Hello. What I intend to do is post a *cough* theory *uncough* about MMORPG game design that uses a mechanical means to alter the social structure of a standard game, and enhance gameplay as a result. What I'm looking for, in responses, is your feelings on the material presented... I do appreciate any comments on the system and will answer any question you have. I don't intend to rush out and implement this design, even if I have spent a lot of time thinking of how each part might be implemented. However, I never know what the future holds. So, let's get down to the hopefully specific/defined material. The idea here is to: 1: Get players to work together in small groups (called "Guilds" for the time being) 2: Give players a reason to work for higher ranks both within their guilds and within the world 3: Allow for situations that forge trust between players, while at the same time allow trust to be broken for a mechanical reason 4: Have all of these interaction affect the world Now, in order to accomplish this, a few systems have been setup. For the purposes of this discussion, you can assume that this design is meant for a classless system even though class mentality can be assumed (ie: You can suggest that "fighters" would do X because even if there isn't a class called fighters, there would be players who build the way a fighter class would be, just try to be specific). However, I won't make any real attempt to discuss specific mechanical aspects of character design, only generalized concepts that will remain true throughout most, if not all, such systems. The Map: To give you a general idea of how the layout is, there are four town. Each town is near the end of each primary direction. In the middle is a temple that holds things important to the design, but explained in the other categories. The Guild System: The Guilds are player created and player operated. Individuals create guilds, they create their name and pick a logo. Logos will be blocked out once picked, and can be changed after creation. There is a limited number of guilds per server and a limited number of members per guild, however, the number is within reason. This is to allow anyone who wants to create a guild the possibility. However, creating a guild is more than just a name and face. Each guild is ranked within the town they are in. The top guild in each town is responsible for the positions of Town Mayor, Town Treasurer, Captain of the Guard, and Spiritual Leader. Although the candidates must be from the top guild, they are voted in by all the members of the town, even non-guild members. The spiritual leader decides the major religion of the town, which will change the magic type of most of the NPCs as well as have an affect on the magic scale. The captain of the guard decides punishment rates, legality issues, and can also take bribes to let prisoners out of jail earlier. The town treasurer decides the tax rates of various objects and the town mayor uses the taxes to purchase upgrades, support raids & missions, and maintain the town. The mayor also has another job, which is to be at the artifact exchange ritual explained later. The guilds are ranked within the city by their accomplishments, but are lowered in rank by committing crimes outside of their city and inside their city. Other guilds are capable of sabotaging the reputation of another guild by posing as them in other towns or by bribing the mayor of another town to "adjust" the crimes report. The higher your guild rank, the more members you can have in your guild, but it is expected that there be at least 10 guilds in each city. Players may move between the servers under some restrictions (must have open spots, will cost money, etc...). Entire guilds can be moved as well, but follow heavier restrictions. The Magic System: It's been done before, but it's still nice. The magic system is done on a server-wide scale. Each element has an opposing element. Everytime one element is used, it drains power from it's source, and makes the opposite element stronger. For example, if fire and water were opposites, and you continually used fire spells, the fire element weakens over the whole server, and the water element becomes stronger. NPCs also affect this rate, so if your religious leader wants a relgion that relies on offensive fire spellcasters, it will tip the scale towards water. Spells themselves are created by players who pick and choose the individual elements of a spell that are unlocked as they gain spellcasting ability. The Artifact System: In the previously mentioned temple, there is an alter room. The alter room contains 32 slots with artifacts. Every week there is an event that determines which 4 artifacts your town will get to use. The mayor must travel to the temple and pick. It's first come first serve policy, there being 4 towns and all. The artifacts affect various things, and mostly do things like give bonuses to every person in town (whether they are there or not). Some examples might be increased armor, more experience per whatever gives you experience, faster movement, etc... At the end of the week, the artifacts are teleported back to the temple and must be re-obtained. Thusly, it is important to have a responsible mayor and a mayor that will choose which artifacts you want. There are also weaker artifacts that can be obtained for the town or for an individual, but are used-up over time/only last a certain amount of playing time. They give much smaller bonuses than the main artifacts and have their own respawning time. There are hundreds of these on each server. The Election System Already explained above are the positions of mayor, treasurer, captain, and spiritual leader. Each guild still maintains it's leader and co-leaders that are responsible for recruitment. Players can (and are perhaps encouraged) to buy people's votes to win, but voting is done in secret and you can never be sure is someone really voted for you. Each candidate can pick certain things they want to do during their campaign, and it will show up when it is time to vote. For example, the town treasurer might say he will raise taxes across the board so more money can be spent improving the town. A captain of the guard candidate might say he will repeal the anti-drug laws and have lower punishment times. Each voting period will last between 12 and 24 hours. Voting take place when a month has passed since the last election. However, a special vote can be held if approval ratings are especially low or if a player is deleted/leaves during his stay in office. Nobody can hold the same seat in office without 2 voting periods passing. I know I'm probably missing some detail about some feature of this system, but I'm sure I would remember if directly asked about it. So fire away with your question, comments, and concerns for this "design theory". Just to summarize: Guild members work together to up their rank in the city and to lower the rank of other guilds in the city, the top guild supplies the candidates for the election system and the city officials decide various things that change the outlook of the city. [Edited by - KingRuss on July 14, 2005 10:29:13 PM]