sci fi MMO idea

wanderica

            This is my first post here, so I’ll start with a short introduction.  I have been playing MMORPGs since launch day for SWG.  It was my first followed by FFXI, WoW, EQ, EQII, and various others as I began my quest for the perfect MMO.  Of them all, pre-CU SWG was by far my favorite. I quit shortly after Jedi were introduced and have been perpetually sad ever since as I have looked on in amazement at the continued decline of what I once considered the pinnacle of MMO achievement.  This thread is not about SWG, however, so I’ll get to the point.  In my spare time, I often think about what an MMO would be like if I created it myself.  I put together an outline of ideas so I wouldn’t forget them.  This board is one of the most critical I have come across, so I figure it will be a great place to test out my ideas. 

           

Setting:

I think the genre is ripe for a good space sim, so in my “perfect MMO,” that would be an integral part.  We also, cannot forget about land based action either.  A good combination of both is necessary to make everyone happy.  The time setting is irrelevant in this MMO due to the fact that Earth and the Humans that inhabit it will not play a part in this game.  Oh, there will be humanoids just not humans from planet earth.  Think Farscape if you will.  Many different races will inhabit this galaxy, and as a result, you will have many different factions and groups.  I haven’t thought of any specific races at this time, but really, that is all just a skin.  They can look, and be called anything you can dream of. 

 

As mentioned earlier, both land and space will be a part of this game.  More of what I’m saying will make sense as I get further along, so just bare with me here.  All these races have to have a homeland right?  Wrong.  Most will yes, but I would also like to include one race that has lost its home world.  In exchange this race would get a bonus to faction as they have become experts at surviving and making friends and allies with anyone available.  More on faction later. 

 

Economy:

Two words: player driven.  In my opinion, it is the only acceptable option for many different reasons.  The main reason, however, is that in order not to limit aspects of the game, you cannot have a gear based progression system.  Crafting must play an integral part in gear, and money made.  As for currency, it really doesn’t matter what you call it.  Call it Eastern Albanian Camel Hair for all I care, but there will be only one form.  No tiers.

 

Now let’s talk about trade.  I’m not opposed to the idea of an auction house, but I do not want it to become the main method of trade.  In life when you want something, you get off of your butt and go to the store.  Now you will also have the internet and e-bay equivalent in my game, but just as in real life, shipping will cost you.  It would not be cheap to mail the Challenger to New Jersey and it will not be cheap to mail your ship 1000 light years away either.  Crafters will be the only method of obtaining end-game gear.  There are exceptions to this, but for now I will leave it as stated.  More later.

Transportation: 

I have decided to group ships, player transport, and fast travel into one category, because they are all closely related.  Everyone will have a ship.  Weather it is a fighter, merchant shuttle, stealth flyer or anything else is completely up to your chosen career path.  It goes without saying that this galaxy-scale game universe is dependant on the ability to travel faster than the speed of light.  This technology is known in this galaxy as Pulse-Technology Travel, or PTT.  PTT is enabled on your ship through your PTT drive.  This is how you can travel quickly between systems or planets.  As Han Solo said, it requires careful calculation.  You don’t want to fly through a star.  I take it one step farther.  Ever try to make a 90 degree turn at 100 miles per hour?  Now try that at the speed of light.  As a result, only certain places will be jump points.  Have no fear, they will be frequent, but we don’t want to ruin PvP now do we?

 

This is one of my favorite parts.  Guild ships.  This will serve as a guild hall.  It will basically be a massive ship with lounges, barracks, hangars for your personal ships, craft stations, a bridge, etc.  Any other player not of an enemy guild can dock at your guild ship with varying degrees of permission settings.  Due to the skill tree system, (more on this later) the guild leader may not be suited to be a pilot, or a gunner.  He can, however, designate applicable guild members into these roles.  The necessary skills to fill these roles are only required when in instanced guild vs. guild combat.  The guild ship or Crew Vessel will always show up on a player’s map.  It will also be a location to which you can jump. 

 

Faction:

After WoW, I loather faction grinds with every fiber of my being.  There will be no grinding here.  There will, however, be factions.  Every race is a faction.  Foreign relations in life are dynamic.  It will be the same in my game.  Relations between factions can affect everything from tax on goods, to being killed on sight by NPC authorities patrolling a certain faction’s space.  You as a player have control over this.  Want to improve relations?  Do missions to help your race’s reputation improve in that area.  Want to make relations worse?  Do missions to help out a faction’s enemy.  There will be no faction reward as that would be counterproductive to the whole faction system.  That said, if relations are good enough you will see discounted prices on goods and services when in friendly space.  The reverse is also true.

 

Skills:

Absolutely no player levels in my game!!  You start with 100 skill points.  Spend them wisely.  It is impractical to think that you could start out as a master of your trade, so experience will be involved.  You will need to work your way to the next tier for example.  I don’t have specific trees drawn up yet, but if there is enough interest, I can draw up some quick sketches and post them later.  I do have several ideas in mind though. 

     Craftsman/Merchant:  Pretty self explanatory.  If you want to make the most money without the hastle of combat, then this is for you.  All of your crafting tiers are also in here.   If you choose this profession then people can dock with your personal ship and browse your wares.  Other trades will need to sell via the auction house or vendors on the Crew Vessel.  I’m tired of the merchant class having no combat role whatsoever so I have decided in a twist of fate to give them the ship with the highest defense.  You will not be able to easily pirate a merchant ship.

     Pilot:  Want to be the one who can out fly others to get out of a sticky situation?  This is for you.  You are also the one capable of piloting the crew vessel in instanced GvG combat.  As piloting can be a combat oriented trade, there will be tiers designed to improve space combat.  A pilot that has mastered the combat tier will be relatively equal to a fighter.  Think speed vs. power.  In contrast, you will be able to specialize in more of the actual flying side of things.  A great pilot can squeeze more speed and maneuverability out of his craft.  A pilot will start with the fastest ship and a modest amount of firepower.

     Fighter:  As there will be land based battles, all trades will be capable of melee fighting.  Only the fighter has mastered this.  With more than one choice of specialization, however, the choice is yours weather you want to be a space fighter or more of a land based fighter.  Land based will have its place and time.  Most resources will come from planets after all.  If you should choose the space combat route you will have more firepower at your disposal.  A competent space fighter has mastered his weapons to the fullest, able to use them at maximum potential.

 

Combat: The next logical thing to discuss is combat.  Both PvP and PvE will be included.  Imagine your guild ship rolling up on another guild ship in a planned attack.  The hangars on both ships empty and you have 1 on 1 as well as the the main batteries firing on each other.  In the fray, a heavily armored and defendable merchant ship has managed to dock with the enemy’s ship is are now making its way through the various decks for hand to hand combat in order to take the ship out at its source.  It will take a huge guild to accomplish what I have described, but that is why guilds will be the only thing with lvls in this game.  You can call it rating if you prefer.  A higher rating will allow for larger, more defendable guild ships.  You can get these ships through completing guild missions.  Guild missions would be the equivalent of raiding in this game.  Also, guild ships are the only ships not crafted by crafters. 

     To preserve some of the raiding PvE game that I loved for a while, you can also upgrade and replace your personal ship through missions, and instanced personal and small group combat.  Want to add a gun to your ship?  Do a mission to take out evil empire X’s small outpost on planet Z and bubba the mechanic will upgrade your ship to accept a new gun.  Of course, however, you will need to buy the new gun itself from a merchant who makes them.

     As for the combat system itself?  I won’t really get into it.  From a practical standpoint, we all know it would change numerous times over the course of development anyway.  Use your imagination though.  Space simulator type space battles and turn based gun battles on land is what I had in mind so far.

 

 

Sorry for jumping around so much.  I was trying to write this at work and had to pause several times during.  I hope you can read this easily enough.  Please try to remember this is all an opinionated viewpoint.  If you can respect that, then I can respect your right to disagree with it.  Please offer criticism as you see fit.  Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed.

 

Wanderica.

 

P.S. hehe.  Please don’t quote this.  It’s already long enough as it is.

Woodwind88

Sounds interesting. You have some solid basics there and I myself would be interested. I love coming up with characters and what not so if you ever need a hand I, like many, would be glad to help out. I like to think about what my own MMO would be and I admire you for putting yourself out there and being open to others opinions. I like the overall sound of your outline and would love to hear more from you.

A quick suggestion would be that once it gets to the point of race/class to have a large selection so the world can be truely unique and varied. One of my favorite things to see in a game is huge selection in this catagory. Also, to have the actions of the players shape and change the world they play in. Have cities that certain factions can raid and take over or possibly allow certain cities to be destoryed completly (of course this would have to be made very hard to do as you don't want the game to be complete chaos with everyone destorying towns left and right but I think you see what i'm getting at.)

Another thing I think would be fun is to have the Devs be involved with events in the game. What I mean is have a Dev character, one that you control, say lead an army against the player world or some other special event or another. I think events like this would be fun to participate in and would be fun to see the Devs taking part and be able to play with/against.

wanderica

Thanks for the kind words.  I agree it would be nice to have Devs or GMs play a more active role, but I'm no game designer.  I don't pretend to know what it takes to run an MMO.  Some things I have a bit more on, and some things I actually expanded on when I wrote that.  Really this is nothing more than an idea.  I don't have the expertise or the means to make this a reality, but hey, all games started as nothing more than an idea once themselves, right?