I think a pokemon MMO would have the most potential. The industry desperately needs something different than the current WoW model of MMO design and I think that would be the perfect IP to do it.
If not a pokemon MMO I'd probably make a final fantasy MMO, except this one would be good.
I think Magic the gathering would work better than Pokemon, it also have the potential of interesting players in all ages instead of mostly 13 year old kids.
But you are unto something, some kind of summoning MMO could actually be pretty fun.
-- probably sci-fi to allow for a variety of species and environments along with multiple planets and perhaps space
-- a character development system that did not involve levels and while there would be tougher and easier areas players would be able to gain xp almost anywhere and travel through areas as they wished (with the right grouping)
-- the ability to go from new character to fully developed character solo but have areas that required groups
-- a combination of quests and mission terminals
-- the ability to choose combat, non-combat, or various combinations of the two
-- player economy where what players make and find/loot are needed by other players and the non-combat skills are needed by combat
-- player cities and server cities with different benefits to both (to encourage advanced players to continue visiting server cities and get newer players to wander into player cities)
-- non-combat player would be able to stay in city and within a certain distance of city safely and have means of traveling from one city to another but would need a person with combat skills to venture far beyond cities
-- various planets could allow for a variety of cultures/ "time periods" and advanced versus non-advanced civilizations to the point that one might need to disguise him or herself to be on certain planets because that planet would be unaware of other species existing
-- a variety of servers from open PvP to no PvP (and degrees in between)
I would take wow's combat and pve with vanguards difficulty and world and loot system and lotrs crafting and story and daoc pvp and classes would be the greatest game ever made hands down with a littel bit of eq no hand holding questing and exploration. Most mmorpg players don't want new games the want old ones redone!
I would buy APB and relaunch it with better managers and team leads. The game had so much potential but the company running it was such basket case they had to shut down after just 79 days.
- Make an MMORPG World Builder core program (similiar to Realm Crafter, but not so dated and more accessible/easier to use).
- Use micro transaction to promote the purchase of add-on packs specific to what a particular person wants to make (i.e. Fantasy Add-On pack for Fantasy MMO's, Sci-Fi Add-On pack for Sci-Fi MMO's etc..etc)
- Create rentable server clusters of various sizes/prices (i.e. 100 connections for $X/month, 1000 connections for $X/month);
Once a person creates an MMO; they could upload the configuration to my company and we would load it onto the server and provide the connection data.
Creators could flag their MMO as Free To Play or Pay to Play. Technically this allows the creator to turn a profit, if the # & cost of paying players exceeds the cost of renting server space.
- World Builder core program would include a game browser (similiar to GameSpy) - that allowed non builders who purchased the program to browse existing worlds hosted by our company and join/play on those worlds.
Basically bringing a similiar creativity/functionality of the M.U.D. craze of the 80's/90's into modern times.
I'd make an updated version of Dark Age of Camelot 2. The gameplay and overall organization would be similar to how the game was in the Shrouded Isles days, and I'd focus almost all testing on CLASS BALANCE.
I'd also slightly improve the PvE content. Quests would not be the way to level up. There would be kill tasks available, as old. But the most effecient way to level will either be through the battlegrounds, or through grouping up and dungeon crawling. Camp bonuses will be more significant to encourage people to move around.
Balance would still be split between crafting and PvE in terms of where gear comes from. PvE stuff might look cooler, but it won't be more powerful than crafted stuff. There will be no instances at all. There will be no /level 20. There will be at least 3 battlegrounds. The game will be optimized to handle combat up to 500 players with minimal server lag.
You know 50 million isn't enough anymore to make an MMO that you are describing right? Hell, and MMO needs 50 million just to market itself if its a major release!
I wouldn't even dream of making most of theings described here until I had at least a hundred million to burn, and a publishing deal
Yet, all the best and most successful MMOs were usually made with much less money, and with 30 developers... Big money means big failure, gets too caught up with the suits who don't know anything.
Essentially Planetside 2. Once you've built the world (not as difficult as you might think from experience), models and worked out the mechanics you are pretty much done, so you could easily pull it off for that sort of money. Millions of dollars normally go into story writing, translation, quest testing etc which you wouldn't need to spend. You'd need a lot of closed beta testers to balance your classes and settle the levelling curve, but closed beta testers are free.
I'd buy a 2 year lease on Cryptic's MMO engine for 5 million. Hire them them for 10 million to make a peice of shit...err I mean a quality game. Offer to split the box sales, and subscriptions edit* and micro-transactions (durr) 50/50, if they run and maintain the servers. And then pocket the rest of the $35,000,000 and walk away.
I mean its what they do with their investers money anyway isnt it? Or am I wrong?
Edit-Edit*!*!*! Oh yeah forgot the most important part. Silly me.
Buy a popular IP for 10 million, like Shadow Run or Mech Warrior. Destroy it. And THEN walk away with my $25,000,000. Fuck, what was I thinking...
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
I would make GTA online, except you can buy property (it wouldn't be instanced like the player houses in EQ2). Everything in the game (buildings) would be purchasable and/or rentable. If you see a gas station, you would be able to buy the business and earn an income, or sell it to someone else. Every single house/apartment from buildings would be the same, buyable and rentable.
Aside from that, it would be a mix between APB and GTA and EVE.
APB - You would be able to be good or bad, meaning if you commit a crime, you would be flagged for PVP by the good guys, etc...
GTA - Open world, you can steal cars/bikes/planes, do missions for people, enter building, buy property, etc...
EVE - It would be 1 massive server where everyone was on it. Skills would be similar to EVE (sandboxy)
Except I would add some sort of end-game. PvE and PVP. PVP end-game would be (make a huge heist with your raid, or make a huge gang bust with your raid of cops, etc...) PvE.... not sure how but would probably be, to defeat big criminals in their mansion (ala scarface)
There's a lot of stuff I would do, but that's just the short version.
The game would be 3rd person, shooter. With a twist of RPG, where you can increase you're accuracy (by making your guns more precise) as you skill up, etc...
You know 50 million isn't enough anymore to make an MMO that you are describing right? Hell, and MMO needs 50 million just to market itself if its a major release!
I wouldn't even dream of making most of theings described here until I had at least a hundred million to burn, and a publishing deal
Yet, all the best and most successful MMOs were usually made with much less money, and with 30 developers... Big money means big failure, gets too caught up with the suits who don't know anything.
Really? WoW had over two hundred people (all told, cg, qa, support, tech plus production) many of them for over six years while it was produced (look at the credits), that game easily cost 50 million before they spent a dime marketing it.
Sure original EQ, UO and AC may have been semi-cheap, but those days are long gone. EVE for example admited they spent 8 million+ a year just on advertising and that is a seven year old game!
I would make a wager that fifty million wouldnt get most of your ideas out of the door, unless you accepted it was going to be niche, ala Fallen Earth, which is really the last 'independant' style game to get out sucessfully and that still cost around 15-20 million. These games are way more expensive to produce than you think, that is why the genre is really struggling now in terms of new titles and innovation.
You know 50 million isn't enough anymore to make an MMO that you are describing right? Hell, and MMO needs 50 million just to market itself if its a major release!
I wouldn't even dream of making most of theings described here until I had at least a hundred million to burn, and a publishing deal
Yet, all the best and most successful MMOs were usually made with much less money, and with 30 developers... Big money means big failure, gets too caught up with the suits who don't know anything.
Really? WoW had over two hundred people (all told, cg, qa, support, tech plus production) many of them for over six years while it was produced (look at the credits), that game easily cost 50 million before they spent a dime marketing it.
Sure original EQ, UO and AC may have been semi-cheap, but those days are long gone. EVE for example admited they spent 8 million+ a year just on advertising and that is a seven year old game!
I would make a wager that fifty million wouldnt get most of your ideas out of the door, unless you accepted it was going to be niche, ala Fallen Earth, which is really the last 'independant' style game to get out sucessfully and that still cost around 15-20 million. These games are way more expensive to produce than you think, that is why the genre is really struggling now in terms of new titles and innovation.
Well, 50 million is alot of cash...
AoC was made with around 30 million USD, and all things considered with problems and such, its doing well enough. What it cost to maintain it and update it from 2008--> today is an entierely different story though...
A survival horror game (probably zombies, but could also be scifi themed or something) with shooter combat and minimal progression of any kind except for gear collection (which would be relatively easy) and crafting that is straight to the point (you pick up A and B and make C, no levels or any such thing).
In a very big worldlike map, and with harsh death penalties (which could be recovered quickly due to the lack of levels / skills).
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
[...] Tons of people would play, cause I mean, porn out sells everything.
Pfft lol how stupid can you be ?
Porn shows real people having real sex.
Porn doesnt sell any more because people can download it for free all over the internet.
Why exactly would anyone want to pay for a game where you see some pixel people having sex, if you could get real porn and see real people doing it, well, for real ?
Somebody beat me to hiring Cryptic thing and pocketing the rest . But I am rather curious that someone posted that Funcom spent 30 million on Age of Conan. Is that true ? Hmm would have thought it cost more. The graphics were quite intense and Tortage had some very good voice overs. Captain Royo being my favourite and that slaver hmm he had a very good accent.
50m isn't much to work with in this day and age, but I think i'd be inclined to start with a small studio and work on the basic engine of a sandbox game with a wow class interface. Once I hit the midway point I'd hire a art team and content team and let them start filling out the world.
When I say sandbox though I mean, fluid dynamic world, no static quests, etc.
Town is having trouble with wolves, so they hire some hunters (npc or pc) to kill them, after they kill the wolves there is a spike in the deer population as well which can be resolved by players and npcs, but with the drop in deer population then there is an issue with the goblins starving so they start attacking the caravans, the caravans being raided by goblins, so the city merchants put out a notice to hire people to protect the caravans if pc's can fill it they will, if not npcs will fill it. Well that works well but now the adventurers and mercanaries take over the city after the gobbies are butchered and their bellies are full of swill, so now the merchants have another problem... onward.
Single world. No servers. Skill based game instead of level. Think a worthy successor to UO or LoK or SWGpCU.
Basically I would create an old school EQ (before POP) but with new improvements.
[...]
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
But I would drop the "classes only do one thing well" part, because that is, to be honest, boring.
I was impressed by Vanguard where my healers had so many options available. Things to do other than just watching hitpoints all the time.
I agree that revamping EQI is an excellent idea for 50million (if you could get the license itself cheap enough -- which you couldn't sady).
As to the classes. Pure and Simple EQ-I had the very best variety and style of classes I've ever played. Most of them were truely unique from one another and had their own unique charm to them. I would add to them to make them even more interestingly different with both useful and quirkily unique capabilities from any other, but I would not reduce the classes as much as EQII or even Vanguard did. Both of those revamps lost the basic charm of what EQ-I offered.
As to what I'd do with 50million -- I can only say if I ever hit the lotto that is exactly what I plan to find out. Well I'd need 10million in my pocket to keep me happy for life -- the rest would be for the mmo.
Comments
I think Magic the gathering would work better than Pokemon, it also have the potential of interesting players in all ages instead of mostly 13 year old kids.
But you are unto something, some kind of summoning MMO could actually be pretty fun.
A Song of Ice and Fire online!!!!!!!
Superman64 MMORPG. can you imagine the possibilities?!
-- probably sci-fi to allow for a variety of species and environments along with multiple planets and perhaps space
-- a character development system that did not involve levels and while there would be tougher and easier areas players would be able to gain xp almost anywhere and travel through areas as they wished (with the right grouping)
-- the ability to go from new character to fully developed character solo but have areas that required groups
-- a combination of quests and mission terminals
-- the ability to choose combat, non-combat, or various combinations of the two
-- player economy where what players make and find/loot are needed by other players and the non-combat skills are needed by combat
-- player cities and server cities with different benefits to both (to encourage advanced players to continue visiting server cities and get newer players to wander into player cities)
-- non-combat player would be able to stay in city and within a certain distance of city safely and have means of traveling from one city to another but would need a person with combat skills to venture far beyond cities
-- various planets could allow for a variety of cultures/ "time periods" and advanced versus non-advanced civilizations to the point that one might need to disguise him or herself to be on certain planets because that planet would be unaware of other species existing
-- a variety of servers from open PvP to no PvP (and degrees in between)
I would take wow's combat and pve with vanguards difficulty and world and loot system and lotrs crafting and story and daoc pvp and classes would be the greatest game ever made hands down with a littel bit of eq no hand holding questing and exploration. Most mmorpg players don't want new games the want old ones redone!
I would buy APB and relaunch it with better managers and team leads. The game had so much potential but the company running it was such basket case they had to shut down after just 79 days.
- Make an MMORPG World Builder core program (similiar to Realm Crafter, but not so dated and more accessible/easier to use).
- Use micro transaction to promote the purchase of add-on packs specific to what a particular person wants to make (i.e. Fantasy Add-On pack for Fantasy MMO's, Sci-Fi Add-On pack for Sci-Fi MMO's etc..etc)
- Create rentable server clusters of various sizes/prices (i.e. 100 connections for $X/month, 1000 connections for $X/month);
Once a person creates an MMO; they could upload the configuration to my company and we would load it onto the server and provide the connection data.
Creators could flag their MMO as Free To Play or Pay to Play. Technically this allows the creator to turn a profit, if the # & cost of paying players exceeds the cost of renting server space.
- World Builder core program would include a game browser (similiar to GameSpy) - that allowed non builders who purchased the program to browse existing worlds hosted by our company and join/play on those worlds.
Basically bringing a similiar creativity/functionality of the M.U.D. craze of the 80's/90's into modern times.
That would be easy Mechwarrior Online!
I'd make an updated version of Dark Age of Camelot 2. The gameplay and overall organization would be similar to how the game was in the Shrouded Isles days, and I'd focus almost all testing on CLASS BALANCE.
I'd also slightly improve the PvE content. Quests would not be the way to level up. There would be kill tasks available, as old. But the most effecient way to level will either be through the battlegrounds, or through grouping up and dungeon crawling. Camp bonuses will be more significant to encourage people to move around.
Balance would still be split between crafting and PvE in terms of where gear comes from. PvE stuff might look cooler, but it won't be more powerful than crafted stuff. There will be no instances at all. There will be no /level 20. There will be at least 3 battlegrounds. The game will be optimized to handle combat up to 500 players with minimal server lag.
Yet, all the best and most successful MMOs were usually made with much less money, and with 30 developers... Big money means big failure, gets too caught up with the suits who don't know anything.
Essentially Planetside 2. Once you've built the world (not as difficult as you might think from experience), models and worked out the mechanics you are pretty much done, so you could easily pull it off for that sort of money. Millions of dollars normally go into story writing, translation, quest testing etc which you wouldn't need to spend. You'd need a lot of closed beta testers to balance your classes and settle the levelling curve, but closed beta testers are free.
Ascension - EU Mature, Friendly, Laid Back SW:TOR Guild now recruiting.
I'd buy a 2 year lease on Cryptic's MMO engine for 5 million. Hire them them for 10 million to make a peice of shit...err I mean a quality game. Offer to split the box sales, and subscriptions edit* and micro-transactions (durr) 50/50, if they run and maintain the servers. And then pocket the rest of the $35,000,000 and walk away.
I mean its what they do with their investers money anyway isnt it? Or am I wrong?
Edit-Edit*!*!*! Oh yeah forgot the most important part. Silly me.
Buy a popular IP for 10 million, like Shadow Run or Mech Warrior. Destroy it. And THEN walk away with my $25,000,000. Fuck, what was I thinking...
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
I would make GTA online, except you can buy property (it wouldn't be instanced like the player houses in EQ2). Everything in the game (buildings) would be purchasable and/or rentable. If you see a gas station, you would be able to buy the business and earn an income, or sell it to someone else. Every single house/apartment from buildings would be the same, buyable and rentable.
Aside from that, it would be a mix between APB and GTA and EVE.
APB - You would be able to be good or bad, meaning if you commit a crime, you would be flagged for PVP by the good guys, etc...
GTA - Open world, you can steal cars/bikes/planes, do missions for people, enter building, buy property, etc...
EVE - It would be 1 massive server where everyone was on it. Skills would be similar to EVE (sandboxy)
Except I would add some sort of end-game. PvE and PVP. PVP end-game would be (make a huge heist with your raid, or make a huge gang bust with your raid of cops, etc...) PvE.... not sure how but would probably be, to defeat big criminals in their mansion (ala scarface)
There's a lot of stuff I would do, but that's just the short version.
The game would be 3rd person, shooter. With a twist of RPG, where you can increase you're accuracy (by making your guns more precise) as you skill up, etc...
Really? WoW had over two hundred people (all told, cg, qa, support, tech plus production) many of them for over six years while it was produced (look at the credits), that game easily cost 50 million before they spent a dime marketing it.
Sure original EQ, UO and AC may have been semi-cheap, but those days are long gone. EVE for example admited they spent 8 million+ a year just on advertising and that is a seven year old game!
I would make a wager that fifty million wouldnt get most of your ideas out of the door, unless you accepted it was going to be niche, ala Fallen Earth, which is really the last 'independant' style game to get out sucessfully and that still cost around 15-20 million. These games are way more expensive to produce than you think, that is why the genre is really struggling now in terms of new titles and innovation.
Well, 50 million is alot of cash...
AoC was made with around 30 million USD, and all things considered with problems and such, its doing well enough. What it cost to maintain it and update it from 2008--> today is an entierely different story though...
And I wonder how much TSW will cost in the end.
A survival horror game (probably zombies, but could also be scifi themed or something) with shooter combat and minimal progression of any kind except for gear collection (which would be relatively easy) and crafting that is straight to the point (you pick up A and B and make C, no levels or any such thing).
In a very big worldlike map, and with harsh death penalties (which could be recovered quickly due to the lack of levels / skills).
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I should make a standard posting about this.
INTERFACE
- simple and stylish, no "cockpit look".
- defensive and offensive focus.
- configurable (hotkeys, visuals).
- no macro language (no single button smashing, please).
- realtime round based, on a 3 second timer, thus allowing to compensate for ping up to over 2 secs.
RULESET
- Small set of options that matter.
- Five races (human, giant, dwarf, gnome, elf).
- All with subraces (highelf, darkelf, woodelf, or stonedwarf, graydwarf, hilldwarf).
- Eight stats (Strength, Stamina, Agility, Dexterity; Willpower, Wisdom, Intelligence, Empathy).
- A set of basic skills (Weapon, Armor, Stealth, Security, Focus, ..., ... social skills ... knowledge skills ... profession skills ... craft skills ...).
- Large number of Abilities linked to stats and skills, with racial differences.
- Five childhoods that offer initial access to abilities (Knight, Trickster, Ranger, Priest, Wizard).
- Four character focusses that offer access to special abilities (Shield/Protection, War/Aggression, Rose/Utility, Shadow/Deception).
- No experience. Progression is through attaining skill and gear upgrades.
- Eloaborate and powerful crafting.
- Enchanting unlimited but each time it may break item (and its getting harder).
GRAPHICS
- Seamless world.
- Extreme viewing distances.
- Can handle large amounts (hundreds) of characters on screen (allowing mass pvp like castle sieges).
- Beautiful realistic but manga inspired graphics, like Guild Wars or Lineage.
- Character creation flexible, but easy to make a good unique but beautiful character fast (no masochistic option orgy like Oblivion).
GAMEPLAY
- Classic fantasy setting.
- No instancing.
- "realistic" chat, very hard combat vs goldsellers.
- Separated in worlds (3d planets, you run into same direction = after some time you end up at the start)
- Interworld travel through portals (player needs to be powerful enough for the target world)
- Traveling to a less powerful world lowers skills accordingly, allowing unlimited grouping with less powerful players.
- Diplomacy quests to gain access to areas.
- Mounts, flying mounts, ships.
- Housing, player build cities.
- Guilds, alliances.
- Arena, banditery/playerkilling, guild wars, castle sieges.
Pfft lol how stupid can you be ?
Porn shows real people having real sex.
Porn doesnt sell any more because people can download it for free all over the internet.
Why exactly would anyone want to pay for a game where you see some pixel people having sex, if you could get real porn and see real people doing it, well, for real ?
I would make a 2 MB piece of junk and pocket the $50 million. Thank you very much kind sir.
Somebody beat me to hiring Cryptic thing and pocketing the rest . But I am rather curious that someone posted that Funcom spent 30 million on Age of Conan. Is that true ? Hmm would have thought it cost more. The graphics were quite intense and Tortage had some very good voice overs. Captain Royo being my favourite and that slaver hmm he had a very good accent.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
But I would drop the "classes only do one thing well" part, because that is, to be honest, boring.
I was impressed by Vanguard where my healers had so many options available. Things to do other than just watching hitpoints all the time.
Whats the use ? I cant see the people I'm talking to. For all I know, the guys I'm talking to is some old dude who's also looking for said female.
Also, I would have to play TWILIGHT. OMG. The pain. Somebody kill me now, please.
50m isn't much to work with in this day and age, but I think i'd be inclined to start with a small studio and work on the basic engine of a sandbox game with a wow class interface. Once I hit the midway point I'd hire a art team and content team and let them start filling out the world.
When I say sandbox though I mean, fluid dynamic world, no static quests, etc.
Town is having trouble with wolves, so they hire some hunters (npc or pc) to kill them, after they kill the wolves there is a spike in the deer population as well which can be resolved by players and npcs, but with the drop in deer population then there is an issue with the goblins starving so they start attacking the caravans, the caravans being raided by goblins, so the city merchants put out a notice to hire people to protect the caravans if pc's can fill it they will, if not npcs will fill it. Well that works well but now the adventurers and mercanaries take over the city after the gobbies are butchered and their bellies are full of swill, so now the merchants have another problem... onward.
Single world. No servers. Skill based game instead of level. Think a worthy successor to UO or LoK or SWGpCU.
Shadus
Ok, this one is a great suggestion.
I agree that revamping EQI is an excellent idea for 50million (if you could get the license itself cheap enough -- which you couldn't sady).
As to the classes. Pure and Simple EQ-I had the very best variety and style of classes I've ever played. Most of them were truely unique from one another and had their own unique charm to them. I would add to them to make them even more interestingly different with both useful and quirkily unique capabilities from any other, but I would not reduce the classes as much as EQII or even Vanguard did. Both of those revamps lost the basic charm of what EQ-I offered.
As to what I'd do with 50million -- I can only say if I ever hit the lotto that is exactly what I plan to find out. Well I'd need 10million in my pocket to keep me happy for life -- the rest would be for the mmo.