Hi all,
By playing A LOT of mmorpgs I know what they need and how to improve them. One day I came up with idea to write/design my own one. Now I will explain you what do I need and what is story about.
The story.
The story is set somewhere in Middle ages in the kingdom of Mistforge. This kingdom was in in peace until Dark Lord Raphael rose from depths of the Abyss and started to corrupt citizens of this kingdom. Raphael was doing great job but brave league of heroes were assembled. The members of this kingdom were best Mages, Knights, Archers and Juggernauts that this kingdom ever had. Their only, for now, quest is to defeat Raphael and save countless innocent lives.
Basic Info
The game would have two currencies Diamonds and Gold.
Diamonds can be obtained from Recharges and Events
Gold can be obtained from everywhere.
Game would have 80 levels.
?Every class has their own specialties:
Mages - Healing and supporting party,
Knights - Receiving damage and defending teammates,
Juggernauts - Reducing enemies' Defenses/Resistances while dealing medium damage.
Archers - Dealing a lot of damage to both single and multiple targets.
Example of quests:
At first time entering game, players would have access to Choose Your Class Interface where they can choose their path.
Then they will be introduced to quests that would help them out by getting EXP and starter equipment that is required for further gameplay.
Example: Collect 10 Wood.
Rewards: • Beginners' Staff
• 2765 EXP
Also there will be bonus quests that will be introduced only during special events.
Hot Events will be also available through whole game. Special ones during Week 1 and rest after 1st week.
Maps:
There will be one map that will be available for all players of server called: Realm of Light. Every week there will be Light War where players of same time zone will be able to participate in this PvP event.

Also I except this game to look like Legend of Darkness, Wartune or Eternal Fury.
Thanks in advance :)

That's good, so what will you bring to the table?

Will you code, do art, music, create levels and maps in the editor?

Just asking, as you didn't really mention.

Welcome!

You probably don't want to post your email publicly on the internet, because armies of bots read the internet looking for email addresses to send spam to.

By playing A LOT of mmorpgs I know what they need and how to improve them.

That's a popular thing to say, but is mostly wrong.
You improve at a skill (like game design) by researching, practicing, discussing, AND playing.

For example, this doesn't make sense: "By eating A LOT of food, I know how to improve cooking."
People get better at cooking by eating, reading, cooking, and talking with other cooks. Not only by eating.

Playing games is not the same thing as research. :wink:

?

Every class has their own specialties:
Mages - Healing and supporting party,
Knights - Receiving damage and defending teammates,
Juggernauts - Reducing enemies' Defenses/Resistances while dealing medium damage.
Archers - Dealing a lot of damage to both single and multiple targets.

How is any of this new and improved over existing MMORPGs? This looks like the same kind of gameplay I played two decades ago with Everquest.

Collect 10 Wood.

We've been collecting X objects, visiting Y locations, and killing Z enemies for decades. :(

How about something new?

When cooking, you don't take everything that's good and mix it into one pot - it'd make a disgusting mess.

Game Design is not taking everything cool or fun and mixing it into one game - it'd make an unbalanced and boring game.

I'd really love to hear some interesting new game designs you can come up with, but first it has to be refined by several years of research. If you want to do some research, I'd suggest looking up Raph Koster; the Gamasutra website is also a good source of information, as well as the Extra Credits YouTube channel.

I concur in SotLs opinion that MMORPGs are drained of these days. The reason is quite simple, there are a lot out of them in different qualities but all following the F schema by having 3 sorts of quests

• Go and collect X of Y
• Go and Kill X of Z
• Go and get X of W from N

by the well known mechanics and classes

• Fighterer like character makes melee combat
• Rogue like characters are for sneaking and assassinating
• Archer like characters make distance combat
• Any Mage/Sorcerer/Whatever character uses 'abilities' to do something

Even Bethesda with there Edler Scrolls Online that made rumors of changing everything these way ended up by the known select your class and go for it system with the known two fractions hunting the one big bad guy.

Then the fact that almost 80 of 100 MMOs are free to play so you have 80 MMOs with 95% of the same gameplay that means the same mouse based controlling, some kind of round based attacking, same questing and levels ... but only with different 08/15 pseudo stories and the graphical setting that makes the difference.

So I would guess to first make a plan, read about how GDDs are written and make one before posting that you for yourself can rethink if that what you scribbled in your head is woth of doing it. I know that I'm talking about because working since 10 years at my own ideas in game design and even as long as on my RPG (without MMO but LAN capable) changing concepts every year a bit because rethinking of what is worth to be played and what will you get everywhere.

And in earlier days the gamers (and so the games) were more sophisticated what RPGs should look and feel like. Dungeons and Dragons, Kings Quest und Ultima Online

to mention just a few of the starters before World of Warcraft camed out and made playing MMOs more attention.

What I plan for example is a huge open world with several countries on them depending on the players race (1 out of 12 or two if paired with another race) you will start in a random location with a random social state and ancestry based on a DC100 draw, completely attribute and skill based character design without fixed classes in a more Elder Scrolls like style (the singler player ones not the online version), I have formulars for experience gain based on players level, calculating enemies dynamically depending on the progress and a lot more without fixed level (because getting all skills together on the max of 40 points what will generate a +19 in the formular so you have a chance of 1/20 that you fail would need at least up to 250 level ups) or a straight quest line (primarily based on exploration and small optional storielines), fractions and anything else that got used over the time the last years. But I wont call it inovative but play worthing.

That is what game design especialy of MMOs makes the difference when you think about your own ideas and not going to template anything existing as a 1 on 1 copy

That's good, so what will you bring to the table?

Will you code, do art, music, create levels and maps in the editor?

Just asking, as you didn't really mention.

I was thinking to write GamePlay and how will in game systems work.

Welcome!

You probably don't want to post your email publicly on the internet, because armies of bots read the internet looking for email addresses to send spam to.

By playing A LOT of mmorpgs I know what they need and how to improve them.

That's a popular thing to say, but is mostly wrong.
You improve at a skill (like game design) by researching, practicing, discussing, AND playing.

For example, this doesn't make sense: "By eating A LOT of food, I know how to improve cooking."
People get better at cooking by eating, reading, cooking, and talking with other cooks. Not only by eating.

Playing games is not the same thing as research. :wink:

?

Every class has their own specialties:
Mages - Healing and supporting party,
Knights - Receiving damage and defending teammates,
Juggernauts - Reducing enemies' Defenses/Resistances while dealing medium damage.
Archers - Dealing a lot of damage to both single and multiple targets.

How is any of this new and improved over existing MMORPGs? This looks like the same kind of gameplay I played two decades ago with Everquest.

Collect 10 Wood.

We've been collecting X objects, visiting Y locations, and killing Z enemies for decades. :(

How about something new?

When cooking, you don't take everything that's good and mix it into one pot - it'd make a disgusting mess.

Game Design is not taking everything cool or fun and mixing it into one game - it'd make an unbalanced and boring game.

I'd really love to hear some interesting new game designs you can come up with, but first it has to be refined by several years of research. If you want to do some research, I'd suggest looking up Raph Koster; the Gamasutra website is also a good source of information, as well as the Extra Credits YouTube channel.

Yea I see what you mean here, I gave this as an example, there will be more quests like Reaching Some level, gathering equipment sets etc. Also thanks for giving me this site/channel, i will check it out :)

I concur in SotLs opinion that MMORPGs are drained of these days. The reason is quite simple, there are a lot out of them in different qualities but all following the F schema by having 3 sorts of quests

• Go and collect X of Y
• Go and Kill X of Z
• Go and get X of W from N

by the well known mechanics and classes

• Fighterer like character makes melee combat
• Rogue like characters are for sneaking and assassinating
• Archer like characters make distance combat
• Any Mage/Sorcerer/Whatever character uses 'abilities' to do something

Even Bethesda with there Edler Scrolls Online that made rumors of changing everything these way ended up by the known select your class and go for it system with the known two fractions hunting the one big bad guy.

Then the fact that almost 80 of 100 MMOs are free to play so you have 80 MMOs with 95% of the same gameplay that means the same mouse based controlling, some kind of round based attacking, same questing and levels ... but only with different 08/15 pseudo stories and the graphical setting that makes the difference.

So I would guess to first make a plan, read about how GDDs are written and make one before posting that you for yourself can rethink if that what you scribbled in your head is woth of doing it. I know that I'm talking about because working since 10 years at my own ideas in game design and even as long as on my RPG (without MMO but LAN capable) changing concepts every year a bit because rethinking of what is worth to be played and what will you get everywhere.

And in earlier days the gamers (and so the games) were more sophisticated what RPGs should look and feel like. Dungeons and Dragons, Kings Quest und Ultima Online

to mention just a few of the starters before World of Warcraft camed out and made playing MMOs more attention.

What I plan for example is a huge open world with several countries on them depending on the players race (1 out of 12 or two if paired with another race) you will start in a random location with a random social state and ancestry based on a DC100 draw, completely attribute and skill based character design without fixed classes in a more Elder Scrolls like style (the singler player ones not the online version), I have formulars for experience gain based on players level, calculating enemies dynamically depending on the progress and a lot more without fixed level (because getting all skills together on the max of 40 points what will generate a +19 in the formular so you have a chance of 1/20 that you fail would need at least up to 250 level ups) or a straight quest line (primarily based on exploration and small optional storielines), fractions and anything else that got used over the time the last years. But I wont call it inovative but play worthing.

That is what game design especialy of MMOs makes the difference when you think about your own ideas and not going to template anything existing as a 1 on 1 copy

I've thought that this will be Browser MMORPG, but yea maybe this what you have suggested is better :)

Ty all for replies, I will see what i can do to improve and also will gather good info from literature that

Servant of the Lord

gave me :)

"I was thinking to write GamePlay and how will in game systems work."

Jolly good. You'll just need to get several tens of millions of dollars to pay your software developers with and you're ready to go.

"I was thinking to write GamePlay and how will in game systems work."

Jolly good. You'll just need to get several tens of millions of dollars to pay your software developers with and you're ready to go.

Maybe not.

The OP hasn't mentioned what THEIR idea of MMO is.

Are we talking 500 players or 500,000?

500 players to 5000 players is easily achievable on cheapish dedicated server or virtual machines, and is well within the hobbyist or indie budget (but don't necessarily expect to make enough to even cover hosting costs, I've ran such games before with 1500 players and did it for free, didn't make a penny) but the 500k range, well that's a case of "hi, we are blizzard and we are going to BUILD a new datacenter for our MMO and staff it 24/7 with techs).

Consider wisely :)

In my opinion people are too quick to decide they want to make an MMO. They don't fully understand the limitations those games have to deal with. Really think about the game you want to make and take into consideration both your available resources and those limitations then decide whether the game really needs to be an MMO or maybe would be better off as a co-op title.

What is the point of this post? To discuss theory, theorycrafting the perfect MMORPG, and indulge in the game design challenges of designing a game that will never exist? If yes, then go on... that certainly is a fun thing to do, and I guess fits this forum just as well as discussing more practical challenges.

To discuss if the idea is feasible? If YOU could pull it off? Sorry to say, but then there is little to discuss. No and no. Guess others before me put it better than I could here. I will still try to give some reasons below:

1) Scope: MMOs cost 100's of millions of $ to produce.

You CAN save some money on a simpler presentation (meaning simple 2D graphics for example, no voice acting, simple sound design), you can cut features (no need for housing, crafting, or many other "side activities" if you want to concentrate on RPG Combat). Even after that, you have to face the reality that building a networking that CAN handle the massive amount of online players needed to put the second M into Multiplayer online game, AND the cost of maintaining the server farms needed for that is a lot of time an money to put into a game which has become pretty bare bones by now.

2) MMOs are extremly risky, pretty much suicide for most studios nowadays:

Developing an MMO costs a ton of time and money. Yet the market of MMORPGs is EXTREMLY oversaturated, to the point where a ton of actually quite good MMORPGs failed in the market, went free to play or were canceled, sometimes quite late, during development, in the last few years.

Unless you are not doing something VERY different, don't bother with the additional cost and overhead of making your game a MMO. If you have a high chance of failure, might just as well cut the cost in half by dropping the Massively from online multiplayer, while enabling your game design and story to go in a different, more interesting direction because you are no longer bound to the severe gameplay and story limitations of an MMO, or even Multiplayer game.

Most things that get the MMO sticker nowadays are actually more Online Multiplayer games with a quite elaborate online lobby. Games like World of tanks, Overwatch, or similar are clearly far from the MMO ideal of yesteryear ("1000's of player simultanously in one big combat fighting each other")... yet they are often labeled as MMOs.

Those are the lower cost, lower risk "MMOs" of today. If the big studios are no longer really wanting to touch a big monolithic MMORPG in the veins of a WoW, you can tell that maybe its a bad idea to do so (at least until WoW one day will die a natural death).