Well I have a MMORPG partially planned in my mind. I want to make sure i have everything covered. I''m actually looking at one that doesn''t involve your regular experience / character building type system. Something totally different. I''d also like for a total player driven game. No NPC''s giving missions or rewarding the completion of such. People give people missions. People give people rewards. People develop the story. Ignore the difficulty that it will take to make this... I''m looking for anything i''m missing. Well In order for me to plan it, i need to know what kinds of parts there are to a MMORPG. Here''s what I mean: Character classes Combat Environments Experience / character evolution economy mission / quest / contracts alliances / guilds ...... The only MMORPG i got into was Earth and Beyond, and *cough* Toontown. Toontown was for my GF but I still played probably 20 hours worth before stopping. I''d still play Earth and Beyond but I was only a beta tester and I didn''t have the money to afford paying for it once it was finished. So I sit and wait for the money so I can start again.... Anwyay After playing E&B, I have somewhat of an idea of the types of things there are in an MMORPG. I know about the combat system. I know about how you build your character. There''s also your regular RPG economy. The quests / missions are average as always. and you can be part of a guild or even bigger, a type of gonverment. Oh an not to mention the different types of character classes you can be. Well I was wondering if i''m missing anything else important.

in order to get players making quests for eachother you have to design the world in such a way that it does not neccisarily(sp?) encourage combat only characters like today''s mmorgps do, instead other professions would be availible that cant fight effectively and so need to employ the warrior types to do the dirty work.

this throws into play the question for alternitives to levels and exp - seriously how would yo destinguish(sp?) between a lvl 5 baker and a lvl 17 flower arranger?

the other factor to consider is what would people find fun? would spending hours upon hours carefully arranging simulated flowers be considered FUN? if not then no one would invent a quest for a fighter to get the ultimately rare and infinately beautiful flower hidden in a magical forest guarded by the black dragon, instead you would end up with a horde of fighters and no quests to boot.

What''s your theme? Are you working with a famous setting from literature or something? Will there be technology? Magic? Martial Arts? Religeon? Crime?

Basically, I''d say define your roles and see what you need to play them.

hehehe... ACtually the theme would be based on a couple novels i''m writing. It''s Sci-Fi so it''s a space MMORPG. There is also crime.

THe idea is that people can pretty much do what they want.
There are a number of gonverment organizations, some are at war with others. Some are allies. If you really wanted, you could become a pirate or outlaw. But in that case, you couldn''t travel anywhere near anyone else without being arrested / shot at.
Many of the roles to play have advantages / disadvantages.... like a government job means you have more money, better training, better weapons but you have the responsibility to protect those in your area. A Corporate job you can choose not to help those in need... it just might damage your corporate image (if you care about that). A freelancer has absolutely no responsibilty. They also have very little help and no income, they have to pick up jobs to stay alive.

The main difference between a player who would regularly be a lvl 17 and that of a lvl 5 is this.... money, their ship''s ability, and skills.

I do plan on having non-combat roles. Like weapons shop, armor shop, repair shop which would need to keep up traffic lines to get their regular parts but also need to contract out work to get rare and expensive items to sell. It is possible for pirates to set up quests to steal the rare items from people who bought them. I obviously won''t make stealing easy.

but yeah, as it stands, most of the interaction would probably be player / player combat.... which means i have to make other roles that would not involve combat to give a change.

one role I thought of was news reporter... they''d be the enemies of the corporations as they could report their problems and bring the company down. This is more of a non-combat fighting. Propaganda and whatever.

quote: Original post by trapdoor
Character classes
Combat
Environments
Experience / character evolution
economy
mission / quest / contracts
alliances / guilds

transportation
- personal
- fixed (elevators or belts)
- mass transit
machinery
- assemblers
- salvage
gear
- clothing/armor
- tools/weapons/explosives
- access codes
- food/beverages/medicine
- adventure (camping, diving, etc)
- surveillance systems
- comm systems
- projection systems
knowledge/skills
- education
- experience
body enhancments
- cosmetic
- genetic
- prosthetic
- cyborg
- nanite
mind enhancments
- memory
- motor
social structures/orders
- government
- military
- clubs
- churches
- gangs
- parties

Toontown and E&B isn't really a broad range of MMOs for you to sample from. The two games are on the opposite sides of the spectrum also, so it's definetly not a good idea to base your ideas off your experiences with just those two games.

I beta tested Toontown and E&B, and I played E&B for a month after release. Both games lacked a goal, or really, a high end game. Both have equally rigid enviroments.

Toontown gave you little options for exploration and there was not a wide enough variety of puzzle games to make them exciting after the 20th time.

E&B, despite being a space game, severely restricted your exploration, in the form of the space lanes. Sure you could free fly to a planet, but if you wanted to land on it you'd have to go alllll the way around and enter at a specific designated point. Combat for E&B was boring and the group system was horrible. Itemization was dealt with poorly as well.

As for your route of "No NPCs", I think that is the worst decision any game can make. AC2 was one of the first MMO's to take this path and the game is a total bomb. I think they have maybe 2 servers up and running and scuttlebutt had it that Microsoft was considered cutting it's losses and shutting the whole thing down. If there are no merchants or quest givers, there's no real incentive for exploration.

SWG runs a "Player Economy", and it's totally broken. Because there are no merchants to purchase your garbage, if you can't sell what you make you either destroy it or keep trying to sell it. Undercutting and inflation seem to be human nature. Competition in SWG may make you feel that they should offer a tutorial on "Business Economics 101".

If this is the route you want to take, play AC2 and SWG first and see what works and what doesn't work. Both games MAY have succeed with these routes if they were properly implemented. Keep in mind when you're designing the game, you can't just take into account what you like. Games attract asses, and if the game isn't set up properly to combat griefers, you're going to have upset customers, which means less subscribers.

[edit] This is a small list of items that I thought would need to be addressed if I designed an MMO. Just wrote it up the other day and there's probably things missing from it.

World - Theme

Story Line – Plot

Game Engine

Development Tools

Customer Service Tools

Environments - Landscape

Immersion -
Music

Systems -
Combat
Magic
Trade Skills

Player Interaction -
Grouping
Social

Races – Old or Original?

Classes – Old or Original? Balanced

Class Interaction – Solo, Duo, Group

Economy - Player or NPC

Player –
Bank
Housing
Mounts


Level Progression -
Low
Mid
High
End?

Replayability – Why start over? Why keep playing?

Expansions - Exclude features from release or plan for expansions


-Takenoko

[edited by - Takenoko on September 22, 2003 7:45:31 PM]

I did try AC2 but it didn''t run well on my comp. it was beta as well.

I tried getting into Neocron but i didn''t have the time. Then the beta ran out on that too.

Oh and i''m totally thinking about morons too. But I mainly spent my moron thinking time on combatting hackers. I think i''ll have a range of NPC''s that offer much what the players can as well... they''d offer quests and rare items too. But they''d buy low and sell high. Also at a fixed rate for that specific NPC. Another NPC the cost might be different but it won''t change either. The downside to selling to NPC''s is that you probably won''t get the same ammount as players.
Basically I think if there are NPC''s in place, it might keep the players from getting to rediculus in taking advantage of everyone else. Any of the "set" groups like Governments and large organizations will either be run by NPC''s or by admins or me , or all 3.

Some of the other problems i have to come up with a solution for (or even a battle plan for) are the morons.
1. Hackers / cheaters
2. Game spoilers or jerks
3. Pirates, illegal game holders.

1. Another tough one but it will deal more with the built in code as opposed to what people would see. Like using punkbuster.

2. Yeah. this will be probably the most difficult. I will try and use NPC''s to try and keep the others in check. It would work great for those who sell and buy. but i''m not sure about those who ruin the game in other ways. Another possibility is having the people themselves deal with the problems. I plan to have a few police forces that can deal with jerks. I hope that a lot of the things jerks do would be allowed by the game engine but illegal within that game world. I hope that''s clear. If this is the case then that person could get arrested and punished for what they did. But it would all be within the game experience. If I go and attack someone for fun, then I have committed a crime that needs to be punished. Instead of getting emailed by an admin outside the game and getting banned for a month, in the game a police officer would catch me and arrest me. I''d then get charged and possibly lose my nice well-built ship and have to start over.
BTW... police and other authorities will get faster, stronger, and overall better ships and training than the average player. But being the police, you''d have to follow the rules or get kicked out with no option to return.

3. I guess being a Pay-to-play game would get rid of a lot of piraters, so long as a version of the server doesn''t leak out. I''d also like to make the game free or low cost. The Pay-to-play is where I''d make money. LIke maybe 15 bucks for the CD or download for free and buy subscription.



I would totally want to think things out before just making a game of things i want. I want to make the things I want work.

Theme - Well i''m writing a story and this game will be based around it. I''m going to attempt to get this story to be published and be bookstore quality. I guess i''d have to have some sort of direction to the game... maybe i''ll make the game experience the last story I have planned

whwt do you mean by "Class Interaction"

One of the things I do hope to accomplish is having some ships to require more than one person to run it. LIke a large starship. Someone to fly it, a few to man the turrets, one to command, one or 2 for the engine, and a whole bunch sitting in the hanger.

quote: Original post by trapdoor
Well I have a MMORPG partially planned in my mind. I want to make sure i have everything covered. I'm actually looking at one that doesn't involve your regular experience / character building type system. Something totally different.

Erm, I hope tou realise how often this has been said on this forum before..

quote:
I'd also like for a total player driven game. No NPC's giving missions or rewarding the completion of such. People give people missions. People give people rewards. People develop the story.

I like this a lot, I think that most MMO's are going the wrong way, including too much predefined quests, too many NPC's etc. It makes it completely meaningless as a MMO since you could just as well play against NPC's for free in a single player game.

You might want to read this thread on banishing NPC's in MMO's

quote:
Ignore the difficulty that it will take to make this... I'm looking for anything i'm missing. Well In order for me to plan it, i need to know what kinds of parts there are to a MMORPG. Here's what I mean:

Character classes
Combat
Environments
Experience / character evolution
economy
mission / quest / contracts
alliances / guilds

......

You know..you don't HAVE to design a MMO in the shape of other similar games, there ARE room for originality (specially for independant developers). Thus, there are no "kinds of parts there are to a MMORPG"

Finally, a word of advice. Build a strong working economy, it will greatly help in creating a convincing universe.

..and if you want to make me happy, add perma-death


-Luctus
Statisticly seen, most things happens to other people.
[Mail]

[edited by - Luctus on September 23, 2003 4:55:25 AM]

I wondered about perma-death.....

I think i''d add "lives" to the game if i did that. But the lives would be explained as "close calls" where medical assistance came in. It would be easy to die at first but the higher level you are (i know i''m not using the regular level system) the more difficult it is to die. That way you don''t care about the peon that died but you can feel somewhat safe that the character won''t die and you have to start over.
....
If I add perma-death, I''d also add the chance of getting put in prison for a long time... like years or at least maybe months in the real world. Depending on the crime.

As far as parts go, I want to make sure that the major parts are not missing. Parts that I cannot do without... like a combat system, economy (this isn''t star trek ), a world to play in...

I WILL have a player driven economy but I will make it strong. I will spend as much time going over everything to make sure that it is.


-----------

I read that post you sent me to... I agree with him. But I won''t get rid of NPC''s totally. They will be there to assist when players leave (say on a starship). But they will also be there to regulate the players. As i mentioned with the selling.