UbiSoft's Project Dust is an example of gameplay I would like to see in an MMO - A combination of evolution, terraforming, community building and world building.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Ideas are cheap and plentiful, great ideas are very rare.
Anyone can say "A game with this feature would be awesomness!!". That is having an idea.
Few people can come up with a truly original, well thought out, balanced idea that can be implemented with current technologies and played on a wide variety of systems. Those are great ideas.
Saying "A novel about a highly trained CIA assassin who loses his memory and has to evade the CIA while discovering himself would be great" is an idea. An idea lots and lots of people could come up with.
Being able to think of that and then the back story, the plot lines, the conflicts, the resolutions and create the Bourne series is having a great idea. On the very surface they are extremely similar, but one only exists on the surface and the other has extreme depth to it.
True enough. There's also a difference between good ideas in theory and good ideas in practice.
I don't think anything getting posted here is detailed enough to be worth stealing, for sure. Even the best of them are pretty vague.
A 5 way faction based RvR game. Each faction is themed, much like DaoC - but ripped slightly from magic: the gathering. Each has two opposing factions, but all are at war with each other (maybe more points for killing your true enemies)
White - all churches, propserous cities and highly religious - represents life and community, opposes destruction.
Green - forest dwellers - represents life and nature, opposes exploitation
Red - shamans & barbarians - represents nature and destruction, opposes community
Black - necromancers & undead - represents exploitation and destruction, opposes life
Grey (yeah not the blues) - techophiles who dont care a jot about ecology - represents community and exploitation, opposes nature
Instead of limited RvR zones and lots of PvE.. do away with levels and experience making a big power difference. A few low levels should easily overcome the most advanced player. RvR is the mainstay of the game. Ah and no mobs just sat there doing nothing. Possibly make all PvE instanced (say like GW).
No(or few) big fortress sieges with massive zerg fests. Just a very wide open world divided into regions with many many small tactical objectives that can be taken by small(ish) groups. Objectives have to be held to gain points for the region for your faction.
Anti-zerg abilities. AoE powers that increase with power if there are a large number of players of a single faction nearby.
Each region belongs to a faction or is contested - holding tactical locations gives points and allows control of regions to change. The environment changes to reflect the control. White - plowed fields, sunny pastures Green - forests, Red - lava flows and rocky protusions, Black - icy glacial feel with dead trees, Grey - barren and excavated.
There much much more that could be said.. but those are some of the main points. Essentially with battle lines divided between 5 factions and the emphasis on a wide, spread out battlefield - not a narrow zerg fest like WAR (sigh - i had such hopes). Yeah 5 factions may be more content, but if classes are largely similar this reduces workload.
I always thought it'd be fun to design an MMO where different people see things in different ways.
For example, some people could see ley lines and the flow of energy between things, while another might be able to see oh... Iunno, fairy spirits or something.
... and there would be all these different realities overlying each other, and maybe a single class that is totally blind to magic, some type of warrior class. They'd be more resistant to magic, but would have to trust other people when they're telling them 'Nono, run over this totally imaginary bridge that's right here, trust me, it exists!'
... I thought of them as being called 'paradigms' rather than classes, and each paradigm can contribute differently to fights, by manipulating enemies and the world in different ways. Perhaps a boss seems nearly unbeatable, but a paradigm or two could see that he's externally attached to some power source, and they could either divert the energy or destroy the power source.
Of course, the game would require an unparalleled level of coordination between members in a group, so might bea bad idea.
didn't expect to hear anything at all original in this thread,
How about an MMO based on the real world we live in with a mix of RTS empire building?
The virtual world would be a copy of Earth with the same geographical layout and minerals.
Players would start with one settlement and main general character, and would have to fight/co-operate with their immediate neighbours to survive. Trade would exist between each settlement to allow economic growtrh and the abilty to craft items.
For example: (i'll use Scotland as an example since i live there)
Multiple settlements could form around the south west area of Scotland. Some areas will have minerals/resources that the others will not have and vice-versa. These settlements could trade with each other ie. wood for iron, so that each could build more buildings, make more weapons etc. Some settlements might attack each other, since some settlements will want more power, some settlements may make alliances with others for defence/trade purposes. Maybe eventually 4 or 5 settlements will join together to create a kingdom (guild).
Kingdoms would be lead by a democratically elected leader. 1 vote per settlement- if a player has 2 settlements he gets 2 votes etc. These kingdoms would have greater power over their weaker neighbours and could take over other neighbouring settlements easily by forcing them to join or become landlocked, and therefore un-tradeable with anyone else outide the kingdom.
If the leaders of kingdoms become to unpopular, the players (Lords) of the indeividual kingdoms inside them could revolt, and split the kingdom in half or join a neighbouring kingdom etc.
Eventually we could end up with much bigger kingdoms gradually taking over the world, but like the British Empire has over the last 60 years, these could very quickly break up or join with others if not content.
Massive world PVP could happen once kingdoms get a certain size and major alliance are set up. World war I or II mayhem!
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There's obvioulsy alot of technical issues to address in this idea.
Should technology evolve in any way or stay the same? What happens if a settlement is under attack and the Lord is offline? - Maybe, a settlement can only be taken after it has been held under seige for a few days or a week even, since in reality settlements have very rarely been taken so quickly as is seen in modern MMO's.
How the combat system would work, i'm not sure. Maybe a Total War type of move units/armies about and automatic battle victory decided by stats +RNG?
I had an idea for an original MMO one time. Even wrote it all down. Sadly though it was bought out and squelched by a big corporation. Now my MMO idea sits in a vault gathering dust next to the plans for the water powered car and the anti gravity generator.
There are as many unique ideas for MMOs out there as there are people to dream them up. That isn't the problem with the stagnation of the MMO industry. The problem stems from these games getting created by committee, and created by rote from the same narrow minded formula the last several games used. MMOs are an expensive venture, no single creative mind has the money to truly create their own vision of an MMO. So they get saddled with investors, and usually big corporations. This means the creative process is often disrupted or outright derailed by accountants or market management who care nothing about originality but instead care only for statistics and demographics, profit and loss. They want a sound investment, not some off the wall uncertain venture into Terra incognita. So that means the game creators have stick to the same tired shtick that worked for others in the past. So every new game is just a pathetic pastiche of every MMO we've played before.
So until technology progresses to the point where it doesn't take a massive team and a truckload of money to create an MMO, and allows the creative geniuses to break the shackles these corporate blockheads have fettered them with, or we as consumers rise up and tell them "WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!!", get used to mundanity.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
the same Fantasy setting, Humans, Dwarves, exc. start the game in Squishy 2D graphics, past lvl 3 it opens up into a 3D graphics, A world so vast you set your toon in one direction for a Year real time (or close too) and never see it all, a chance to realy get lost. NO shout across the world,
your Character at Start is Origanal, Randomly generated, and thats you no Alterations (maybe 3 toons alotted, no Delete)
Magic Binding, Open PVP, but you kill someone, the towns and Cities know, and will kill you on sight, real consiquince to online behavior, Huge amount of Faction grind to earn your way back into ANY town, a real handycap if you choose that play stile
I`m curious to see what ideas the masses have. If you can describe in only a few sentences a completely original idea for an mmo that is like nothing else out there, post it here. Make it as abstract as you want!
I`m making this post because almost all "original" ideas arent original, honestly. I`m hoping for some huge and outside the box stuff.
The mmorpg genre has been run by sheep for over a decade, cmon, I know you guys have great ideas. Now where are they?
Here are some slightly different games to get your immagination going.
portal
guild wars
spore
little big planet
These are only slightly off the rocker, can you do better?
Richard Garriott is that you?
He was involved in all of those? creepy. But imo tabula rasa actually wasnt bad, horrible imbalance but was great fun to play.
Sure heres an idea for a completely original MMO. Its so original Im not even sure what its going to be until I finish writing this post? Ready?
The world is huge. Not just huge in terms of horizontal landmass, but huge in terms of vertical mass as well. There are three levels.
Level 1 - Underground.
Level 2 - Surface
Level 3 - Air
Each level is a complete world, think of each as their own world, encased by another world, but all dependent on a hollow world concept where in theory you could go lower or higher and keep experiencing different bioshperes and ways of life. For expediency we are going to stick with these 3, though.
Each of these worlds is influenced by extradimensional space, a great sundering of elements, energy, and life in general. The standard Air - Earth - Fire - Water will do. So now our hollow world stands in the middle, as a convergence point of these various energies that attempt to pull it apart.
Influences of Air
Things will be tall. Things will lack emotion, be excessively cerebral. Things will be pale. Things will have an affinity towards electricity. Things will have an affinity towards air travel. Inhabitants will be aloof. Cultures will be spread out thinly. People might be rare, and getting rarer much like a gas dissipates into smaller and smaller parts per million. Great cities might be falling into ruin as their inhabitants, once numbering in the thousands, now number a mere ten or less.
Creatures might look like this:
Influences of Earth
Dust to Dust. Things here would be dead, dying, or coexist with that element. Inhabitants would be fatalistic, rigid in their ways, tiny (but not dwarves how cliche). They would work with metals, be technologically adept. Theyd be rather steam punk. These would be inventors, but their inventions would be practical --- and theyd also reflect the chaos going on around them. Many might be incomplete, or seem nonsensical to us in their construction. Combat would be very normal to this influence. So would tenacity. Growth would be longed for, but the pulling apart of the world at its edges would make any growth a sad process.
Influences of Water
Water would be mysterious, menacing. Water is the element of lies and deception. Things are never what they seem Your worst enemy could be a friend, and best friend... well... Technology would be limited to what is useful in aquatics, or what is useful for war (always self defense... ha ha ha). Water culture would be very similar to Persia. Sultans, harems, politics, intrique, and subtlety.
Influences of Fire
Fire would be aggression, rage, turmoil, and life. Raw energy. Untamed. People who existed close to the fire sphere would exist in a land that constantly tried to swallow up their meager civilizations, while each civilization strove to outdo another. Sparsely populated and obviously in decline, these individuals are quick to embrace change, and quicker still to discard it. They are creatures of passion.
As one moved up and down the hollow world chain the influences of different elements would become greater or less, depending on their proximity to the center, with earth being the most central and air being the farthest out.
But what does it all mean?
You as a player would begin as an awakened individual from the pre sundering. Your species did the division of the world during a great technical age, obstensibly to save itself. It had discovered magic and technology, and had used these abilities to great ends, but it had not discovered peace. In order to save itself, and the universe from complete annihilation as people fought each other for control they divided the world. The division however was incomplete. You cant divide a world down if you exist within it. So the world continues to slowly break apart.... and the beings that did it? They are now a part of the chain, being broken down into mere remnants of what they were. Continuing their wars now not just against each other, but against all the creations of the sundering.
And theyve forgotten why theyre doing it. Dying just like their world, the knowledge of what happened and why has been lost.
Player characters know about this, having lived up to the time of the plan before beign suddenly, mysteriously put to sleep... somewhere.
Your decadent descendents know you are different. from them. They can still sense the magic, but arent good at it. You arent good at it either (at first) but you still exude it. If they dont envy you out of curiosity they want to kill you. So does the rest of the world. It senses what you are. You have few friends. And you realize that if you do not find a way to reverse the damage the world will absolutely end.
The purpose of the players is to find a way to reverse things.
So how can this be done?
This is a sandbox world. You can use your magic and technology to cultivate, spread knowledge, create peace, instigate war, anything at all that restores the balance. The game tracks your progress, and you can both increase and decrease in mana (magical power) as you succeed or fail in your endeavors. Player housing, guilds, all of these things dont just exist as an afterthought, theyre part of the system of achieving balance in a world tearing itself apart. If your house is excessive in water influence, you must find ways to raise its other influences while combating the decay and ill will generated by introduction of opposing elements into the sphere. If your guild is too fire heavy (aggressive) or too water heavy (decietful) you need to balance it out.
Yeah.
So this isnt a whole dev novel. In fact is just an idea off the top of my head. But you asked for original, not technolgically easy.
There we go, now theres some creativity just as i was beginning to think the masses had missed the point of this thread. Thanks for posting, I hope ideas like this combine and multiply into some great stuff! I enjoyed reading this, thanks again for sharing!
Yes, and I'm going to give it away for free by posting it here.
Here I go...
Interested people will join you, not steal from you. No one can make an MMO alone. If you think someone might steal your idea then just leave out the details, tell us something vague. You might be surprised with the support you get.
Yes, and I'm going to give it away for free by posting it here.
Here I go...
Creative minds are doomed to poverty for true imagination is a tragedy of the commons.
Far from poverty, but I also don't have any plans of trying to get rich from my creative ideas. I just wouldn't want someone else who is extremely uncreative to take all the good ideas people throw out and make something to get rich and all of those idea people are out of luck.
Never give anything for free.
Give nothing and get nothing. People dont go anywhere in the world by being afraid to share what theyre thinking about. Thats the mindset of middle management, doomed to work their crappy desk jobs until they get fat, go bald, and retire.
People with ideas talk about them, and if someone likes them they get to work on them! Dont bother arguing with me here. Youre wrong.
I don't go through life expecting to get things for free. So I guess the give nothing get nothing when it comes to free things works. Who expects to get free stuff? I get what a work for or pay for.
By your theory, you think that a person posts an idea here. A company likes it and decides to use it. And in some strange way the person who posted the idea gets to work on it? That will never happen ever.
You know how you can instantly tell when someone's side doesn't have my basis? When they say "Dont bother arguing with me here. Youre wrong." The only time you are afraid of an argument is when your side has no basis to support it.
If you are looking for a basis for his point, you should research trade theory. By sharing ideas here, you each save time and get closer to your goals. That time you save is free. You dont give any time, then you dont get any for free. Its quite true, we`ve known that since the 1800`s. That is why countries still trade today.
First you have the avatar. There is no reason it has to be a person, but that is what most MMORPGs use. It could be anything.
Second you have goalset. This is what the avatar is supposed to DO in the game. Not necessarily how they react.
Third you have interactivity. This is how the avatars are supposed to get together to achieve their goals. This might be as light as talking about something in chat to having to assemble together with each other like one big robot to accomplish something.
Fourth you have milieu. Well, currently we're pretty darn limited because people are still sitting in boxes.
Fifth and finally you have angle. This is how the person playing the game's view of our world is skewed.
As an example, I'm gonna take the old WoWzer and twistify it up some.
First: The avatar is now a disconnected spirit. Your spirit can "take control" of any creature in the world to achieve your ends, and has its abilities, but only for a limited time. Further, while being possessed, other creatures might detect this possession and try to force you out. Finally, two characters attempting to control the same creature can either fight or cooperate. Fighting means that they duke it out spiritual style (I have a small mini-game in mind with clicking paths and things to create circuits. the one to drain the other's power wins.). If they cooperate, they can use TWO powersets of the creature but have to share movement. This means, for instance, that they could use an Orc's sword twice, if this were fantasy.
Second: The characters are attempting to solve a puzzle in each zone. Think of it as an interconnected set of switches. Sometimes it might be to push a ball through a hole. Others might be to chop wood, kill creatures, or convince someone to do something. Sometimes you have to get a creature to a place. This might involve complex moving, climbing. swinging, flying, and so on.
Third: The characters interact because each puzzleset might require 100 steps to finish. Some of which are non-linear and have to be accomplished at once; such as get 3 puppies away from a mother wolf so she starts looking for them. Here's the catch... each of the switches has 2 fallbacks, such that each zone (or puzzle) would have 300 total switches. These change and permute so the game is never the same twice (or probably so). There could be groups of spirits acting together as a troupe. These groups would have a better than average chance or greater ability to solve tasks. They gain in power as they link for greater periods of time.
Fourth: The milieu that popped into my head comes up as Gaslight. So it'd be 1880s london and from the 1930's play with Vincent Price. This would lend itself to being a sort of murder mystery cops & robbers sort of thing. You would interact with various settings and neighborhoods either to cause a crime to occur (which would unlock the other side) and some others would have to 'solve' it by working backwards.
Fifth: The angle is ... you can't see anything but people when you're outside of someone (and other avatars), and when you're in someone, you can only see 1st person. This will make for some very interesting scenes and interaction.
That's just off of the top of my head. Go make Gasslight and lets play!
(See how easy that is? I could do this all day. Ideas are a dime a dozen.)
I like your descriptions of game foundation, most people cant think that far down, or how to use a new direction with them.
Problem is that the market value of my ideas was $0 anyway.
Same here.
Ideas are cheap and plentiful. Implementation, on the other hand...
Ideas are cheap and plentiful, great ideas are very rare.
Anyone can say "A game with this feature would be awesomness!!". That is having an idea.
Few people can come up with a truly original, well thought out, balanced idea that can be implemented with current technologies and played on a wide variety of systems. Those are great ideas.
Saying "A novel about a highly trained CIA assassin who loses his memory and has to evade the CIA while discovering himself would be great" is an idea. An idea lots and lots of people could come up with.
Being able to think of that and then the back story, the plot lines, the conflicts, the resolutions and create the Bourne series is having a great idea. On the very surface they are extremely similar, but one only exists on the surface and the other has extreme depth to it.
If good ideas are cheap and plentiful then why are we so shocked and forever changed when we hear an original one? Money is an idea. Society is an idea. Law is an idea. Religion is an idea. Do they have any power over you? Ideas are the most powerful thing known in the universe. Never forget that.
my idea for a completely oringinal ish MMO would be a MMORPG and it would be based in the Golden Age in any nation and race or continent but human only and a character customization where you can completely customize your charcater down to the hair texture and game play is based on the deity system where you choose from a list of major God/Goddesses and the reigning side can gain control which would set off events like certain gods or goddesses projecting into a tangible being and destroy everything and there you go an instant raid and if the city is destroy the reigning empire would be knocked from its position of power and turned into slaves etc...... there would be a heirarchy that is completely player based there would also be government and mythical creatures all over the game world to conquer which new ones being created all the time there would also be a war between everyone the gods,titans,players once the titans get free some how and if the gods are beaten the titans take control causing new events and and quests etc.... basically creating a new gameplay experience also there would be shops and systems where everyone cant just be a blacksmith or a armorer or whatever but that you have to actually own a shop in the city and pay taxes on it and there would be people who have magic store where they can be like a spellbook broker and buy spell books from other nations just making the game more realistic ............................i typed this fast lol
Idunno.... sounds a lot like age of empires meets god of war meets eq...
A 5 way faction based RvR game. Each faction is themed, much like DaoC - but ripped slightly from magic: the gathering. Each has two opposing factions, but all are at war with each other (maybe more points for killing your true enemies)
White - all churches, propserous cities and highly religious - represents life and community, opposes destruction.
Green - forest dwellers - represents life and nature, opposes exploitation
Red - shamans & barbarians - represents nature and destruction, opposes community
Black - necromancers & undead - represents exploitation and destruction, opposes life
Grey (yeah not the blues) - techophiles who dont care a jot about ecology - represents community and exploitation, opposes nature
Instead of limited RvR zones and lots of PvE.. do away with levels and experience making a big power difference. A few low levels should easily overcome the most advanced player. RvR is the mainstay of the game. Ah and no mobs just sat there doing nothing. Possibly make all PvE instanced (say like GW).
No(or few) big fortress sieges with massive zerg fests. Just a very wide open world divided into regions with many many small tactical objectives that can be taken by small(ish) groups. Objectives have to be held to gain points for the region for your faction.
Anti-zerg abilities. AoE powers that increase with power if there are a large number of players of a single faction nearby.
Each region belongs to a faction or is contested - holding tactical locations gives points and allows control of regions to change. The environment changes to reflect the control. White - plowed fields, sunny pastures Green - forests, Red - lava flows and rocky protusions, Black - icy glacial feel with dead trees, Grey - barren and excavated.
There much much more that could be said.. but those are some of the main points. Essentially with battle lines divided between 5 factions and the emphasis on a wide, spread out battlefield - not a narrow zerg fest like WAR (sigh - i had such hopes). Yeah 5 factions may be more content, but if classes are largely similar this reduces workload.
I think this puts together a lot of things that magic the gathering players would like a lot, but none of the game mechanics seem that new. Never the less, sounds interesting to me :P I used to play mtg when i was younger.
the world is not ready for such a thing. everybody is focused on character progression drudgework for now.
after all, having fun doesn't give you real "progress", and isn't a real "goal" according to the majority of MMO "players" (workers more like it).
Every mmo is fun with the right friends to play with. However, if the game is fun by itself, that adds to the experience. Some good friends and some Dynamic content (randomly generated dungeon maps, events, and the like) will make it easy to play for a long long time. I am liking GW2`s work on this so far. As long as its not exactly the same each and every time, i think people are happy with that. I also think devs should pay more attention to developing certain activities within the same game that are geared towards a players mood.
We all have our favorite MMO and FPS right? perhaps platform game and strategy too. But we definately know which game we are in the mood to play. It would be nice to have some together in the same game. I know I`ll be looking forward to EVE getting DUST514 then I can play eve when im craving some action, and when im looking to work my brain muscle too.
Wouldnt you agree? action packed, relaxing, intellectual and funny dynamic content in the same game? people think it would be impossible in the same game, but its so easy. Battlefield 2142 has the ability for a player to switch to a commander and the game becomes strategy, that interface probably took one guy 3 days to make. Battlezone was the first to do it i think, just walk into a comm bunker and start playing rts. I think a lot of people would enjoy that.
Now if we could only make it extremely interesting with really outside the box content...
Okay heres my shot, it's kinda rough and i haven't thought out alot of the details but here it goes.
Game starts off with you looking at the celling of an ambulance,
You (that avatar that is) looks right and sees a man
He states you were hallucinating and collapsed on the floor just shortly before the paramedics got there. (this states how you got here in the first place.)
Your basically being transfered to one of the world renown hospitals for your special "Condition".
Most of the rest of the scene is taking up with you arriving at the hospital and getting to the front counter (this if there were any credits, like producers or whatever is where this would go.)
The receptionist at the front desk asks you to fill out all your personal information (this is basically the character creation. Three pictures show the top, middle and bottom which you can change to your liking the pictures are interactive but only the face will be shown later and is front shot only after the creation is complete and none moving they are only movable so the player can customize, and most importantly your name and what condition your suffering from, which is basically your skill setup or more rigidly your class.)
Once character creation is done, the camera swings around to show your avatar's face for the first time, Think Mass effect if you want a visual to go with the words. (up till now it's been all in 1st person)
Your giving a brief and i do mean brief tour of the general meeting areas, some of the important people of the game and finally your room (Still haven't figured if this will be different for each person but the room will be instanced when you enter it.) Your "parked near the bed of the room and told to wait for the nurse that will be taking care of the more "personal" aspects and getting you aquinted better with the Hospital, He also warns you to not go out at night because certain people, but before he can say anymore he is cut off when the lights go out. (no he never finishes, the lights going out chased it out of his mind)
Once power is restored, he tells you that happens every so often and not to worry. He leaves you with one last order (that you must remain in your chair and the nurse will be around in 5 minutes time), he then closes the door and locks it. To show the player they have a choice this is the first chance they can move and by pressing forward (or whatever they've binded the key to) they can get up but the timer will reset. In actuality, you only need to wait 1 minute in the chair (5 would be too long to look at a wall for a gamer.) once the player has waited the 1 minute the door will be unlocked, the door will open and the nurse (miss Helana (name is still a work in progress) will go down some of the more or less basic aspects (the player is locked again while she is explaining this, sorry guys key information need to make sure theres no way you can miss it), as long as you don't go through doors with red lights and stay in populated areas you'll be fine.
She also states at the end that you may get up if you wish and take a look around (player regains control at this point). As soon as the player stands up though the power goes out for a second time and you hear the door slam shut. (depending on your "condition" you're gonna see something happen in that room. I haven't made my mind up yet but it will be related to both your condition and the story.
Power is restored again and you turn around to see the door is wide open. Miss Helena states you were Hallucinating again, and that it can happen here, oddly she also states you'll never have this happen as long as your in bright public areas, another reason to not go wandering into dark hallways.
Miss Helena will leave you with one last thing: she will state that something happened here before the current company took over and she has a feeling that your condition is the key to finding out what it was.
As you might have guessed this takes place entirely on the hospital and it's grounds. Of course to accomidate people the hospital is big but easy to navigate via stairwells and elevators. The blackouts are actually how the "action" bit of the game gets started. If you've watched any J-horror, you'll get the basic idea. The cool thing is the grouping aspect, as more people group the more interesting the encounters become, because it is possible to be removed from the group at odd times by the strange occurances and may rejoin your group later or at the end. Of course your powers are needed to get to the end of that secarnio and once you do you'll pick up a nice bit of juicy lore, story, items and xp. Most quests have to be learned through talking to people in the lounge areas. But some can be done right away.
Biggest problems i can see are: how would i go about removing players and not spoiling the atmosphere by having them say i'm okay in chat. Second, how to make a hospital interesting enough for people to actually want to spend time doing things in there. Finally How to effective keep the story interesting but long enough to last between content release as they can't be repeatable as that kills the horror aspect if you know whats coming, so repeat quests would have to be down to just delivering sheets of paper or pills for modest rewards, which compared to the story aspect they would never want to do.
But there you go, that idea has been in my head for the last 2 or 3 years now, I have a few others but thats about as off the wall i can get and still be able to happen.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Okay heres my shot, it's kinda rough and i haven't thought out alot of the details but here it goes.
Game starts off with you looking at the celling of an ambulance,
You (that avatar that is) looks right and sees a man
He states you were hallucinating and collapsed on the floor just shortly before the paramedics got there. (this states how you got here in the first place.)
Your basically being transfered to one of the world renown hospitals for your special "Condition".
Most of the rest of the scene is taking up with you arriving at the hospital and getting to the front counter (this if there were any credits, like producers or whatever is where this would go.)
The receptionist at the front desk asks you to fill out all your personal information (this is basically the character creation. Three pictures show the top, middle and bottom which you can change to your liking the pictures are interactive but only the face will be shown later and is front shot only after the creation is complete and none moving they are only movable so the player can customize, and most importantly your name and what condition your suffering from, which is basically your skill setup or more rigidly your class.)
Once character creation is done, the camera swings around to show your avatar's face for the first time, Think Mass effect if you want a visual to go with the words. (up till now it's been all in 1st person)
Your giving a brief and i do mean brief tour of the general meeting areas, some of the important people of the game and finally your room (Still haven't figured if this will be different for each person but the room will be instanced when you enter it.) Your "parked near the bed of the room and told to wait for the nurse that will be taking care of the more "personal" aspects and getting you aquinted better with the Hospital, He also warns you to not go out at night because certain people, but before he can say anymore he is cut off when the lights go out. (no he never finishes, the lights going out chased it out of his mind)
Once power is restored, he tells you that happens every so often and not to worry. He leaves you with one last order (that you must remain in your chair and the nurse will be around in 5 minutes time), he then closes the door and locks it. To show the player they have a choice this is the first chance they can move and by pressing forward (or whatever they've binded the key to) they can get up but the timer will reset. In actuality, you only need to wait 1 minute in the chair (5 would be too long to look at a wall for a gamer.) once the player has waited the 1 minute the door will be unlocked, the door will open and the nurse (miss Helana (name is still a work in progress) will go down some of the more or less basic aspects (the player is locked again while she is explaining this, sorry guys key information need to make sure theres no way you can miss it), as long as you don't go through doors with red lights and stay in populated areas you'll be fine.
She also states at the end that you may get up if you wish and take a look around (player regains control at this point). As soon as the player stands up though the power goes out for a second time and you hear the door slam shut. (depending on your "condition" you're gonna see something happen in that room. I haven't made my mind up yet but it will be related to both your condition and the story.
Power is restored again and you turn around to see the door is wide open. Miss Helena states you were Hallucinating again, and that it can happen here, oddly she also states you'll never have this happen as long as your in bright public areas, another reason to not go wandering into dark hallways.
Miss Helena will leave you with one last thing: she will state that something happened here before the current company took over and she has a feeling that your condition is the key to finding out what it was.
As you might have guessed this takes place entirely on the hospital and it's grounds. Of course to accomidate people the hospital is big but easy to navigate via stairwells and elevators. The blackouts are actually how the "action" bit of the game gets started. If you've watched any J-horror, you'll get the basic idea. The cool thing is the grouping aspect, as more people group the more interesting the encounters become, because it is possible to be removed from the group at odd times by the strange occurances and may rejoin your group later or at the end. Of course your powers are needed to get to the end of that secarnio and once you do you'll pick up a nice bit of juicy lore, story, items and xp. Most quests have to be learned through talking to people in the lounge areas. But some can be done right away.
Biggest problems i can see are: how would i go about removing players and not spoiling the atmosphere by having them say i'm okay in chat. Second, how to make a hospital interesting enough for people to actually want to spend time doing things in there. Finally How to effective keep the story interesting but long enough to last between content release as they can't be repeatable as that kills the horror aspect if you know whats coming, so repeat quests would have to be down to just delivering sheets of paper or pills for modest rewards, which compared to the story aspect they would never want to do.
But there you go, that idea has been in my head for the last 2 or 3 years now, I have a few others but thats about as off the wall i can get and still be able to happen.
Hmm, seems cool You could write some interesting storyline im sure! This sounds like a game that could fit into the same kind of model as Left 4 Dead. It seems pretty hard to make an MMORPG out of though. FYI I love J-horror.
I have one idea I thought was cool. Its basically a conservationalists vs Hunters. And you got species in the game that can go extinct forever. The conservationalists hunt the hunters. The hunters hunt the animals. And with bonuses for getting rare animals and they might have a number of tools to help them. The hunters get reputations and bounties on their head according to how prolific, endangering there are etc.
Its an idea that fits in with the 'world' theme, and incorporates pvp and soforth.
I have one idea I thought was cool. Its basically a conservationalists vs Hunters. And you got species in the game that can go extinct forever. The conservationalists hunt the hunters. The hunters hunt the animals. And with bonuses for getting rare animals and they might have a number of tools to help them. The hunters get reputations and bounties on their head according to how prolific, endangering there are etc.
Its an idea that fits in with the 'world' theme, and incorporates pvp and soforth.
Sounds a wee bit like counter strike with the terrorists and the seals, but a bit more depth.
Well, neither the hunter or the conservationalists could have a personal avatar penalty for scoring a kill or failing to prevent a species from going extinct. That does not make gamers happy ever. however, if you externalize the penalty, everyone is happy. for example, if hunters get caught, they must respawn farther away from a good hunting area, and lose closer access until they work their way back, however their avatar is unaffected. likewise when hunters sneak in and get away with a certain number of hunts, they get closer access to that area, and the conservationalists get bumped a bit farther away etc.
Im not sure how interested the masses would be with the theme though.
Not original. A copy of EVE for people who don't like spaceships. It could be fantasy or sci fi or both i.e a sci fi setting expressed in fantasy terms.
Basically you have a world whose atmosphere makes it impossible to survive outside of some kind of dome-colonies. The humans (or whatever) live in these dome-colonies and interact with the outside world using avatars which they create while in a trance. The avatars start out very weak like a walking hologram but eventually with practise can become very strong. If they take too much damage they dissolve and the operator back in the dome needs time to recover before they can go under again.
To take the EVE analogy further the PC could learn to create different avatars and different abilities, weapons and traits. They could create chamelon scout avatars or large troll-like mining avatars. The equivalent of an EVE battleship might be an avatar that looked like a balrog.
The avatars could either be like ships in that the player learned how to create different avatar-frames and seperately learned weapons and skills e.g chamelon ability or a flaming whip, which could then be mixed and matched on the frames or they could be more like standard mmo character classes where the player leveled up a scout avatar, mining avatar separately and projected the one they needed at the time.
Everything in the game would be player made and require mining / gathering. The resources - possibly including herds of particular types of creature - would not be distributed evenly. Certain world regions would have disproportionate amounts of various kinds of resource to create trade and within each region the resources would also always be shifting under the surface so mining would first require scouting out good spots (like Ryzom) before fizzing the scout avatar and creating or sending out the miner.
There would be a few pre-existing colonies, equivalent to high sec, sited in good resource areas and a trade network between those colonies. Players / guilds could eventually learn how to create their own colonies, claim and defend terriotory and plug into the trade network. The latter would be required as only a very small base could survive on its own as there would always be some neccessary resource in limited supply in any region.
As the avatars are mental (or magical) projections they can take any shape or form the designers wanted and also the player wouldn't be limited to one shape as each avatar frame would look different. For example, in a battle between two guilds each side's lowbies might be human or orc type avatars while the guild leader might be a balrog or a storm giant. A carrier might be one player creaing a mammoth avatar carrying a ballista platform which needs other players in humanoid form to operate.
Not original. A copy of EVE for people who don't like spaceships. It could be fantasy or sci fi or both i.e a sci fi setting expressed in fantasy terms.
Basically you have a world whose atmosphere makes it impossible to survive outside of some kind of dome-colonies. The humans (or whatever) live in these dome-colonies and interact with the outside world using avatars which they create while in a trance. The avatars start out very weak like a walking hologram but eventually with practise can become very strong. If they take too much damage they dissolve and the operator back in the dome needs time to recover before they can go under again.
To take the EVE analogy further the PC could learn to create different avatars and different abilities, weapons and traits. They could create chamelon scout avatars or large troll-like mining avatars. The equivalent of an EVE battleship might be an avatar that looked like a balrog.
The avatars could either be like ships in that the player learned how to create different avatar-frames and seperately learned weapons and skills e.g chamelon ability or a flaming whip, which could then be mixed and matched on the frames or they could be more like standard mmo character classes where the player leveled up a scout avatar, mining avatar separately and projected the one they needed at the time.
Everything in the game would be player made and require mining / gathering. The resources - possibly including herds of particular types of creature - would not be distributed evenly. Certain world regions would have disproportionate amounts of various kinds of resource to create trade and within each region the resources would also always be shifting under the surface so mining would first require scouting out good spots (like Ryzom) before fizzing the scout avatar and creating or sending out the miner.
There would be a few pre-existing colonies, equivalent to high sec, sited in good resource areas and a trade network between those colonies. Players / guilds could eventually learn how to create their own colonies, claim and defend terriotory and plug into the trade network. The latter would be required as only a very small base could survive on its own as there would always be some neccessary resource in limited supply in any region.
As the avatars are mental (or magical) projections they can take any shape or form the designers wanted and also the player wouldn't be limited to one shape as each avatar frame would look different. For example, in a battle between two guilds each side's lowbies might be human or orc type avatars while the guild leader might be a balrog or a storm giant. A carrier might be one player creaing a mammoth avatar carrying a ballista platform which needs other players in humanoid form to operate.
etc
I`m sorry tupo, I can see how you find it interesting with shapeshifting and teamwork but you need a more solid structure of what exactly you can change into and why. You may enjoy the game Oni if you like the idea of the domes. I just see it being impossible to make everyone happy with this. You need to give people a reason of why not certain avatars etc, or else they want the avatar that they have in their head in the game, and they will be pissed if they dont get it.
I always had a idea about a DUNE mmo ? think about it the content to make this game is there through the books i see myself riding a huge worm as a fremen warrior. or being a mentat with red stained lips, or a harkkonnen sadistic killer , the economy would be spiced based. travel to planets would be easy to go to jumping on a guild ship and fold space and instantly be at your location. i just think the DUNE universe would be interesting ?
YES Ya got it fast and grab but yea I ahve dreamed about Dune Universe as basis of MMO. And not only Frank Herbert's books but add here all prequels by his son Brian and kevin Anderson. That would be ultimate thing to build and add planets and places for years. And make it w7out or very few levels and oriented to skills and knowledge (both in- and out-game). So if game still in live after say 5-10 years there isn't enormous gap 'tween newb starting game and some veteran on lvl 580
Such Universe allows many different styles of gameplay, bet it in space close combats or Space Guild liners discpvery, or on planets surfaces. Ya can live political life, participate in power struggle between Houses, start and build ya own House, or go adventuring or mercenary missions onto different planets. Possibilites are nearly endless.
And for fun MMO - make one Discworld MMO game with all it's crazy, funny humor Pratchett gave us.
Comments
UbiSoft's Project Dust is an example of gameplay I would like to see in an MMO - A combination of evolution, terraforming, community building and world building.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
True enough. There's also a difference between good ideas in theory and good ideas in practice.
I don't think anything getting posted here is detailed enough to be worth stealing, for sure. Even the best of them are pretty vague.
In brief my idea is as follows:
A 5 way faction based RvR game. Each faction is themed, much like DaoC - but ripped slightly from magic: the gathering. Each has two opposing factions, but all are at war with each other (maybe more points for killing your true enemies)
White - all churches, propserous cities and highly religious - represents life and community, opposes destruction.
Green - forest dwellers - represents life and nature, opposes exploitation
Red - shamans & barbarians - represents nature and destruction, opposes community
Black - necromancers & undead - represents exploitation and destruction, opposes life
Grey (yeah not the blues) - techophiles who dont care a jot about ecology - represents community and exploitation, opposes nature
Instead of limited RvR zones and lots of PvE.. do away with levels and experience making a big power difference. A few low levels should easily overcome the most advanced player. RvR is the mainstay of the game. Ah and no mobs just sat there doing nothing. Possibly make all PvE instanced (say like GW).
No(or few) big fortress sieges with massive zerg fests. Just a very wide open world divided into regions with many many small tactical objectives that can be taken by small(ish) groups. Objectives have to be held to gain points for the region for your faction.
Anti-zerg abilities. AoE powers that increase with power if there are a large number of players of a single faction nearby.
Each region belongs to a faction or is contested - holding tactical locations gives points and allows control of regions to change. The environment changes to reflect the control. White - plowed fields, sunny pastures Green - forests, Red - lava flows and rocky protusions, Black - icy glacial feel with dead trees, Grey - barren and excavated.
There much much more that could be said.. but those are some of the main points. Essentially with battle lines divided between 5 factions and the emphasis on a wide, spread out battlefield - not a narrow zerg fest like WAR (sigh - i had such hopes). Yeah 5 factions may be more content, but if classes are largely similar this reduces workload.
that idea is too radical.
the world is not ready for such a thing. everybody is focused on character progression drudgework for now.
after all, having fun doesn't give you real "progress", and isn't a real "goal" according to the majority of MMO "players" (workers more like it).
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Corpus Callosum
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didn't expect to hear anything at all original in this thread,
but that is a very interesting idea.
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Corpus Callosum
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Any thoughts on how detailed one would have to be to be worth stealing?
How about an MMO based on the real world we live in with a mix of RTS empire building?
The virtual world would be a copy of Earth with the same geographical layout and minerals.
Players would start with one settlement and main general character, and would have to fight/co-operate with their immediate neighbours to survive. Trade would exist between each settlement to allow economic growtrh and the abilty to craft items.
For example: (i'll use Scotland as an example since i live there)
Multiple settlements could form around the south west area of Scotland. Some areas will have minerals/resources that the others will not have and vice-versa. These settlements could trade with each other ie. wood for iron, so that each could build more buildings, make more weapons etc. Some settlements might attack each other, since some settlements will want more power, some settlements may make alliances with others for defence/trade purposes. Maybe eventually 4 or 5 settlements will join together to create a kingdom (guild).
Kingdoms would be lead by a democratically elected leader. 1 vote per settlement- if a player has 2 settlements he gets 2 votes etc. These kingdoms would have greater power over their weaker neighbours and could take over other neighbouring settlements easily by forcing them to join or become landlocked, and therefore un-tradeable with anyone else outide the kingdom.
If the leaders of kingdoms become to unpopular, the players (Lords) of the indeividual kingdoms inside them could revolt, and split the kingdom in half or join a neighbouring kingdom etc.
Eventually we could end up with much bigger kingdoms gradually taking over the world, but like the British Empire has over the last 60 years, these could very quickly break up or join with others if not content.
Massive world PVP could happen once kingdoms get a certain size and major alliance are set up. World war I or II mayhem!
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There's obvioulsy alot of technical issues to address in this idea.
Should technology evolve in any way or stay the same? What happens if a settlement is under attack and the Lord is offline? - Maybe, a settlement can only be taken after it has been held under seige for a few days or a week even, since in reality settlements have very rarely been taken so quickly as is seen in modern MMO's.
How the combat system would work, i'm not sure. Maybe a Total War type of move units/armies about and automatic battle victory decided by stats +RNG?
I had an idea for an original MMO one time. Even wrote it all down. Sadly though it was bought out and squelched by a big corporation. Now my MMO idea sits in a vault gathering dust next to the plans for the water powered car and the anti gravity generator.
There are as many unique ideas for MMOs out there as there are people to dream them up. That isn't the problem with the stagnation of the MMO industry. The problem stems from these games getting created by committee, and created by rote from the same narrow minded formula the last several games used. MMOs are an expensive venture, no single creative mind has the money to truly create their own vision of an MMO. So they get saddled with investors, and usually big corporations. This means the creative process is often disrupted or outright derailed by accountants or market management who care nothing about originality but instead care only for statistics and demographics, profit and loss. They want a sound investment, not some off the wall uncertain venture into Terra incognita. So that means the game creators have stick to the same tired shtick that worked for others in the past. So every new game is just a pathetic pastiche of every MMO we've played before.
So until technology progresses to the point where it doesn't take a massive team and a truckload of money to create an MMO, and allows the creative geniuses to break the shackles these corporate blockheads have fettered them with, or we as consumers rise up and tell them "WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!!", get used to mundanity.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
the same Fantasy setting, Humans, Dwarves, exc. start the game in Squishy 2D graphics, past lvl 3 it opens up into a 3D graphics, A world so vast you set your toon in one direction for a Year real time (or close too) and never see it all, a chance to realy get lost. NO shout across the world,
your Character at Start is Origanal, Randomly generated, and thats you no Alterations (maybe 3 toons alotted, no Delete)
Magic Binding, Open PVP, but you kill someone, the towns and Cities know, and will kill you on sight, real consiquince to online behavior, Huge amount of Faction grind to earn your way back into ANY town, a real handycap if you choose that play stile
CHILDREN NEED NOT APPLY.
He was involved in all of those? creepy. But imo tabula rasa actually wasnt bad, horrible imbalance but was great fun to play.
There we go, now theres some creativity
just as i was beginning to think the masses had missed the point of this thread. Thanks for posting, I hope ideas like this combine and multiply into some great stuff! I enjoyed reading this, thanks again for sharing!
Interested people will join you, not steal from you. No one can make an MMO alone. If you think someone might steal your idea then just leave out the details, tell us something vague. You might be surprised with the support you get.
If you are looking for a basis for his point, you should research trade theory. By sharing ideas here, you each save time and get closer to your goals. That time you save is free. You dont give any time, then you dont get any for free. Its quite true, we`ve known that since the 1800`s. That is why countries still trade today.
I like your descriptions of game foundation, most people cant think that far down, or how to use a new direction with them.
If good ideas are cheap and plentiful then why are we so shocked and forever changed when we hear an original one? Money is an idea. Society is an idea. Law is an idea. Religion is an idea. Do they have any power over you? Ideas are the most powerful thing known in the universe. Never forget that.
Idunno.... sounds a lot like age of empires meets god of war meets eq...
I think this puts together a lot of things that magic the gathering players would like a lot, but none of the game mechanics seem that new. Never the less, sounds interesting to me :P I used to play mtg when i was younger.
Every mmo is fun with the right friends to play with. However, if the game is fun by itself, that adds to the experience. Some good friends and some Dynamic content (randomly generated dungeon maps, events, and the like) will make it easy to play for a long long time. I am liking GW2`s work on this so far. As long as its not exactly the same each and every time, i think people are happy with that. I also think devs should pay more attention to developing certain activities within the same game that are geared towards a players mood.
We all have our favorite MMO and FPS right? perhaps platform game and strategy too. But we definately know which game we are in the mood to play. It would be nice to have some together in the same game. I know I`ll be looking forward to EVE getting DUST514 then I can play eve when im craving some action, and when im looking to work my brain muscle too.
Wouldnt you agree? action packed, relaxing, intellectual and funny dynamic content in the same game? people think it would be impossible in the same game, but its so easy. Battlefield 2142 has the ability for a player to switch to a commander and the game becomes strategy, that interface probably took one guy 3 days to make. Battlezone was the first to do it i think, just walk into a comm bunker and start playing rts. I think a lot of people would enjoy that.
Now if we could only make it extremely interesting with really outside the box content...
Okay heres my shot, it's kinda rough and i haven't thought out alot of the details but here it goes.
Game starts off with you looking at the celling of an ambulance,
You (that avatar that is) looks right and sees a man
He states you were hallucinating and collapsed on the floor just shortly before the paramedics got there. (this states how you got here in the first place.)
Your basically being transfered to one of the world renown hospitals for your special "Condition".
Most of the rest of the scene is taking up with you arriving at the hospital and getting to the front counter (this if there were any credits, like producers or whatever is where this would go.)
The receptionist at the front desk asks you to fill out all your personal information (this is basically the character creation. Three pictures show the top, middle and bottom which you can change to your liking the pictures are interactive but only the face will be shown later and is front shot only after the creation is complete and none moving they are only movable so the player can customize, and most importantly your name and what condition your suffering from, which is basically your skill setup or more rigidly your class.)
Once character creation is done, the camera swings around to show your avatar's face for the first time, Think Mass effect if you want a visual to go with the words. (up till now it's been all in 1st person)
Your giving a brief and i do mean brief tour of the general meeting areas, some of the important people of the game and finally your room (Still haven't figured if this will be different for each person but the room will be instanced when you enter it.) Your "parked near the bed of the room and told to wait for the nurse that will be taking care of the more "personal" aspects and getting you aquinted better with the Hospital, He also warns you to not go out at night because certain people, but before he can say anymore he is cut off when the lights go out. (no he never finishes, the lights going out chased it out of his mind)
Once power is restored, he tells you that happens every so often and not to worry. He leaves you with one last order (that you must remain in your chair and the nurse will be around in 5 minutes time), he then closes the door and locks it. To show the player they have a choice this is the first chance they can move and by pressing forward (or whatever they've binded the key to) they can get up but the timer will reset. In actuality, you only need to wait 1 minute in the chair (5 would be too long to look at a wall for a gamer.) once the player has waited the 1 minute the door will be unlocked, the door will open and the nurse (miss Helana (name is still a work in progress) will go down some of the more or less basic aspects (the player is locked again while she is explaining this, sorry guys key information need to make sure theres no way you can miss it), as long as you don't go through doors with red lights and stay in populated areas you'll be fine.
She also states at the end that you may get up if you wish and take a look around (player regains control at this point). As soon as the player stands up though the power goes out for a second time and you hear the door slam shut. (depending on your "condition" you're gonna see something happen in that room. I haven't made my mind up yet but it will be related to both your condition and the story.
Power is restored again and you turn around to see the door is wide open. Miss Helena states you were Hallucinating again, and that it can happen here, oddly she also states you'll never have this happen as long as your in bright public areas, another reason to not go wandering into dark hallways.
Miss Helena will leave you with one last thing: she will state that something happened here before the current company took over and she has a feeling that your condition is the key to finding out what it was.
As you might have guessed this takes place entirely on the hospital and it's grounds. Of course to accomidate people the hospital is big but easy to navigate via stairwells and elevators. The blackouts are actually how the "action" bit of the game gets started. If you've watched any J-horror, you'll get the basic idea. The cool thing is the grouping aspect, as more people group the more interesting the encounters become, because it is possible to be removed from the group at odd times by the strange occurances and may rejoin your group later or at the end. Of course your powers are needed to get to the end of that secarnio and once you do you'll pick up a nice bit of juicy lore, story, items and xp. Most quests have to be learned through talking to people in the lounge areas. But some can be done right away.
Biggest problems i can see are: how would i go about removing players and not spoiling the atmosphere by having them say i'm okay in chat. Second, how to make a hospital interesting enough for people to actually want to spend time doing things in there. Finally How to effective keep the story interesting but long enough to last between content release as they can't be repeatable as that kills the horror aspect if you know whats coming, so repeat quests would have to be down to just delivering sheets of paper or pills for modest rewards, which compared to the story aspect they would never want to do.
But there you go, that idea has been in my head for the last 2 or 3 years now, I have a few others but thats about as off the wall i can get and still be able to happen.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Hmm, seems cool
You could write some interesting storyline im sure! This sounds like a game that could fit into the same kind of model as Left 4 Dead. It seems pretty hard to make an MMORPG out of though. FYI I love J-horror.
I have one idea I thought was cool. Its basically a conservationalists vs Hunters. And you got species in the game that can go extinct forever. The conservationalists hunt the hunters. The hunters hunt the animals. And with bonuses for getting rare animals and they might have a number of tools to help them. The hunters get reputations and bounties on their head according to how prolific, endangering there are etc.
Its an idea that fits in with the 'world' theme, and incorporates pvp and soforth.
Sounds a wee bit like counter strike with the terrorists and the seals, but a bit more depth.
Well, neither the hunter or the conservationalists could have a personal avatar penalty for scoring a kill or failing to prevent a species from going extinct. That does not make gamers happy ever. however, if you externalize the penalty, everyone is happy. for example, if hunters get caught, they must respawn farther away from a good hunting area, and lose closer access until they work their way back, however their avatar is unaffected. likewise when hunters sneak in and get away with a certain number of hunts, they get closer access to that area, and the conservationalists get bumped a bit farther away etc.
Im not sure how interested the masses would be with the theme though.
Not original. A copy of EVE for people who don't like spaceships. It could be fantasy or sci fi or both i.e a sci fi setting expressed in fantasy terms.
Basically you have a world whose atmosphere makes it impossible to survive outside of some kind of dome-colonies. The humans (or whatever) live in these dome-colonies and interact with the outside world using avatars which they create while in a trance. The avatars start out very weak like a walking hologram but eventually with practise can become very strong. If they take too much damage they dissolve and the operator back in the dome needs time to recover before they can go under again.
To take the EVE analogy further the PC could learn to create different avatars and different abilities, weapons and traits. They could create chamelon scout avatars or large troll-like mining avatars. The equivalent of an EVE battleship might be an avatar that looked like a balrog.
The avatars could either be like ships in that the player learned how to create different avatar-frames and seperately learned weapons and skills e.g chamelon ability or a flaming whip, which could then be mixed and matched on the frames or they could be more like standard mmo character classes where the player leveled up a scout avatar, mining avatar separately and projected the one they needed at the time.
Everything in the game would be player made and require mining / gathering. The resources - possibly including herds of particular types of creature - would not be distributed evenly. Certain world regions would have disproportionate amounts of various kinds of resource to create trade and within each region the resources would also always be shifting under the surface so mining would first require scouting out good spots (like Ryzom) before fizzing the scout avatar and creating or sending out the miner.
There would be a few pre-existing colonies, equivalent to high sec, sited in good resource areas and a trade network between those colonies. Players / guilds could eventually learn how to create their own colonies, claim and defend terriotory and plug into the trade network. The latter would be required as only a very small base could survive on its own as there would always be some neccessary resource in limited supply in any region.
As the avatars are mental (or magical) projections they can take any shape or form the designers wanted and also the player wouldn't be limited to one shape as each avatar frame would look different. For example, in a battle between two guilds each side's lowbies might be human or orc type avatars while the guild leader might be a balrog or a storm giant. A carrier might be one player creaing a mammoth avatar carrying a ballista platform which needs other players in humanoid form to operate.
etc
I`m sorry tupo, I can see how you find it interesting with shapeshifting and teamwork but you need a more solid structure of what exactly you can change into and why. You may enjoy the game Oni if you like the idea of the domes. I just see it being impossible to make everyone happy with this. You need to give people a reason of why not certain avatars etc, or else they want the avatar that they have in their head in the game, and they will be pissed if they dont get it.
YES
Ya got it fast and grab but yea I ahve dreamed about Dune Universe as basis of MMO. And not only Frank Herbert's books but add here all prequels by his son Brian and kevin Anderson. That would be ultimate thing to build and add planets and places for years. And make it w7out or very few levels and oriented to skills and knowledge (both in- and out-game). So if game still in live after say 5-10 years there isn't enormous gap 'tween newb starting game and some veteran on lvl 580 
Such Universe allows many different styles of gameplay, bet it in space close combats or Space Guild liners discpvery, or on planets surfaces. Ya can live political life, participate in power struggle between Houses, start and build ya own House, or go adventuring or mercenary missions onto different planets. Possibilites are nearly endless.
And for fun MMO - make one Discworld MMO game with all it's crazy, funny humor Pratchett gave us.