Hey Everyone, I'm here to discuss an idea in regards to MMorpg's. As the majority of developers are aware, the market is essentially saturated, yes there is a large player-base but the majority of players are reluctant to play a new game, as they've already invested so much time and possibly money into the experience.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how the achieve a sustainable player level in theory, as I don't have the resources to solo a project that size, and anyone who thinks they do, fair play. Okay so, the main idea I have is simply to allow the "importing" of existing players stats into the game from another, where the stats are similar. For example if Player_1 has a Sword-Fighting skill of 100 let's say and he chooses to join this world, we have similar sword fighting stats and the systems are somewhat comparable, allow his stats to carry over, perhaps not fully or not without consequence, but essentially not getting rid of his invested time within the existing online world.

Originality and Creativity are hard to come by, and essentially a gamble in the online market, people do not like change and are reluctant to do so in many cases, not to say they do not exist by a long shot, just to say they are uncommon.

Personally I'd be interested to hear feedback on the subject just for my own notes and research, thanks in advance.

-Craig

You would probably just have these people for a moment until they realize they have max. stats/level already and have no more need to actually play your game.

They would miss out on seeing most game content you produced, which would normally be different than on the other game, even if you cloned the game mechanics.

You would then probably be better off just adding more content to your older game (assuming it is your game, otherwise you had no data access and people would send you photoshopped screenshots to prove having stuff they never had and other people will feel cheated and run from your game).

In a traditional model I would 100% agree, now remember they would still have huge areas un-developed, they would have quests/tasks or whatever term is used to complete and end-game content would be more heavily populated. A system could very easily be implemented to scale mobs/quests for players using this system if they chose or something similar I'd imagine if the team were creative and the plans designed well, I see where you're coming from with the clone mechanics remark, but remember my idea would only be for similar but not identical, instead of one game overshadowing another they both manage to increase user bases. it would allow levelling/grinding or so and then unlocking end-game content for two games in effect.

There's no way other games would give you access to that data, so basically you would have to take the players' word for it, which is basically the same as letting the players start at whatever level they want. But beyond that I completely agree with wintertime - people join a game to play the game, unless it's the kind of game focused on special max-level content. If you let people skip the content below max level it devalues it, especially if you're not charging them a hefty amount of cash to start at the top. What really puzzles me here, though, is you seem to think people spend a long time in a single MMO. That doesn't really seem to be the case these days - who spends more than 3 months per game anymore? There's never enough content in the game to fill that much time.

Yeah, I agree about access to the data. They generally don't for that exact reason (and why should they?). In principle however all the max level players from the other game need not be a total impediment. You could have max level their game = half max in yours. Also you could have classes that the other game doesn't to encourage playing from scratch.

What really puzzles me here, though, is you seem to think people spend a long time in a single MMO. That doesn't really seem to be the case these days - who spends more than 3 months per game anymore?

That probably applies to people playing smaller indie or AA online games, but my understanding was that most players of AAA titles were loyal to a single game -- many World of Warcraft players only play World of Warcraft, many League of Legends players only play League of Legends, etc.

Now, any sensible indie or hobbyist probably should be aiming for a niche where they don't need to compete at all or ensuring they only need to compete with the smaller games rather than AAA titles, but I somehow have the impression that isn't strictly the aim of the original poster.

As others have said above though, how exactly were you planning on accessing the data? It's generally stored server-side, and the creators of other games aren't going to give you access to that. You could make some tool that grabs and exports the data from the client, but then it would be pretty trivial for any moderately skilled developer to rig it to output whatever they want, and if your game is at all popular someone would not only do so but would share the tool with others.

It's an interesting idea, and if you had your own existing MMO and were trying to migrate your own player-base to a new game it might work to some extent, but I just don't think it's at all practical for migrating players from other existing games. It also comes with additional problems: new players might be put off by the imported player-base that are already very high level, and you would need to scale your content or have additional content to make up for all those high level players skipping the lower-level stuff. It may also be difficult to directly translate some skills and abilities to a new game, leading to unfairness of "why did HE get all those skills, but my import only worked for this one?!?"

As others have said above though, how exactly were you planning on accessing the data? It's generally stored server-side, and the creators of other games aren't going to give you access to that. You could make some tool that grabs and exports the data from the client, but then it would be pretty trivial for any moderately skilled developer to rig it to output whatever they want, and if your game is at all popular someone would not only do so but would share the tool with others.

Do the opposite. Make them provide the username/password for their account, and make a tool that logs in/checks inventory/bank/whatever.

Some mmo's will send the client a unique item ID so you can prevent people making new accounts + sending the new account their stuff, and then registering at your game again.

if not, just make imported non-unique items untradeable. Soulbound style items could probably still be tradeable.

For currency, you might need to make them "transfer" it. If they want to use it in your game, simply have them trade it to another account (you own), and they want to transfer it out, trade it back to them.

This is kind of similar to what Chinese gold traders do, where a single gold trader will have a third party application with things like "Create new account", "Log in with existing account" and "Transfer inventory". When I quit archeage and sold my account, the process was extremely smooth.

Do the opposite. Make them provide the username/password for their account, and make a tool that logs in/checks inventory/bank/whatever.

That is highly unlikely to work at all. Speaking as WoW player (few years on my account, still p(l)aying :)). Unless you own both games and don't have to ask for player's username/password you can be instantly accused as scammer and thief. This is because account theft is quite common in WoW and scammers are becoming more and more "creative". Also many accounts are protected by tokens so just the password won't give access anyway. On the other hand WoW provides web based armory when you can check any character in game. As for proving it is your character it's more difficult, but also possible.

However back on topic. As a WoW player who invested quite a bit of time and money I don't think this is main reason to NOT switch to other game. I try other MMOs from time to time and they are fun but after 2-3 weeks (or at best months) I go back to WoW. Looking at population of those games I can tell I'm not the only one who try the new shiny than go back after some time.

Why players do this? Well - the one who figure this out will score a big fortune :) At least in case of WoW there are 2 key elements:

1.Interesting leveling without much of repetition and with different paths. So you can level a few toons without doing the same quests in the same locations.

2. Plenty to do at max level. Game should start here, not end.

TL;DR It is not time or money spent that prevents players to switch to other games, it's boredom that prevents them from playing. Make your game interesting for new and veteran players and they will come to you without character import.