Ok this is going to be a long winded post on a concept I have to make a MMORPG truely player driven. My goal with this post is to find out what you all think of this idea, what ideas you have to make, what was once NPC roles in a game more appealing to PC's, and how to make this concept fun for all players, and workable over all. My idea was to start with an interactive chat world of sorts, the closest comparison I can come to this is Second Life. Lets just say for ease of discussion this game will be a super hero/super villian MMORPG. Now I like City of Heros but its biggest problem to me is the NPC's that get mugged on the streets. The way they do it in CoH's it just becomes to mundane, and that just destroys the emersion into the game world. So I thought if I start the games life off as a free of charge chat service, set in a virtual world (with cities for the super hero concept), that allows users to create very detailed avatars and just roam around doing minor things and meeting new people. You could even possibly have them get payed like in The Sims and The Sims 2 and allow them to buy things from stores to customize thier avatars even more.(more on the store idea at end of post) Right from the beginning you let the users know that this will become a MMORPG and that when it does they can buy the upgrade that lets them play as Super Heros and Super Villians (plus monthly fee). But even after it becomes the full fledge game, they can still keep using the free chat service, but with the condition that thier avatars become the once that can be harassed or mugged and then possibly rescued by the heros. Now this might lead to the chat users not wanting to get on any more, but considering they get to use a virtual world chat service for free, and that the harassment is minor thing, I would hope they will not mind, and may even role play out the encounter for the fun of it. As for the store idea. I have talked to several small stores in my little town I live in that would be interested in paying a little fee every month to place a virtual store based off thier real life store in the game. In game they could sell items based off thier RL items but then could also sell real items to players and users in the real world, in effect making the in game store an eStore. What do you all think of the concept, is it doable, and if it is would it be fun for any one just using the chat service?

You want to replace NPCs because they don't act realistically as a person would in that comic book situation - trouble is real people won't either. Some 15 year old standing around chatting to his mate isn't going to be interested in being kidnapped by some super villian so some other super dude can rescue him. He will tell them to "go f%$£ themselves" or better yet wait until he is all kidnapped and in danger and then just log out to ruin it.

Rule #1 of online game development: Do not design your game world to rely on its users to function.

it really depends on how you present your game. All games have some mature players, and they are usually the most powerful/popular. With this in mind, you have to make it so that your game design relies on powerful/popular people to function, not the average person on the street.

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Original post by Mobile Rule #1 of online game development: Do not design your game world to rely on its users to function.

Hopfully this won't be too much of a hi-jack.. but Why would this be a rule?

There are plenty of MMOGs that violate this rule. And even though they are not huge like WoW, they are very good games (just as good as huge commercial successes from a gameplay point of view) and some are even financially successful.

HAM, read what obscure wrote it answers your question. There are people that live to try and ruin other peoples experiences.

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Original post by HAM Quote: Original post by Mobile Rule #1 of online game development: Do not design your game world to rely on its users to function. Hopfully this won't be too much of a hi-jack.. but Why would this be a rule? There are plenty of MMOGs that violate this rule. And even though they are not huge like WoW, they are very good games (just as good as huge commercial successes from a gameplay point of view) and some are even financially successful.

I think that Obscure gave good reason to see it as a rule. Depending on players to "play nice" or not to "take their ball & go home" would be risky. No matter how well you sugar coat it, no one wants to be the victim or taken advantage of. Also it could open up abusing of the system, "super heros" gather all the citizens somewhere safe & guard it so well that villians can't get at them to kidnaped or mugged.

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Original post by HAM Hopfully this won't be too much of a hi-jack.. but Why would this be a rule?

I guess you don't play many online games? The single biggest problem in the online gaming community is the players. People griefing in FPS, cheats/farmers/dupers in MMPOGs, people who disconnect as soon as they look like losing in an RTS.

Developers go to great lengths to try and develop ways to stop griefers ruining the game play experience and the OP is going to make a game that relies on them. It will be a blood-bath.

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Developers go to great lengths to try and develop ways to stop griefers ruining the game play experience and the OP is going to make a game that relies on them. It will be a blood-bath.

Hmm.. well the rule is poorly phrased.

I think the rule that you would like is the same rule that goes for most network apps: Never trust the Client

Now thats a bit different than Do not design your game world to rely on its users to function

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Some games that I woudl say follow the rule: Do not design your game world to rely on its users to function

Guild Wars.
Second Life.
CoH.
WoW, DAoC, UO, Lineage, etc.. (even though high level play is a ton easier grouped, but its not required).

Some Games that DO NOT follow the rule and DID design thier game worlds to rely on its users to function

NukeZone
WWIIOL
Planetside
Laser Squad Nemisis.
Tale in the Desert (eventually all this game is about is teamwork).
etc...

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I guess you don't play many online games?

I've played all of the above titles and countless more.


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We could probably argue what should go on which list.. but lets don't and say we did. Basicly the division line is between games that offer no single player game aspect. Its all multiplayer and relying on the users to be a game.

But, I do think that it is pretty easy to see that list one (following the rule) has more HIT titles. However, as my original point, that does not make the games that don't follow this rule any less of good games.

And secondly, pretty much ALL the games on both list follow the rule:
Never Trust the Client
Or at least they try to follow that rule as best as possible.

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Now there are some good games in the second list that arent following the don't rely on players rule.

It would be a shame if they would have followed that rule.

The point didn't have anything to do with teamwork. The point was that you cannot expect a player to do the right thing at any time. If a message box popped up on the screen every time a player took damage and said:
"Please press the R key to receive damage"
You should rather expect that NOBODY would hit the R key, rather than anyone at all. Thusly, you cannot expect Bob the civilian to stand around nicely while being kidnapped by Evil Jim the Torrent. As suggested, he may abuse the kidnapper, he may only want to be saved by a female superhero, he may log out or any other such thing.

Working together shouldn't be necessary, but it can be a core part of effectiveness of a successfull game. I posted a "mmorpg theory" a while back about a government system run by PCs, and how the government could affect the systems economic issues, but still be controlled totally by a PC. I'm willing to repost it if you promise to respond.