ANother hairbrained idea

gattm99

SO I looked at MMOCenter for a few minutes and read something that sent my mind off wandering.  Something like, "5 years and 25 million dollars, there has to be a better way to make a MMOG. 

I know alot of that time goes into creating the tons of content that goes into a good MMOG.  Here is my thought, why not let players create that content.  Provide a select few players and give them access to the tools they could use to develop content, like in second life.  Do a certain amount of work and you get a free month of play.      Now I am sure there would be lots of draw backs to a game like this.  Lore for instance, it would be difficult to keep everyone on the same page, but at the same time this wouldn't be a heavily story based game. 

So here is just a practicle example.  Lets say you make a PC, skill him up for a few days killing bunnys whatever.  You find a tower, go inside and there is an NPC, the NPC asks you to bring him some Iron, you do that, he rewards you with some trinkets and asks you to go bring back something else.  So far it sounds like any other game, but here is where it gets different, the next day you go by the tower and talk to the NPC you find a personal message for you from the NPC, written by the owner of the tower.  He invites you to prove your courage by going to a near by cave and killing some (insert beasty)  you do that and report back and you are invited into his guild.  After several weeks of assisting fellow guild members in conquering a neighbooring guilds lands you get set up with a small house and a parcle of land in the new territory. 

Gameloading

i really don't like the idea of some players making the game. i seriously doubt a bunch of mmorpg fans who have no experience with the technology used could do better then developers who studdied for years. the last thing would be possible, but i think it requires a lot of mature players and a lot of roleplaying to make it fun.

CaesarsGhost

Isn't that the point of Ryzom Ring?

gattm99

If that is the point of RR then sign me up, sounds great.  The little bit I read I didn't necasarily see, but I admit I quickly scanned it.  I'll go check it out a little more closesly.

I'm not talking about giving players the deep level programing tools, and not very many of the players would be included, only the ones who can prove that they are mature and capable of creating some content that belongs in the world.  I don't think you need programing training to use something simple like a level editor and simple scripting.  Plus if it was difficult it would keep idiots out. 

gattm99

I went back and read the chronicle FAQ, it looks like everything I've wanted.  I hope it makes it. 

nomadian

hmm its the way forward but it has to be done right. Look at the halflife/2 mods, the warcraft 3 mods, the NWN mods. You would get a ton of crap as most people don't know programming nor are any good at game design, but you would come up with some absolute brilliant mods. And people would have a lot of fun playing around with trying to make a map.

How you would fit that into a mmorpg, would be the question, and how would you make the top quality mods be noticed. A couple of people playing a top mod and forming impressions won't be able to spread the worth of mouth to make that mod popular. One way would be like SoE's idea of "adventure packs". People making their own adventure packs for others to download. But again, how would you implement that in a mmorpg. People's experience would be skewed, as well as item distribution. The character, and the advancement you attain would be meaningless. As any person could just shove a massive exp reward in an adventure and then it would ultimately be pointless. It would no longer be a mmorpg. You could start afresh in each adventure but it would no longer again be a mmorpg.

I think it would have to be restricted to end game content where you can gain no real exp or real items. Any other way you would give too much power to the player or you would have to restrict too much power over customization which would defy the point of having the mods really. Or a lengthy process which the developer has to review every map, which would be intensive and would not really be effective in finding the best mods.

CaesarsGhost

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Originally posted by gattm99
I went back and read the chronicle FAQ, it looks like everything I've wanted. I hope it makes it.

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It will. I, the MMOCenter Community Manager, Gartunee it. :-D

Blingbling2k

Eh, I'll wait 5 years before I let some 13 year old trying to get a free month on play design the world im going to be playing in.

Anofalye

Letting the player design stuff is a great idea.

 

But you should not implement anything players design right away, you put everything they design with your tools in a section.  You have burned designers that use to have great talents and great ideas but that are now spoiled (still talented) and relatively lazy and pay them to pay and check the content...and they implement (and possibly modify) what they think is awesome.  Players would be welcome in this test area, mostly to give points and ranking to draw the attention of the professionnal staff on what they think is great.

 

A MMO should be designed in many steps IMO.  5 years for the first income is...silly.  You start relatively humbly, with very nice stuff, but extremely limited, for a ridiculously low fee.  You improve the engine, the content, the systems, the class and everything with time...and the fee to access those new servers.  Build everything on different servers, you never touch or change an old server, so the players know what they see is what they got.  It would developp loyalty, since if you like a game, you can play as long as you want (unless the server have to close for a population to low).  Later on, you offer transfers for a fees and no new fee but the monthly fees on the new servers when you reach a quality to ask for $50, cap there.  Peoples does prototye, alpha, beta and so on anyway.  Polishing some stuff to make it playable and releasing it just make sense.  There is only 1 city and 3 zones at release and merely 15 levels...well, it is better than waiting 55 more months before releasing anything.  You have player feedback and you can already have quite nice graphics, just have to focus on few of them.  Okay, players will think there are to few mobs, but for $5 and a monthly fee of $1, they can't say they are shafted (and credit card take a % anyway).  It wont be profitable at this stage, it is not the goal to be profitable at release, the goal is to cut the expenses and be profitable ASAP.  It needs great design work at start to know of the possible evolutions to the game in many ways, but that is nothing news, designers are usually put under tons of stress and you know what, they usually like it that way!    You can always change everything in the game, it never affects old servers, and if the players stick to them old servers, so good for them, and maybe you can learn something from this.

Waffleton

whoops, posted something in the wrong thread.