quote: Original post by alnite
1. If he sucks, the game becomes sucks. Those players who are under his control will probably leave and never play.
2. If you do not allow assasination, the game sucks even more. Basically, you have to WAIT until a new king has been elected, as Spoonster has pointed out.
3. If you allow assasination, there will be too many assasinations going on. Everybody wants to be a king, everybody wants to kill a king. So, what''s the point of having a king?
A: "Hey, we just got a new king?"
B: "Really, what happened to that jerk? Who killed him?"
A: "Some doods killed him. I don''t know, we got 5 king assasinations in just 6 hours."

1. and 2.: if you have kings, or others with higher ranks of some kind, you have to have assassinations or something like it. Otherwise, you''ll just be stuck with whatever idiot is currently on the throne. I agree 100%
3. Then the way to become king would be to let people know that getting rid of you isn''t worth the trouble. Either keep some good bodyguards, so people won''t risk their lives killing you, or actually do a good job. (The latter might only be possible if there''s more than one kingdom in the game. If 3 hostile kingdoms are waiting for a chance to attack, you''ll get a chance to show your worth as a king...
Finally, people might not all want to be kings if it actually means you can get assassinated...

quote:
As Caption Goatse has said, kids play, adults play, not every body is a good guy.

I guess the trick is to let the bad guys make some trouble, to spice up the game a bit, without spoiling it for everyone else. Otherwise what are the good guys supposed to do? They need bad guys to compete with. If they don''t get that, they get bored... That''s pretty much the problem with current games. Either the "bad guys" are in charge, spoiling it for everyone else, or people are prevented from being bad guys, and then the game is just plain boring...

Actually, a lot of the ideas that you guys have mentioned here have been implemented in a MUD called Achaea (www.achaea.com, achaea.cjb.net for some extra info). Now I know that things are pretty different in a real MMORPG, but I think a lot of the underlying concepts that you guys are debating the feasibility of have actually been done in Achaea. For example, there are 6 cities, each of which has an elected leader and council that can be ''challenged'' by anyone (and then the city votes). There are guards, Ministers of Security, War, Trade, etc. etc., but the politics doesn''t make the game suck or boring as some might think.

Players own shops and stuff, but the system for buying stuff is just a command that you type in and it shows you what you can buy. There isn''t really an NPC there per se, although there might as well be one. There are NPC shops and then there are player shops (where stuff is cheaper and better items can be found). Players can own homes, have pets, get married, blah blah blah.

Now, I''m not trying to sell this game or anything, since it''s free anyhow, but I just thought it was very interesting that a lot of the ideas mentioned here have been implemented and I thought some of you might like to check it out.

Actually, a lot of the ideas that you guys have mentioned here have been implemented in a MUD called Achaea (www.achaea.com, achaea.cjb.net for some extra info). Now I know that things are pretty different in a real MMORPG, but I think a lot of the underlying concepts that you guys are debating the feasibility of have actually been done in Achaea. For example, there are 6 cities, each of which has an elected leader and council that can be ''challenged'' by anyone (and then the city votes). There are guards, Ministers of Security, War, Trade, etc. etc., but the politics doesn''t make the game suck or boring as some might think.

Players own shops and stuff, but the system for buying stuff is just a command that you type in and it shows you what you can buy. There isn''t really an NPC there per se, although there might as well be one. There are NPC shops and then there are player shops (where stuff is cheaper and better items can be found). Players can own homes, have pets, get married, blah blah blah.

Now, I''m not trying to sell this game or anything, since it''s free anyhow, but I just thought it was very interesting that a lot of the ideas mentioned here have been implemented and I thought some of you might like to check it out.

Actually, a lot of the ideas that you guys have mentioned here have been implemented in a MUD called Achaea (www.achaea.com, achaea.cjb.net for some extra info). Now I know that things are pretty different in a real MMORPG, but I think a lot of the underlying concepts that you guys are debating the feasibility of have actually been done in Achaea. For example, there are 6 cities, each of which has an elected leader and council that can be ''challenged'' by anyone (and then the city votes). There are guards, Ministers of Security, War, Trade, etc. etc., but the politics doesn''t make the game suck or boring as some might think.

Players own shops and stuff, but the system for buying stuff is just a command that you type in and it shows you what you can buy. There isn''t really an NPC there per se, although there might as well be one. There are NPC shops and then there are player shops (where stuff is cheaper and better items can be found). Players can own homes, have pets, get married, blah blah blah.

And, in fact, there have been goblin invasions that crippled the mages of the land, and cities gathered armies (of players) and went out to fight them and take back what they had stolen. There are wars between cities (although there are some PK rules), and Gods (GM''s, essentially) also create special events periodically.

Now, I''m not trying to sell this game or anything, since it''s free anyhow, but I just thought it was very interesting that a lot of the ideas mentioned here have been implemented and I thought some of you might like to check it out.

There is little doubt that some of the most creative and intriguing solutions to MMORPG problems have already been implemented in MUDs somewhere. The one you point out sounds very interesting

There is one *big* difference between mmorpg''s and mud''s though. mmorpg''s tend to appeal to less "serious" players, non-roleplayers and, of course, troublemakers of all kinds.

Anyway, it sounds like a great game, and if anyone could make even half of this work in a mmorpg, they might well have a real hit on their hands...

quote: Original post by Spoonster
I guess the trick is to let the bad guys make some trouble, to spice up the game a bit, without spoiling it for everyone else. Otherwise what are the good guys supposed to do? They need bad guys to compete with. If they don''t get that, they get bored... That''s pretty much the problem with current games. Either the "bad guys" are in charge, spoiling it for everyone else, or people are prevented from being bad guys, and then the game is just plain boring...

That''s exactly what I have had in mind for a long time. We should give bad guys some room to wreak havoc, and some guys (who call themselves "good guys") will automatically get sick of these bad dudes and fight them. Now, that''s interesting. So, monster slaying is not the only thing that you do. You also have a "responsibility" by being a good or bad guys. If you are good, go slay some bad guys. If you are bad, kill those innocent newbies.

return 0;

Another fun mmorpg discussion

As suck as the games all are, they sure are fun to discuss, no?
I just started playing achaea a few days ago anon, it''s pretty fun, but I haven''t really gotten down into it yet. I am a little put off by some of the overly long room descriptions, that I happen to not be able to scroll up and read on my computer

Anyway, if you are looking for a graphical mmorpg that is based around polotics, the most extreme example would definately have to be a tale in the desert. I''m sure many of you have heard of it, but it is 0% combat 50% resources and building, and 50% polotics. The only game I can think of to not have combat whatsoever, it seems to work pretty well for what they are trying to do. It''s fun, and the polotics of it make trying to pass some law or another a social battle of argument, intellegence, and discussion. The resources and skills which go into building things provide a good background for the squabling as well. Now if only there was some combat to liven it up it would be perfect

I think the idea of elected leaders is a good one, but it won''t work for all games of course. One thing some of you are either skipping over or forgetting, is that for there to be a king; there NEEDS to be a king. What I mean is, if there isn''t anything meaningful for the king to do, there is no point in having a king at all. The fine line of having a player elected leader in a game is, the same fine line that exists for elected leaders in reality - give them too little power and they are a figurehead (the devs/lawmakers/lone ranger''s are the ones really in control) give them too much power and they become dictators ruining everyone''s game experience/lives. If a good balance could be found, this would be a great avenue for some memorable game events; and gives people something to do when not building up l337 5ki115.

If you keep the devs in there as gods to smite down a bad king if he gets too bad, have assassination available for the lesser bad kings (giving people another emergent quest much more interesting than precanned ones), give the king enough power that he can really change the landscape of the game at least for the realm he presides over, possibly even abilities to affect neigboring realms (organizing trade, building armies); without giving him the power to really ruin the game for others (making someone an outlaw who can never enter the city again when that person didn''t actually do anything); than having a king is a really good idea.

But that is truly a big if