Hoy hoy! There have been a lot of MMO thread lately and I hate to contribute to it but this is something I've been trying to figure out. A lot of people seem to complain at the fact that a quest is completed a million times by a million players with no actual result in the game world. Now I don't have a solution for this but this does kill the whole immersion(sp?) of the game world. This comes from the fact that every player *is* a hero. I was playing Guild Wars and I was annoyed at the fact that everyone was a "chosen one" in the game. WHAT IF: There was a random amount of actual 'hero characters' in the game? These characters would be significantly stronger then the average character. How could a hero be introduced on the MMO level? Obviously everyone would want to be a hero so what would keep a player from re-creating his character until he is a 'hero'... Maybe someone only finds out he is a hero after achieving a certain level (or having played a certain amount of hours)? How could the game stay pleasant for characters who aren't heros? I think it would be awesome to have guilds evolve around their heros. I know it seems this idea has just been vomited in this thread but it's an idea I've always found interesting.

I remember reading about Star Wars: Galaxies having certain players randomly become "Force Sensitive," whereby they could become jedi. I don't know how that panned out, but you may want to take a look at how they did it and how well it worked.


jfl.

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Original post by jflanglois I remember reading about Star Wars: Galaxies having certain players randomly become "Force Sensitive," whereby they could become jedi. I don't know how that panned out, but you may want to take a look at how they did it and how well it worked. jfl.

Thanks for the information. I read up on it and it seems that anyone can become "force sensitive" it just depends on how many badges you have? I've never played SWG but this is what I understand from a "force sensitive guide" I'm reading.

This hero system would have to be a chosen-at-birth type to avoid having everyone become a hero (where we'd be back at square one). Imagine having a forty man raid to meet a priest at the end of a temple where he says the Source can identify great potential... followed by a beam of light that points out the heros inside the raid group. To get to this dungeon you would have to have spent a lot of time on your character in the first place and going back inside and redoing the level would only end with the same results. Heck maybe sometimes no hero potential would be found.

I'm not saying that there would be a level where you'd NEED a hero since that would anger some players at the fact that they were blocked out of a lot of content... but it would help.

Interesting, but you could in theory just consider 'heros' as another player class. Every player class has strengths and weaknesses, and obviously, the 'heros' would have to have weaknesses as well, otherwise they would be invincible.

If you look at any super hero (at least, that i can think of) they all have at least one very threatening weakness. This could be used to introduce ways for non-heroes to compete, or even restrict the heros from becoming the only type of player worth playing as (As you pointed out).

For example, there could be certain quests that involve, i dont know, swimming. Every non-hero might have the ability to swim, but a certain hero's weakness might be water, and therefore, would not be able to take part in that quest.

Conversely, only hero's may be able to gain access to certain quests that mere non-heros cannot. It would IMO, be good to create dependancies on one another, so that the heros would need the non-heros to help them out in certain ways, and vice versa.

For example, a clan tries to complete a quest, and comes to a dead end that requires a hero in their party to advance. They could then ask a hero, who would perhaps have a 'heroic' status or 'reputation'. The higher the reputation, the more he can demand in exchange for his services. If the Hero fails to help them sufficiently, he would lose some of his reputation.

I could go on but I think I've said enough considering the gaping holes in the idea. It would basically dilute the 'hero' status to just another character class, the heros wouldnt be as 'special' as you really want. It would be just like having a mage in your party to cast a spell etc.

One last thing, if you manage to create a world where hero's truly are special, and non-heros can still have a fun, involving experience, what happens if a player is 'chosen' to be a hero when he want's to carry on being an average joe?

So I grind like a madman for 6 months, reach level 50, and find out the 14 year old Shenzhen-based gold-miner waiting next to me for his turn on a planar raid is 'The Chosen One'. He's now more powerfull than I can ever be, and all my hard work, sweat, tears and dead 'Powerfull Grey Rat' corpses will never let me be that good.

Then he offers to sell the character to me for 1,000 USD.

Wheeping quietly for the 6 MONTHS of my life I just WASTED, I log out, delete the the character account, uninstall the game, feed the CD to my dog, reformat the harddisk, junk the PC and swear off computer games for life.

Neo was a good idea for a movie; if I was Morpheus playing an MMOG (having spent my entire life Grinding to get to Level Uber), I would have been very upset...


Allan

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Original post by Multiverse One last thing, if you manage to create a world where hero's truly are special, and non-heros can still have a fun, involving experience, what happens if a player is 'chosen' to be a hero when he want's to carry on being an average joe?

Isn't that how it usually happens in real life? At least in the game he has a choice, just let the character molder and create a new one.

The problem with that sort of situation is that most (read everyone I have ever met) plays an RPG (single or mmo) to be the hero. Nobody plays a game to be the peasant. What fun would that be for them. Woohoo, I am paying all this money (even more for monthly rates) to play a game my character will never be above average at. Yep, that makes me want to play it. The intrigue of playing an RPG is that the player is a part of the story headed for great things. That is the problem with mmo type games. Nobody wants to be the servant. An interesting topic, I would like to see what ideas come out of it.

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Original post by sanch3x Thanks for the information. I read up on it and it seems that anyone can become "force sensitive" it just depends on how many badges you have? I've never played SWG but this is what I understand from a "force sensitive guide" I'm reading.

Right. When I read about it, they were thinking of making it like your idea (I haven't played it either, not much of an MMO fan). I guess they had too much resistence from their player base.

Having several heroes together is not altogether unusual or without precedent: Jason and the Argonauts. The difference is that each of those participants had gained reknown independently, and then banded together in pursuit of a genuinely mythical objective. MMOs, on the other hand, have players banding together pretty early on, making the "Chosen One" designation suspect, if not downright ludicrous.

The solution would appear to be the antithesis of MMOs, at least as popularly considered: have players adventure fundamentally alone. Perseus, Hercules, Achilles, Jason, Ulysses... they all made their names as individuals, only then attracting groups of dedicated followers - and not in all instances. Of course, not everyone wants to be the Chosen One, so you can have career paths split such that players who take on challenges alone gain massive multipliers of reward, such that they quickly establish their legend. Players who just want to quest and adventure, however, can find a Hero who seeks men to join him.

This seems so obvious that I'm sure at least one MMO out there already does this. After all, I've never played one.

Edit: Responding to a few new posts, the approach I detail also has the advantage of making heroic status a matter of player choice and effort, not some random selection algorithm that could breed resentment in players who want to be heroes but weren't chosen or frustration in players who don't want to be heroes but were.

Mabey it would be a good Idea to have heros, who are stronger than everyone else, but cannot fight PvP at all. After all heros are ment to be noble and save people, not kill them. I think this will cause for some people to not want to be heros, thus balancing things out a little.