Anyone ever thought about making a MMORPG that combines some of the elements of games like Castles and Stronghold? What I mean is that the focus of the game isn't on your character but your land . Players could build their own dungeons and strongholds and everytime someone died on their land they could collect their loot. There could be different building options for different classes and races. I guess you would have to design the game so that the world is large enough to provide everyone with some land to build on.

I don't know much about the game, but I think I've heard similar topics when people talked about Shadowbane. No idea how much it's inline with that you're talking about, which I think is a cool idea.

Ever hear of Birthright? It seems like it would be a great fit for this sort of thing.

This all sounds like it could get dangerously close to "MMORTS" but that's ok. Stronghold + Settlers + Total War + Dungeon Keeper + MMO = GOLD. [smile]

Yeah, you wouldn't want it to become a RTS game. Imagine a Rush! that would be very lame.

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Original post by flyingchong dofus is a very popular online mmorpg game www.dofus.com you can load it log in www.dofus.us you can find what you need

How is it related to this thread?

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I guess you would have to design the game so that the world is large enough to provide everyone with some land to build on.

I have toyed with the idea of an MMORTS game and to get around this "Everyone needs some land to build on so where do they get it" problem I though of a fractured world. Each player would have their own small realm (map). The players attack each other by forming "Rifts" to the target realm. Players would also be able to own multiple realms gained by defeating enemies and establish permanent rifts to them.

In many of the stronghold and Castles type games the player is able to conquer neighbouring territories and build castles on these too. This is what it would be like with the realm system, but the player would have an arbitrary topology to work with.

As an MMO mechanic it is good because it allows friends to easily get together for a friendly contest or team up to attack a more powerful opponent. It also allows guilds to form and share realms together.

It also allows you to avoid players who are off line being attacked as you can use a "Temporal Rift" as an excuse to lock off their realms (they can't be attacked and can't grow either).

Yes I like the idea of pocket planes.

Alot of effort would have to go into the game to make sure that everyones realm didn't look the same. After a while it would be very boring if every land you adventured in had the same building or the same castle design.

Something would also have to be done about the 24/7 power gamers.

Shadowbane is about the land as well as character as it is kind of an RPG/RTS mix if you want it to be. If you are an official in a guild than you can build the city by adding buildings, NPCs, trainers, ranking them etc. The way it was designed was pretty cool because for the players that didn't want the RTS aspect they just concentrated on their character and defending their city and land, whereas the people that enjoy the RTS and diplomacy aspects built the city and kept relations... and they also built their characters for fighting.

In Shadowbane you could attack and burn down and destroy cities and buildings, it was a really neat concept. The world was fully PvP so there was always warfare and strife and belonging to a guild actually mattered. The races all had different building types although you were open to building all of them if you could purchase a deed.

Take a look

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Alot of effort would have to go into the game to make sure that everyones realm didn't look the same. After a while it would be very boring if every land you adventured in had the same building or the same castle design.

Yes this was a problem until I heard about Spore. The system they used to design the buildings could be used to make each player's building different.

As for function, I solved this by just having buildings as shells and it was what the player put in them that gave them function. This would be through various items (like a forge, etc) and the character/troop the player put in them (like a soldier would train other soldiers or a mage would train other mages, a blacksmith would forge weapons and tools, etc).

This allowed players to trade items and troops in friendly exchanges, or if these objects were destroyed, could send a player back technologically.

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Something would also have to be done about the 24/7 power gamers.

My solution to this was to limit the number of realms a player could have at any one time as well as have a limited set of resources (some were renewable like food, and trees for wood).

This also meant that a full crafting system was needed that allowed players to craft many different types of weapons and items from various raw materials.

Yes, a power gamer could put a lot of time into the game (and there was an advantage to that), but any advantage gained was subject to a diminishing return which would eventually cease to be advantageous to continue.

All this means is that the power gamer would reach this limit faster, but overall they would not be better off.

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Original post by 00Kevin What I mean is that the focus of the game isn't on your character but your land .

The land becomes your character in this case, but you could do some interesting things with the idea.