The one vital element to this would be to limit the scope so it was not an entire world, but part of one. That way you can revive a species in a realistic manner by having invasions, mass migrations, etc.

This is almost identical to something I wrote on paper on the ORPG I intend to build one day *maybe*.

Basically,

Players can be killed, permanently. Family lineages can be wiped if the player is careless (or does something stupid like exterminate certain key species which are 'protected' by nigh-invincible, which could be killed eventually but not before the player's family is wiped out of it's strongest specimens not counting the destruction of estates and other properties, beings to prevent breaks in the gain rate and slowing down player skill gain.)

Each Species
- 12 genetic traits ('stats' such as intel, str, etc.) + 2 'random' traits that provide special bonuses that are species specific, or flaws which weaken the individual.

- New species are introduced via invasions, mass migrations, refuges, etc.

- Populations nearing extinction are 'protected' by enviromentalist groups (Druids, Fae species, and Treants) so large player raids would be needed to wipe out the few remaining havens of an endangered species.

- Powerful monsters with semi-irrational fears/loves, such as the Titan/bunny example but a far wider result. (i.e. if you wipe out the 'giant snakes', the snake-loving Dragons would hunt the player and his family down and wipe them out in turn.)

- Migrates from region to region, and the more agressive will attempt to wage war with the players and possibly kill off the entire player population. [Leveling/Skill gain would take about 1 week for the average player and no more than 2-3 for the casual gamer who players less than 3hrs / week.]

That last thing is going to be virtually impossible to balance, but it would be cool. =)

Quote:

Original post by HellRiZZer You can also use the law of Highlander movie: the more monsters you kill, the more stronger others of their race become. Thus, that one last standing will be almost un-killable.

I was thinking this same design around post #4.

I also concur with shadowdancer that this is ripe for abuse. Especially if creatures make stuff. Some player will buy up all of the stuff the animals make, kill all the animals, then resell the stuff at exorbitant prices, since the stuff is super rare now. Players must not be rewarded for screwing over other players.

Something to keep in mind is that there are certain base species that can't be killed. Take mosquito's, we all hate them, but can we ever wipe them all out? Hell no, same with roaches, they'll outlive us all come the apocalypse.

Reproduction deals with 3 factors, predators, habitat, and food. If you kill alot of frogs, mosquito's will breed out of control, this creates more food for frogs, which results in healthier frogs. Healthier frogs live longer (having more energy to avoid hungry predators), and thus live to reproduce more, unless otherwise eaten by predators, but generally you'll end up with more frogs because their able to reproduce more frequently than before because of all the food.

This works as a "buffer" for the system, if the players try to push frogs to extinction, the closer they are to oblivion the faster they'll reproduce, so without co-ordinated and persistent killing it would be difficult to kill them all. This results in temporary imbalances in the system now and then from players pushing a species to far, but generally reduces the number of Extinctions and imbalances the system would otherwise pose.

1. make the monsters disperse. (if you can do it enough, it would take heaps of players to kill them all, but even that won't happen if there are 'sanctuaries' like caves with spells to stop invaders).

2. Monster dna.
Pretty much, you define two chromazomes for the monster.
One defines the physical properties. (they should all be trade-offs, so if you want a massive monster, then it needs more food, same if you want it to grow quickly, be strong, ect.)

The second cromazome is the net(ANN).
This defines the creatures behaviour. (which can also be taught, through reinforcement learning).

3. Monsters are all the same.
It doesn't matter if its a mouse, or a titan. There all made the same, they just have different dna.

4. Ability to breed
Breeding is viruslike, and is asexual, exept for a small amount of the time, where it uses both the monsters dna and another monsters which is near it in order to produce the offspring.

Reproduction takes heaps of food tho... (keeps the rates down).

5. Domesticatable.
You just grab your monster you want to domesticate, fence it off, and kill those that are the worst.
You are shaping the gene pool, so you can end up with monsters who will not fight, others that are savages, others that are manges, ect.

You can also train individuals using reinforcement learning. (which then randomly 'rubbs off on' other monsters, as they teach each other. This is not hereditary.)

6. Monster stats
So, your monster can level up by fighting other players/monsters.
When it looses, it looses exp/health. Hp regenerates slowly (from food), but in order to get exp, you need to fight things.

Overall, this would make it near impossible to wipe out monsters, mostly because you can't find them all, but also because as you kill them, you leave the better monsters (in exp, tactics, ect.) which then breed the next generation tougher.

Add to it, that tribes can learn from there mistakes...

From,
Nice coder

Add an age to the mosnters. young monsters will flee from higher level players rather than attack. killing young monsters will give less exp or items.

Include a safe haven for the young monsters. perhaps young monsters can run through bushes or small caves and disappear or can access an area that players can not go.

this will make genocide harder since players might leave the monsters alone if they are worthless to kill. Noobs would still be attacked by young monsters to give them some exp.

It would not be needed to keep track the age of all the monsters, just the killed rate and the reproductive rate. once the kill rate exceeds the reproduction rate, the system lowers the exp and items of all the monsters until it becomes balanced again.

With playing mmorpgs, as I’ve said I’ve been researching them forever now, and ive been apart of all sort of game communities, ones where when you level up everyone logged on congrats you, to ones that your just walking to a dungeon a pvper appears behind you and kills you, just for the kicks of killing someone.
So how the game is made, and how it and the community presents itself can have a big impact on what type of player base.

I had considered pets, if you got a young monster you would be able to raise it
if its capable of languages it could eventually be used
imagine a goblin secretary who took down messages while you was offline, and gave them to you when you logged on, or other monsters that just guarded things while you was offline (such as your house)

Players are idiots, but they will also go to extremes to do things,

I think if a bonus is given for keeping bunnies alive, then there is going to be at least one person that goes into the bunny trade, if their the only ones then the valuable item would skyrocket in price, so other players might try and get some bunnies or move to a different monster.

And id agree with dispersion, all the bunnies in the world wont be in the same place, some could be next to civilization, others might be the furthest point away and trying to kill them all, could be something that every online player might have to be hunting every corner of the world, and still manage to miss patches
I don’t like the idea of some place that can't be attacked; places should be harder to attack then others, but not invincible.

Say goblin village lives near a dragon, that dragon might put a magical shield in front of the cave so the goblins can live there in peace (as long as they supply sacrifices)

If that village started to grow to strong and it’s threatening a village, a mage might break the barrier, and while the dragon is distracted be one force another might try and kill all the goblins or enough that they are no longer a threat

for new races, one would be breeding say if the right goblin breed, there baby is a hobgoblin (stronger and a bit more powerful) eventually as breeding continues if no other forces interfere then the goblins are wiped out just from expanding.

Also new races could be created thru magic
and new continents, or different dimensions

I would put some form of eco system, big monsters hunt little monsters, kill all the little monsters and you get hunted instead

Its a lot of ideas and the programming behind it
gives me a headache just trying to plan it

Perhaps having a monster scripting system? Only avalible for some monsters of cource. (some genetic set of traits that allow them to be scriptable. Maybe docility++ and intellegence between medium and high and not agressive).

From,
Nice coder

One of the classes I did was agent orientated programming, which is basically just creating agents that act autonomously (They don’t have to be though), taking inputs and choosing a series of steps(plans) to carry out to complete there goal

with the game, if there where no players in sight then a village agent would control the village, and the villagers would be tools the village agent can use to fulfill there goals (such as foraging/guarding).

When they did have to interact with the players, then they would gain a independent agent (that was initiated by the village agent) and the village agent would loose all contact, until the agent came back within the domain
(What another villager can see and identify)

The individual agent would decide what to do based of its knowledge of the opponent (what there wearing) and there own skills/personality/village agent assigned role
If they was a timid weak monster and it was set to guard the village, and it met up with a character who radiated power (say they had magical enchanted weapons and amour on them or in there pack), it would more likely turn and run back to the village to warn everyone, a berserk unit might rush the player, and the village agent wont know what happened to the unit until they send a scout, to find out what happened

While it would be nice to have all npcs to each be an individual agent, I think that it would use too much computer time.

If the players where nowhere near a area, the area would become more dormant, and take turns sharing processing time, with other dormant areas
Just so, if a player left and they didn’t return for a week later to find the village in the same situation

First, I am really enjoying this thread and all that people have posted thus far. This is a very interesting idea, but I have a few questions.

1. I've seen a variety of solutions for the problem of players commiting genocide for the fun of it or to greif other players. If you code so that this is not possible, then what is the point of having the system?

2. For that matter, if you do allow genocide, what is the point? Making mobs scarce or extinct doesn't seem like a fun gameplay mechanic to me.


Musings:

I was thinking about this idea and thought that one reason to do this might be to control the "supply" of a certain monster if you allowed players to capture and domesticate mobs and then use them for some purpose. Maybe crafting materials come from certain monsters and you can create a "monster ranch" that "grows" monsters that can be fought for their crafting materials by the ranchers. This would have a very Japanese feel to it and might be fun.

You would still need some control on monster extermination so that aggressive players could not wipe out the landscape in a way that precludes new players from being able to find anything to level up on or ways to get the funds to start their own monster ranch.

Neat thread.

If the idea is to protect monsters, make it possible for players to protect them and get benefits for doing so.

Like the Monster Ranch idea, a player could see that griffins or whatnot are pretty cool, so they capture a few and breed them for either harvesting the items from them or selling them as pets, guard animals, arena monsters etc...

Perhaps have something like an Eco-Mage. A character can choose a type of monster (like monkeys) and then by learning certain spells or getting items they can join a monkey clan and work with them.

So you could have an Eco-Mage of monkeys living in a forest teaching the monkeys to gather food, killing monkey-eating lizards, building havens from nasty players etc...

But then, one of the real jerk players could become an Eco-Mage of monkeys and breed an army of killer spear weilding monkeys and use them to pester other players.