This is a question I have been thinking about for a while. Say you had a MMORPG that gave players ALOT of freedom. The ability to create cities. For sombody to do this they would have to have alot of money (getting supllies, carpenters, ect..). Destoy cities by gathering a large army and pillaging the village and murdering all the people in it. This game would not make the story for you, the people playing in it would. So the question is would people be able to work dynamicly enough together to be able to accomplish things, or would things just stay at a boring chaos like state where people cannot work together enough to accomplish any signifigant event. I was thinking about lord of the rings when this though came to me. Say some very experienced player who had a very high level charecter created a large city, i imagine this player to be the type who liked to PK as many people as he could. He would gain more and more power by having people come to his city untill he gained enough power to declare hostility on the "world of men". People opposing him all have to band together to survive. Would people be naturally create large scale events like this (maybe not a global things, but at least a large region all fighting some powerfull guy)? Although im not really sure and i dont think anybody can be without experimentation, im leaning towards the side that if the game allowed (or allmost encouraged), things like this would happen. From my experience, which isnt much because i dont play games with monthly fees, there are allways some people who like to become massivly powerfull and PK whoever they can, people who become really powerfull but have a more constructive attitude, and then there are those people who dont have time to become allmighty but will take a side in a large battle between these powerfull rulers. So without getting into the technical aspects of a game like this do you think that people would for these dynamic sociaties or would no signifigant events happen. [edited by - MTT on February 1, 2004 10:44:48 PM]

Its possible, but the game has to be specifically geared towards that type of thing happening. Political boundries in the real meat world are there because of threat of force established by an organized army. That army organized because the people rallied behind someone who promised food and security. Any game hoping to reproduce real world politics need to create both the lack and need of specific life sustaining resources, AND supply the ability for people to spread a political message to the people.

The life sustaining resource thing might be a problem. Nobody likes MUDs where they keep starving while in the newbie fields.

I never really though of the resource aspect, are things like food really that neccisary? I was thinking somthing along the lines of that when you start the game, you get the list of the established cities, with statistics like their population, enemies, protection, and a history. You would want to start in a city that seemed fairly stable, lots of protection, and good resources for new charecters, like shops and stuff. This city would be good for people starting out but as you became stronger you would want to go somwhere that would give you more to gain.

What going to a warlike city promises is that when you conquer somwhere, you will get money, items, and lots of that stuff. Because what better way to get stronger items than to kill and loot people and villages. So joining a militant sociaty promises you getting more powerfull (or dying), and just like what is sais in lord of the rings, men desire power over all else.

Being able to spread a political message to people is a serious issue i had not thought about. People would know the history of the city that they were in, and that would give people some idea about what the cities actions might be. But there would have to be some way to tell people what your plans are so taht you can organise an attack. Anybody have any ideas on how this might work?

Well, making it a purely war-torn feudalism makes it easy for players to have characters based entirely on combat, but it also makes for a fairly unstable world. I doubt that you could really have castles and cities in a world entirely peopled with warring tribes.

I advise an ambient population of NPCs. Farmers, merchants, villagers, and especially political leaders should be present at all times. Each region would have a population, and that population, depending on the actions taken in the region, would have a variable proportion of soldiers, farmers, merchants, etc. Peaceful areas would have farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and other tradesmen in it, and so would produce substantially better and more plentiful supplies. Constant raids, battles and the like in the region would require the governing body (be it player, administrator, or AI) to conscript much of the population into military service.

So you have your "frontier" lands, which are pimped out for combat and are a fine source of experience and honor, and you have your "production" lands, which feed your NPCs (players need not eat, but food production could influence NPC population and output), supply your equipment and training, and contribute to the wealth of your nation.

When you sign up, you can choose to take a position working for a particular government and have access to their advanced resources in exchange for service, or be a freelance and wander from place to place, seldom hated, but rarely trusted. Freelances wouldn''t have access to the top-notch gear that a ranking officer could get (unless they steal or loot it) but they could get civilian-grade stuff from any nation, and would be free to travel to world, without worrying (much) about getting slaughtered by human patrols or assassinated by political enemies.

This way, borders could move as regions were conquered (a stronghold or geographical location could serve as a "switch" for shifting ownership), players could have an influence on the world (and be recognized for their contributions) and technology and economy could be affected by intelligible factors. Best of all, players won''t have to worry about farming, or starving, or running a country (unless you want to put that in).

I agree that NPC''s would be neccisary to play certain roles that would regulate how things went down, like farmers, carpenters, guards, police, ect.

But my basic thought on a game like this is if players will naturally fall into roles in sociaty with minimal interference from the game. I was thinking that not everybody would be combatant but now that i think about it this is the role that the majority of people would choose. If there was job based system (where you become mages, alchemists, armorers, warriors, ect.) Would people choose non combatant roles if there was interesting enough gameplay for these types?

I am starting to get some ideas about what a game like this might look like stucture wise, i think i will post that soon.

PS. I just noticed i misspelled the title, Can a mod please change this.

The question is what will your game offer those non combat players? What kinda of character progression and game play will they experince? It has to hold their interest as much as a combat role would otherwise people won''t devote their time to those persuits.

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

Thats what i''m having trouble with to. What I''m kinda thinking is that there you would choose a combatant skill set (mage, fighter, archer) and a non-combatant skill set ( weaponsmith, alchemist, armorer). The non-combatant skill set allows you to make money by selling the things, and get stronger by using the things. Just like you can become a very elete combatant type, you could become a very elete weaponsmith, the non-combatant roles could be as highly developed as the combatant roles. There would be no real set limit to the power of wepon you can create, only the limit set by your own skills. I think think that this would probably lead enough people down the non-cambatant path, to a high degree, and there would be plenty low level non-combatants just trying to make money. This would create a good weapon supply balance because the amount of that level of item vs. its rarity would create an exponential curve. So high end weapons would be quite rare and expesive, because i am assuming the majority of poeple would go down the combatant path. This means that people who choose to develop their non-combatant skills could just as easily become the ruler of an empire.

Also, this isnt exactly my game. Im just trying to think of some things that might make a cool game of this variety. Everybody is jsut as welcome to put in their ideas of how a game like this might work.

Isn''t this what SecondLife was all about?

I would love to play a game like this. One of the main reasons i stopped playing MMORPGs is because the worlds are so boring and dont feel alive.

The hardest part about doing this though would be giving feed back to the players. They would have to know that what they are doing is affecting the world. Something like a town center or news paper would probably be enough. Players would need to know about new towns and bounties. If this wasnt provided in-game it would slowly happen over the internet, but then only hardcore players would end up getting the information.

Second life looks like a place to meet e-friends, not a dynamic RPG world, with a constant struggle for power between nations, where only the strong survive. Oh man i made this game sound cool.

Also i think you are very right TheDarkening. The players need to know what is going on around them. I think a global information system would be good. Where you could find out the hisory and status of any city or player, and a newspaper would be great for any players who only wanted to know the most recent and signifigant events.