Id make an mmo with dragon mounts available but would then make it so you need to have played about a year to be able to do it, plus be pretty lucky to find the necessary items for it. Sort of like how capital ships are in EVE.
Cryomatrix
Items? So you can craft a dragon?
OT: Speaking of flying mounts, I think having non-shapeshifting dragons as a playable race could solve the issue of the world feeling dead because everyone's flying above. If you need to pay your dragon, who is controlled by another person, to ferry you around, especially if dragons use the hoard mechanic that @Eldurian suggested, you'd only ever see the richest of players flying regularly. At the same time, serving as a taxi would be a good stand-in social activity for dragons to make up for not being able to enter taverns and such.
You could also add some mechanics that split control between the mount and rider to make riding a dragon into combat a duo activity that depends as much on the skill of the rider and mount individually as the dynamics between them (i.e. how well they know each other in combat). As far as I know, no MMO to date has done duo combat like this.
I don't know why, but I'm tempted to give this MMO a shot. It's like screw all the criticisms towards content, raiding, balance, progression, etc... I'm playing as a freaking dragon, all rules are off the table.
Why do you want to be a dragon? Must always be a bit of a squeeze when you want to go to the Inn.
Duh, everyone knows dragons can shape shift themselves, or at least that many of them can.
Heck, we had one guy my party were interrigating rather rudely go all Shadowstalker dragon on us in R.I.F.T.S once, a rather painful experience.
But to make actual dragons a playable class in a MMO is another matter, shape shift or not. I just don't see a dragon interested in most quests and it is rather rare you hear of a dragon using weapons, armor or similar gear. They just seem to collect treasures for a big pile they use as a bed.
I think you would have to make a game were all players play dragons for it to actually be fun. The mechanics between humanoids and dragons are just so different that anything else would be rather silly.
Shapeshifting is an interesting spin. And appropriate, I do know many D&D dragons can take human form. You would have to balance that though. If dragons can be dragons AND humans, there is no point to playing a human.
I think the hoard mechanic is the best balance. Especially in a full loot PvP game. If a dragon has to store up a massive hoard somewhere that can be stolen then you can have balanced dragons without everyone and their dog being one. Guilds and alliances would come together to support their dragon and make sure his hoard isn't stolen in exchange for them supporting them in massive battles.
I would also make it so the most terrifying dragon abilities are powered by eating gold. And that enemies destroyed by dragonfire have their items melted to scrap typically. So essentially dragons are painting a huge target on yourselfs (In terms of having a hoard people can steal) and literally eating money in exchange for terrifying power.
You don't want half the game playing great wyrms they use to gank newbs. Large dragons should be weapons of war in massive kingdom vs. kingdom battles.
How is that going to cause players to not all want to play a Dragon?
In the original Horizons, Dragons were going to be one of the special races that died permanently. Making an ancient Dragon a rare and special achievement. And they had to grow from a dog sized young, and survive while dropping rare and valuable parts used in alchemy and other human crafts.
The other special races were cool too. Angels, Sphinxes, Griffins, Deamon type something-or-other, and I forget what else.
Players were going to be allowed one slot only for one of these special races, and if this special character died they had to earn another slot (undetermined how) to dedicate to a special race.
They also were going to have races like a desert lizard-man who could run faster on sand, an underwater race like D+D's Sahuagin(?) that moved slower on land and could only breath air for 15 minutes (or so) (and an underwater realm), plus the typical Dwarves and Elves and Centaurs.
David Allen was the guy that started the game. And he got some very major funding from NCsoft because of some special system he was developing. But then there was an internal conflict between him and the next guy in the pecking order. The other guy won out, Allen was pushed out, and changed the game, and NCsoft backed out of their funding agreement.
Ah, OK. I need a pretty active and social base to keep me interested in an MMO.
yeah, pretty much same here. Its a pretty decent MMO otherwise, especially for the time it was released. And still no MMO with playable dragons. But community size is probably tiniest community of the bigger MMOs.
However if I may make a recommendation...take a look at Ryzom, its on Steam (ignore the steam activity numbers, most people actually don't play on Steam. Its still small but not as much as steam shows).
As said...the community IS small (kinda quite small so you might not like that), but chat is usually always active and if you say something people usually answer back. Its super friendly and very social though despite the small community). Its also the only sandbox PvE MMO, granted though it has optional PvP but its not forced.
And actually AI is pretty involved in Ryzom compared to other PvE MMOs. Creatures behave different, and many actually come up to your character to interact with you
No jump button though, seems to drive a lot of people away for some reason lol.
I've tried both Ryzom and Istaria; my impression was that Ryzom is even less active than Istaria.
It's just funny that you nudge @MightyUnclean away from Istaria due to a supposedly anemic playerbase, then direct him toward a game that has even fewer players. It shows how relative things can be, I guess.
Both Ryzom and Istaria have great ideas; I like the graphical design to Ryzom a little better than Istaria, but I found Istaria's gameplay to be a little more to my liking. I wasn't impressed with Ryzom's starter zone: one of the first quests had me "rescue" a NPC while three thugs or so just sort of stood around staring at the action. It's a little thing, but it was immersion-breaking.
Istaria, on the other hand, plunged me right into learning how to "scribe" elements on sandstone blocks. It didn't seem to have as many 'guard rails' at the beginning, although everything I've read about Ryzom led me to believe the reverse would be true.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Riders of Icarus has a lot of dragons you can ride, fight with, or turn into fighting pets. No you can't become one but the amount of control you have over your pets once tamed are pretty good.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Shapeshifting is an interesting spin. And appropriate, I do know many D&D dragons can take human form. You would have to balance that though. If dragons can be dragons AND humans, there is no point to playing a human.
I think the hoard mechanic is the best balance. Especially in a full loot PvP game. If a dragon has to store up a massive hoard somewhere that can be stolen then you can have balanced dragons without everyone and their dog being one. Guilds and alliances would come together to support their dragon and make sure his hoard isn't stolen in exchange for them supporting them in massive battles.
I would also make it so the most terrifying dragon abilities are powered by eating gold. And that enemies destroyed by dragonfire have their items melted to scrap typically. So essentially dragons are painting a huge target on yourselfs (In terms of having a hoard people can steal) and literally eating money in exchange for terrifying power.
You don't want half the game playing great wyrms they use to gank newbs. Large dragons should be weapons of war in massive kingdom vs. kingdom battles.
How is that going to cause players to not all want to play a Dragon?
If space as an issue groups would only have so much room for gold hoards and that would take up storage they could use for other things.
So if 100% of players in a player nation decide they want to play as dragons, they will all need gold to fuel their abilities, all need places to store their hoards, and all have to defend it from people wanting to steal it.
If a 100% humanoid nation went up against the 100% dragon nation they would probably have cheaper gear, would not need to use gold to fuel their abilities, and would have all their racial bonuses based on fighting as humanoids. They also would be less totally screwed when they lost their city/hoard and wouldn't have a huge target painted on themselves like the dragon nation. In other words, their armies would be cheaper to field and would absolutely win in a war of attrition because even if the dragons win they are consuming gold to fuel their best abilities, shrinking their hoard, weakening their powers, while humanoids in throw away gear come against them wave after wave after wave losing less gold despite dying each time until the dragons are too weak to repel them and they steal the whole hoard.
If a nation is primarily humanoids and has a small number of dragons then they only have a small number of hoards to protect, can use humanoid troops who are cheaper and can actually loot slain enemies do the bulk of protecting their kingdom, and apply dragons as needed strategically to weaken the oncoming enemy hordes enough that their own humanoid forces can prevail.
Does that answer your question? Same reason "Why doesn't everyone in EVE fly titans?" It's simply not a viable fleet comp. You need smaller ships to round out your forces. They might all want to be dragons but it won't be practical.
Shapeshifting is an interesting spin. And appropriate, I do know many D&D dragons can take human form. You would have to balance that though. If dragons can be dragons AND humans, there is no point to playing a human.
I think the hoard mechanic is the best balance. Especially in a full loot PvP game. If a dragon has to store up a massive hoard somewhere that can be stolen then you can have balanced dragons without everyone and their dog being one. Guilds and alliances would come together to support their dragon and make sure his hoard isn't stolen in exchange for them supporting them in massive battles.
I would also make it so the most terrifying dragon abilities are powered by eating gold. And that enemies destroyed by dragonfire have their items melted to scrap typically. So essentially dragons are painting a huge target on yourselfs (In terms of having a hoard people can steal) and literally eating money in exchange for terrifying power.
You don't want half the game playing great wyrms they use to gank newbs. Large dragons should be weapons of war in massive kingdom vs. kingdom battles.
How is that going to cause players to not all want to play a Dragon?
If space as an issue groups would only have so much room for gold hoards and that would take up storage they could use for other things.
So if 100% of players in a player nation decide they want to play as dragons, they will all need gold to fuel their abilities, all need places to store their hoards, and all have to defend it from people wanting to steal it.
If a 100% humanoid nation went up against the 100% dragon nation they would probably have cheaper gear, would not need to use gold to fuel their abilities, and would have all their racial bonuses based on fighting as humanoids. They also would be less totally screwed when they lost their city/hoard and wouldn't have a huge target painted on themselves like the dragon nation. In other words, their armies would be cheaper to field and would absolutely win in a war of attrition because even if the dragons win they are consuming gold to fuel their best abilities, shrinking their hoard, weakening their powers, while humanoids in throw away gear come against them wave after wave after wave losing less gold despite dying each time until the dragons are too weak to repel them and they steal the whole hoard.
If a nation is primarily humanoids and has a small number of dragons then they only have a small number of hoards to protect, can use humanoid troops who are cheaper and can actually loot slain enemies do the bulk of protecting their kingdom, and apply dragons as needed strategically to weaken the oncoming enemy hordes enough that their own humanoid forces can prevail.
Does that answer your question? Same reason "Why doesn't everyone in EVE fly titans?" It's simply not a viable fleet comp. You need smaller ships to round out your forces. They might all want to be dragons but it won't be practical.
Do you think all those non-dragon players are going to be happy with that? You're talking about a game with a royalty (the players who have the dragons, and control the guild/city to gain them). There's a huge difference between a ship and a players own character. The ship (of this sort) is something that's owned by the community, whereas the dragon is what everyone would want to BE.
Some players would view the dragon as community property, like the ship. It would work for them since the dragon is limited in action by it's cost to use. That works in a PvP oriented game best. But I don't think that's what most dragon-wannabees have in mind.
Comments
OT: Speaking of flying mounts, I think having non-shapeshifting dragons as a playable race could solve the issue of the world feeling dead because everyone's flying above. If you need to pay your dragon, who is controlled by another person, to ferry you around, especially if dragons use the hoard mechanic that @Eldurian suggested, you'd only ever see the richest of players flying regularly. At the same time, serving as a taxi would be a good stand-in social activity for dragons to make up for not being able to enter taverns and such.
You could also add some mechanics that split control between the mount and rider to make riding a dragon into combat a duo activity that depends as much on the skill of the rider and mount individually as the dynamics between them (i.e. how well they know each other in combat). As far as I know, no MMO to date has done duo combat like this.
Mend and Defend
Once upon a time....
And they had to grow from a dog sized young, and survive while dropping rare and valuable parts used in alchemy and other human crafts.
The other special races were cool too. Angels, Sphinxes, Griffins, Deamon type something-or-other, and I forget what else.
Players were going to be allowed one slot only for one of these special races, and if this special character died they had to earn another slot (undetermined how) to dedicate to a special race.
They also were going to have races like a desert lizard-man who could run faster on sand, an underwater race like D+D's Sahuagin(?) that moved slower on land and could only breath air for 15 minutes (or so) (and an underwater realm), plus the typical Dwarves and Elves and Centaurs.
David Allen was the guy that started the game. And he got some very major funding from NCsoft because of some special system he was developing.
But then there was an internal conflict between him and the next guy in the pecking order. The other guy won out, Allen was pushed out, and changed the game, and NCsoft backed out of their funding agreement.
Once upon a time....
It's just funny that you nudge @MightyUnclean away from Istaria due to a supposedly anemic playerbase, then direct him toward a game that has even fewer players. It shows how relative things can be, I guess.
Both Ryzom and Istaria have great ideas; I like the graphical design to Ryzom a little better than Istaria, but I found Istaria's gameplay to be a little more to my liking. I wasn't impressed with Ryzom's starter zone: one of the first quests had me "rescue" a NPC while three thugs or so just sort of stood around staring at the action. It's a little thing, but it was immersion-breaking.
Istaria, on the other hand, plunged me right into learning how to "scribe" elements on sandstone blocks. It didn't seem to have as many 'guard rails' at the beginning, although everything I've read about Ryzom led me to believe the reverse would be true.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So if 100% of players in a player nation decide they want to play as dragons, they will all need gold to fuel their abilities, all need places to store their hoards, and all have to defend it from people wanting to steal it.
If a 100% humanoid nation went up against the 100% dragon nation they would probably have cheaper gear, would not need to use gold to fuel their abilities, and would have all their racial bonuses based on fighting as humanoids. They also would be less totally screwed when they lost their city/hoard and wouldn't have a huge target painted on themselves like the dragon nation. In other words, their armies would be cheaper to field and would absolutely win in a war of attrition because even if the dragons win they are consuming gold to fuel their best abilities, shrinking their hoard, weakening their powers, while humanoids in throw away gear come against them wave after wave after wave losing less gold despite dying each time until the dragons are too weak to repel them and they steal the whole hoard.
If a nation is primarily humanoids and has a small number of dragons then they only have a small number of hoards to protect, can use humanoid troops who are cheaper and can actually loot slain enemies do the bulk of protecting their kingdom, and apply dragons as needed strategically to weaken the oncoming enemy hordes enough that their own humanoid forces can prevail.
Does that answer your question? Same reason "Why doesn't everyone in EVE fly titans?" It's simply not a viable fleet comp. You need smaller ships to round out your forces. They might all want to be dragons but it won't be practical.
There's a huge difference between a ship and a players own character. The ship (of this sort) is something that's owned by the community, whereas the dragon is what everyone would want to BE.
Some players would view the dragon as community property, like the ship. It would work for them since the dragon is limited in action by it's cost to use. That works in a PvP oriented game best. But I don't think that's what most dragon-wannabees have in mind.
Once upon a time....
There's nothing since Horizons. It has been too long.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower