I don't want to create a fable online game persay. But there are elements of the game that I enjoy and would like to implement in a mmorpg. Will it be possible to put such elements in a large online game? Elements such as: Marriage(I know this has been done, but I want to have more benefits than just a title saying two people are married) Children(two players creating a PC child together based on their stats) House ownership NPC's reacting to player personality and past deeds/actions. Some player actions in town affecting town economy ETC. Can things like this be done easily? Or did I just add another few years onto my game completion goal(which is currently an optimistic four years)

Anything can be done with games. How easy depends on the technology you have access too and the knowledge you and your team possess.

The elements you wish to implement are all possible but how long they will take to implement? That depends on how the systems work. Designing them will be your best bet to figure out exactly how much added work will be needed.

Creating a child? Could be as simple as player 1 requesting player 2 through a pop up UI menu to have a child with them. If accepted a simple NPC could spawn with added option for the players to interact with them.

On the other hand it could be as complicated as you want. Needing entire new systems to manage your elements/features is what will add to your development time.

I'd suggest designing the game as a whole but aiming to make a starting feature set then have the room to move within your programming/engine to adapt for later implementations.

A good MMORPG should already have all those features.

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Original post by Dasha I don't want to create a fable online game persay. But there are elements of the game that I enjoy and would like to implement in a mmorpg. Will it be possible to put such elements in a large online game? Elements such as: Marriage(I know this has been done, but I want to have more benefits than just a title saying two people are married)

If Marriage is more than just a title change for the characters, it has to have some gameplay effect. If social play is an important gameplay element (and as an RPG it is very likely), then Marriage can have this social gameplay effect.

What you have to think is what advantages (and even disadvantages) are associated with marriage in your gameplay? What reason would two players have to get married? And, what costs are associated with being married?

For instance, only married couples can chose to have a child. The costs could be that the couple has shared responsibilities (including the children they have).

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Original post by Dasha Children(two players creating a PC child together based on their stats)

Again, what is the gameplay of having a child? If players can have social status, or some effect that could potentially be passed onto descendants, then this would act as a benefit of having a child.

The costs could be that the child take time before it can be used as a new character, and in this time the players have to both support the child (spend a certain amount of time interacting with the child, pay for food for the child, education, etc).

If a player could initiate a child creation by sending a request (I would have it that the characters have to know each other first - perhaps by limiting children to married couples) to them. This request would mean that the initiating character would get a child (after a short time). When the character that initiated the child dies, then that player can now take over the child as their PC and it can inherit things from the original PC.

I would also ahve it that it would take time for the child to develop to a point where the player could take over it as a new character and during this time there were costs involved in "raising" it.

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Original post by Dasha House ownership

House ownership can be good, but again this needs to be more than titular. If all a player can do with their house is to furnish it or just use it to store loot, then this is not much of an interesting inclusion, and the time needed to create it and the costs on the server would not really justify its existence.

So, again as with the other inclusions, you have to think about the gameplay aspects of owning a house.

Can players buy and sell houses (and create a real estate market in your game)? Does owing a house convey certain advantages to a character (if the game is more than just about killing monsters for their loot, does the house convey some kind of social status)? What are the disadvantages of owning a house?

Also note, that in medieval times (which most fantasy games are based on) property ownership was not very high. Owning land meant that you were of the nobility. Serfs were considered part of the lands, just like one would consider a fence or a shed. Peasants ere not much better, but they were not part of the lands, but were allowed to rent lands from the owner.

So if owning lands meant that you were nobility, then allowing players to own land in a medieval style game should mean that they were nobility. Nobility had certain responsibilities (like protection of the people on their lands), and would have to fulfil them.

Often these were expensive. In the nobility social status was very important, so any nobles had to maintain a certain style of living. Also nobles would have to occasionally entertain their lord (duke, king, etc). This could be very expensive as the noble would have to support not only just the lord, but their retinue in a style that they were use to (often a much more lavish style than the noble would normally be in), and this could go on for months at a time (but the reward was an increased social status if the lord was happy with their stay).

Putting all this into a game might be hard, especially if the players are going to be the ones implementing this.

What you have to do is think of the gameplay rewards that would encourage players to act in this manner, and what the costs of this is to the players (if there are no costs, then all players are going to attempt to do this and then there would be no base supporting it and it would collapse).

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Original post by Dasha NPC's reacting to player personality and past deeds/actions.

This is not too difficult technically. The only problem is that it requires large amounts of storage space, and in an MMO, storage space costs the providers money, so you have to justify it in terms of player enjoyment.

All you need to do is to store, in variables, the past actions of the player that the NPC knows about. Then use a decision tree as to how the NPC will react. You need to look at Heuristic algorithms or Fuzzy logic if you want to make it more realistic. But all of these cost processing time, which is another cost for the MMO provider.

Actually, the decision can be really simple, a single "IF" statement like:

If (PCReputation > FriendThreashold) then Action=FavourdAction else Action=NonFavourdAction

Admittedly, that is a really simplistic one, but it still has some scope for interesting behaviours.

But we come again to gameplay. What gameplay advantages is there for having NPC react to PCs based on their past actions? If all it does is change things slightly, like give different conversation trees, or make then charge a little more or less for their services, giving them quests, etc then this is not much gameplay created from such a system.

However, if there is a social network then such a system could be a good advantage.

I ahve been working on an idea for a trading game where the NPCs have a social network. The players, if they want to trade and enter markets much develop a standing in the social network and even navigate it to reach their desired goal.

For instance, if the player was wanting to trade in illegal goods, then locating a buyer might require you to first forge a good friendship with a minor trader and then that minor trader will introduce the player to someone else and so on until they find a trader that would be willing to take their goods.

Forging friendships in the game will usually (but not only) be done by making deals with that trader that nets that trader a profit. So if the NPC trader has a buyer willing to by Spice for 100 credits, and the player can sell spice to the NPC for 500 credits, then the NPC trader will be able to make a profit and so begin to like the player more.

But, the player is competing with other traders in spice who might be offering a lower price than the player. If the NPC trader learns of this, then they will not see the player's trade as a good trade and so the player will loose some reputation with the NPC trader (yes they will gain a bit because the NPC made a profit, but they will loose a bit from the fact that they sold it at a higher price than the others. The NPC will retain a memory of recent trades (but not long term memory) with the player and so this will mean that they can encounter other traders after the player (or even before the player sold them the spice).

As the player's reputation with the NPC increases they will look more favourably on trade with the player. So even if there are other traders offering the same or less price, if the player has a good reputation with the NPC, the NPC will trade with the Player because of their friendship.

Good will not be the only thing on offer. Information and reputation will also be tradeable, and this is how the player can learn about and get contact with other NPCs. First the player will need to contact the NPC, usually thorugh the first NPC trader. Then they will have to establish a reputation with them, which could also be traded by the first NPC.

As some NPCs will not trade without having an established reputation with the trader, this will mean that such social interactions will become necessary, and it is the memory of past interactions that makes this whole system come alive.

As you can see, this is a much more complex system than having a reputation of past actions of the PC change the price the NPC offers, or that the NPC gives the player new quests.

If you are going to include a social system like the reputation system, then you are going to ahve to make that system mean something. You are going to ahve to construct a social network system and give the player a reward for interacting and successfully navigating through it.

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Original post by Dasha Some player actions in town affecting town economy ETC.

Put simply: Medieval economies were not Capitalistic economies. They were an economy based on social standing.

In capitalistic economies, one tries (invests) to increase ones capital (assets) by using capital one already has. As asset gives a return (assets can be used to increase the amount of assets), then one can borrow money from someone or an organisation that has a lot of it and then use that money to increase (leverage) the amount of capital you can potentially increase (and so give the amount of money borrowed and a little bit extra back - interest - to whom you borrowed it from).

In Medieval economies, you would use the assets (land and the people on it) you have to buy luxuries that demonstrated the size of your lands. This reputation would lead to marriages that would have as part of it transfers of land title.

The difference between a Capitalistic economy and the medieval one is that Capitalism uses Capital to increase Capital. In the Medieval economy one used capital to increase reputation.

Medieval economies operated like a person on a fixed income. In Medieval economies, saving money was the aim of most people. In capitalistic economies spending money on investments is more important.

This is important as the differences mean that the different economies react differently. These differences can be traced to the social structure.

The social structure determine the type of economy and the economy determines the social structure.

It is why economies in games tend to not work very well. People try to have the wrong type of economy for the wrong type of social structure, or they have an intend social structure and economy, but there is nothing to encourage the player to form that kind of social structure so the players impose their own, incompatible, social structure onto it.

This means that you will need to look at the social structure that will form in your game (which is hard to do without players already playing in it) and construct an appropriate economic structure for it.

You also have to allow for the fact that any economic system that exists will impact and change the social structure that the players have created. It is a feedback,loop that makes it very difficult (but not impossible) to properly construct a viable economic system for a game.

In most RPGs, money grows on trees (well on monster corpses). As the source of money is infinite, then you have a potentially infinite inflation. The usual "fix" is to create sinks for that money so that any money added to the economy disappears into a black hole.

The real problem is, in the real world, money is a good, just like any other (in fact, that is the intent of money). Money acts like a "potential" good or service. When you give someone money you are giving them the potential to trade for some other good or service.

If money didn't exist, then it would be up to you to provide that good or service. So you might trade me a pig for a goat. You would ahve to own the pig and I would have to own the goat.

However, with money, You might want a goat, but I don't have one. So I trade you the potential for a goat (money) for your pig. You can then go and trade the money for a goat (and the money you give is the potential for that person to get some other good or service they need).

But that money doesn't disappear when it is traded. It remains in existence (in modern times this also applies, even if it is just number in a computer, but more so in medieval times).

If you are going to include a "source" of money in your game, like from the bodies of monsters, then you have to know where that money came from. Maybe the monsters are stealing money from the local populace. Well this means that the economy will be influenced by the actions of the monsters first, then when the players reintroduce that money from the looted corpse of the monsters, the economy should return to normal.

The problem is that the games have the local economy normal, and then the players introduce the disruption. It should be the players are removing the disruption to the normal economic situation.

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Original post by Edtharan Actually, the decision can be really simple, a single "IF" statement like: If (PCReputation > FriendThreashold) then Action=FavourdAction else Action=NonFavourdAction Admittedly, that is a really simplistic one, but it still has some scope for interesting behaviours.

To be fair, Fable II's system didn't really appear to have any more depth than this.

NPCs liked the player X amount, and reacted to them depending on the value of X.

A pre-determined set of actions they liked would increase X, and actions they disliked would decrease it.

I was rather disappointed by how shallow and uninteresting this mechanic was - you would stand around and perform one action repeatedly and everyone around you would start proposing marriage.

The general good/evil standing of your character added some weighting, but again could be negated by simply repeating an action.

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Also note, that in medieval times (which most fantasy games are based on) property ownership was not very high. Owning land meant that you were of the nobility. Serfs were considered part of the lands, just like one would consider a fence or a shed. Peasants ere not much better, but they were not part of the lands, but were allowed to rent lands from the owner. So if owning lands meant that you were nobility, then allowing players to own land in a medieval style game should mean that they were nobility. Nobility had certain responsibilities (like protection of the people on their lands), and would have to fulfil them.

You're confusing lands with houses.
Regular people did own houses, be them in villages or cities.

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Original post by loufoque Quote: Also note, that in medieval times (which most fantasy games are based on) property ownership was not very high. Owning land meant that you were of the nobility. Serfs were considered part of the lands, just like one would consider a fence or a shed. Peasants ere not much better, but they were not part of the lands, but were allowed to rent lands from the owner. You're confusing lands with houses. Regular people did own houses, be them in villages or cities.

Surprisingly little - a merchant or tavern keeper might own his place of business, but he most likely still rented the land it was built on from the local noble. A peasant certainly didn't own their own house (although they might have built it themselves), and the noble would be free to evict them.

However, RPGs focus on the military, and all military ranks above footmen tended to be comprised of nobility - so from this point of view, land ownership (usually by grant of the monarch) is not unreasonable.

Thanks much for all the help, especially to Edtharan. You seemed to get what I was asking despite my short and lacking post and gave me lots of feedback and lots to think about. So, thanks again.
My game is set in Medievalish times, and I never actually researched it. But I don't think I quite like the idea of only nobility owning houses, not that I want it to be cheap to do so though. I have a different sort of economy in mind.
I want the players to be able to connect with the few NPC's and the NPC's to "connect" with them. Its mostly a social game and I want as full immersion as I can get and as close to real life in the time as possible, but without sucking the fun out of it. There will of course be much room for players to go out and kill monsters and explore to their hearts content, but they will get more realistic rewards from that. If a player never wants to leave the city walls and venture out into danger, they should still be able to enjoy themselves.

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Original post by Edtharan If Marriage is more than just a title change for the characters, it has to have some gameplay effect. If social play is an important gameplay element (and as an RPG it is very likely), then Marriage can have this social gameplay effect. What you have to think is what advantages (and even disadvantages) are associated with marriage in your gameplay? What reason would two players have to get married? And, what costs are associated with being married? For instance, only married couples can chose to have a child. The costs could be that the couple has shared responsibilities (including the children they have).

I was thinking that married users can both live in the same house(so living costs go down), and that only they can have children without consequence(against the law to fornicate). But they must own a house to get married.

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Original post by Edtharan Again, what is the gameplay of having a child? If players can have social status, or some effect that could potentially be passed onto descendants, then this would act as a benefit of having a child. The costs could be that the child take time before it can be used as a new character, and in this time the players have to both support the child (spend a certain amount of time interacting with the child, pay for food for the child, education, etc). If a player could initiate a child creation by sending a request (I would have it that the characters have to know each other first - perhaps by limiting children to married couples) to them. This request would mean that the initiating character would get a child (after a short time). When the character that initiated the child dies, then that player can now take over the child as their PC and it can inherit things from the original PC. I would also ahve it that it would take time for the child to develop to a point where the player could take over it as a new character and during this time there were costs involved in "raising" it.

I hadn't quite thought of making costs to owning a child, though it does make sense.
I was thinking the combined skills that the parents have can be used to create a "better" PC character, or child. There will only be so much one can do with their character in one lifetime, and there will be many generations in each family.
I do like the idea of it taking time for the child to grow into the age where it can become PC and having to raise it.
And, there really wont be "requests" in the game. Just two people jumping in the bed and "having fun"(yeah...my game is gonna end up "T" at least, lol).

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Original post by Edtharan House ownership can be good, but again this needs to be more than titular. If all a player can do with their house is to furnish it or just use it to store loot, then this is not much of an interesting inclusion, and the time needed to create it and the costs on the server would not really justify its existence. So, again as with the other inclusions, you have to think about the gameplay aspects of owning a house. Can players buy and sell houses (and create a real estate market in your game)? Does owing a house convey certain advantages to a character (if the game is more than just about killing monsters for their loot, does the house convey some kind of social status)? What are the disadvantages of owning a house?

I want it to be easier for a player to rent out a house or land than to buy and own. I also have the idea that some(more illegal) items can not be stored in the bank or you will be reported for owning it. The house gives a place to hide things, and also a place to raise a family.

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Original post by Edtharan But we come again to gameplay. What gameplay advantages is there for having NPC react to PCs based on their past actions? If all it does is change things slightly, like give different conversation trees, or make then charge a little more or less for their services, giving them quests, etc then this is not much gameplay created from such a system. However, if there is a social network then such a system could be a good advantage.

I want more quality than quantity in this game. Like, if you've made friends with the NPC and you find yourself in a bit of a hotspot, like jail, you can call them up to bail you out. Or they may help you out and loan you some money if the banks wont give you any. Maybe give you a gift if they like you like that(though marriage between NPC's and PC's wont be possible). I want players to be able to have conversations with the NPC's(maybe limited, but still something more than whats out there know).

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Original post by Edtharan I ahve been working on an idea for a trading game where the NPCs have a social network. The players, if they want to trade and enter markets much develop a standing in the social network and even navigate it to reach their desired goal. For instance, if the player was wanting to trade in illegal goods, then locating a buyer might require you to first forge a good friendship with a minor trader and then that minor trader will introduce the player to someone else and so on until they find a trader that would be willing to take their goods. Forging friendships in the game will usually (but not only) be done by making deals with that trader that nets that trader a profit. So if the NPC trader has a buyer willing to by Spice for 100 credits, and the player can sell spice to the NPC for 500 credits, then the NPC trader will be able to make a profit and so begin to like the player more. But, the player is competing with other traders in spice who might be offering a lower price than the player. If the NPC trader learns of this, then they will not see the player's trade as a good trade and so the player will loose some reputation with the NPC trader (yes they will gain a bit because the NPC made a profit, but they will loose a bit from the fact that they sold it at a higher price than the others. The NPC will retain a memory of recent trades (but not long term memory) with the player and so this will mean that they can encounter other traders after the player (or even before the player sold them the spice). As the player's reputation with the NPC increases they will look more favourably on trade with the player. So even if there are other traders offering the same or less price, if the player has a good reputation with the NPC, the NPC will trade with the Player because of their friendship. Good will not be the only thing on offer. Information and reputation will also be tradeable, and this is how the player can learn about and get contact with other NPCs. First the player will need to contact the NPC, usually thorugh the first NPC trader. Then they will have to establish a reputation with them, which could also be traded by the first NPC. As some NPCs will not trade without having an established reputation with the trader, this will mean that such social interactions will become necessary, and it is the memory of past interactions that makes this whole system come alive. As you can see, this is a much more complex system than having a reputation of past actions of the PC change the price the NPC offers, or that the NPC gives the player new quests. If you are going to include a social system like the reputation system, then you are going to ahve to make that system mean something. You are going to ahve to construct a social network system and give the player a reward for interacting and successfully navigating through it.

I think that is a really awesome idea you've come up with, seriously. I can't even think of anything else to say about it. Just good luck and great job.

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Original post by Edtharan Put simply: Medieval economies were not Capitalistic economies. They were an economy based on social standing. It is why economies in games tend to not work very well. People try to have the wrong type of economy for the wrong type of social structure, or they have an intend social structure and economy, but there is nothing to encourage the player to form that kind of social structure so the players impose their own, incompatible, social structure onto it. This means that you will need to look at the social structure that will form in your game (which is hard to do without players already playing in it) and construct an appropriate economic structure for it. You also have to allow for the fact that any economic system that exists will impact and change the social structure that the players have created. It is a feedback,loop that makes it very difficult (but not impossible) to properly construct a viable economic system for a game. In most RPGs, money grows on trees (well on monster corpses). As the source of money is infinite, then you have a potentially infinite inflation. The usual "fix" is to create sinks for that money so that any money added to the economy disappears into a black hole. If you are going to include a "source" of money in your game, like from the bodies of monsters, then you have to know where that money came from. Maybe the monsters are stealing money from the local populace. Well this means that the economy will be influenced by the actions of the monsters first, then when the players reintroduce that money from the looted corpse of the monsters, the economy should return to normal. The problem is that the games have the local economy normal, and then the players introduce the disruption. It should be the players are removing the disruption to the normal economic situation.

For this game. There will be an entirely different economy and social structure than most. There will be X amount of money floating around the game. No random money from monsters or stores buying everything you have. Most everything will be either player owned or controlled, including stores. There will be a use for every part of every animal, but unless someone needs to use it then it may not get sold. A person can easily make money by working in another players shop(if they can't afford to have their own, which most wont), stealing it(Oh no!), etc.

I can send you the bare bones of my design doc if you'd like so you can get a better idea of what I am trying to do, just let me know. I would love any advice/critic you have.

I won't respond directly to any part, but I'll just address parts in the general text


If most players could potentially rent a house, then this solves the "ownership" problem as renting a house would be seen as equivalent to "owning" it. However, if you have nobility as an earned title (you said you want a social aspect to the game, then earning the nobility title might only be achieved by social means) and have the ability to rent this land to other players (and NPCs), it gives an income stream for any Nobility player.

If nobility then has certain responsibilities, like protecting the renters from harm (so dealing with monster threats by creating bounties/quests to kill them), tithing to their superior land owner (and ultimately the king), maintaining social standing (servants, fashions, entertaining superiors, games - jousting, etc, honour, dowries, and so forth).

Peasants rent lands and operate "businesses" (transportation of goods, processing of goods, farming, etc). Soldiers/Adventurers defend the lands from monsters and perform quests (or collect bounties) or raid lands for loot themselves. Nobility vie for Social status and organise the lands and offer bounties/quests to be performed.

This kind of system could actually lead to interesting stories. For example: The PC might start out as a peasant trying to get money from working on their farm. After several generations, the PC's farm might get attacked so they pick up a farm implement to defend their farm from the monsters. They advance through levels and by doing quests from the nobility, they earn respect. Eventually this respect might get them noticed and they might have a generous PC or NPC noble reward them of land title (they become a noble). After becomeing a noble, the PC is faced with a whole different set of challenges, that of the social network and their sword swinging would not really be much help in that arena.

This would actually create an interesting story that would be like the staple of the Fantasy literature.

If you allowed individual characters to permanently advance stats (however, they will die eventually) but that the lineage of the family to be able to wax and wane, then you can get some really dynamic stories and role playing occuring.

Imagine that a PC you meat states that his family was once second in line to the throne, but that they fell on hard times and now he is left running some dingy tavern for would-be Heroes. That would be an interesting lineage to play.

This requires a social network to be constructed, and for that network to be dynamic. This means you have to have some grasp of network theory and complex systems. These are not easy subjects, but you don't need an in-depth knowledge of them (phew).

Basically you need to set up "Agents", these are the basic entity of action in your system, this will likely be NPCs. Players, because they are an entity of action in the system, are by definition an agent as well (so I won't usually make a difference between a PC as an agent and an NPC as an agent, and if I do I will refer to them as such).

Agents need to be able to perform certain actions that result in a change to the social network around them. This should also have some knock on effects to agents in the network nearby. This allows any change to propagate through the network. You will also want to limit the spread of this, so some kind of dampening effect needs to be put in place (the strength of which you need to work out for yourself as you tune the behaviour of the network).

For these to work, and for it to be considered a network, your agents need to have some form of link between them. The simplest is a like/dislike spectrum and any individual agent an agent interacts with has a variable that is set to one of the values on that spectrum.

For example:
Negative numbers indicate a dislike, positive numbers indicate a like

Grunbar the annoying -10
Percivile the likeable +10
Amy the ambivalent 0

To propagate the information through the network, whenever two Agents interact, they exchange information about Agents the know in common, this simulates gossip. If they don't know an agent in common, then they don't exchange any information on them. this also gives us the dampening effect that limits the spread of the information. You might add in a small amount of extra spread by allowing the two agents to swap information about 1 randomly selected agent that they don't have in common to the other, based on the absolute value of the like/dislike spectrum (so that very disliked or very liked agents are more commonly swapped like this - it gives a Fame factor to the gossip).

So that agents don't end up with knowledge stored about every single agent they encounter, you can have them forget (erase) the information they ahve on an agent if they don't get new updates about them (either through direct interaction, or through gossip).

Depending on the like/Dislike status of the agents interacting, the responds to the information transmitted will be different. If the agent like the one giving the information, then they will take on the information as is (so likes are transmitted as like and dislikes are transmitted as dislikes). On the other hand, if the agent dislikes the one giving the information, then they will invert the like/dislike information transmitted. So likes will come across as a dislike, and dislikes will become likes.

Essentially you multiply the like/Dislike spectrum value being given by the like/dislike spectrum sign of the relationship of the transmitting agent. As dislikes are expressed as negatives you end up multiplying by -1.

Now we need the ability for agents to act in ways that can influence the immediate agent(s) they are dealing with. These actions should ultimately give an increase or decrease in attitude towards this agent. If you give someone money, this should usually cause an increase in like, however, if you did this to someone who didn't want it (as it might make them appear that they need charity), this is not as simple as a constant response (and this is where the complexity and realism of your social simulation will be).

You need to asses actions in the context that they occur. Did the agent ask for this action to occur? Did they demand it? Is it even wanted? Is the amount too large? Is it too small? Is it an appropriate action in this context? Are their other agents around that might see this interaction? Are their rivals that might see it? Are there allies that might see it (and ally might be offended that you didn't approach them for this, or didn't trust them with it)?

How you address these questions and their responses are the corner stone of how your social network will feel. This is where you can craft the attitudes of your society. You can even use this to craft the personalities of you NPCs with this as how they react to the player(s) actions will be how the player sees the persona of the NPC.

Too many RP Games fall into the thinking that conversation trees are role playing. They are not. Role Paying is about expressing a Persona through the actions you can take. In a Pen and Paper RPG, these actions are only limited by the understanding of the other players. In a cRPG, this is not the case, but it does not mean that computers can not allow this kind of gameplay.

As your game is about social connection between other players and (importantly) NPCs, then having a robust and deep NPC action/interaction system is essential. Euro style board games, and complexity theory show us that deep interactions does not have to come form lots of rules. It is usually a few simple, but well designed rules that allow these deep interactions.