Also MMO games should have some other global goals like evil part of the continent vs good part of the continent. For example once on a sunny day many rare evil and holy creatures escaped god’s zoo or something (randomly placed all over the world), now you have 6 hours to hunt down creatures with opposite alignment and protect creatures with your alignment. Now whoever’s side will have more creatures survived will have their land blessed by gods (quests will give you more money, items will be cheaper rare items will appear more often on your part of the world.

I hope you got the idea.

quote: Original post by Zenith2n
IMHO, MMORPG are all going in wrong direction except Lineage or simular games.

Lineage, and other like games like Planetside that concentrate on global control, cross the border from RPG to war simulations in my oppinion. Some people argue that the moment you have stats and play a character, it is an RPG. However, I think to fit under the CRPG title, which MMORPGs are trying to do, it is not simular to the model Lineage and Planetside are going after.

I do think the global domination model is viable, and fun, but it is not story based. I would like to say it is not what the masses what, but there is a country out there that would disagree with me.

At this point, maybe I should retitle this thread to Ultimate Story centric MMORPG.

I think most MMORPGs lack real, fun gameplay. They have a very cool social aspect to them, but thats about it.

The idea the OP described would have to be something like PSO in an MMO world, and I think if it can be done well it would be a good game. I''ve tried many times to think of a good way to accomplish this type of game.


IMHO, an MMO has to provide content, in the form of a continueing storyline of the world, to provide an experience anything similar to single player RPGs. Perhaps when you join in you''re assigned to a home region, which through time is in peace or conflict with various other regions, leaders die causing instability, other hostile forces(NPCs) attack, etc. Developers have to build the history and ongoin story of the world, people won''t build it themselves, but they''ll take part if its there. The problem with MMORPGs is too often the developers think its enough to provide a big virtual world and expect story to emmerge, when really they should be concentrating on delivering a gameplay experience. They have to give the player enough reason to *PLAY* and *ENJOY* the game rather than leaving them to run the level-up treadmill.

Ravyne, NYN Interactive Entertainment
[My Site][My School][My Group]

Actually what''s needed is a book of quests. You can have multiplayer or single player quests. Each quest can have its own world, story, timeframe and characters. The game interface would remain the same as not to confuse the player and make it easy for him to concentrate on the quests instead. I think company that would do this would be very successful because they don''t have to make one huge world instead several smaller ones would suffice and be easier to handle hw wise. Game content could be reused across quests. The biggest plus is that each quest would have its own story line completely separate from other quests thus giving freedom to game story writers. Some quests could be linked together as well. This is the same idea as making a fps map but instead of making one huge map you make smaller maps and link them together so it seems like you''re exploring one huge map.

Each player can then invite other players to play the quest with him. So you wouldn''t have cheaters and such because player can determine who his friends are. The best of all is that the server can run multiple same quests simultaneously so players wouldn''t have to wait for folks to finish the quest before they can join. Thus a player can be part of more than one quest with different friends if he wanted to. Again, the quests don''t have to be very large just enough to have a nice adventure. This would cure the problem of leveling up because in each quest you start from scratch as weapons and equipment goes. And the best part is that each quest can have different weapons and equipment and can be played in different time period. Say one quest is about Athens with mythology and another quest is on a spaceship or something.

The only difference between this system and multiple companies making different games is that the user interface and camera would be the same and also the focus on making adventure quests would be priority.

You can even have linked quests so that each one is single player oriented with the intent on accomplishing a mission that helps the other players in the other quests. Maybe at the end the players come together in a single quest to battle the final boss. There are lot of possibilities with this I think.

i think MMORPG design needs to go back to the core of fantasy (assuming its a fantasy MMORPG) story concepts.

The whole basis of fantasy is basically some insignificant individual rising to a position of power.

There should be players with power, and those without stive to get it.

also a MMORPG is a world, what 1 person does should effect everyone else.
There should be no quests along the lines of "kill this boss to complete the quest". Realistically once the first person kills that boss the boss should be dead for good.


What i think would be a good idea would be to have quests which have a first-come first-serve basis. Basically whoever finishes the quest first gets the rewards.
To stop "uber" players finishing all the quests first, simply put certain lvl brackets on the quests (e.g. only players lvl 5-7 can do this quest) or some other criterium.

Also players in power should somehow have the ability to alter the world, whether it be simply from placing a house somewhere in the world, to controlling resources and members of a city.

I think you like to ramble. Me too

--
A "war game" doesnt have to have only player controlled factions, NPC factions can exist too. NPCs and NPC factions can create and direct story/game content... You could have the player guilds doing there thing, and then some menacing npc guild set out to do all sorts of secret and game altering things, war, peace, or havok.

depedning on how guild dynamics work, there are really endless amounts of things that can be done by diligent game masters. game masters could influence guilds by pitting specific challenges against them, or even use guild created/inspired content to effect story.

In war games, you can also have dynamically generated quests/content... AI could say, guild A controls so in so, go scout it, conqure it, secure it... These quests would be fairly unique in that the exact quest wont be issued twice. There are bazillions of ways to generate dynamic quests which are fun, relevant, and impacting. The AI could even generate content, tell faction A players to go to location X, and tell faction B players to go there also (Reason? AI could lie or draw from variables). Add in NPC content, and you have endless options.

I was thinking that a RPG game that I would like to play would be one where you agree to support certain factions, and this has an effect on the game world, at least from your own limited perspective. It doesn't have to affect everyone else's world (that would allow griefing or large scale group competition), but could alter quest availability and the kinds of quests you are given. As you are working on the quests, opposing faction members could be sent to stop you or possibly try to sway you over to their side.

Or maybe you don't care anything about helping anyone, you're just in it for yourself. The game should support that, too. In any case, the game should support the role you want to play and make it at least feel like some sort of story is progressing as a result of what you do.

Also, MMORPG's need to make it feel adventurous. I've been playing EQ for a while and the whole design of everything in that game just screams player addiction. Imagine my disappointment when I installed the Luclin expansion, warped to the moon, expecting to find something of archealogical or cultural significance, and instead, the FIRST zone I found was the bazaar, where people can sell things to each other more conveniently. Bleh.

In the game Sacrifice, a strategy game with 15 or so missions per story arc, you can choose your allegiance to certain gods that are in chaos with each other and eventually have to choose only one while most of the rest are destroyed by your efforts. Seems things always start with everything and end with one thing.

[edited by - Waverider on May 3, 2004 2:57:11 AM]

The answer is actually very simple: GM. To create infinite stories that could actually affect the world and make the players matter, simply have player-hosted GM type games (that can be saved perhaps). Players will set up games, the GM will create everything necessary using pre-made content that will be fitted editor style a lot like a custom RTS map. This way, you solve almost all of the problems with MMORPGs unless you get a bad GM. In fact, I cannot believe this hasn''t even been tried before (at least not to my knowledge).

quote: Original post by Taulin
This is what my point is against. Why do you think it is bad to have ''quests everyone can do''
AND ''large world-chaging''?

quests that everyone can do lack... um... special-ness? if you kill the dragon or steal the amulet of whatever, evil has been defeated; why the hell would there be an identical dragon there when someone else goes, and how many amulets of whatever are there floating around? rather than "the big guy who did that important thing" everyone becomes "some big guy who also did that thing".
i am not against large world-changing quests, i would love some of those. but, it gets pretty silly when everyone saves (or throws into chaos) the world somewhere between levels 15 and 20, depending on how well they allocated stats.

quote: How bad would it be if you walked into a bar after defeating Story-1''s final boss (ex. Magmo). "Wow, I finally beat story one solo, and I am thinking of doing story 5!" Sure, many other at the bar have done story 1 also, defeating Magmo, but you now have many things in common, including the loot. Let''s all try and do story 5 together!

that just doesn''t float my boat, i''m not saying it is a bad idea, but i wouldn''t want to play. it''d get to the point where someone shouts/globals "how do i get a platinum uber-sword of doom?!" and someone else replies "oh, go kill a magmo in story 5!" or "you can buy one of mine!"

quote: Original post by NecroMage
The answer is actually very simple: GM. To create infinite stories that could actually affect the world and make the players matter, simply have player-hosted GM type games (that can be saved perhaps). Players will set up games, the GM will create everything necessary using pre-made content that will be fitted editor style a lot like a custom RTS map. This way, you solve almost all of the problems with MMORPGs unless you get a bad GM. In fact, I cannot believe this hasn''t even been tried before (at least not to my knowledge).

it wouldn''t be feasible to pay GMs, and allowing players to be GM would ruin the blanace of the game world. what''s to stop players from GM-ing a game for their friends to level them up rediculously, while giving them lots of uber-items? then they can go back into the "main" game world and sell them, or just pick on everyone else. also, they couldn''t be world-changing, unless you intend to let any player who wants to alter the entire game world by being GM. limiting their power as GM might help with those issues, but would make them less effective as GMs as well, making it lame.

just my 2 cents, of course

quote: Original post by krez

quote: Original post by NecroMage
The answer is actually very simple: GM. To create infinite stories that could actually affect the world and make the players matter, simply have player-hosted GM type games (that can be saved perhaps). Players will set up games, the GM will create everything necessary using pre-made content that will be fitted editor style a lot like a custom RTS map. This way, you solve almost all of the problems with MMORPGs unless you get a bad GM. In fact, I cannot believe this hasn't even been tried before (at least not to my knowledge).

it wouldn't be feasible to pay GMs, and allowing players to be GM would ruin the blanace of the game world. what's to stop players from GM-ing a game for their friends to level them up rediculously, while giving them lots of uber-items? then they can go back into the "main" game world and sell them, or just pick on everyone else. also, they couldn't be world-changing, unless you intend to let any player who wants to alter the entire game world by being GM. limiting their power as GM might help with those issues, but would make them less effective as GMs as well, making it lame.

Well IMO NecroMage's solution is one of the ways around this big problem in MMO -land.

Payed GMs is a workaround, though get expensive ofcourse for companies. Player GMs is the solution. Ofcourse.. you could get a bad GM which gives only great items to his group, but that is what makes a bad GM and should be CoC'd on. You would find out pretty fast if someone is acting bad.
Another is having GM-ing available for all Allegiances, but then only able to give items which are in the Allegiances QuestRewardPool. That's the way we played own made quests on AC1 for many years. I even use it for Contest Picture Quests right now in AC2.
As for GM functions.. check with Neverwinter Nights, not a MMORPG, but they did pretty good.

What I partly described above is in our concept btw.
Also having WorldGM's creating Quests for the whole world would make the game more immersive. This would mean many people involved on many ways in one big quest/storyline. On what the players decide to take action on, the storyline will change. It won't be only that one group that defeated the X mob, but also on what will be done around the cities on the world... etc.
Small quests involving the big quest and storyline.


- Coder of the new world -
http://members.gamedev.nl/

[edited by - SmileBringer on May 5, 2004 3:18:48 PM]