I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about creating an MMO or any other game. Having said that, I'd pay someone else 35 million to make me a true steampunk mmo and quietly slip away with the other 15 million and never be heard from again.........unless the game did well in which case I'd come back to claim credit and take my cut.
What? It's all hypothetical. Quit looking at me like that!
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I would use those 50 millions, and put it in stocks to earn more money, to then buy out Lotro,Guildwars & Guildwars 2, Rifts & Aion.
And do the following...
I would take Lotro's storyline, lore and epic quests...
Take Guildwars arena, ability to buy land & tournament system...
Take Guildwars 2 personal character system & random events...
Take Rift's scripte rift openings and planes to other worlds...
And Aion's graphics & detailed character creation...
All together to make "the best mmo anyone had ever seen".
Then! when that game makes enough money, buy WoW and Eq2 and put WoW's pvp in the game and Eq2's raids.
Then buy out Warhammer Online, and add Public Quests and the ability to attack landmarks and cities.
Followed by using the class talent tree & race talent tree from Eq2 and add a new talent tree each expansion and the classes from Aion.
and Last but not least...
Buy DDO and use its fast paced combat and story telling instances & raids...
The game would need no title or name as it had everything everyone in fantasy wants in a game. If people would describe it however they would just say do you play the mmo? as everyone would play this mmo, including me.
Oh did i mention it has lotro's lifetime subscription for $150? no? well it does.
Oh oh oh. And AoC's Decapitation and nudity. Yeah...
If someone handed me 50 million dollars, I'd retire and not waste my time designing an MMO, personally.
Then again - if the stipulation was that I needed to use that 50 million to design an online game, I would create the most stupid, easiest, instant gratification flash based Farmville 2 type game, market it to Facebook and rake in the cash. 70+ million players > 11 million subs.
Sorry guys, business is business. Money rules the world. And the MMO player base is fickle and unforgiving. Sad but true.
I would make a game like DAOC, but with upgraded graphics, engine, interface, etc.. I liked the 3 realm idea so I'd keep it like that, even though it'd be a pain in the rear for the design team to balance them. But tough! I'd copy DAOC's design on sieges, RvR, realm abilities, relics, darkenss fall dungeon, etc.. Seriously, they had it all right. It took Mythic quite awhile to perfect things but they had a winning formula for RvR. It's just too bad they tossed their knowledge away when it came to designing WAR.
On the PvE side of things, I'd make zones be more like WoW's contested zone design. I didn't like all-safe realm only zones for PvE like they had in DAOC. I'd make main cities unattackable unless people flagged for PvP, but rest of the zones are contested so people can choose to engage in PvP if they want to. This will spice things up a bit, especially if you are the underdogs in open RvR and have had enough of getting zerged to death.
I'd have some instanced dungeons, some open world dungeons with greater rewards than instanced dungeons. It's all about creating an environment so people can engage in combat. For raids there would be plenty of raid progression content for those interested in PvE only. But gear dropped in raids would not have stats that would be beneficial in PvP. To create the difference I'd make resist stats that npc's do that are different than what players can cast. So gear you earn in PvP/RvR would give you protection in player resists, while PvE gear would give you protection for mob resists.
I thought DAOC's crafting was alright, it created things you could use, and dyes were as popular as ever.
Overall DAOC had a lot of good things going for it, Mythic just played the cards wrong on a few things. Which np, you can live and learn. I was hoping they would live & learn with WAR but it was like...they totally forgot about what went wrong with DAOC and made it worse.
1. plot: the game is fantasy oriented - it has a world similar to ours - it has western part, oriental, a little bit of african - savannahs, shamans, it has jungles like south amerika, tribes in them, places like India, like China.. like Sweden and northern contries...
2. battle mechanics/system: i always wanted to see more realistic battles in games so my idea is for a battle system like this:
things like "Parry", "Block", "Dodge", "Counterattack" are buffs with really short time - 5-6 seconds things like "Rend", "Stab" etc. are normal skills that are casted and some of them have to recharge, except they are really powerful - single blow would take about 40%-60% of the health (those would depend on a class, casters would also be descent in close combat - they got staves which could be used to parry or deal melee damage) also there will be debuffs that also last for few seconds "Kick Dust in Eyes", "Blind", "Trick" and something like that
so a player should constatly look at his buffs if they are on, walking around is also vital - if you outsmart your opponent you might get his back open and deal great damage so battles could take even more than 10 minutes, but will look realistic and the one with the better equipment will win eventually, but the other one will also have his chances
3. armours: they will look like realistic medieval fantasy armors with few enchancements to give it more unique look also dungeons wouldnt provide the best items, just some descent ones, the best items will be acquired trough crafting and professions - Tailoring, Furriery, Blacksmithing, etc.
there will be hidden trainers around the world - on dangerouns mountains, dark swamps and dry deserts - a.k.a. hard to get to and players wouldnt know their locations, they should find them on their own
4. food and drink: they will be a must-do - players should always have at least 3 piece of food and 3 pieces of drink for each day - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner - an alarm/message would appear to tell the player than it 5-10 minutes he will have to sit down and eat or he will receive a "Hunger" debuff that reduces stats a bit unless he sits on the ground and feeds himself
if the player eats in a house or an inn, he has a chance on receiving a buff "Well Fed" that will increase his stats a bit for about 30 minutes
5. races should be:
humans - specialize in all paths (casters, melee)
dwarves - specialize in brute paths (melee, but casters would be hard to play)
elves - specialize in both, but differently (assassins, healers)
halflings - specialize in ranged combat (archers, hunters)
all races have all the classes available (freedom of choice), but if they dont specialize, they wont be that effective, and will be challenging for new players and interesting for veterans
character customization will be wide: body - muscular, obese, slim, normal (this would be a scale, so no one will look the same) height - the same - a scale hairstyle - players will have various hairstyles that have a palette for colour, also in-game players could change their hairstyles with the ones other races have (all others, not just some), also some new hairstyles will be there, that can only be acquired from the Hairdresser and Barber beard/mustache - goes the same as hair skin - also a palette
new races could be addded and old changed, i havent thought of others right now
6. lore: probably the hardest part, but if the gameplay is good it could compensate a bit
so far ive come up with this:
pacts of Dragons and Dark Exorcists are plaguing the world, they take main roles in dungeons, zones and quests, since the games will have great freedom, i was thinking if players could align with the Dark Exorcists at some later point in games, about 40% progress
7. leveling: levels is so far the best system ever thought and i have to stick with it, cuz i cant think of something better
level cap is 100, like 100% so if percentage is used to describe progress in game it would represent the level
thats so far how my idea of a MMO went, its inspired of existing MMOs, their pros and cons
If someone handed me 50 million dollars, I'd retire and not waste my time designing an MMO, personally.
Then again - if the stipulation was that I needed to use that 50 million to design an online game, I would create the most stupid, easiest, instant gratification flash based Farmville 2 type game, market it to Facebook and rake in the cash. 70+ million players > 11 million subs.
Sorry guys, business is business. Money rules the world. And the MMO player base is fickle and unforgiving. Sad but true.
I didn't know the CEO of Cryptic was one these forums! wow!
I would spend $100 on development, and 1 million on advertising. After selling a bunch of preorders based off of a view awesome videos, I'd bankrupt my pretend company and move to an island. WOOT!
I would design a single player RPG instead. A horror/sci-fi themed with gameplay akin to Witcher and Mass Effect. The look and feel would be mixture of Alien's H.R. Giger and Borderlands/Cowboy Bebop. Theme would be focusing an era where mankind has populated out galaxy, but where techonology has been in regress for centuries.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Would make a mmo with gameworld ala AGON(Darkfall) one big world with no instance a sandbox with vampiers vs lycans(werewolfs) or western style with cowboys and indians sandbox with also open free roaming world.
With ralistic weather system and sounds and gameplay that realy is sandbox like realy building your own house or village/castle/fort where ever you want.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Space. really, Really BIG space without jumpgates/open design. Ships of all kinds and designs, buildable and upgradable, and repairable by players. Seeemless atmosphere entry. Newtonian physics. almost all ships requiring multiplayer crews. Planet landings AND living on planets that are completely "fleshed out". Tech level 1 to Tech level "god only knows what". Player economy. Players skills, not levels. PvP?...tons, better in some areas, harder to do in others, but possible everywhere with consequences. Player Corporations. PvP that matters... control of space itself and everything in it, even the Core. Exploration that matters and is important to the game and to other Players. Colonization. Research into new Tech by Players.
Take the FireFly IP and make it as real as humanly possible in a sandbox virtual world. All of the FireFly IP can be and then some.
50 million? not enough unless the Staff and I live in a basement and eat hotpockets...perhaps do-able.
Warning ... long read ... boring day at work :P
I have been an avid gamer for over 25 years now. Started with pong, videopack, c64, amiga
and then on to pc. I’ve played many games, many genres. Through the years I got more and
more demanding for games to keep me entertained. After playing several MMORPG’s for the
past few years, I still haven’t found one that caters to all my ideas of a perfect MMO.
The MMO gamers have changed a lot from 10 years ago to now. Eventhough it seems that most
games cater for the “easymode/spoonfed” gamers now, I think the future lies in player
created content in MMORPG’s. It works for second life and ofcourse it's what made the
SIMS so popular.
An mmo is the perfect place to cater for creativity … and combining that with one of my
most favorite scifi series of firefly, it opens up a lot of possibilities.
The firefly IP is licensed, but that is a matter of money … the firefly universe,
concepts and factions are so wide open, anything is possible with them.
My following ideas are based on a concept to draw in different niches and mainstream gamers.
Have a game suited for
- Crafters
- Pvp-ers
- PvE-ers
- RvR
- Socialising
- Creative people
With:
- Space/land combat
- Heavy interaction with other players
- Loads of content
- Live events, run by Guild or game masters
- Challenging encounters
- Meaningfull PvP/RvR
To the major game developers (not SOE) reading this ... I hope one day I can experience the following in a bugfree and
polished version.
*********************
The Factions
Brown Coats
A group of people believing that not all planets should be ruled by 1 government (alliance). These people are free spirited and don’t like authority very much. They do tend to form small groups to survive under leadership of 1 person. They make a living from smuggling, robberies and cons while continuously being on the run for the alliance.
When creating a character, you will enter the game just when you board the firefly and find yourself to be a passenger ( could be a bit of background story). You will be dragged into several quests with the crew ( instanced/animated/cinametics/full voice overs) which will eventually make you part of the crew. After yet another series of quests you should have learned enough about the skill-system and different skills in the game. At this point you will leave the crew and the real game begins.
Alliance
The government that tries to rule all planets. Very disciplined and military rank based organization.
When creating a character, the scenario is somewhat similar to the browncoats, though you will be an Alliance recruit taken onto several missions.
The Reavers
Savage space pirats that only care for death and destruction. They are crazy, cannibals and self mutilate. No ranks … each on his own and all for one!
You start off on a Reavers ship entering small cruise ship, where the crew will be slaughtered and eaten. After that, the ship is yours and the game starts. Being Reaver is simple … you kill, kill and kill more. A really crude class to play, with little background nor learning curve.
The reavers are meant to be a completely different game experience and are fully focussed on pvp from early levels.
The Setting
The FireFly universe consist of many types of planets.
Home Planets
These are planets that factions would call their home planets. These are not contestable and are well protected. However, opposing factions can still attack and plunder certain area’s. These planets are suitable to build your house, or even a town on. If large enough guild there is even the possibility to craft a space station to live on. (PvP/PvE).
Captureable Planets
Planets that are contestable by violence and offer loads of resources and pve/pvp content to the faction owning it. (RvR)
Free-for-all:
Planets that are open to anyone for resources and content (PvP/PvE)
Colonized Planets.
These planets are contestable by reputation. There are 2 types:
1. Personal reputation. You need to maintain a certain level of reputation with the locals to not be attacked by them. Reputation decreases over time (out of eye out of heart) so it needs to be maintained.
2. Faction reputation. The faction that holds the highest reputation as a total get to reap from the local benefits (content/resources/vendors/etc).
Reapers are hated by everyone … they will never be able to gain rep with these planets.
Themepark planets.
Loads of PVE content, untakeable by any faction. PvP is not possible on these planets (for whatever reason). (PvE) These planets also cater for (live) events and many minigames. There are races to bet on or to participate in, shootouts, poker tournaments, arena’s, baking competitions and much more. Earn your statue on these planets for epic achievements and victories. Have songs written for you (Jamestown ).
Player created planets.
Give the players a toolset enabling them to easily develop their own planet. That is fully develop. Landscape, habitats, towns, dungeons, the full chebang. Every few months, people can send in their contributions from which you pick one and perfect it together with your team and the contributer. Next expansion, add this planet to the game with something personal of the contributor in it (town’s name, race name, dungeon name). Make sure to already add 1 together with the release of the game, perfect marketing.
The gamers today are people that are creative (see second life). Some of them are even amazingly good at it.
Player created towns
Having housing in place. Guilds can place their own towns, incorporating everything the big cities have, but completely managed by guild members. Also have the ability to run live events in the guilds town by the guilds. Take in ideas for live events from guilds, evaluate and script them, and have a tool in place for them where they can run the scripts to control events. After a while, out of these scripts premade templates can be build for the most recurring and popular events.
Travelling
There are multiple forms of travelling, both on land and in space.
Space
There are numerous sorts of space vessels, ranging from single person to multi person, combat, cruisers and cargo vessels. Each vessel has certain skill requirements which can be gained by experience.
Travelling to space adds a few elements to the game regarding combat and faction.
To support people that enjoy trading games, have it so that cargo ships can be “neutral” … they are modified so they will turn up on Browncoats and Alliance scans. Therefor they can also trade on all homeplanets (but reavers).
Highly skilled browncoats can also temporarily to this to their vessel, while alliance technology is so far developed, they can cloak for a while.
Space combat is possible in most area’s, and is twitch based. You can decide to spend you whole gaming career as a space pirate. The only way to travel safe is to insure, hire guards, or use space portals between home planets.
Landing on a planet is not a matter of pressing a button … it is a mini game and takes skill. As soon as you near a planets docking station, you go into immune state so you can’t be attacked anymore (only possible if not already under attack). You need to land the spaceship by yourself taking into account approach speed, angle and spinning of the planet. Doing this wrong you can end up with a lot of damage and loss of goods.
Land
On civilized planets, there is usually a public transport infrastructure to take you around the planet. Think trains and shuttles for fast and far transport. For personal transport there are many different mounts, like horses, quads, amphibian vehicles, hover planes or local mountable creatures (tameable). Some are single, some are multi person vehicles.
Skills
Maybe you already noticed from this writeup so far, I was huge fan of old Star Wars galaxies. They had the best skill system, with a vast and logical set of professions though I think it can be perfected a little. In principal, I would use their complete setup of professions, though with a few changes/additions.
Regarding crafting:
- More customizations for housing.
- Stat-less gear, with slots for enhancements.
Crafters that craft a few very succesfull items in a row, will go into an higher state of crafting. This will slightly increase their chances om additional enhancement slots (which are a random chance). Having a few bad crafts will lower the chance.
Each month architects can come up with ideas for new furniture/paintings (ingame tool to design them). Every month a winner will be picked, the item will be added to the game, and the winner will own the patent to that item. This means every time this item is created by anyone, the inventors name will be on it.
Regarding combat professions:
Add a combat profession reflecting River’s skills. Her mind was brainwashed and enhanced to improve her combat senses.
Reapers do not have access to harvesting/crafting. They will gain everything by salvaging other peoples ships/homes.
Gear
Game is NOT gear based, gear just helps a bit.
Gear is there for aesthetics, not statistics.
Quality gear separates itself by having high durability and/or more enhancement slots.
For armor, these are usually resistances and resilience, for weapons extra damage.
Gear decades, but can be repaired by armor/weapon smiths ( can fail though).
Reavers have no gear … they are much tougher then “normal” people can can even enhance their toughness through experience and skills. They fight barehand.
These are your perfect choice when you want full focus on pvp from earliest levels in game.
Combat
- All combat is twitch based
- Challenging bosses with a high level of AI that is dynamic enough to adjust to the attacking party. Scripted to not follow one path, but can randomly change.
- No friendly fire
- No potions!!
- Critical hits don’t damage more, but add debuff to player
- You can actively dodge
- Diminishing returns on slows (no roots)
- Use of Cover / LoS
Death
Incentive based … gain benefits for staying alive, not loose something for dying.
The longer you stay alive, the sharper your senses will be. With enheighted senses, you will move quicker in combat and dodge parry more easily.
Social
It needs to be a game where people need each other. Again, SWG had this (almost) completely right. Get buffs from entertainers … heal battle fatigue and wounds from meds/docs. Though make it more easy obtainable.
Techinicians build mounts/ships. Animal Tamers provide company pets and mounts.
Gatheres supply crafters, crafters supply combatants. Combatants fight for territory, loot, crafting parts to supply fracters.
i am on the fence. I basicly have two different ideas. Both licens based tho so i guess the money wont get me to far.
One would be a Transfromers MMO. Themepark with some PvP in "warzones" ala WAR. Transformation would start out on a limited scale, starting with weapon configuration and move on to vehicular transformation. One could even include gestalting, ei smaller robots forming a larger one by having a "pet-class" like configuration. This game would in the end tho eb your "WoW in metal" a basic standard MMO
my second idea is a MW... As in MechWarriror... Not that rail-shooter on steriods that have taken the initials. Set in the Battletech universe dutring the Clan invasion... This game would be a bit similar to WAR with a synergy between PvE and PvP with both having a effect on campaings. With several planets (well not complete planest but big enough to create the illusion) and several factions duking it out over rescources and territory. The PvE part would be questing/raiding as a charcter avatar taking on stuff either a bit more covert (a 30+ ton mech is not to suble... a 100 ton one even less so) or in location were mech combat is not an option.
The PvP part would be doen on mechs and other armored vechiels. Each panet would have a capital and taking it would take both PvE and PvP action and grant both the faction and the players nice bounties. Guilds would eb handeld either by forming a mecenery company and such can take on contracts to fight on planets, but as an offset gear will be scarcer and more expensive or form a house/clan company giving a better access to gear but be tied for ever to a house or clan.
Those are the ideas i would flesh out and try to make games out of,
Yeah, I'm not sure 50 mil would do it any more, as far as building an MMO from the ground up. So....I would take that 50 million and do something useful in the real world, if that was an option. If you're going to "make me" spend it on an MMO....hmm, well....I'd probably have to invest my 50 million with someone already developing a game I really believed in and enter into some kind of financial partnership with them, since I really don'thave the abilities that developing an MMO requires, nor would I have the first clue about how to hire the best people for the many many jobs and skills that it takes to make something of that magnitude.
Comments
I wouldnt create an MMO. I would create a single player game entitled Phiby Disappears With 50 Million.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about creating an MMO or any other game. Having said that, I'd pay someone else 35 million to make me a true steampunk mmo and quietly slip away with the other 15 million and never be heard from again.........unless the game did well in which case I'd come back to claim credit and take my cut.
What? It's all hypothetical. Quit looking at me like that!
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I would use those 50 millions, and put it in stocks to earn more money, to then buy out Lotro,Guildwars & Guildwars 2, Rifts & Aion.
And do the following...
I would take Lotro's storyline, lore and epic quests...
Take Guildwars arena, ability to buy land & tournament system...
Take Guildwars 2 personal character system & random events...
Take Rift's scripte rift openings and planes to other worlds...
And Aion's graphics & detailed character creation...
All together to make "the best mmo anyone had ever seen".
Then! when that game makes enough money, buy WoW and Eq2 and put WoW's pvp in the game and Eq2's raids.
Then buy out Warhammer Online, and add Public Quests and the ability to attack landmarks and cities.
Followed by using the class talent tree & race talent tree from Eq2 and add a new talent tree each expansion and the classes from Aion.
and Last but not least...
Buy DDO and use its fast paced combat and story telling instances & raids...
The game would need no title or name as it had everything everyone in fantasy wants in a game. If people would describe it however they would just say do you play the mmo? as everyone would play this mmo, including me.
Oh did i mention it has lotro's lifetime subscription for $150? no? well it does.
Oh oh oh. And AoC's Decapitation and nudity. Yeah...
If someone handed me 50 million dollars, I'd retire and not waste my time designing an MMO, personally.
Then again - if the stipulation was that I needed to use that 50 million to design an online game, I would create the most stupid, easiest, instant gratification flash based Farmville 2 type game, market it to Facebook and rake in the cash. 70+ million players > 11 million subs.
Sorry guys, business is business. Money rules the world. And the MMO player base is fickle and unforgiving. Sad but true.
Wouldn't mind a full, skill/twitch based open world sandbox space/ground mmo based on the Firefly IP
One thing's for sure.. I wouldnt do another fantasy mmo.. that market is way too over saturated.
Transformers MMO.... or Zelda, if nintendo would give me the opportunity....
I agree, although I would stick with 3. 5 might spread the population too much.
id develop a virtual reality mmo based on the .hack// series, or make an mmo version of the sims 3 lol.
Kaze is thy name, and flying high in the sky is where ill remain with the wind blowing though my wings i shall bring swift justice upon this world
I would make a game like DAOC, but with upgraded graphics, engine, interface, etc.. I liked the 3 realm idea so I'd keep it like that, even though it'd be a pain in the rear for the design team to balance them. But tough! I'd copy DAOC's design on sieges, RvR, realm abilities, relics, darkenss fall dungeon, etc.. Seriously, they had it all right. It took Mythic quite awhile to perfect things but they had a winning formula for RvR. It's just too bad they tossed their knowledge away when it came to designing WAR.
On the PvE side of things, I'd make zones be more like WoW's contested zone design. I didn't like all-safe realm only zones for PvE like they had in DAOC. I'd make main cities unattackable unless people flagged for PvP, but rest of the zones are contested so people can choose to engage in PvP if they want to. This will spice things up a bit, especially if you are the underdogs in open RvR and have had enough of getting zerged to death.
I'd have some instanced dungeons, some open world dungeons with greater rewards than instanced dungeons. It's all about creating an environment so people can engage in combat. For raids there would be plenty of raid progression content for those interested in PvE only. But gear dropped in raids would not have stats that would be beneficial in PvP. To create the difference I'd make resist stats that npc's do that are different than what players can cast. So gear you earn in PvP/RvR would give you protection in player resists, while PvE gear would give you protection for mob resists.
I thought DAOC's crafting was alright, it created things you could use, and dyes were as popular as ever.
Overall DAOC had a lot of good things going for it, Mythic just played the cards wrong on a few things. Which np, you can live and learn. I was hoping they would live & learn with WAR but it was like...they totally forgot about what went wrong with DAOC and made it worse.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
A wild wild west MMO or a real life MMO.
I would design the one I've been creating for the past three-plus years that I'm totally not going to mention here.
Would like to see a Deus Ex (first one) MMO, Blade Runner MMO or one based on Discworld books from Terry Pratchett.
have some ideas that i am actually work on right now
but the one i would love to is the harry potter
such a great nich to explore and a lot of content...i mean why not?
LOTRO player
Pokemon MMO, Like the Show. Run around and catch them in the wild.
orrrrr
Medabots styled MMO -nods- Custom robos vs eachother. ;D
so i had this idea for a MMO mechanics:
1. plot:
the game is fantasy oriented - it has a world similar to ours - it has western part, oriental, a little bit of african - savannahs, shamans, it has jungles like south amerika, tribes in them, places like India, like China.. like Sweden and northern contries...
2. battle mechanics/system:
i always wanted to see more realistic battles in games
so my idea is for a battle system like this:
things like "Parry", "Block", "Dodge", "Counterattack" are buffs with really short time - 5-6 seconds
things like "Rend", "Stab" etc. are normal skills that are casted and some of them have to recharge, except they are really powerful - single blow would take about 40%-60% of the health (those would depend on a class, casters would also be descent in close combat - they got staves which could be used to parry or deal melee damage)
also there will be debuffs that also last for few seconds "Kick Dust in Eyes", "Blind", "Trick" and something like that
so a player should constatly look at his buffs if they are on, walking around is also vital - if you outsmart your opponent you might get his back open and deal great damage
so battles could take even more than 10 minutes, but will look realistic
and the one with the better equipment will win eventually, but the other one will also have his chances
3. armours:
they will look like realistic medieval fantasy armors with few enchancements to give it more unique look
also dungeons wouldnt provide the best items, just some descent ones, the best items will be acquired trough crafting and professions - Tailoring, Furriery, Blacksmithing, etc.
there will be hidden trainers around the world - on dangerouns mountains, dark swamps and dry deserts - a.k.a. hard to get to and players wouldnt know their locations, they should find them on their own
4. food and drink:
they will be a must-do - players should always have at least 3 piece of food and 3 pieces of drink for each day - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner - an alarm/message would appear to tell the player than it 5-10 minutes he will have to sit down and eat or he will receive a "Hunger" debuff that reduces stats a bit unless he sits on the ground and feeds himself
if the player eats in a house or an inn, he has a chance on receiving a buff "Well Fed" that will increase his stats a bit for about 30 minutes
5. races should be:
humans - specialize in all paths (casters, melee)
dwarves - specialize in brute paths (melee, but casters would be hard to play)
elves - specialize in both, but differently (assassins, healers)
halflings - specialize in ranged combat (archers, hunters)
all races have all the classes available (freedom of choice), but if they dont specialize, they wont be that effective, and will be challenging for new players and interesting for veterans
character customization will be wide:
body - muscular, obese, slim, normal (this would be a scale, so no one will look the same)
height - the same - a scale
hairstyle - players will have various hairstyles that have a palette for colour, also in-game players could change their hairstyles with the ones other races have (all others, not just some), also some new hairstyles will be there, that can only be acquired from the Hairdresser and Barber
beard/mustache - goes the same as hair
skin - also a palette
new races could be addded and old changed, i havent thought of others right now
6. lore:
probably the hardest part, but if the gameplay is good it could compensate a bit
so far ive come up with this:
pacts of Dragons and Dark Exorcists are plaguing the world, they take main roles in dungeons, zones and quests, since the games will have great freedom, i was thinking if players could align with the Dark Exorcists at some later point in games, about 40% progress
7. leveling:
levels is so far the best system ever thought and i have to stick with it, cuz i cant think of something better
level cap is 100, like 100% so if percentage is used to describe progress in game it would represent the level
thats so far how my idea of a MMO went, its inspired of existing MMOs, their pros and cons
i hope you like my idea
^^
Golly, if someone handed me 50 million dollar, I would run away with them and make a fun living! Teh.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I didn't know the CEO of Cryptic was one these forums! wow!
I would design a single player RPG instead. A horror/sci-fi themed with gameplay akin to Witcher and Mass Effect. The look and feel would be mixture of Alien's H.R. Giger and Borderlands/Cowboy Bebop. Theme would be focusing an era where mankind has populated out galaxy, but where techonology has been in regress for centuries.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Would make a mmo with gameworld ala AGON(Darkfall) one big world with no instance a sandbox with vampiers vs lycans(werewolfs) or western style with cowboys and indians sandbox with also open free roaming world.
With ralistic weather system and sounds and gameplay that realy is sandbox like realy building your own house or village/castle/fort where ever you want.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I would invest $10 to make an IRCchat, and keep the rest for me XD
Warning ... long read ... boring day at work :P
I have been an avid gamer for over 25 years now. Started with pong, videopack, c64, amiga
and then on to pc. I’ve played many games, many genres. Through the years I got more and
more demanding for games to keep me entertained. After playing several MMORPG’s for the
past few years, I still haven’t found one that caters to all my ideas of a perfect MMO.
The MMO gamers have changed a lot from 10 years ago to now. Eventhough it seems that most
games cater for the “easymode/spoonfed” gamers now, I think the future lies in player
created content in MMORPG’s. It works for second life and ofcourse it's what made the
SIMS so popular.
An mmo is the perfect place to cater for creativity … and combining that with one of my
most favorite scifi series of firefly, it opens up a lot of possibilities.
The firefly IP is licensed, but that is a matter of money
… the firefly universe,
concepts and factions are so wide open, anything is possible with them.
My following ideas are based on a concept to draw in different niches and mainstream gamers.
Have a game suited for
- Crafters
- Pvp-ers
- PvE-ers
- RvR
- Socialising
- Creative people
With:
- Space/land combat
- Heavy interaction with other players
- Loads of content
- Live events, run by Guild or game masters
- Challenging encounters
- Meaningfull PvP/RvR
To the major game developers (not SOE) reading this ... I hope one day I can experience the following in a bugfree and
polished version.
*********************
The Factions
Brown Coats
A group of people believing that not all planets should be ruled by 1 government (alliance). These people are free spirited and don’t like authority very much. They do tend to form small groups to survive under leadership of 1 person. They make a living from smuggling, robberies and cons while continuously being on the run for the alliance.
When creating a character, you will enter the game just when you board the firefly and find yourself to be a passenger ( could be a bit of background story). You will be dragged into several quests with the crew ( instanced/animated/cinametics/full voice overs) which will eventually make you part of the crew. After yet another series of quests you should have learned enough about the skill-system and different skills in the game. At this point you will leave the crew and the real game begins.
Alliance
The government that tries to rule all planets. Very disciplined and military rank based organization.
When creating a character, the scenario is somewhat similar to the browncoats, though you will be an Alliance recruit taken onto several missions.
The Reavers
Savage space pirats that only care for death and destruction. They are crazy, cannibals and self mutilate. No ranks … each on his own and all for one!
You start off on a Reavers ship entering small cruise ship, where the crew will be slaughtered and eaten. After that, the ship is yours and the game starts. Being Reaver is simple … you kill, kill and kill more. A really crude class to play, with little background nor learning curve.
The reavers are meant to be a completely different game experience and are fully focussed on pvp from early levels.
The Setting
The FireFly universe consist of many types of planets.
Home Planets
These are planets that factions would call their home planets. These are not contestable and are well protected. However, opposing factions can still attack and plunder certain area’s. These planets are suitable to build your house, or even a town on. If large enough guild there is even the possibility to craft a space station to live on. (PvP/PvE).
Captureable Planets
Planets that are contestable by violence and offer loads of resources and pve/pvp content to the faction owning it. (RvR)
Free-for-all:
Planets that are open to anyone for resources and content (PvP/PvE)
Colonized Planets.
These planets are contestable by reputation. There are 2 types:
1. Personal reputation. You need to maintain a certain level of reputation with the locals to not be attacked by them. Reputation decreases over time (out of eye out of heart) so it needs to be maintained.
2. Faction reputation. The faction that holds the highest reputation as a total get to reap from the local benefits (content/resources/vendors/etc).
Reapers are hated by everyone … they will never be able to gain rep with these planets.
Themepark planets.
Loads of PVE content, untakeable by any faction. PvP is not possible on these planets (for whatever reason). (PvE) These planets also cater for (live) events and many minigames. There are races to bet on or to participate in, shootouts, poker tournaments, arena’s, baking competitions and much more. Earn your statue on these planets for epic achievements and victories. Have songs written for you (Jamestown
Player created planets.
Give the players a toolset enabling them to easily develop their own planet. That is fully develop. Landscape, habitats, towns, dungeons, the full chebang. Every few months, people can send in their contributions from which you pick one and perfect it together with your team and the contributer. Next expansion, add this planet to the game with something personal of the contributor in it (town’s name, race name, dungeon name). Make sure to already add 1 together with the release of the game, perfect marketing.
The gamers today are people that are creative (see second life). Some of them are even amazingly good at it.
Player created towns
Having housing in place. Guilds can place their own towns, incorporating everything the big cities have, but completely managed by guild members. Also have the ability to run live events in the guilds town by the guilds. Take in ideas for live events from guilds, evaluate and script them, and have a tool in place for them where they can run the scripts to control events. After a while, out of these scripts premade templates can be build for the most recurring and popular events.
Travelling
There are multiple forms of travelling, both on land and in space.
Space
There are numerous sorts of space vessels, ranging from single person to multi person, combat, cruisers and cargo vessels. Each vessel has certain skill requirements which can be gained by experience.
Travelling to space adds a few elements to the game regarding combat and faction.
To support people that enjoy trading games, have it so that cargo ships can be “neutral” … they are modified so they will turn up on Browncoats and Alliance scans. Therefor they can also trade on all homeplanets (but reavers).
Highly skilled browncoats can also temporarily to this to their vessel, while alliance technology is so far developed, they can cloak for a while.
Space combat is possible in most area’s, and is twitch based. You can decide to spend you whole gaming career as a space pirate. The only way to travel safe is to insure, hire guards, or use space portals between home planets.
Landing on a planet is not a matter of pressing a button … it is a mini game and takes skill. As soon as you near a planets docking station, you go into immune state so you can’t be attacked anymore (only possible if not already under attack). You need to land the spaceship by yourself taking into account approach speed, angle and spinning of the planet. Doing this wrong you can end up with a lot of damage and loss of goods.
Land
On civilized planets, there is usually a public transport infrastructure to take you around the planet. Think trains and shuttles for fast and far transport. For personal transport there are many different mounts, like horses, quads, amphibian vehicles, hover planes or local mountable creatures (tameable). Some are single, some are multi person vehicles.
Skills
Maybe you already noticed from this writeup so far, I was huge fan of old Star Wars galaxies. They had the best skill system, with a vast and logical set of professions though I think it can be perfected a little. In principal, I would use their complete setup of professions, though with a few changes/additions.
Regarding crafting:
- More customizations for housing.
- Stat-less gear, with slots for enhancements.
Crafters that craft a few very succesfull items in a row, will go into an higher state of crafting. This will slightly increase their chances om additional enhancement slots (which are a random chance). Having a few bad crafts will lower the chance.
Each month architects can come up with ideas for new furniture/paintings (ingame tool to design them). Every month a winner will be picked, the item will be added to the game, and the winner will own the patent to that item. This means every time this item is created by anyone, the inventors name will be on it.
Regarding combat professions:
Add a combat profession reflecting River’s skills. Her mind was brainwashed and enhanced to improve her combat senses.
Reapers do not have access to harvesting/crafting. They will gain everything by salvaging other peoples ships/homes.
Gear
Game is NOT gear based, gear just helps a bit.
Gear is there for aesthetics, not statistics.
Quality gear separates itself by having high durability and/or more enhancement slots.
For armor, these are usually resistances and resilience, for weapons extra damage.
Gear decades, but can be repaired by armor/weapon smiths ( can fail though).
Reavers have no gear … they are much tougher then “normal” people can can even enhance their toughness through experience and skills. They fight barehand.
These are your perfect choice when you want full focus on pvp from earliest levels in game.
Combat
- All combat is twitch based
- Challenging bosses with a high level of AI that is dynamic enough to adjust to the attacking party. Scripted to not follow one path, but can randomly change.
- No friendly fire
- No potions!!
- Critical hits don’t damage more, but add debuff to player
- You can actively dodge
- Diminishing returns on slows (no roots)
- Use of Cover / LoS
Death
Incentive based … gain benefits for staying alive, not loose something for dying.
The longer you stay alive, the sharper your senses will be. With enheighted senses, you will move quicker in combat and dodge parry more easily.
Social
It needs to be a game where people need each other. Again, SWG had this (almost) completely right. Get buffs from entertainers … heal battle fatigue and wounds from meds/docs. Though make it more easy obtainable.
Techinicians build mounts/ships. Animal Tamers provide company pets and mounts.
Gatheres supply crafters, crafters supply combatants. Combatants fight for territory, loot, crafting parts to supply fracters.
**************************
Going to need 250 mil ....
I would design a kind of SIMS Online. Actually, I don't like the game but a lot of people would buy it.
i am on the fence. I basicly have two different ideas. Both licens based tho so i guess the money wont get me to far.
One would be a Transfromers MMO. Themepark with some PvP in "warzones" ala WAR. Transformation would start out on a limited scale, starting with weapon configuration and move on to vehicular transformation. One could even include gestalting, ei smaller robots forming a larger one by having a "pet-class" like configuration. This game would in the end tho eb your "WoW in metal" a basic standard MMO
my second idea is a MW... As in MechWarriror... Not that rail-shooter on steriods that have taken the initials. Set in the Battletech universe dutring the Clan invasion... This game would be a bit similar to WAR with a synergy between PvE and PvP with both having a effect on campaings. With several planets (well not complete planest but big enough to create the illusion) and several factions duking it out over rescources and territory. The PvE part would be questing/raiding as a charcter avatar taking on stuff either a bit more covert (a 30+ ton mech is not to suble... a 100 ton one even less so) or in location were mech combat is not an option.
The PvP part would be doen on mechs and other armored vechiels. Each panet would have a capital and taking it would take both PvE and PvP action and grant both the faction and the players nice bounties. Guilds would eb handeld either by forming a mecenery company and such can take on contracts to fight on planets, but as an offset gear will be scarcer and more expensive or form a house/clan company giving a better access to gear but be tied for ever to a house or clan.
Those are the ideas i would flesh out and try to make games out of,
This have been a good conversation
Yeah, I'm not sure 50 mil would do it any more, as far as building an MMO from the ground up. So....I would take that 50 million and do something useful in the real world, if that was an option. If you're going to "make me" spend it on an MMO....hmm, well....I'd probably have to invest my 50 million with someone already developing a game I really believed in and enter into some kind of financial partnership with them, since I really don'thave the abilities that developing an MMO requires, nor would I have the first clue about how to hire the best people for the many many jobs and skills that it takes to make something of that magnitude.