"Holy Grail" of MMORPG's

Darter

   We all have our ideas of what would make a great mmorpg.  I know there have been comments here concerning what would make one.  Several new ones have come out recently, and it seems no development company has hit on the right combination.  However, there have been some new ideas  introduced that show promise.  What say we give developers a hand and start a new thread listing those features we would like to see in our games?  First I will present my ideas, then feel free to add any you can think of that you would like to see included. 

   As much as I was disappointed in Age of Conan, I have to look at the reason for that.  Mainly I was heavily let down after the first 20 levels.  AoC had a good thing going, but they failed to follow through. I would like to see more mmorpg's include elements of solo rpg storyline like AoC did.  However, each class should have its own story line, which AoC did not do.

Class specific quest lines are important to me, as they allow me to get more immersed into my character.

 Customer service is a must. I can  deal with glitches in programing at initial launch, as long as there is a "cavalry" of csr's on hand to solve my problems in a timely manner. 

The ability to have my armor and equipment dyed colors of my choice is a plus to me.  Ultima Online did this very well.

I like being able to choose when and where I engage in pvp.  I quit UO because of the gangs of griefers running around  ruining the game for those trying to enjoy the quests in a role playing manner (I was a Great Lord, btw). 

Housing is an ok feature, but not a game killer if it isn't included.

  Crafting needs work still.  Wow I think has the best system, but still isn't quite what it should be.  Perhaps include quest lines for crafters as well. For example:  "The forces of good are preparing for a war with the evil guys next country over, we need to make 50 short swords for the infantry".  "Bah!  You call that a short sword?  Go make me 10 more until you get it right!"  Successful completion equals  crafting exp and money of course.  Perhaps you make a fine dagger for a courtesan and she rewards you with a special gem or money and faction plus exp.

  Mounts with even a minor speed increase at a reasonably low level are a plus.  Other mounts with incremental speed increases could be offered at higher levels, say, every 10 levels or so.  WoW has a good idea with flying mounts, but, unfortunately, the lower levels never see them because they can't be ridden in the under 60 zones. 

Accessability over a broad range of computers and video cards, of course.  The graphics don't have to be leading edge.  Frame rates of  no less than 20 fps in densely populated areas  is more important than eye candy. 

An aggressive team of hacker/exploiter police should be availible. 

In game voice chat  is a plus, but not really a major plus.  Make sure it works (I initiated my voice chat in a well known mmorpg and it corrupted my sound files.  Now I have no sounds for mining or calling my pet). 

AoC style guild keeps and seiges are a good idea, if the frame rate can handle the population load.  Perhaps a limit could be set on how many players can be involved, say 20 vs. 20.  They could even allow guilds to declare war and set the player limits of the engagement up to that number.  That way a smaller guild  with 10 dedicated members could  declare war on a giant guild and limit it to a 10 v 10 war. 

Smaller guilds could be allowed to have smaller fortresses, like a keep and an all purpose community hall in a walled enclosure.  Larger guilds could have more buildings.

   These are ideas "off the top of my head".  Add or comment as you see fit, you will, anyway, lol!  

Thanks for the advice about breaking up my ideas into sections.  I hope this helps.

Darter

As a footnote, crafting quests would yield crafting experience.  I inserted "crafting" above when I edited per your suggestion in the next post.

Inzra

You might have some good ideas going, but your wall of text hit me out.

try splitting your text up into sections, then more will read it

Uproar

I just wanted to comment about crafting and Wow being the best example so far. 

I agree Wow maybe has some of the best Crafting Quests so far.  Pretty good.  Leveling up is tolerable, but still very boring.

DAOC had a much better crafting system (for most tradeskills) that better integrated the need for the items by the community vs. loot / quest dropped items.  Crafted item customization was very good.

My two cents.

ZodiaEclipse

I agree, add some paragraph breaks to your wall of text. You have some good ideas mixed in there, but it is really hard to read that much compressed together.

Anyhow one thing I like to see in mmo's is players having the ability to affect the game world. There are some games that have already jumped on this bandwagon and a great many more that claim they do.

Basically, if the story is that the races are at war then if there is a big RvR style battle or a bunch of players go and capture a city, mix that into the story. Change the banners to reflect the victories, add different quests depending on who is winning. Make me care about what the game world is coming to so that I feel compelled to drag myself outta the PvE grinding pool and do something about all the enemies invading my turf.

Change things to reflect what the players are doing so that they have an influence. It feeds into the whole "I care more if I matter" mentality.

Zyllos

All of those wishes are not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is for all of those be in one MMO without the consideration of other details to bring in more people. This is what causes MMOs to be hard to develop. Another thing someone might try is that maybe if I can find a game with 75% or 50% of my wishes and start from there.

The MMO genre is in hard times right now. Money is tight all around and that translates into less companies producing them. Considering there are not many innovating or different MMOs out, this compounds the issue greatly. But I think help is just over the horizon. There are several new MMOs coming out that have changed the pace just a little bit. TCoS, Aion, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, and a few others.

The last time I played an MMO (paid for it, not beta as I was in Warhammer beta until beta 3) was early this year. But before that, I have played some type of MMO from ~2001. I played 6 or 7 of the top MMOs on the list of this website and many others before I decided to just wait for the next one that has centered around my wishes, like yours.

Darter

Also banks should have branches in every town.  I can understand the desire to have players congregate in a certain city, but that can be handled easily enough by making those cities the only place where the trade channel works.

Soupgoblin

Originally posted by Darter


   We all have our ideas of what would make a great mmorpg.  I know there have been comments here concerning what would make one.  Several new ones have come out recently, and it seems no development company has hit on the right combination.  However, there have been some new ideas  introduced that show promise.  What say we give developers a hand and start a new thread listing those features we would like to see in our games?  First I will present my ideas, then feel free to add any you can think of that you would like to see included. 
   As much as I was disappointed in Age of Conan, I have to look at the reason for that.  Mainly I was heavily let down after the first 20 levels.  AoC had a good thing going, but they failed to follow through. I would like to see more mmorpg's include elements of solo rpg storyline like AoC did.  However, each class should have its own story line, which AoC did not do.
Class specific quest lines are important to me, as they allow me to get more immersed into my character.
 Customer service is a must. I can  deal with glitches in programing at initial launch, as long as there is a "cavalry" of csr's on hand to solve my problems in a timely manner. 
The ability to have my armor and equipment dyed colors of my choice is a plus to me.  Ultima Online did this very well.
I like being able to choose when and where I engage in pvp.  I quit UO because of the gangs of griefers running around  ruining the game for those trying to enjoy the quests in a role playing manner (I was a Great Lord, btw). 
Housing is an ok feature, but not a game killer if it isn't included.
  Crafting needs work still.  Wow I think has the best system, but still isn't quite what it should be.  Perhaps include quest lines for crafters as well. For example:  "The forces of good are preparing for a war with the evil guys next country over, we need to make 50 short swords for the infantry".  "Bah!  You call that a short sword?  Go make me 10 more until you get it right!"  Successful completion equals  crafting exp and money of course.  Perhaps you make a fine dagger for a courtesan and she rewards you with a special gem or money and faction plus exp.
  Mounts with even a minor speed increase at a reasonably low level are a plus.  Other mounts with incremental speed increases could be offered at higher levels, say, every 10 levels or so.  WoW has a good idea with flying mounts, but, unfortunately, the lower levels never see them because they can't be ridden in the under 60 zones. 
Accessability over a broad range of computers and video cards, of course.  The graphics don't have to be leading edge.  Frame rates of  no less than 20 fps in densely populated areas  is more important than eye candy. 
An aggressive team of hacker/exploiter police should be availible. 
In game voice chat  is a plus, but not really a major plus.  Make sure it works (I initiated my voice chat in a well known mmorpg and it corrupted my sound files.  Now I have no sounds for mining or calling my pet). 
AoC style guild keeps and seiges are a good idea, if the frame rate can handle the population load.  Perhaps a limit could be set on how many players can be involved, say 20 vs. 20.  They could even allow guilds to declare war and set the player limits of the engagement up to that number.  That way a smaller guild  with 10 dedicated members could  declare war on a giant guild and limit it to a 10 v 10 war. 
Smaller guilds could be allowed to have smaller fortresses, like a keep and an all purpose community hall in a walled enclosure.  Larger guilds could have more buildings.
   These are ideas "off the top of my head".  Add or comment as you see fit, you will, anyway, lol!  
Thanks for the advice about breaking up my ideas into sections.  I hope this helps.

 

I agree for the most part, But I think they should have allowed each race to have their own "tortage" and then had different storylines for each class in their racial cities.

That would give people a real reason to try all the races and classes, also people wouldn't get so tired of Tortage after the 3rd-4th time through

Gabby-air

I agree with most of your things except wow having the best crafting system, i guess its decent buy DAOC and ryzom have a way better crafting experience.

--I would also like to add that games should have a communicating area like where people can just chill and talk to others, i mean like games have some busy cities but you would most prolly get spammed by the people selling stuff so its kinda hard to talk, you could also add games in there like chess games between people and other stuff going on...For the game/chilling room you could look at runescapes game room up and see what im talking about in detail

Darter

By guild warfare I mean siege warfare similar to Age of Conan, Shadowbane, Warhammer and Dark  Age of Camelot.  This should be included along with other forms of player vs. player combat as in World of Warcraft. 

Naming:  I would like to be allowed a first and last name.

Multiple characters per server.

Crafting experience should be from crafting the article as well as craft based quest completion.

RAWRG

Originally posted by Zyllos


The MMO genre is in hard times right now. Money is tight all around and that translates into less companies producing them. Considering there are not many innovating or different MMOs out, this compounds the issue greatly. But I think help is just over the horizon. There are several new MMOs coming out that have changed the pace just a little bit. TCoS, Aion, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, and a few others.

 

I don't so much agree with the money problems. I think even if we were in a surplus of wealth, companies would still be releasing near clones of what was already successful. Less companies producing them? There have never been so many in production that I can remember. It seems like everyone and their grandmother has a new MMO coming out, your own little list there proves that, those are just a handful of them. Five years ago, you'd be lucky to have 1 new MMO every couple months, now we have several per month releasing.

In any case, I don't think there is a "Holy Grail" of MMO's. The premise is that everyone would want to play it, and that game simply does not exist, cause that would have to be a linear sandbox, fantasy scifi, horror comedy, permadeath without repeating levels, insane clostrophobic nightmare of a game... I'd settle for something where I'm not bored out of my mind

sandboxy

Originally posted by Darter


 
  Crafting needs work still.  Wow I think has the best system,

 

Stopped reading right there.

Iceman32

 

Posting suggestions for MMO design here might reach a developer. Another option would be to go to the developers' own forums and post your ideas. You could post in Developers Corner on this site or at www.onlinegamemaker.proboards82.com which is the forum of some independent game developers who created Magic of the Gods.

Another option is to actually play Magic of the Gods and if you don't like how it works now, ask the gods to change what you don't like. They have this thing where you can help design the game while playing it and it's part of the storyline because the world is new and "the gods" are still creating the world.

I haven't actually gotten the gods to change anything, but I haven't asked, either. I was too busy starting my own kingdom! Long live the Kingdom of Radnaria! Come visit.

DragonMyth88

My idea which is impossible for mmo in there current state is an mmo where you become that which you wanted to become. lets say your swimming in the ocean every day for 4 hours you start growing gills and scales and become an ocean dude this may also go for crafting or greedy people which get then start wearing more business type clothing. Lets say all you do is slay Dragons you become a dragon slayer or if you hang around them you become a Draconiain type. This evolving characters type deal may seem dumb at first but placed in a normal mmo it could remove the need for races and classes.

Second idea would be weapons that evolve from a lvl 1 broken sword to a champions steel at lvl 100 would be an example or maybe you enchant that sword with a frost element which adds a spell for a frost attack that does 1 dmg. then at lvl 100 that frost enchant evolves your sword into frozen champions steel people would still be able to get weapons of higher lvls evolving gear is only for the people that are good at getting gold and only gold and have no time to get gear another way. raiders/pvpers can evolve there stuff but the lvl cap is 100 can only evolve that piece of gear 1 more time. This is jut and idea and doesnt require bashing.

Z3R01

So a basic recipe based crafting system that is next to worthless at high levels is ok for you?

I liked your post but It could have done without the WoW add in.

Swg, Ryzom, Eve, Vanguard, Lotro, Eq2 all have better crafting.

Darter

I told you to post your ideas as well.  I didn't say you had to agree with mine.  I certainly didn't ask your opinion of my choices, and , franky, I could care less what you think of them.

Wharg0ul

Pre-CU SWG.

'Nuff said.

Mazer14

I guess I'm not that big a sucker for the 'questing' thing. I just don't see how killing 20 boars is much different from crafting 20 swords and how doing either mmerses you into your character more. I much rather make the game into whatever I want it to be, that's why I'd stray away from quests into a sandbox game. The occassional story line is fine, but being told where to go, who to talk to, what to kill isn't something I like in an MMO. Think about what made UO exciting.

I supose that's also why we differ on the subject of open PvP vs. consensual only. It seems totally dumb that I see an enemy player (ingame lore defines our races to have been at war for generations etc.) ingame but I can't attack him (or vice versa) for some magical unknown reason. That definitely takes away the sense of immersion.

The problem with WoW crafting is that any person can roll a few characters and have all their crafting needs self-sufficiently satisfied. That combined with the fact that any character has the exact same crafting potential as the next results in crafters not being special at all. An MMO needs to emphasize the importance of crafters on the economy. Players should have to decide if they want to give up some of their PvP/PvE abilities to make room for some crafting ability or if they outright want to focus on crafting.

Some of the other points are valid though.

 

Tatum

The top of my list:

1) Extensive skill system

2) Living (not static) game world

If some one could really nail those two, I wouldn't ask for much else. 

Z3R01

Ok since my last post didn't really add anything to the thread I figured I would post again with my dream MMO Idea.

Ok in my MMO you would start the game awaking from a spaceship crash of some sort to find yourself on a strange planet in a new galaxy along with a ton of other Races all wondering how the hell they got on the planet.

Since this planet can sustain life Each race decides to claim seperate parts of the planet and they begin to build and advance thier own technology By crafting, hunting (3rd person and vehicular combat) and building a political structure. Over time these races will be able to travel to new planets and colonize new galaxies each with thiere own laws. Certain races will band together and evolve into factions and Wars will break out.

This game would have skill systems, On foot combat, Sea combat, Air combat, space combat and every crafting type you can think of. Players on planets and stations and moons will create missions and content basically developing the Lore and shaping the galaxies as time goes on.

This game would be a true evolving Universe you will never run out of things to do, your character can be anything you ever wanted to be. Be a Warlord commanding a Empire that can crush a nation or a farmer tucked in some remote corner of a peaceful planet the choice is yours.

 

 

 

Briansho

At one time it was Shadowbane, then Roma Victor, then Dark and Light, then Vanguard, then Pirates of the Burning Sea, then Age of Conan, now its Darkfall.