My biggest complaints about MMOs are as follows: 1. Static worlds. This is any game where the world does not change until a new expansion or content patch comes into play. The world stays the same until the developers say its time to change. 2. Player affects on the game. In some games your player becomes so powerful that they can kill gods (EQ) but somehow thier actions have no affect on the game. (see #1) 3. Jack of all Trades. I don't mean in combat. Those classes are pretty well seperated. But at the same time you end up with someone who can run a shop, slay dragons, and a create a sword that would make Excalibur look like a letter opener. 4. Meaningless PVP. WOW is a perfect example of this. You have a sanitized PVP system that is either segregated from the populace at large (capture the flag) or it occurs in zones where there is no purpose behind it. 5. More levels = Exponentially more power. This ties back into PVP. When you create a world with MEANINGFUL pvp, being over-powered moves it to an end-game situation. Why should I have to wait until an "End-game" to be able to enjoy the focus of the game. 6. End-game. The point is there shouldn't be an end-game. Your players should never reach a point where they go "now what" They should never be working towards a goal of end-game to reach. There should be so many other things going on that moving a character forward towards an END should be counter intuitive. ------------------- Ok so I've ranted enough and now I would like to present my MMO system for you. I give a few examples with slight fantasy overtones, but it is a genre free concept. Character creation. Players choose their starting career as either merchant, crafter, or adventurer. Then they further classify themselves by class. Each class is focused on one aspect, but has a small ability derived from the other two careers. A fighter will have some haggling abilities in order to effectively sell his loot, and will be a skilled enough crafter to make field repairs to his weapons and armor. Advancement: I prefer to avoid levels, but for the moment I will leave them in. The concept though is one of diminishing returns. Levels 1-10 are training and characters gain tremendous amounts of power during the first ten levels. After that point, returns begin to dwindle and the playing field evens out. A level 75 character fighting a level 10 should have an approximate 60/40 or 70/30 chance of success, given all other options equal. Two to three characters lvl 10 should even to overpower the 75 character. This is important later on. ----------------- Crafting: Crafting should be highly interdependent amongst itself, and the other professions. A crafter should not be able to go and gather all the materials he needs by himself. I envision the crafting system as such. Gatherers: These are the raw resource collectors. They gather raw material from sources scattered around the world. Wood from a nearby forest, ore and metal from distant mountains etc. They return to a city, and sell the resources to a central hub. The hub purchases supplies from the players at a price based on supply and demand. Crafters: Crafters purchase raw materials from the central hub of the city, with the price set at a supply and demand price. They use the raw materials to create wares, which are then sold back to another hub in the city at prices dictated by supply and demand. However special orders can be made and sold directly to a customer, provided the crafter pays the appropriate taxes to the city. Merchants. Merchants buy wares from the central hub, and may then sell them in town, or purchase a cart and move the wares on the road, trying to make a profit at another area. Since each country/city/town has a different supply and demand, buy low and sell high may be the key to success. However, hire adventurers to ensure safe delivery of your goods, you never know when brigands will attack. Setting: Reguardless of the setting the key factor is a number (5-12) of governments in an unstable peace at the beginning of the game. Once the players start playing the game, the peace will eventually break. Each players actions will have a small affect on the AI's that run the various governments. Kill enough of another countries citizens, rob enough of thier merchants, etc. And war will be declared. Open and free (Open pvp is already available, but the lawless portion is not) PVP becomes available to citizens of the two different countries. Trade will be cut off, prices may rise etc. Once war is declared, the computer announces battle times and places. Players undertake quests to influence thier side of the battle. When the time comes for the battle, players participate, with bonuses applied to each side based on the number and type of missions taken by each side. Once the battle is finished the Borders between the countries are re-drawn based on the outcome. What was once your contries territory may now become your enemies. Eventually the AI's will come to an agreement and peace will once again be declared.....for a while. When you scale down into a specific government there will be various factions in vying for control of a government. Players can help/hinder whichever faction they like. Which ever faction is in control, thier AI's personality affects national policy. ------------ Crime and punishment: Bounty systems have been tried before, and usually fail due to exploits. I will try another system. First, the biggest problem with open PVP is the risk/reward system. If you are successful enough at open PVP the risk is not great enough to outweigh the rewards from being a brigand. The few times you are killed is easily offset by the tremendous rewards for all the times you are not. You get killed and lose 50k worth of stuff...oh well you've earned 450k since the last time.... In this system when you rob someone, they get to choose whether or not to report your crime to the authorities in the country they are in. If they do, you become a wanted criminal. For each crime you commit the price on your head increases. The bounty fluctuates based on the economy of the country that has the price on your head, and estimated price of goods stolen. Any citizen of that country may take up the bounty on your head, or, if the appropriate fee is paid, a citizen of another country may take it up. If you are caught and defeated your character is sentanced to a "Play time" (i.e. 5 logged in hours OR 3 real time days) jail sentence that can only be offset by paying a percentage of your fine. Your fine is set at a high multiple of your bounty. (Example, 50k bounty, 500k fine.) Paying a percentage of your fine, reduces your sentence by the same %. In a state of war, the crime and punishment is flagged as off for crimes between citizens of the two warring countries. Well this has been a long post, but I wonder what you think.

I would hate playing an mmo like that. o.O Being a crafter who is dependent upon other crafters and merchants would suck to play. The materials would pretty much always cost more to buy than the products would sell for, and with so many professions there probably wouldn't be many recipes or much gameplay in each. What I personally would love to see is an mmo where there aren't professions, there are profession tech trees where one character can climb all of them, and can gain some of their xp by crafting instead of fighting. And the pvp? Pvp _belongs_ segregated off from the main game so jackasses don't harass you all the time while you're trying to craft or quest or be afk so you can do something irl for a minute.

Maybe there are people who would love the game you describe and maybe I'm not in your target audience. But honestly I think any player who loves crafting would hate the setup you describe.

Most games out there now require you to rely on someone to gather the resources for you. On top of that from most crafting systems I see, you don't make much money on your crafting until VERY late in the game. Until then you grind your way up, repeatedly throwing away the grind items, and then only truly making alot of money on the rare "exceptional quality" makes of the craft.

With this system you are not as reliant on the other players as you may think. If you are a crafter your primary relationship will be with gatherers. If they are not gathering materials you want you put in a demand for them via the hub. As demand rises, gatherers will bring in the materials you want as that will be the biggest moneymaker.

You are not tied to merchants at all. They are more tied to you. Just like you put in orders/demand for specific materials, they will have to do the same thing for your goods. You go to the hub, and see what goods are in demand, build to those specifications and then turn around and sell it to the hub for a profit. You may not see alot of profit since you have to buy the raw materials. But, so long as you build to the demands of the merchants, you won't go broke. However if you build against supply and demand you will not see profits at all.

As a crafter you would NOT be tied to an adventurer unless you needed a specific loot item for a special recipie. In which case you would be tied to an adventurer in another game anyways....usually through an Auction house system.

As mentioned earlier, each career would have minimal skills in the other professions. As a crafter you would have a defense skill equal to a lvl 10 fighter. (remember earlier that this puts you at a 40/60 or 30/70 disadvantage mano-a-mano) so if you traveled in groups, you would be safe from one "Jackass" who wanted to rob you.



I really think interdependency is a key to an immersive MMO. The system is designed so that you CAN'T do everything. I believe you and I are diametrically opposed in that area. You specifically want "profession tech trees where one character can climb all of them," while I see that as a way where you have a massively single player game.

My goal is NOT to force everyone to group together, it is to force everyone to in some way shape or form RELY on each other, even if they don't interact.

Also remember since the playing field is pretty level, you don't have to worry as much with the random asshole that comes by and starts one-shotting everyone. If someone does try that 3-4 people get together and wipe him out.

Personally I like being a self-reliant jack of all trades who is not dependent on anyone else. Most of the people you meet in an mmo are either stupid or mean, and if you meet a few nice ones they're either not online when you need their help or busy doing their own stuff, not to mention how hard it is to communicate while being busy fighting. And I just enjoy soloing for the feeling of having accomplished something all by myself. The best kind of crafting to me is when I craft something that I myself want to use, and I prefer only crafting one or a few of each item because it becomes too much like work if you have to act like a factory. But like I said maybe there are people who would like your design.

I have to disagree with #3. I don't see the point in deliberately restricting what you can do in the world. From what I understand, your beef with #3 is that it's unrealistic?

Imagine you have to pick an additional class: Shopkeeper, DragonSlayer, or Sword Crafter.
If you are not allowed to do anything other than what you pick, it would be devastating.

I see nothing wrong with being able to do all these things.

Now, #1 and #2 I cannot possibly agree more! Anyone who promotes these ideas to any degree has my support and my monthly subscription! Heck, I'd even be willing to Microtransact for a world I can change!

-Humblest of Hobos

1 and 2 I can definitely agree with. Though it is hard to implement, so I can understand. When you got someone kill "gods" left and right, the world would be changing too much, and it'll be hard to keep up with such changes. So I can understand but the small changes like maybe a burned down house, that should be doable.

3 should be doable, like the others have said, its hard to find good mature people on MMOs, and most people play with friends they know in real life or the rare people they can get along with. So 3 should be legal, however limited so that they can't master all the skills. Like if you go into a fighting class, you can't make the uber weapons. Maybe a Jack of all Trades and master of nothing.

4 I could not disagree more. You mention Brigands attacking, this allows people to play their own part in this. They can be the brigands to kill and slaughter. I know the frustrations of getting killed going from one place to another, but its just something that you have to deal with.

5 depends on the game. If you play Ultima Online (God bless that game with a properly made sequel please!!!) then the fun part comes whenever, though its true that killing the higher monsters are funner, but you can be a merchant in that game, and I found it to be a good deal of fun for a good while.

6 seems rather unavoidable, unless you implement a forever death system. I mean that when you die, you're dead, go make a new character. This, however would aggravate ALOT of players and is a potentially huge lost in profits, which is what you'd most likely want.

Another system though that I thought up, and that I don't mind sharing since I don't have any intention of making an MMO, is a gene child system. What is it? Well, its bascially, the character you make can only live for so long. After his life is over, you play a whole new character but with inhereited skills, but of course its limited. Like you made a master swordsman with 1000 points in swordsmanship. Well,the child would retain 20 percent, and he'd have a head start but he'll have to build the character again.

That system too though, can cause you to lose players. No one likes to have their character torn away from them after building them up so much.

As for Jail time, it should be permanent, but with an escape route that opens randomly, like 3 times a day. (or more) And each time its a different path that has different monsters of varying levels.

Also, another thing about MMOs, it should never EVER be class based, it should always be skill based, like UO, the ability to spread your skills or learn on branch should be up to you at any point in time. Limiting it is just stupid, atleast for MMOs. Also, UO merchants are sometimes reliant on other players, for portals to travel. Just thought I'd throw that in there since you mention hiring protectors for traveling. And it has a crime thing in there too, though its not used since no one would pay teh game to have a bounty on the killer/robber.

I have to agree with you on Ultima, It has alot of what I already like. However, the game itself just does not stand up to the test of time. I applaud it for what it did, and how it worked, but the problem is that every game since has ignored its model and followed the EQ model, with some exceptions.

I think you mis-read #6. #6 is a by-product of EQ and the other current generations of games. My complaint of End-game is that thegame is designed to be a grind up to the time you finish the level curve. Then they add in special features like raiding, that you cannot do unless your topped out; or PVP, which though you CAN do, you can't truly participate until you reach the end-game levels. IMO the game should be designed where there is either a) so much to do that leveling to the "end" is not a focus, or b)designed in such a way that the end-game level activities can start earlier, and still be effective at much much lower levels.

My reasons for disliking player being able to do everything is not JUST that its unrealisitic. If that were the case then there wouldn't be magic either. My real issue is that the more the player can do, the less he relies on other players for anything. For an MMO this is a bad design flaw in IMO. The reason you limit characters is so that they need to interact. If you can do everything, why do you need to interact with anyone. Please note when I say interact I DO NOT mean you have to play with, group with, or have meaningful connections with. While this is the goal, it is not a forcing. I like solo play as much as anyone. The more interactivity you have, the more the playerbase will build up as a community, vice a collection of individuals playing the same game by themselves. Its a tricky balance, allowing people to solo, while encouraging them to interact. I believe the moste dependant career in the game concept would be the gatherer. Who would be out in the wild, and have little fighting skills compared to the adventurer brigand.


Another reason I'm not as worried is the reality of alts. People WILL build alts, and unless I limit players to one character per server, it's going to happen.

As for #4, my complaint comes with its meaningless in the game. It is either so segregated its like a seperate game with no affect on the world at large. Or its open, and there's no consequences for it. For an MMO, if it is going to have PVP, then the PVP needs to be influential on the game. It can still be segregated away so if you don't want it, you don't have to participate. But the outcome of PVP should like everything else affect the game world.
If you do allow Open PVP in areas it needs to be set up in such a way that you don't have bullies preying on those who cannot in any way defend themselves (wow 75 vs wow 25) or have a system where those who do participate face potential consequeces for it.

#5 the point is Exponential growth. It also boils back down to any game that has character competition in it. A person at the endgame level is so powerful compared to the low level people, that there is no competition between them. If you are playing Open PVP this means that you get one-shotted because your not at end-game. While leveling should get you more power, it should be a system of diminishing returns, not exponential growth. I should be able to kill you with some lucky shots if I'm weaker than you.

Yea, I got you... the reason I said what I said was so that you can't ever truly avoid the level grind. So that even if you do make it up there, you're gonna get knocked down again after a while, due to death of character. Of course, this should include the change of the high end stuff you said, like raiding where its only available to those high characters. Limiting what a person can do is just stupid in general.

As for doing everything, its not unrealistic. Like I said, you should be able to spread your skills out, but you suffer from spread out skills. Like UO had a skill cap of 700, you that you can only master 7 skills or a couple of skill mastered and a couple of skill a bit high, or all of your skills are low and spread out.
Much like a real life person, you can go into programming, art, writing, 2skills, or all 3. However most likely you aren't going to be as good as someone who only goes into one skill. Also, to make people more reliant on other players is to make the best things available to masters. Like GM made armors and weapons (UO items) that is better made and stronger than normal. If you play custom shards, sometimes you have to master magic and blacksmith to make a super powerful magical weapon.

As for what you said about pvp, I can understand it. But instead of taking it out all together and having it done in an orderly manner, it could be accomplish in another way. (Or imo anyway) A pvp balance system. damage is reduced by a good percentage when dealing with player characters compared to monsters.

Example:
Player 1 - Can do 1000 damage to monsters who have tons of hp to withstand it.
Player 2 - Can only do around 100.
Player 1's damage to player 2 is reduced to maybe 250.(25%) While Player 2's damage is raised by 25% as well, to 125. It enables a fighting chance or rather a better safeguard for lower level characters.

Thats just a quick example, of course if it were to really be implemented, it should have a better algorithm that makes it better balance by using the difference in power levels.

I hate levels by the way, it should be done like UO, where it is dependent on usage to gain skills proficiency.

While not in this post, I'm not a fan of character classes either. The reason they are implemented in most games is 2 fold. The first being they are simple to choose if you are a new player. The second is that they are easier to balance.

I also agree with levels. However, the reason I use them in the write up is mainly as an easy to grasp concept of power.

I personally favor a system of skills and skill decay. The way that system would work would be you can level any skills you want. However as you play and not use a skill it slowly decreases from maximum attained to a certain level. This represents the skill not being used and the player becoming "rusty" in it. When that player begins using that skill again they "shake out the cobwebs" and gain XP or skill points back at a greatly accelerated rate (say 2-5 times normal) until which time they reach maximum and thier skills advancement rate returns to normal. The only way to keep up all your skills is to balance the time between the effectively. Which of course slows your overall advancement.

Yea, I gotta agree. In a way, for me atleast, the perfect MMO is Ultima Online but enhanced.