Wild West MMO?

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BentNeatly

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Aug 25, 2008
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You all have good ideas. When you think about the final outcome, im amazed someone hasent already done it. Who says there cant be a leveling system? I feel an appropriate leveling system could be thought up, like fame perhaps. You get famous enough, more opportunities would be open, and fame would be based on kills, winning chalenges, like capturing wanted men, or winning bar fights or duels, and how much money you have. You get famous enough, you start to get invited (reach minimum level) to enter bandit circles, get job offers from a town for law man, protect a roving theatre as they travel from town to town. You can buy your own place, maybe a place on the map that all players can access, like a server wide safe house that you customize, and to get a more "online" feel, there could be places in towns you could rent out in real time, real places people could buy, and the town could grow based on the fame of the people who live there, and the money they put into it.

I mean seriously the more i talk about it, the more i realize the potential.
 

JMeganSnow

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Aug 27, 2008
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Um, have you actually BEEN to the American west and southwest? It has some of the most amazingly varied natural grandeur to be found anywhere.

I enjoyed Deadlands as a paper-and-dice RPG and would enjoy playing it as a CRPG at some point. I'm not a fan of MMO's and would prefer to avoid them.
 

BentNeatly

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Aug 25, 2008
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Also i feel i have to address weapons and ammo. It would be cool to visit a scientist in one of the towns, and learn to create like custom arrow points, with glycerin in the tip, or explosives. Or make bullets the same way. It could be like an engineering or a science skill.

Guns: Handles, hammers, barrels, inside equipment, outside equipment, sawed off, extended barrels, metal, powder, every aspect of the gun capable of being replaced, several spots for guns that do different things, and the gun slots, one each for rifles, shotgun, and pistols.

"Science Skill: Extra shotgun barrel(+1). Add a barrel to your shotgun (sawed, unsawed) which adds maximum damage from an all-barrel's-fired shot, but reduces individual barrel damage.

Damage +20
Agility -10
Melee + 5
Concielability(Sp?) - 60"
(out of 100. The lower the score, the harder it is to hide from NPCs. Clothing would affect this as well)
 

BentNeatly

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Aug 25, 2008
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Classes:

Indian - Renegade: You are an indian in appearance, But you have turned your back on the ways of others. Old times are dying, and you wander in search of something that brings back that sense of familiarity. You start in a random point near Indian land. Where you go and what you do is your choice. You excel at knive use, bow and arrows, and long range rifles. You are intimidating, good in fights, but its hard for you to find work. (trustablity? As a renegade indian, white people, and your people alike dont trust you, until your fame is high enough and word of you has spread)

indian - Devotee: Your people are dying, But you must carry on the old ways. You start In a massacred camp, your family dead, and your tribe leaders captured. A lone survivor, You must seek help from the other tribes, or venture into the new world and make a name for yourself and your race alike. Good at knives, bow and arrow, pistols, mercantile. Indians trust you, and the new world sees you as a resource. It will be somewhat easy for you to find work.

Outlaw: You are scum. You have killed woman and children alike, and you enjoyed every moment. Nasty is in your blood, and others, including your own kind, are weary of you. You are skilled with duel pistols, shotguns, and knives. You start at your posse's base. You are now only a gun, a man hired to kill. Will you climb the ranks, or create your own gang?

Warman: Youve been enlisted. You fight for Uncle Sam, and you know how to kill a man. You love your country, and are expected to fight when you hear the call. Defecting is always an option, But is the price worth it? You are skilled with all guns, and excel at the rifle. However your time in service has left you rough and unsocial. Merchants try to scam you, and bandits find you easy, But towns folk always trust a man in uniform. You start on Your base. Stick around or desert, but be prepared for the consequences.

Lawman: Ever since you were a kid, you had a tin star. Now your grown, and highway men fear your name. You are a law man, on the cusp of finding your outlet for making others abide the rule of the land. Ranger, sheriff, as long as your bullets enter evil men, You don't care how you get the job done. You start as a deputy in a promising town, a new rig on a sparkling frontier, But the town attracts those who look for opportunity, and they'll get it unlawfully if they can. You are skilled with pistols, and shotguns, and trusted by the townsfolk. Will you make it as a lawman, or will the fame of your foe be too much to keep you straight?

Rancher: You know cows, and you know horses, and you know what it takes to buy and sell them. Your dad taught you how to shoot, and your pretty good at pickin off the coyotes with your rifle, but kill a man, you have not. Your intelligence and business nature are promising, but your new to man against man violence. You begin on a ranch, a new hire to drive in the new meat. Will you seek power through honest wealth, or use your wits for more?

Gunslinger: The basic Western star. You begin in your house, hidden until you hear the bandits shots fade across the range. Your family has been murdered and your house looted. You seek revenge, and you know who you want to feel it. You are skilled with most weaponry, and good at fighting, But you have little time for anything else, and because of this, your intelligence, and mercantile suffer. People trust you, if given the chance, and bad men know you as a lose cannon. Yours is an empty book, many pages and chapters waiting to be written.

Classes apply. I think after you distribute your individual talents and skills, you have a pretty good class system. I know indians are a touchy subject, but i think their crucial to complete the atmosphere. And if anyone gets offended for our red friends, just remember that i am infact an indian, and it sounds like a great idea to me.
 

SmugFrog

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Sep 4, 2008
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This sounds awesome. I love the potential for wide open exploration, diversity of cities, areas, characters... I'm surprised this has not been pushed before. It would be a shame to see it done poorly though; companies always take that as a sign that people DON'T want that type of thing.
 

Uncompetative

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Jul 2, 2008
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How are you going to ensure the player doesn't get tired of wandering about a severely underpopulated area?

You could spend actual real-time days on horseback getting to a small town to rob its bank only to discover someone else already had.

I don't like picking holes in things without offering some kind of a fix, but the best I can come up with at short notice is this:

Groundhog Day

The MMO would cover the period of time from dawn to dusk, a night under the stars (or in some brothel) the dawn of the following day and would end just after 'high noon'. Thus, with dynamic lighting (see Far Cry 2) you would evoke all the mood changes associated with the Old West Genre. The game would have several 'instances' running simultaneously with staggered timeframes, so that you didn't have to set your alarm clock to wake you in the middle of the night so you could experience daylight on the American server. So, depending on when you 'logged in', the MMO would set your PC's gameclock to the instance that most closely bracketed your own localized time of day. If you wanted to start playing a night mission whilst it was daylight in your locale you would have to specially select the closest temporally offset instance, but in so doing you would lose hours of gameplay from the '1st day' of the repeating day-night-day cycle.

Every time you played you could spend your 'gold' on different clothes, equipment, weapons, hired-guns (AIs), etc. as well as change your race, appearance, gender, persona, health, fatigue and initial location. To make things easier these could be defined as 'profiles' with a set of objectives attached (linked to the MMO's map) so that they could be circulated amongst the community. All this would ensure you would not commit to a life as an outlaw, spend hours/days getting to a town with a large bank in it, plan your dawn raid, only to have it be totally cleaned out by another player with the exact same modus operandi as yourself whilst you slept at the local flop-house.

You can have RPG leveling up, with the experience, skills and money gained on one day's play being put forward towards the next. It just is that as far as the MMO is concerned there is only One night under the stars and the few hours that precede and follow it. Doing this with time squeezes the action together so there is more chance of emergent gameplay and ad hoc thematic narrative (i.e. watch a lot of Westerns and keep iterating the MMO until you can tell all of their stories within the game: The Naked Spur...to...Unforgiven - as the aim should be to evoke the world of the Old West as represented by the best Hollywood films).

However, to increase tension you should have all the assets apportioned to your character be at stake when investing, gambling, in a gun fight, or quick-draw, etc. Therefore, if you deposit your money at the bank overnight for safe keeping, but it gets robbed before you can withdraw it, tough. If you get shot, even as a bystander, tough. All that you have done for that character will be wiped. Game over.

However, the next time you play you will be given the small starting sum of monies and stuff your reset skill level allows you to own and you will start again. For this reason the MMO allows you to have a roster of characters and move money between them, playing with the one that suits your mood at the time.

Ok. That's all pretty complicated to explain, but I hope I have given you some food for thought.
 

Killcushley

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Sep 6, 2008
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Alone Disciple post=9.70562.695896 said:
Missions/tasks could include:


-build rail ways (then protect trains or raid them)
-Run a brothel or bar.
These would be really good side missions for making that extra bit of cash needed to buy rifles, upgrades, more brothels and bars etc.



I would definitely buy this game and convince all my friends to do the same!
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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Jan 11, 2008
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Smashing concept but I wouldn't trust anyone to pull such a narrow span of material off right except the very best. There's a very fine line between recreations of cowboys and Indians (or rather, Native Americans) and stereotypes of them. It would be best to give realism the shaft for this- go for the glamour and avoid lawsuits from still-bitter First Nations peoples.

But hey, enough talking like a public relations schmuck. Variety could be an issue, which is why either basing it on the supernatural elements from the old 'Deadlands'* game or using the license directly would help bring more potential character roles and unique attacks into it. Same for the play-imbalancing truth that most of the characters would have guns of some kind, making duels very short if they're performed in traditional MMORPG style of 'you shoot me, I shoot you, continue until one of us dies'.

I haven't read many of the multitude of Western novels in my local library yet, but a few of the covers and backs were intriguing. Deceit, murder, vengence and greed form the cornerstones of most of the character's motivations. Just like Pirates of the Carribean, few of these outlaws would do anything for purely altruistic reasons. Have it at least as 'dark' as WoW if not more so, but include non-combat activities like horse riding and Poker.

*- Deadlands put forth the fiction that at one point a group of Native Americans attempted an ancient ritual to drive the white man out of their lands, but instead unleashed malevolent spirits and demons to run rampant across the lands at night. Like some of the prior ideas proposed, Deadlands had a number of factions, all of them warring over the mining town of Gomorrah.
 

BentNeatly

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Aug 25, 2008
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Im gonna go ahead and just speak while i imagine this game. Ive had the concept for a long time, and want you all to follow my train of thought. Please posters, feel free to mimic me with your own thoughts.

This game itself would have to be killer graphics, at least awesome. I see FPS, and the ability to go third. I see entering an open plain on your palamino with rifle sash across its back, and seeing a small ghost town of int the distance. As you scope it out from the top of a hill, where a long forgotten graveyard slowly decays into the soil, your poncho flaps in the breeze. You enter the town and right off you see signs that life still exists here, despite the burned out buildings that dot the main street. As you get off your horse, Three cowboys come walking casually out of a burned out building. Theres a pistol man, a mexican with a rifle, and a small guy who seems nervous. When they see you, they open fire without warning, the little nervous man makes a break towards you. For a split second you target him ready to pop a shot, but you stop when you hear him yell for you.

The mexican the pistolero are both other players, probably scavenging. The small man is a shop keep, someone who stuck around knowing lone riders would pass through looking for merchandise, hes an NPC. After you kill the other players, you learn from the shop keep that he spilled the beans to the other men about a secret cache he has across town. Should you exploit him? knowing theres no law for retribution, kill him and take his wears, or accept his offer of lower prices if you ever strole through.

I know its all just a story people, But i literally see game play being so deep and intuitive, that i almost cant understand how it owuld be hard to do. As long as there is attention to detail, Especially to character and enviornment design... and intuitive game play and plenty of exploration oppurtunity and a near limitless chance to invest in anything with in game money... I really think it could give WoW a run for its money.

Please. If you have a scene in your head that you could see in this game, spill it, id love to read it.
 

BentNeatly

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Aug 25, 2008
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exocel post=9.70562.703378 said:
kinda like an mmo of gun?
I never played gun. but i think i should. But ive heard it had real potential. Maybe in my mind im seeing a western oblivion, only a hell of a lot deeper.
 

fredey999999

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Jul 16, 2010
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there could some story lines too, like a immagrant who just came form (any country) and has decided to make a new life, but he soon finds out that the east has no oppurtinity for jobs and such, so he moves west with a carvan(dosent skip through caravan travel but the character travels with other characters which would take maybe 45 minutes to an hour.) when he gets there he can do the following,
-go to an army recruiter
-meet up with an outlaw at a bar/soloon
-go to a variety of shops(blacksmith, silversmith, leather shop, gunsmith ect) and get a job, but the jobs have a very uniqe quests and a fun interactive "smithing" program
-go to a mining place
-buy his/her own farm(raise livestock, grow crops,like a farm tycoon.
-in some way become a government official
-alos could get a job as a news reporter, and have quests that give a story take your own notes, send to a developer to make sure there is no bad language or is just some randome crap on it, and accually publish it to the community to read, maybe they will here there own name it.
-become a sherif

and there are so many posible jobs that one could speak with a western historian to ask what kind was there if a game developer was to read this.

weapons
(depending on your first experences as comming into the place)
if you go to an army recruiter, you could go through basic training to become a solder walking in formation aiming of the gun all that good stuff. and there could be different styles of fighting, like army outlaw ext... which brings up the time period, what if we take 4 important timelines from late 1700's to 1800. then 1800 to 1835 then 1835 to 1868 then 1868 to 1885 then 1885 to the "end of the old western period" which has historicly accuarte events and improvments with weapons, not to mention you can take place in historicly accuarte battles, if you are in the army which could posibly alter history itslef. and even the battle of gettysbug could have different results. which is off topic of weapons sorry i got carried away. but ill stick with a bit of both for now, when you first show your player you are on a boat, with some thoughts of your characters recent past and why he wants to travel to the new world. and you can walk around the ship and get used to the controls, and you can see the features that are installed into the game, then you get to talk to some of the sailors of a rumor of revolutionary war which you were not aware of when you boarded the ship. one of the sialors decide to pick a fight with you and you have a choich of weather to run away and tell a guard, or get used to fighting system if you decide to fight the man which is soon broken up by a guard. then you are taken to your sleeping quarters. after some time you are told you have landed into boston, which from here on out you choice your own fait. with a great amount of character cusotmization, from gaining wait to the food you eat, to the cloths on your back. then if you decide to join the war effort your weapons of choice is a variety of different muskets, and a variety of historicly accuarte pistols and some tnt. baynetts. but bayonetts only come in later in the militia arsanal. so thats basicly my poisnt of view so far, im thinking of a third person view and when you die while you were on a mission i think you should fail the mission for good to add to the thrill as in you cant retry a mission but you also can run away from a battle and such... or call a friend to help. thats my idea i know its long but i think this would be a fantastic game!
 

Vrach

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Jun 17, 2010
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Awesome idea tbh, I can see it working just fine as a premise, the only problem is - how many people these days are into the Wil' Wil' West? I'm thinking sadly, not that many to justify an MMO.

Good western movies have died out a while ago (and they were the source of so much love for them) and the general hate for the US these days doesn't make a good platform for making a "gunslinging Americans are awesome" game that's supposed to last longer than a month's play (before someone shouts RDR).

I might be wrong though, who knows, but again, as a setting and a premise, I can see it "working" easily as a game, it's just the reception I'm worried about.
 

HyenaThePirate

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Jan 8, 2009
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Actually I think this is probably where Red Dead Redemption is heading.
The Free Roam is almost a micro-MMO itself with all of the flower hunting and bear killing and leveling, etc.

If they could just expand the world and breathe into it the life that was found in the single player while increasing the number of players on each server, I think they've pretty much got an impressive MMO. I think they are possibly exploring this idea, and will implement it in small phases with the expansions until they have a fully realized wild western world.
 

fredey999999

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Jul 16, 2010
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fist thing we need to do is get a developer on our side, someone to sponser our idea and turn it into a reality. then we need to discus with him/them about what we want this game to be about, all the cool features we wish to have encorperated into the game. then we need to see whats realistic and whats not. then they take that to the head honcho of their coorperation, if approved will start development. we will hopefully be consulted of whats right and whats wrong. be one of the first to test the game or the early stages of the game. this process will take years. the development itself for this kind of thing cant be whipped up overnight. but still a long worth the wait. so we take this thread and turn it into an organized list follwed by catgories and sub catagories and sub sub catagorys and so on. so what do you all say do we want to do this?
 

Ironic Pirate

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May 21, 2009
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I think if someone angers you, you could put a bounty on their head with in game money. As in, some jackass steals your horse, you take $20 bucks and put a bounty on him, next person to kill him get's twenty bucks. Or it could be the next four get five dollars, etc.

And maybe you could have specific terms, like get a headshot, or stab them.

This is an awesome idea by the way.
 

Breaker deGodot

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Apr 14, 2009
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To me, it wouldn't work. As a spaghetti western fan, I think of a western as one lone gunman killing everyone he sees, good or bad. That would be somewhat undermined by the presence of about 50000 other players on the map with me. Just my opinion.