I was thinking about how I like playing games with my friends. I played Eve-Online for a little while and it was nice, but it feels impersonal, there''s a whole slew of players who I only interact with occasionally in combat and my corporation of 70 are more or less ''trusted strangers'' who I don''t necessarily know, we''re just on the same side, whatever that means. So what I really want to play is a game that is at first glance like a team-deathmatch or capture the flag game or even a cooperative multiplayer action-RPG, and I want it to be perpetual... My idea is thus: a Mini-MOG is a game where you can create an instance of the world, invite five or ten friends to create characters in it and then adventure as a small tightly knit group who do their thing in a perpetual world. The main impetus for creating it is that so many MMOGs want to give the impression that every player is a great adventurer, but you don''t feel so great when every other person you interact with is also a great adventurer. Implementation wise, I think that the client should be free and people should be allowed to buy the server software and install it as a dedicated server (say on a linux machine that''s connected to their network). The server software validates its liscence (through the internet) then allows the admin to set parameters (number of players, usernames and passwords, world variables) then it starts, and players can log in and play on their own Mini-MOG. (note: I''m not really too concerned with the mechanics of liscencing and preventing piracy right now) Questions Thoughts Comments? George D. Filiotis I am a signature virus. Please add me to your signature so that I may multiply.

yea,

Its really a great idea, it brings back the good ol'' d&d games. The only problem is, it isnt really new, it has been done, and is done.

CEsar

show me these games you speak of, and why haven''t I seen/heard of them?

I imagine he''s referring at least in part to Neverwinter Nights. Other examples are Vampire, and just about any moddable game.

ld

at first sounds like phantasy star online A LOT
then neverwinter night

but finnaly it seems that it would be more like an msn messenger like rpg?? no??

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

reminds me of diablo with a few more players and more skills

yeah, if you've never heard of Neverwinter Nights you really should look it up. There are a lot of other multiplayer RPGs (it's funny that the term MMORPG has become so ubiquitous that people forget about non-"massive" multiplayer games). Some games like Baldur's Gate, etc. let you play through an official campaign with a group of 4 or 5 friends, but there's not much modding. Vampire: THe Masquerade was one of the first to go with a "Dungeon Master" approach and limited modding abilities to let DMs build their own worlds. NWN in my opinion was a revolution using this idea and the first commercial and technological success of it.
There are always tons of people playing small campaigns with their friends through gamespy, as well as a lot of "Persistent World" servers, which are basically what you are calling a Mini-MORPG.
Their licensing works by requiring all servers and players to have a valid CD key, and they need to connect to a master gamespy server before they can connect to any other servers, making sure anyone who wants to play multiplayer has to be licensed.

If you're not really looking for giving players the ability to create their own worlds and just want a static pre-made world, you can also look into the not-so-legal world of hacked Ultima Online servers. Basically somehow someone stole the server code for Ultima Online, and now there are a bunch of application-only Ultima Online servers, where small groups of people can play. Of course they also can use illegal copies of the game and don't need to pay the monthly fee to connect, so if you wanted to try something like this on purpose, you'd need a master cd-key checking server like NWN, and uhh... don't let anyone steal your source code.

I think one reason that more developers aren't going this route is that if you get a game developed that far, it might be just as easy to go to a full company-owns-the-servers MMORPG, where you can charge a monthly fee and make more money. Stupid money.

Also: one more example of this idea... Ultima Online 2, and the as-of-yet-unnamed project that Richard Garriot's new company is working on, are using a sort of "thousand of players in town, but only a few in the dungeon" sort of idea. Basically, when you get a quest, the server spawns an instance of the location you're going to, and only your party can enter it. So you get to go through a dungeon and do a quest without showing up and finding all the monsters killed and all the treasure chests empty or having to deal with the 12-year old player named "FredDurstRULEZ" spamming the shout channel with the lyrics to the new limp bizkit song. *sigh* I love MMORPGS.... Anyway, this has the added bonus (to the company, not the players) over NWN-style that the company can own all the servers in true MMORPG style and charge a monthly fee, with the disadvantage of no player servers or mods or DMs. I see most companies going with the "charging a monthly fee" route, unfortunately.


[edited by - makeshiftwings on December 9, 2003 9:09:59 PM]

I''m assuming what your talking about is creating a MMO that allows the players to set up their own local server instead of connecting to a main server. You''ll probaly want to include a great deal of server controls, To allow the host to manipulate in game events. As well as modding and scripting tools.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

I can relate to you an MMORPG idea that my friend and I abandoned, because it would only really work in 2D(which is too niche for what we''re trying to accomplish). Have the story allow for some overworld or lobby-type area, where all the characters on the server get to know each other, train their abilities, get together, sip magic coffee, learn a bit about the story, et cetera.

Then you go talk to some guy and he gives you this quest that requires you to teleport into a mini-RPG map, with a small piece of the story inside it. The kicker was that the map''s difficulty would scale to allow up to four simultaneous players. Creatures would become more difficult, and there were side-paths with puzzled that could only be solved with multiple players. Extra treasure and stuff. Great!

The great thing about this is that you can give your PAYING customers the option to create a rudimentary map of their own(provided you control the size of these maps), which can be uploaded to the master server and become an actual sidequest in the game. Of course, the amount of traffic going through a certain player''s map will help him progress or make his character stronger. Somehow.

B. Bradley: The number 2 mind

www.numbermind.com(coming soon)

somehow I really like that idea, though it is something of an aside. To invite players to try to make their own quests and the more people go for a particular quest the higher rank as a quest maker the author becomes... so inviting

Makeshiftwings: you''re so right, Stupid Money... the whole point is that I would love to create this and let people do what they like with it after buying it. What I know of NWN is that you can save and load a quest you play with other players, but I really do mean perpetual, in the sense that you invite a bunch of players and any of them play whenever they like, making it a little more chaotic (chaos is important to me).

Of course there may be severe limitations in the matter of who can host a game (since they would have to set up a dedicated server just so a bunch of their friends get to play). And there''s also the matter of not guaranteeing any one person who owns a copy of the client can find a game to play (which is why I previously suggested the client be free and the server liscences be paid for).

Much to ponder...