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Could an Exploration-Focused MMO Succeed?
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Member UncommonPosts: 351
Like the title says, could an MMO based on exploration succeed?
Imagine a world with, from your perspective, a small region of civilization that your character begins in, with the primary objective of the game being to explore the vast barbarian wilderness that composes the rest of the world. The game would intentionally make it extremely difficult to survive outside the starting area due to strong roaming mobs and pack-based AI, such that even in a group of 5 you run a good risk of all dying to open world mobs (and it would only get harder the further out you went). In addition to this, there would be non-instanced dungeons scattered throughout the world where the difficulty is even higher as end-game challenges. Alternatively, the ability to take over old castles and forts from NPCs and use them as player-run outposts (and defend them against NPC recapture) would also be available as an end-game activity. Furthermore, as players press further into the wilderness, the developers would add more content onto the back end of existing content so that there is always more to explore.
Of course, there would be other activities available, such as crafting, farming, and running a business in the civilized zone, and soloing would be possible (though not recommended) through the use of stealth. However, this game first and foremost would be marketed as a game built for hard-core social gamers fed up with the PvP gankfests that hard-core MMOs typically devolve into (notice I didn't say anything about PvP in my first paragraph - this game would be entirely PvE).
What do you think? Could such a game succeed? Would you play it?
Imagine a world with, from your perspective, a small region of civilization that your character begins in, with the primary objective of the game being to explore the vast barbarian wilderness that composes the rest of the world. The game would intentionally make it extremely difficult to survive outside the starting area due to strong roaming mobs and pack-based AI, such that even in a group of 5 you run a good risk of all dying to open world mobs (and it would only get harder the further out you went). In addition to this, there would be non-instanced dungeons scattered throughout the world where the difficulty is even higher as end-game challenges. Alternatively, the ability to take over old castles and forts from NPCs and use them as player-run outposts (and defend them against NPC recapture) would also be available as an end-game activity. Furthermore, as players press further into the wilderness, the developers would add more content onto the back end of existing content so that there is always more to explore.
Of course, there would be other activities available, such as crafting, farming, and running a business in the civilized zone, and soloing would be possible (though not recommended) through the use of stealth. However, this game first and foremost would be marketed as a game built for hard-core social gamers fed up with the PvP gankfests that hard-core MMOs typically devolve into (notice I didn't say anything about PvP in my first paragraph - this game would be entirely PvE).
What do you think? Could such a game succeed? Would you play it?
Comments
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Level oriented games with large power gaps, well, it's pretty much the same thing as WoW, just with a change in world layout and the lack of cities in zones.
Once upon a time....
I think most people will dismiss the idea until someone actually pulls it off.
Both sound great but are super hard to make interesting and last very long. Both need huge amounts of dev time to create assets for, and it is a losing battle at some point.
Having a trillion planets or a huge world sounds great...but each have issues that you run into that needs a real person to add something to, or you just rinse and repeat before very long.
All that supposes that you would have enough people that "like" exploring and like the type of game, the genre, and will stick to a MMO long term to make enough of a return. All possible i guess...like winning the lottery.
1. Platforming and movement that allows for rewarding platforming. Could be stat bonuses or items reward
2. Dynamic maps and random areas with mini bosses and loot for solo content and possibly scaling it for groups
3. Rare mats and items in open world. May be the mats are generated by unique terrain and weather. So when someone sees a weather system in a unique landscape it is a que to explore that area.
4. AI system in game that makes npcs dynamic and with open world events to different locations. Different than 2, since in 2 you are exploring their area. Where as here it’s a live event that’s more interactive and allows for participation. And the npcs are alive that they will change their location and routine based on that.
5. Tracking quests or bounty hunting
6. Cargo missions and transport, such as guarding as well
they could use these things but they should have the normal mmo things in an mmo with pvp etc imo
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
What would end up happening is we would get a lot of dungeons and halls and likely puzzles but i have never seen many puzzles done well,usually they have hand holding and sparkles,very lazy effort.
So yeah i would enjoy an exploration game but i highly doubt it would be done very well.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
But today's generation are different, maybe they are watching every new zone before they go on a stream, they look at every quest, every location of interest before they go themselves.
However, and EXPANSION based MMORPG could work, but would require a restart at some point, as the would would be conquered, and there would be no more expansion possible (PvP would still be possible though).
I doubt that it would be completely explored in that short amount of time - keep in mind that this is a game world designed to kill you and your friends. But even once the open world has been explored, if it is indeed explored before more land is added to the back of the existing land, there would still remain dungeons, which are even more difficult, to provide further exploration content until the next chunk of content.
Additionally, even if there are walkthroughs and maps online, there can still be a great deal of independent exploration done, such as looking for resource nodes, valuable roaming mobs, and dungeons, which would be randomized across servers.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
OMG no don't make me immerse myself in the game,all i want is to get the best loot and the less thinking and easier you make it,i am soooo happy.
Except guess what,lots of us playing Atlas right now,we don't get any major rewards,it is just fun ,the feeling of an immersive world with creatures that look and move realistically with danger around every corner.Building stuff is fun,why do you think Minecraft has been so popular for MANy years?Sailing the seas in realistic looking water filled with sharks is again fun,we don't need any glowing +15 Sword of wordly destruction to have fun.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Once upon a time....
There are no raids but maybe Dragon related quest start to appear with NPC. Leads to suspicions there is a dragon near by. Adventurers go exploring for potential Dragon.
Explorers go search for resources. Maybe a high quality metal or even trees. People set up a lumberyard/tree farm to harvest the trees. Maybe even a town is setup around valuable resources.
I think it would be interesting to see it tried.
You also need Discovery, in lots of ways.
-All kinds of terrain features, including underwater caves, waterfall caves, beautiful/magestic scenery, natural wonders, and the like.
-Ancient ruins
-Dungeons of all sizes
-Treasures
-Collectables such as statuary, carvings, reliefs, mundane items in unique forms, etc.
-Artifacts and Relics of magical power
-New spells
-Tomes that, once deciphered, can teach new skills in crafting, combat, alchemy, etc.
-Scrolls, one use, to teach new or add skill to existing skills
-Ancient work shops that an appropriately skilled character can learn from to enhance crafting
-New races that might open the door to new player races
There's really no end to what can be done as far as discoveries.
Once upon a time....
Or, "Why can't they add a collapsed wall here, with some new dungeon content?"
Things like that.
I especially like "touching" things or trying magical spells or mundane tools on them to see if anything unusual happens.
I'd love magical words or phrases, "Open sesame," ya know?
A lot of stuff can be hidden in riddles in tomes of lore, such as places, phrases, or tricks.
But I'd much prefer the huge world to explore too.
Combine it all, and that huge world doesn't have to be as huge as without this idea.
Once upon a time....
I was the player who did a major study on the mysterious Black Necklace that Minax was seen wearing in a GM event. This study went deep into the lore.
There was another event where a set of unique (at that time) Blackrock spawned at the conclusion. About 20 of them on each server. I was in a position to gather quite a few of them on my server. I felt bad about hogging them, so I gave some away to others that were there. A player who had been resurrecting players off to the side I gave 3, a player who had constantly fought the main Evil very well I gave 1, and 1 each to a couple of others who were outstanding players on the shard.
But then I sought out a Grand Master for making jewelry, someone I trusted, and asked them to try to make a Necklace using a Blackrock instead of a gemstone.
It didn't work, but it was refreshing to see a GM mention that, and say that it was an interesting thing on the forums.
Things like that, mysteries, attempts to solve the great riddles, those are very intriguing.
Once upon a time....