Just wondering what people would like more... 1) City vs City type combat or Player vs Player war 2) NPC alien/robotic force vs city (player) 3) a combination of player vs player with alien/roboic force attacking at same time Which one of these (unless you have another idea) would u prefer?

Nobody wants to give their opinion????

i would like an MMORPG where you could kill anything and everything (other players, as well as invading alien hoards and robots and whatnot), but with good reasons not to.

i.e. you could go around player-killing, but you''d be on the top ten list as far as authorities and bounty hunters.

i always thought it sucked that you could only kill computer-controlled patheric critters, and not have a good battle between players.

quote: Original post by krez
i would like an MMORPG where you could kill anything and everything (other players, as well as invading alien hoards and robots and whatnot), but with good reasons not to.

i.e. you could go around player-killing, but you'd be on the top ten list as far as authorities and bounty hunters.

i always thought it sucked that you could only kill computer-controlled patheric critters, and not have a good battle between players.

I'm one of the devlopers of the game in question, and would like to explain exactly what he's looking for .

The original idea was to have multiple cities, and each city as a whole can wage war on another city (each city has a military, etc). But, recently, we were contemplating just allowing the players to make 'gangs' (just groups of players really) that can fight each other rather than trying to get an entire city of people to work together, and/or if we should just have NPC's in the form of aliens or some other force that comes in and tries to take over the city and everyone must help to keep them out.

--- Edit ---
Ps. If I missed anything, or didn't explain something properly, please feel free to correct me .

[edited by - Ready4Dis on November 9, 2003 11:13:01 PM]

Well, if the overall effect is to be conflicts between cities, then it''ll take more than a bunch of belligerent players to resolve them. The reason most games scale their conflicts on a concrete level is that it''s extremely difficult to determine at what point in a battle a city is captured. Take a look at Iraq. Baghdad is occupied, but is it conquered? It''s tough to be sure. So if the "gangs of players" run back and forth chopping/shooting/bombing/magicking each other, how can that be seen as a battle between two cities?

On the other hand, if you''re going to have the cities fighting on an abstract level (military attacks, military defends, all dice rolls and variables of mano-a-mano fighting apply), then it''s tough to model that conflict such that a player can experience it in-game. If you walk through a battlefield, will randomly spawned NPC''s be duking it out? Can you pitch in? If you''re going to model the battles in real-time, you may as well go balls out and let players joing the military and fight alongside the NPCs. All the problems with capturing and holding ground still apply to this solution, though.

All these complications disappear if you simply eliminate the idea of conquering, which I just assumed you were including in the first place. Make it so that if you "capture" the "keep" of the enemy city, you get a huge cash prize and a boatload of XP, and then you go home and wait for the bad guys to rebuild their keep. It''s a static world, but one in which there''s always something to do.

As to the NPC/Alien force, I''m not sure where you''re going with that. I''m reminded of a game called Stronghold that I once played. You build this castle, and arrange for all kinds of food production, and blah, blah sim crap, and then you build an army. Throughout the game, you have different kinds of fights to deal with. Sometimes it''s just a bunch of brigands harassing your peasants, and you just send out a team of guards to kick them stupid, but every once in a while you get freaking invaded, or else you ramp up your forces and beseige a neighboring castle. The game was unbelievably difficult, but the idea is there.

So I guess if you have characters just rolling around looking for fights to boost XP, you can have generic NPC "bad guys" spawn into the world the keep it interesting. If you want to really go to war with other places, then let players join an army, which may or may not be padded with NPC troops, and fight their way back and forth across borders. If you get crazy with this, you can have all manner of fancy feudal features, like border changes, acquired territory, treaties, and what-have-you, possibly regulated by a DM or by a "senate" of high-ranking players, who can vote on policy changes and the direction of military campaihns. I''d be interested in a "forum" chatroom/discussion board in which officials could discuss and debate the wisdom of certain changes in policy, and then vote them into effect.

That last one is a heady goal, and not at all necessary for resolving the issues you''ve put forth. To give you a concise answer, I, as an individual player, would like to think that my individual actions have some effect, albeit a small effect, on the world at large. If all else fails, let PvP war reign, and add in the occasional NPC skirmish to keep the players on their toes and in the XP.

I don''t think you should design something on what people would want more. I personnaly have been designing a MMORPG as well. (Just as a hobby for now. I have money problems to worry about first.).

You have to ask yourself this... what do you think you could do? Take a look at games which encompass PvP and just regular MOB killing. See what they do. See what doesn''t work. See what could be improved or what problems arise from what you want.
Example: I want to have Player vs Player AND Permadeath. While permadeath is pretty rare, having PvP as well would create a major problem of Griefers (People destined to bother others and laugh at them). I then have to think of ways to combat them. What should I do? Is doing that, going to far? What about this?

I think there''s basically two things to look at when making a multiplayer game. What do I let the players do to have fun and keep them playing? AND What would players do to ruin the game and how would I stop them?

quote: Original post by trapdoor
I don''t think you should design something on what people would want more. I personnaly have been designing a MMORPG as well. (Just as a hobby for now. I have money problems to worry about first.).

You have to ask yourself this... what do you think you could do? Take a look at games which encompass PvP and just regular MOB killing. See what they do. See what doesn''t work. See what could be improved or what problems arise from what you want.
Example: I want to have Player vs Player AND Permadeath. While permadeath is pretty rare, having PvP as well would create a major problem of Griefers (People destined to bother others and laugh at them). I then have to think of ways to combat them. What should I do? Is doing that, going to far? What about this?

I think there''s basically two things to look at when making a multiplayer game. What do I let the players do to have fun and keep them playing? AND What would players do to ruin the game and how would I stop them?

While the final decision of what will go into the game will highly depend on programming talent and creative thinking, we''d like to see what other people want in a game. I would rather half implement something people really want, than fully implement something nobody wants.

We are looking at similar things to you, which is why we asked this: What do I let the players do to have fun and keep them playing? We are asking what they would like to do. Players ruining the game will come at a later time, first we need to figure out what we want to do before we can figure out how to stop them from doing what we don''t want.

you could have each player assigned a city (or let them choose one at character creation), and sometimes the cities are at war with each other. so, if a player wants, they can join the city''s army and fight in that war. or, they could privateer, meaning they are not actually in the army, but they get paid (whether with money or XP or whatever) for beating on people from the enemy cities (basically to ruin their economy and annoy them). or, they can join a clan/guild/club/faction (or create one), and stay completely away from the city politics.

or something. sorry, that was rushed, but my dinner is waiting.

quote: Original post by krez
you could have each player assigned a city (or let them choose one at character creation), and sometimes the cities are at war with each other. so, if a player wants, they can join the city''s army and fight in that war. or, they could privateer, meaning they are not actually in the army, but they get paid (whether with money or XP or whatever) for beating on people from the enemy cities (basically to ruin their economy and annoy them). or, they can join a clan/guild/club/faction (or create one), and stay completely away from the city politics.

or something. sorry, that was rushed, but my dinner is waiting.

Don''t apologize, some good ideas in there, even if they were rushed .

Hrrm... how how about at character creation you choose a city...then you increase your skills in and around the city or totally away from it. Then if you have enough money, or many people with alot of money you may create your own military base or city and wage war against the other cities military or ally with them so they can also protect you from other players. Still keeping some NPC monsters or things around to hunt for fun or to increase experience. And make a small NPC platoon under your command and tell them to attack places or just guard areas of interest. Also have a group of "rebels" that are really powerful that you may join (but not as powerful as the cities) or ally with.

I like the ideas about a senate thing where the players choose military campains and such.