It occured to me that MMO games have huge untapped potential, but it seems there is nothing but rpgs, and to make things worse, all the rpgs are the same. So I was trying to come up with possible ideas to make them more entertaining. One of the main challenges, IMO is that everyone want to be the hero, or at least be important is some way. Which isnt true with a level 9 ranger hunting orcs that just spawn over and over. The othere thing I was trying to figure out -- which is related to what I said above -- is how to create a story driven mmorpg. And in the process, encouraging players to roleplay. So heres some ideas I had. None of which I claim to be great. ----- One idea I had is having all characters have a background story. Like you create a character, and there is a prewritten background story assigned to him/her. This would require a large writting staff, but could give it an interesting twist. Expecially if the stories are intertwined with other players stories. I was also thinking about having a constant staff of writers/game gods, that are controlling events all the time in the game world. This would require good tools to control enemy spawns, weather, natural disasters, and a way to take control of any npc. Than they could take control of npcs (meddlers i would call them) to organize large groups to go on complex quests. (somewhat inspired by Gandalf in the Hobbit, except they wouldnt physically help). Othere more simple things would be having a greatly increased amount of interactivity in the world. Being able to construct building, weapons armour, or basically anything. --- I hope you enjoyed my rant, and have some (better) ideas of your own. PHRICTION

Phriction,

I like the cut of your jib, mister.

One MMO game you might not know about is SubSpace, which is free and run by fans for fans on multiple servers. It''s basically MMO Asteroids. I guess it''s not really massively multiplayer in that there''s no one centralized game world, but it is multiplayer and there are a LOT of people playing it... It''s quite hard to master, but a load of fun. If you just had one really gigantic map instead of multiple servers running separate ones, or the ability to fly from a map on one server onto a map on another server.

I also have considered the idea of a staff of "Game Masters" who run major plotlines. One elaboration I had is to have enough "hooks" for storylines lying around that anyone can play a role in at least a minor story... perhaps not saving the world, but making some difference. The overall story could be influenced by the way people act out these subplots. Another is to have PCs who gain enough influence and power to be invited to become Game Masters themselves, and be in on the major power plays. This somewhat resembles your "meddlers" except that the players could be kept in the dark about some of the plotline, so their surprised reaction will be more genuine when events take a sudden turn.

Of course, part of the fun of multiple players is the plots and organizations that naturally occur whenever a bunch of people get together. You don''t want to have too much prewritten; some of the coolest events could come out of the blue, and you want to be able to react to spontaneity as well as have some sort of organized plotline. I have heard the anecdote of the unplanned assassination of Lord British, a supposedly immortal game god, in Ultima Online; whether it is true or apocryphal, I think it illustrates the immense value of spontaneity.

The prewritten backgrounds might be pretty hard, but realistically one should have some history in a world. My solution to this is a big cheat: every new character plunks down from a world like our own into the game world which is quite different, so you come in with no ties or past. Of course, as you begin to do things, you begin to develop a history and personal karma, which could be used by the game to alter your future plotlines...

Of course, I''m just tossing pie at the stars here. Now comes a tech guy to tell me why it can''t be done... which, of course, I appreciate.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

How about this for a development of the MMO strategy game...

You could go for something along the lines of what Westwood did with Red Alert 2 (or possibly Tiberian Sun, can''t remember), in that they have a map of the world, with each teritory being fought over by individual players, and the winner takes/holds that territory for their side.

You could develop this idea, for example making it possible to co-ordinate multiple players trying to take a piece of land, or having bases built on the maps in past still their (in various stages of repair!) when the next fight happens.

I dunno what you people think about, but I think it could be cool.

Jellybob. I''ll go get myself a login now

Hmm some interesting ideas here. I think I'd like to take some time to add to this. I haven't yet played SubSpace but I'll check it out after I finish posting here. The meddlers idea sounds interesting and I was thinking about what if it was players vs. meddlers?!?! Now these meddlers could be either staff of the comp. or specially picked players(perhaps limited number of alpha testers). They would have advantages over the common player. But they would still be restricted by certain rules. You could think of them as elementals or otherworldly beings or mini-gods. They would not have the advantage of numbers. Have maybe 6-12 and leave it at that number. Give them te ability to control spawn, quests, etc. This would create an interesting environment. The meddlers might fight between themselves, raise pc armies to fight for them, offer quests to certain pcs, they might be benevolent or malevolent. PCs might hate a certain cruel meddler(who might be some guy who loves to pk) and band together perhaps with a more benevolent meddler to fight that one. The meddlers would not be immortal. But instead of death they might be banished. There's a whole lot of potential in this as I see it. They would not be ultimate though. In other to check the damage they might cause give the actual administrators the godlike abilities to make adjustments as needed, keeping things balanced. I'll think of more stuff to add later.

Edited by - TechnoHydra on January 19, 2002 2:52:52 PM

Sorry post repeated. I'll make this one entertaining.
_/\-
-/\_
Look, it's dancing ASCII!

Edited by - GBGames on January 19, 2002 3:12:16 PM

A Tale in the Desert, or whatever it is called, is a game that will be script based for the most part, and these scripts can be changed during the course of the game to implement new "laws" that the players vote on. It is based in Ancient Egypt, and so the Pharoah is the one who gets to say what goes, and I believe he will be a player character. Lots of things can happen, and there is no violence.
Sounds promising, but it is still in development.

(Gorgeous graphics)+(beautiful sound effects)+(symphonic music)+(no gameplay) != Good game

Nevermind, i don't think anyone has taken "A Tale in the Desert." I just remembered the game i was talking about that had the same name was actually called "It came from the Desert."
My bad :/


- Kevin "BaShildy" King
Game Programmer: DigiPen
www.mpogd.com

Edited by - BaShildy on January 19, 2002 3:06:15 PM