo
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So based on the replies to this thread, I've come up with an idea. Who would buy this MMO?
*Modern Day conflict, set in one of the various backwards countries of the world (poor African nations, oppressive Middle Eastern nations, underdeveloped South Asian countries, etc.)
*PMC's (Private Military Companies) are fighting each other in the near future
*Due to this, you can expect the MMO staples of heavy customization (as PMC's have no standard for equipment), guilds ('companies'), PvP and PvE (fighting each other/rebels/backwards government troops, etc.)
*A heavily involved plot. Just as an example, imagine that the game has an area where no one goes because they are immediately destroyed by the army of that nation (i.e., if the game is set in Afghanistan, nobody would enter Pakistan because they would be destroyed by Pakistani troops); however, if the game has enough people playing, a concentrated attack could break the Pakistani lines and open a new playing area
*Real-time, skill based combat. If a noob starts playing and catches a veteran with no armor in the back, he could take him down. This would be offset by older players having better equipment (armor and weapons), training (for minor stat boosts like +20% accuracy for a minute, and support (can call in air strikes, his PMC has his back). It would be of the utmost importance to make sure that none of these things are unbalanced, however (no nukes)
*Vehicles. Players can train themselves in 'ladders' of vehicle use. For example, a starting player might choose a 'Crewman' class, and choose to specialize in 'Aircraft', further specializing in fixed-wing aircraft. He'd be able to pilot low-level aircraft at first (MiG-15's, something of that ilk), but by further training and specialization he could gain access to better, but much more specific craft. He might focus on ground attack, then branch to support, and finally to electronic warfare.
Edit: *Massive gun and armor customization. You could take an AK-47, swap out the barrel for a longer one, lengthen the stock, add a scope, change the ammo and voíla, you have a makeshift sniper rifle. For armor, you could give yourself a flamboyant rainbow bandana and matching Day-Glo Dragon Skin.
On the same note, it would be nice to have user created content. Do you REALLY want hexagon-footed sandals for your soldier? Well, if you're good enough at modeling, make it and submit it to the dev team. They can review it, and if it has enough market appeal, they'll put it in the game. Obviously we don't need every person running around in fursuits and MJOLNIR battle armor, so the devs would select a couple submissions and have the community vote on them.
The obvious problem with this would be that the netcoding would need to be godly, but hey, we've gone from 56k to 10mB/s cable in like, what, 10 years? What will it be like in another ten?
*Modern Day conflict, set in one of the various backwards countries of the world (poor African nations, oppressive Middle Eastern nations, underdeveloped South Asian countries, etc.)
*PMC's (Private Military Companies) are fighting each other in the near future
*Due to this, you can expect the MMO staples of heavy customization (as PMC's have no standard for equipment), guilds ('companies'), PvP and PvE (fighting each other/rebels/backwards government troops, etc.)
*A heavily involved plot. Just as an example, imagine that the game has an area where no one goes because they are immediately destroyed by the army of that nation (i.e., if the game is set in Afghanistan, nobody would enter Pakistan because they would be destroyed by Pakistani troops); however, if the game has enough people playing, a concentrated attack could break the Pakistani lines and open a new playing area
*Real-time, skill based combat. If a noob starts playing and catches a veteran with no armor in the back, he could take him down. This would be offset by older players having better equipment (armor and weapons), training (for minor stat boosts like +20% accuracy for a minute, and support (can call in air strikes, his PMC has his back). It would be of the utmost importance to make sure that none of these things are unbalanced, however (no nukes)
*Vehicles. Players can train themselves in 'ladders' of vehicle use. For example, a starting player might choose a 'Crewman' class, and choose to specialize in 'Aircraft', further specializing in fixed-wing aircraft. He'd be able to pilot low-level aircraft at first (MiG-15's, something of that ilk), but by further training and specialization he could gain access to better, but much more specific craft. He might focus on ground attack, then branch to support, and finally to electronic warfare.
Edit: *Massive gun and armor customization. You could take an AK-47, swap out the barrel for a longer one, lengthen the stock, add a scope, change the ammo and voíla, you have a makeshift sniper rifle. For armor, you could give yourself a flamboyant rainbow bandana and matching Day-Glo Dragon Skin.
On the same note, it would be nice to have user created content. Do you REALLY want hexagon-footed sandals for your soldier? Well, if you're good enough at modeling, make it and submit it to the dev team. They can review it, and if it has enough market appeal, they'll put it in the game. Obviously we don't need every person running around in fursuits and MJOLNIR battle armor, so the devs would select a couple submissions and have the community vote on them.
The obvious problem with this would be that the netcoding would need to be godly, but hey, we've gone from 56k to 10mB/s cable in like, what, 10 years? What will it be like in another ten?
If someone could offer me a time device that allowed me to stop time and just play one, then fine. I just don't have the time to play one. Not even in short bursts, realistically. I wouldn't be able to do enough in the odd bit of time here and there.
Or it would have to have a hugely sophiscated character creation system...
Or it would have to have a hugely sophiscated character creation system...
I would play if the leveling system was done away with. Replace it with buying new weapons and spaceships with cash.
Nothing can make me play a MMO, grind or no grind, i just cant spend my time playing one game continuously like you would an MMO. I havent completed GTAIV, i got it launch day and even now thats starting to feel like a grind, which is a shame cause the game is great, a masterpiece even.
every aspect of the game should be a game...
alchemy should be a puzzle game, not a drag and drop file sharing interface
alchemy should be a puzzle game, not a drag and drop file sharing interface
For me, the problem is simple. No MMO has captured my interest because I simply don't matter. No matter what I do, it has no effect on the world. So I got together a huge raid and we killed another faction leader - no matter, he'll be alive again tomorrow. So I just killed Azgaragoth, Devourer of Worlds - meh, he's returned from the dead so many times that people just aren't taking him seriously any more - after all, we just found the lair of his brother, Izgirigith, Eater of Planets who drops 'Phatter Lewt'. Eventually, the whole experience palls.
What I want is an MMO where players have an effect. So what if a storyline ends - there are many stories to be told in any world. Some could be run by the staff, but others, if the game was well made, could be created by the players themselves. Imagine, some random mage finds a book of forgotten dark magic mouldering forgotten in an abandoned library and uses it so summon a horde of skeletons. The remaining players of the world decide to band together to stop him.
Which brings a few important points - first, there must be some form of permadeath. In order to give edge to a story, there must be a fear of loss. Otherwise, there's no dilemma for the player who is the mage - with permadeath, he has to make a choice - he's going to be killing other player's characters and risking his own death in a fairly spectacular way, but it's a choice, and he's unlikely to be accepted back by the players if he repents (which opens the way for further story opportunities).
The next thing is the existence and creation of unique artifacts. So what if I have The Flaming Hammer of Doom which kills everything in a 2 mile radius of me if every swordsman and his cat has one. In fantasy, heroes are so often linked to their weapon, or their armour, or some talisman or other. For example, in Warhammer, Sigmar has his hammer thing, in the David Gemmell books, Druss the Legend has Snaga, the list goes on... Dealing with the creation of these artifacts, is, in my view, more difficult than dealing with the distribution which can simply be form the crafter itself. If such artifacts are to be made possible, the carfting system needs to be made interactive and needs to require a good deal of skill.
Thirdly, leveling and grinding are out. You cannot, simply cannot, let a player grind to level 500 and go around killing random strangers permanently simply because he vastly overpowers them. Which means combat would have to be overhauled to require skill, too. An example of how this might be done can be seen (though the game is unfinished) in Mount & Blade. Leveling makes you stronger, yeah, but you never get to the point where you vastly outclass everyone (and if you do, it's because you've beaten up a whole host of people using your skills to start with.)
The final thing needed to be done in order to facilitate this sort of gameplay is a need for anonymity of the characters. No big flashing logos over your head announcing your faction and name. This gives the opportunity to impersonate people, or to adopt a new identity, which can lead to all sorts of fun - a game with permadeath is a game which is vicious by definition, but the possibility of duplicity forces a player to think more, to engage more with the game. Also, this allows an assassin to sneak in to a castle and murder a king in his sleep in a much more interesting way than having the assassin character press his sneak button then try and avoid the guard character.
A quick sidenote - there would absolutely have to be npcs who can be hired/ordered around and display basic intelligence so that menial things could be left to them rather than have the players be the guards. NPCs could also be placeholders for important characters at the beginning of the game, say, royalty.
From this start point (ambitious, yes
) you could then begin to develop the game out into more directions - settling villages, city/empire management, magic (which, like combat, would have to be a more interesting variety then just point and click - except instead of rewarding individual skills/reflexes could instead reward study/creativity) and all that jazz.
Yeah, I've thought about this a lot. I don't think such a game would be impossible to make - I used to. Then I saw Dwarf Fortress, and it occurs to me that games don't necessarily need to follow the beaten path, but can develop new solutions to problems.
What I want is an MMO where players have an effect. So what if a storyline ends - there are many stories to be told in any world. Some could be run by the staff, but others, if the game was well made, could be created by the players themselves. Imagine, some random mage finds a book of forgotten dark magic mouldering forgotten in an abandoned library and uses it so summon a horde of skeletons. The remaining players of the world decide to band together to stop him.
Which brings a few important points - first, there must be some form of permadeath. In order to give edge to a story, there must be a fear of loss. Otherwise, there's no dilemma for the player who is the mage - with permadeath, he has to make a choice - he's going to be killing other player's characters and risking his own death in a fairly spectacular way, but it's a choice, and he's unlikely to be accepted back by the players if he repents (which opens the way for further story opportunities).
The next thing is the existence and creation of unique artifacts. So what if I have The Flaming Hammer of Doom which kills everything in a 2 mile radius of me if every swordsman and his cat has one. In fantasy, heroes are so often linked to their weapon, or their armour, or some talisman or other. For example, in Warhammer, Sigmar has his hammer thing, in the David Gemmell books, Druss the Legend has Snaga, the list goes on... Dealing with the creation of these artifacts, is, in my view, more difficult than dealing with the distribution which can simply be form the crafter itself. If such artifacts are to be made possible, the carfting system needs to be made interactive and needs to require a good deal of skill.
Thirdly, leveling and grinding are out. You cannot, simply cannot, let a player grind to level 500 and go around killing random strangers permanently simply because he vastly overpowers them. Which means combat would have to be overhauled to require skill, too. An example of how this might be done can be seen (though the game is unfinished) in Mount & Blade. Leveling makes you stronger, yeah, but you never get to the point where you vastly outclass everyone (and if you do, it's because you've beaten up a whole host of people using your skills to start with.)
The final thing needed to be done in order to facilitate this sort of gameplay is a need for anonymity of the characters. No big flashing logos over your head announcing your faction and name. This gives the opportunity to impersonate people, or to adopt a new identity, which can lead to all sorts of fun - a game with permadeath is a game which is vicious by definition, but the possibility of duplicity forces a player to think more, to engage more with the game. Also, this allows an assassin to sneak in to a castle and murder a king in his sleep in a much more interesting way than having the assassin character press his sneak button then try and avoid the guard character.
A quick sidenote - there would absolutely have to be npcs who can be hired/ordered around and display basic intelligence so that menial things could be left to them rather than have the players be the guards. NPCs could also be placeholders for important characters at the beginning of the game, say, royalty.
From this start point (ambitious, yes
) you could then begin to develop the game out into more directions - settling villages, city/empire management, magic (which, like combat, would have to be a more interesting variety then just point and click - except instead of rewarding individual skills/reflexes could instead reward study/creativity) and all that jazz. Yeah, I've thought about this a lot. I don't think such a game would be impossible to make - I used to. Then I saw Dwarf Fortress, and it occurs to me that games don't necessarily need to follow the beaten path, but can develop new solutions to problems.
to get me to play a MMO game is this:
kill my family, make me thrown out of the entire civilisation, feed me cake, and give me 183 tons of cookies.......then let me have sex with angelina jolie........and carmen elektra....yeh...
kill my family, make me thrown out of the entire civilisation, feed me cake, and give me 183 tons of cookies.......then let me have sex with angelina jolie........and carmen elektra....yeh...
This would probably get me to MMO if it was a reasonable price:
http://www.quelsolaar.com/
I used to play on MUDs, so its not inconceivable that I would MMO, just that I can't bring myself to actually pay for what comes off basicly as a trumped up Visual MUD these days. Love would change things up enough for me, since it apparently allows for a very customizable world, not just the character.
http://www.quelsolaar.com/
I used to play on MUDs, so its not inconceivable that I would MMO, just that I can't bring myself to actually pay for what comes off basicly as a trumped up Visual MUD these days. Love would change things up enough for me, since it apparently allows for a very customizable world, not just the character.
agreed, because mmo have an inherent flaw: people, and a flaw that is just there: grindHalfShadow said:
so lets do the math social interaction + grind = family reunion or a mmo
Skill > Level. One n00b shouldn't be able to kill 20 people just because he has been playing longer.
I don't know what specifically would get me into an MMO, I tried both Ragnarok Online and WoW, neither interested me. I've been tempted to try Stargate Worlds whenever/if that finally gets released, but I think the fact it's an MMO is enough to turn me off a Stargate game. Too bad they never finished the actual SG-1 game they were working on.