Here's some other ideas that occurred to me to address certain issues with MMORPGs which were raised in another thread.
I would also get rid of all chat besides Shout, Say, and Whisper. Unless you have certain characters with telepathic abilities or spells, no tells. Everything you say can (and can only) be heard by those within earshot, even if you're using a mic. There are emotes for non-verbal communication and hand-signals. Whispering can still be overheard, it is not telepathic. I believe there are ways to block third-party voice chat and text programs. You can't stop people from using phones or cell phones, but it's a little more difficult to organize a zerg that way. And you can't should loud enough for an entire zone to hear you unless the zone is very small or you have some magical, psionic, or technological means of doing so. Some characters could learn sign language to communicate too, which other characters couldn't read if they didn't know sign language. Speaking in another tongue could also be a means of not being overheard by characters who don't understand the language.
Gold sellers and spammers can be dealt with by hiring players to report them. They could be paid in free game time (in a subscription game) if they spend 15 minutes a day (3-5 days a week) reporting the spammers.
As for spoiler sites, online maps, and walkthroughs, is there some legal method of dealing with them or not?
I would really also like to make an MMORPG that is restricted to 18+ adults. Not sure if there's a realistic way of doing that online though.
Manipulation of immortals/gamemasters might be a problem, but any good gamemaster should be trained to do a thorough investigation, get both sides of a story, and consult with other gamemasters if necessary and the issue is a serious one.
Not sure what you mean by eliminating outsiders. And by abuse of clans, do you mean verbally or by griefing/ganking?
Bots and bugs are a problem that need to be dealt with by better programmers and programming. And better practices. If they were actually paying and paying attention to players who test their games for them, more bugs and exploits might get reported and dealt with.
I'm not 100% sure about any of this. Constructive feedback is welcome. Though I can't stop you from posting non-constructive feedback either.
Crippling in-game chat will just lead to players relying on external chat programs--and give a larger advantage to players who organize that than those who rely only on in-game chat tools.
Hiring players to report gold spammers is a complete waste. If you're hoping your humans can outwork the gold spammers' bots, you're going to be disappointed. If you want to beat the gold spammers, it's going to have to be your software beating their software.
I'm not trying to cripple in-game chat. I want to make it more realistic. Here's some notes I wrote down last year (around the time I stopped posting on this forum). If you're interested.
How Communication Could Work in an MMORPG I'm not saying all mmorpgs need to work like this, but I think it would be interesting to experiment and see what happens.
All you really need are say, shout, whisper, and the ability to send each other mail. But you can you also enable to characters to know or learn other languages or sign language, or use other forms of non-verbal communication such as, but not limited to, emotes. Zone text only needs to be used at times by the game itself for narration. Unless an event is worldwide or continent-wide, such as a massive meteor striking the world or a massive, possibly supernatural, earthquake.
Looking-for-group, trade, zone, global/world and guild chat can be done away with. If a player is looking to form a group, but can't find anyone, or can't find enough people to form the group size desired, he or she can go to a tavern or inn in a town or city. There can also be roadside taverns/inns where player-characters may gather. Everquest 2 has plenty of taverns and inns in its cities but makes poor use of them, imho.
If there aren't enough players there yet, or if they can't find who they're looking for (proper level, class, etc.), they can wait until one shows up. Their characters should need to eat and drink anyway, and the tavern owner/innkeeper isn't going to let them loiter in their common room without buying something. It shouldn't really be too much of a problem, because other people looking to form a party/group will likely need to seek out such gathering places as well. Of course players can simply go to the entrance of the dungeon they're looking to raid and wait at the entrance as well. Or even inside the dungeon if it is persistent, as in Everquest and Everquest 2.
Players should also be able to leave notices at boards within taverns and inns. Not the best way to form parties, but it can help for forming guilds and trading/selling. Players can respond to them in the mail.
Shout shouldn't be able to heard throughout the whole zone. They can be heard a farther distance than say, but not to god-like, supernatural distances. Unless a character has a supernatural/magical/technological ability to project their voice further than a normal human voice can carry. This would also depend on the character's race. Some races might have more powerful voices than others. Of course, if the players are playing deities, all that changes dramatically. Zone chat, global chat, and telepathic, speak-to-anyone-anywhere-anytime private chat would be possible.
But players don't usually play gods.
Whisper can only be used if a player-character is standing right next to another player-character/s. They must select each character to whom they wish to whisper. If they try to whisper to one person while another person is standing right next to them, the other person should be notified and be given the option to attempt to listen in.
More to come (I didn't read all the way through, so there might be errors or something I changed my mind about. I'll read through it all again after I smoke).
Guild chat is not necessary. That is what guild halls are for (if they don't want to do mail correspondence). If people want to learn things from other members of the guild, they must go to the guild hall and meet. Or if they choose, they can meet anywhere, but that means someone else not in their guild might overhear their conversation. Of course, they can also speak within inn rooms or their homes, but someone else might be able to listen through a door or from the other side of a wall, especially a rogue.*
If you can't find a certain guild member whom you wish to talk to, you can leave a note in the guild hall or send mail to them. And mail can only be read at the mailbox. I suppose players can have a magical device that tells them whether they have a new message in their box, but they should probably have to buy it or receive it in-game. Or we can just assume mailboxes come equipped with such devices. People who wish to join your guild can leave a note on your guild door, slide a note through a mail panel in the door, or simply
send mail to the official guild mailbox or guild leader's mailbox. The leader's name/address could be seen on the guild door perhaps. Or they could knock on the door on the guild door. Perhaps someone in the guild might actually be in the guild hall since there would now be more purpose to one besides decorating, storing trophies, and buying conveniences so that no one has to do anything in town, making the towns empty. I really don't think guilds should make travel so easy or make it so that no one ever has to do anything in town either. I suppose
* By the current results of friending a person or joining a guild, we are assuming that everyone has or is given a magical means of knowing where that person is or whether or not they are active in the gameworld presently.
Trading can be done at the market and auction house (non-universal) in any town. If a player doesn't want to wait around in the market to trade, they can leave a note with the auctioneer, who will have a board for displaying wares that characters wish to trade (for a small fee of course). Though they can possibly also leave notes at inns and taverns for free. Or at least after buying a drink or a meal.
*Instanced inn rooms should perhaps be done away with. Inn rooms are not permanent dwellings, and shouldn't be sold to players. If all the rooms are being rented, that just means the player has to find another room to rent in order to sleep or store gear temporarily. (Inn keepers probably shouldn't make a habit of renting out rooms for months at a time, but I suppose they can if the player-character pays them enough.) Or characters can go sleep in a tent somewhere if they can't find a room anywhere. Of course, characters don't usually need to sleep in an MMORPG. Maybe this shouldn't change. But it would be interesting if they did need to eat and drink and sleep at intervals. Not eating and drinking shouldn't carry an automatic death penalty however. It should gradually lower stats and hp/mp before the character actually dies.
Of course, not drinking water will kill a person faster than not eating. Especially if they're exerting themselves the way adventurers do. I doubt most humans could fight many battles without taking a drink of water now and then. So stats should lower much faster if a character tries to fight w/out food and water. Same with running. Can't run for many miles without drinking. Certainly can't run for days without eating. But simply walking in town or gathering things in the wilderness won't kill you if you haven't eaten or drank. Perhaps Everquest 2 just simplified matters by having you die without food and water initially?
The need to sleep could be fulfilled by renting an inn room and entering it, or buying a tent and using it anywhere possible. Usually guards won't like people doing that in town. Players-characters can go several days without sleeping, just as humans can, but the longer they go without sleeping, the more their stats lower until they can't function properly. Having your character fall asleep while exploring a dungeon is probably not a good idea. It would be really cool if there were day and night cycles in MMORPGs where different things actually happened at night, in town/city.
I don't know if this could work for adventuring zones or not, but it would certainly be interesting for towns. It was done in at least one Dragon Quest/Warrior game. Different npcs and events were available to interact with at night than in the day. Certain buildings were closed that were open the during the day, and vice versa. I don't think characters should be able to run forever either. They should have to slow down and walk sometimes to rest. Most games have mounts now, so this shouldn't be a problem really.
I believe all these things would make playing in an MMORPG world far more interesting.
Great walls of text!!! Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
You could also add spying as a mechanic into your game. That way, people will be encouraged to spy through the approved means and you get to control how it happens.
That is what I'd like to do. But I understand that some people will try to cheat a system or mechanic just because they can. Regardless of whether there's any benefit to it or not.
Spying has been a feature of human society for a very long time (pre-roman). Allowing people to have characters on both sides of a faction divide simulates reality quite well.
Yes, but I think it would be far more interesting to use it as a game mechanic/option that requires real skill at infiltration, subterfuge, and/or disguise.
Great walls of text!!! Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
I know you can't stop people from using phones or cell phones. But is it possible to design a system to block any third party form of communication online? And/or even to block the use of web browsers?
Great walls of text!!! Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
I know you can't stop people from using phones or cell phones. But is it possible to design a system to block any third party form of communication online? And/or even to block the use of web browsers?
If all players have to come to your game company headquarters where you can keep an eye on them while playing the game, that would do it. Not sure that anything shy of that extreme of a measure would work, though. Even tracking all processes on the computer running the game wouldn't stop people from using a separate device.
Great walls of text!!! Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
I know you can't stop people from using phones or cell phones. But is it possible to design a system to block any third party form of communication online? And/or even to block the use of web browsers?
If all players have to come to your game company headquarters where you can keep an eye on them while playing the game, that would do it. Not sure that anything shy of that extreme of a measure would work, though. Even tracking all processes on the computer running the game wouldn't stop people from using a separate device.
Right, I understand. Forgot about that, lol. Btw, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a developer and I have no former or previous ties to any game company. Except for that I do have a former best friend (whom I grew up with) that currently works for Blizzard, but we're not on speaking terms anymore. Mostly my fault on that score.
Great walls of text!!! Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
Also, I posted that in this thread because I've already had trouble trying to direct people to another thread on a certain specific topic that I already posted about in detail. And I haven't made a thread on the specific topic of communication in games since last year.
I apologize for not knowing everything or not always being able to think of everything at any given moment. I'm just another human being in this world. Although I once started teaching myself MEL (Maya Embedded Language) and C++ (back in 2004-2005), and enrolled up to the second year of C++ at a Junior College (back in 2007-2008, didn't finish the second year for personal reasons), I'm far from being a skilled and knowledgeable computer programmer. The reason I first started teaching myself programming was because my friends and I were seriously attempting to start our own computer animation company. I also did all the 3-D tutorials on Maya. My friend (the one currently working for Blizzard) said I was doing better at it than many of the students at his art school.
But due to circumstances that were at partially, and probably mostly, my fault, I was told my partnership in the eventual failure of the project was no longer required or wanted. I was going to be the principal fiction writer for the animation projects. Writing and languages are the two subjects at which I most excel. Not saying I'm the best or better than other people, just saying those subjects are where my strengths lie. I have many weaknesses as well.
Anyway, some of the things I enjoy most are trying to think outside boxes and attempting to develop ways to alter paradigms or the way(s) people think about paradigms. I may fail more often than not, but I like to to make an effort. It is fun for me.
My only advice, which 100% of developers fail to comprehend, especially FPS games. Never underestimate the craftiness of the online community. Anything you come up with will probably be reverse engineered, disassembled, polished, redesigned, mocked, showcased and finally sold for profit as a hack.
You are almost certainly most likely totally correct about that. I won't try to disagree with you. I have had plenty of experience dealing with people online (in games, on social media, and on many different types of forums) so I do understand how shady they can be.
Btw, I attempted to contact my former friend recently on Facebook (he blocked my original FB account at some point in the past a few years ago). Did manage to text one of his younger brothers and one of our other mutual childhood friends in the interest of apologizing and the desire to get his input on my ideas on how to possibly create a realistic, dynamic, true role-playing game online, but I have not heard back on whether he is willing to forgive me my past failures or whether he has looked at any of the things I've posted on this forum. So, this is the only outlet I'm using for brainstorming and attempted problem-solving as relates to mmorpgs at this time.
I gave up on posting ideas upon the Arc Neverwinter forum. Dungeons & Dragons is what really got me into role-playing when I was a kid, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered to try there at all. Posting on the Everquest 2 forum in the past made me realize how pointless, and often unwelcome proposition, trying to post possibly original or irregular ideas on a specific game forum can be. Perhaps not by the developers, but certainly by plenty of gamers who troll the forums. Though my idea for a backpack with a lute on it was used back in 2014, which I then purchased off the cash shop. Made me more excited about playing my Troubadour at the time.
Comments
I'm not trying to cripple in-game chat. I want to make it more realistic. Here's some notes I wrote down last year (around the time I stopped posting on this forum). If you're interested.
How Communication Could Work in an MMORPG
I'm not saying all mmorpgs need to work like this, but I think it would be interesting to experiment and see what happens.
All you really need are say, shout, whisper, and the ability to send each other mail. But you can you also enable to characters to know or learn other languages or sign language, or use other forms of non-verbal communication such as, but not limited to, emotes.
Zone text only needs to be used at times by the game itself for narration. Unless an event is worldwide or continent-wide, such as a massive meteor striking the world or a massive, possibly supernatural, earthquake.
Looking-for-group, trade, zone, global/world and guild chat can be done away with.
If a player is looking to form a group, but can't find anyone, or can't find enough people to form the group size desired, he or she can go to a tavern or inn in a town or city. There can also be roadside taverns/inns where player-characters may gather. Everquest 2 has plenty of taverns and inns in its cities but makes poor use of them, imho.
If there aren't enough players there yet, or if they can't find who they're looking for (proper level, class, etc.), they can wait until one shows up. Their characters should need to eat and drink anyway, and the tavern owner/innkeeper isn't going to let them loiter in their common room without buying something. It shouldn't really be too much of a problem, because other people looking to form a party/group will likely need to seek out such gathering places as well. Of course players can simply go to the entrance of the dungeon they're looking to raid and wait at the entrance as well. Or even inside the dungeon if it is persistent, as in Everquest and Everquest 2.
Players should also be able to leave notices at boards within taverns and inns. Not the best way to form parties, but it can help for forming guilds and trading/selling. Players can respond to them in the mail.
Shout shouldn't be able to heard throughout the whole zone. They can be heard a farther distance than say, but not to god-like, supernatural distances. Unless a character has a supernatural/magical/technological ability to project their voice further than a normal human voice can carry. This would also depend on the character's race. Some races might have more powerful voices than others. Of course, if the players are playing deities, all that changes dramatically. Zone chat, global chat, and telepathic, speak-to-anyone-anywhere-anytime private chat would be possible.
But players don't usually play gods.
Whisper can only be used if a player-character is standing right next to another player-character/s. They must select each character to whom they wish to whisper. If they try to whisper to one person while another person is standing right next to them, the other person should be notified and be given the option to attempt to listen in.
More to come (I didn't read all the way through, so there might be errors or something I changed my mind about. I'll read through it all again after I smoke).
If you can't find a certain guild member whom you wish to talk to, you can leave a note in the guild hall or send mail to them. And mail can only be read at the mailbox. I suppose players can have a magical device that tells them whether they have a new message in their box, but they should probably have to buy it or receive it in-game. Or we can just assume mailboxes come equipped with such devices. People who wish to join your guild can leave a note on your guild door, slide a note through a mail panel in the door, or simply
send mail to the official guild mailbox or guild leader's mailbox. The leader's name/address could be seen on the guild door perhaps. Or they could knock on the door on the guild door. Perhaps someone in the guild might actually be in the guild hall since there would now be more purpose to one besides decorating, storing trophies, and buying conveniences so that no one has to do anything in town, making the towns empty. I really don't think guilds should make travel so easy or make it so that no one ever has to do anything in town either.
I suppose
* By the current results of friending a person or joining a guild, we are assuming that everyone has or is given a magical means of knowing where that person is or whether or not they are active in the gameworld presently.
*Instanced inn rooms should perhaps be done away with. Inn rooms are not permanent dwellings, and shouldn't be sold to players. If all the rooms are being rented, that just means the player has to find another room to rent in order to sleep or store gear temporarily. (Inn keepers probably shouldn't make a habit of renting out rooms for months at a time, but I suppose they can if the player-character pays them enough.) Or characters can go sleep in a tent somewhere if they can't find a room anywhere. Of course, characters don't usually need to sleep in an MMORPG. Maybe this shouldn't change. But it would be interesting if they did need to eat and drink and sleep at intervals. Not eating and drinking shouldn't carry an automatic death penalty however. It should gradually lower stats and hp/mp before the character actually dies.
Of course, not drinking water will kill a person faster than not eating. Especially if they're exerting themselves the way adventurers do. I doubt most humans could fight many battles without taking a drink of water now and then. So stats should lower much faster if a character tries to fight w/out food and water. Same with running. Can't run for many miles without drinking. Certainly can't run for days without eating. But simply walking in town or gathering things in the wilderness won't kill you if you haven't eaten or drank. Perhaps Everquest 2 just simplified matters by having you die without food and water initially?
The need to sleep could be fulfilled by renting an inn room and entering it, or buying a tent and using it anywhere possible. Usually guards won't like people doing that in town. Players-characters can go several days without sleeping, just as humans can, but the longer they go without sleeping, the more their stats lower until they can't function properly. Having your character fall asleep while exploring a dungeon is probably not a good idea.
It would be really cool if there were day and night cycles in MMORPGs where different things actually happened at night, in town/city.
I don't know if this could work for adventuring zones or not, but it would certainly be interesting for towns. It was done in at least one Dragon Quest/Warrior game. Different npcs and events were available to interact with at night than in the day. Certain buildings were closed that were open the during the day, and vice versa.
I don't think characters should be able to run forever either. They should have to slow down and walk sometimes to rest. Most games have mounts now, so this shouldn't be a problem really.
I believe all these things would make playing in an MMORPG world far more interesting.
Great walls of text!!!
Largely derailing your topic too. You know much of what you 'suggest' is either the way things were in the beginning, or things that were tried and failed.
To restrict myself to something like the original topic, any in game mechanism that attempts to restrict in game global chat is doomed to failure, and always has been.
Today it is trivial to open global communication channels outside of the game using social media, IRC, any number of third party voice chat tools, public forums etc.
Will do.
Yes, but I think it would be far more interesting to use it as a game mechanic/option that requires real skill at infiltration, subterfuge, and/or disguise.
I know you can't stop people from using phones or cell phones. But is it possible to design a system to block any third party form of communication online? And/or even to block the use of web browsers?
If all players have to come to your game company headquarters where you can keep an eye on them while playing the game, that would do it. Not sure that anything shy of that extreme of a measure would work, though. Even tracking all processes on the computer running the game wouldn't stop people from using a separate device.
Also, I posted that in this thread because I've already had trouble trying to direct people to another thread on a certain specific topic that I already posted about in detail. And I haven't made a thread on the specific topic of communication in games since last year.
But due to circumstances that were at partially, and probably mostly, my fault, I was told my partnership in the eventual failure of the project was no longer required or wanted. I was going to be the principal fiction writer for the animation projects. Writing and languages are the two subjects at which I most excel. Not saying I'm the best or better than other people, just saying those subjects are where my strengths lie. I have many weaknesses as well.
Anyway, some of the things I enjoy most are trying to think outside boxes and attempting to develop ways to alter paradigms or the way(s) people think about paradigms. I may fail more often than not, but I like to to make an effort. It is fun for me.
Btw, I attempted to contact my former friend recently on Facebook (he blocked my original FB account at some point in the past a few years ago). Did manage to text one of his younger brothers and one of our other mutual childhood friends in the interest of apologizing and the desire to get his input on my ideas on how to possibly create a realistic, dynamic, true role-playing game online, but I have not heard back on whether he is willing to forgive me my past failures or whether he has looked at any of the things I've posted on this forum. So, this is the only outlet I'm using for brainstorming and attempted problem-solving as relates to mmorpgs at this time.
I gave up on posting ideas upon the Arc Neverwinter forum. Dungeons & Dragons is what really got me into role-playing when I was a kid, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered to try there at all. Posting on the Everquest 2 forum in the past made me realize how pointless, and often unwelcome proposition, trying to post possibly original or irregular ideas on a specific game forum can be. Perhaps not by the developers, but certainly by plenty of gamers who troll the forums. Though my idea for a backpack with a lute on it was used back in 2014, which I then purchased off the cash shop. Made me more excited about playing my Troubadour at the time.