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What do you want?
raystantz
Final Fantasy XI CorrespondentMember UncommonPosts: 1,237
in an mmo..
I am starting development of a soon to be named MMO project.
I already have tons and tons of ideas on my plate. But, those are all MY ideas. I want to throw this question out to all my fellow mmo players and see what it is YOU want in a game. I've been wanting to do a project like this for years, and I may finally have the resources to do it.
Brainstorm with me.
What do you want?
where do you want it set? what time period? fantasy? etc.
what type of gameplay? Leveling? sandbox? both?
anything you can think of. I want to hear it.
I realize that everyone is different.. but that is the purpose of this exercise.
Lets hear it.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Comments
NO EFFING FANTASY PLEASE!!!
The genre has too much as it is. Eastern, western, and everything in between. Hack and slash to mindless grinding.
Something post-apoc/sci-fi mixed would be nice. Something space AND planetary based. Perhaps some sort of AO/EVE hybrid mixture. But without the excessive training time to get to the real meat of it, OR hugely dependant on metagaming. Separate but tightly intertwined halves of a single game, where actions in one half have a direct impact on the potentials of the other, regardless of which you're currently involved in.
Above everything else: balls to the wall, or not at all.
Also kind of curious what kind of budget you're looking at. Nothing specific mind you, but knowing whether this is high or low end could make a difference in input.
Honestly I'd be happy with just a little consistency. For some reason dev's will come up with a great game and eventually end up bending to the naysayers and people that constantly bellyache and gripe. Please just realise that you cannot ever and will never please everyone. My advise to you as just a nobody important type of mmo gamer out here in a vast ocean is just to be your own toughest critic. Don't let too many cooks into the kitchen so to speak. However I understand that listening to feed back and constructive critisism is very important but let the ultimate decision in the end be your own. Just have a clear idea of what you are doing in the first place and stick to your guns. So then for me anyway (I won't pretend to speak for anyone else) its mostly about just keeping a game consistent. Thats all.
PVP with no safe areas, period.
Full loot.
One character only.
Perma death.
Give the true hard-core pvper's what they want.....you'll make a fortune.
Create your world before you create your system. When get around to creating your system(s), make sure it(they) supports the paradigms of the world you've created. Ignore the lure of balance. The ideal of balance in any MMO is unattainable and the closer you get to it, the more it becomes apparent to the players that every character, every piece of equipment, every event is exactly the same. Communicate often and honestly with your player base. Consider what every one of them has to say, but don't lend too much credence to the whiners. Stay true to your vision, whatever it is.
Would you be happy with a server with this type of ruleset?
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Would you be happy with a server with this type of ruleset?
Definitely the better way to go. Statistically, such suggestions have always proven to be "less than popular". Many simply don't relish the thought of starting over after substantial gain. Especially if they were to lose that gain for some stupid reason like latency, power outage, etc....
What do I want in a MMO. Hmm, lets see...
First: lets start with a Suite of Online Game Clients each with completely different gameplay mechanics that impact a centralized MMO World.
Second: A ToyBox with User-coop Tools to support five (5) layers of Player-Creation:
Third: A full powered MUD/command set embedded into the Chat & Dialog System for deeper interactive storytelling .
Fourth: Built-in Search Engine.
Five: Meaningful PVE like a dungeon with traps and puzzles. Some actual Player vs the Environment, not just Mobs.
Six: How about some mobs with unique behaviors for both combat and non-combat.
Seven: GM guided adventures for a small or large group. Perhaps a multi-tiered GM System, each tier having different GM Powers (Permissions and Controls) where any player can GM an adventure with no experience necessary.
To the OP, you can't please everyone. A wise man named Bill Cosby said something like this. "To strive for sucess you can't please everyone". Find out what niche audience you want to build you're game on.
This is true. as I stated in the original post. I know everyone likes different things..
but the idea here, is to find the stuff that comes up the "most" in conversations such as this.
seems one of the big things is PVP.. and meaningful PVP.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Skill based like UO but with much more skill depth.
Deep crafting system; preferable mostly player driven.
Player owned customizable houses within player controlled towns for those times you just need a break from the hacking and slashing.
Fantasy/Futuristic setting.
Sandbox with npc supplied mission for those that need direction.
Random loot table and a endgame that doesn't solely revolve around raids and micro raids.
Consensual pvp; having something worth fighting over would be nice.
I want you to make the kind of game YOU want to play. If you try to cater to everyone else, your heart won't be in it, and you'll make a mediocre half-assed game. If you make the game YOU want to play, you'll be motivated to make it the best game you can create. You won't please millions of people, but you just might please the hell out of a few thousand.
I'd have to agree with this 98%. Although I really enjoyed owning a customizable house in UO, I never liked how it was mixed into experience of adventuring in the game. If there were a way to keep the two separate without using 'instance' type housing that would be great IMO.
Try some real pvp rewards. Not rewards like in WOW that matter not how good you are just how much free time you have.
Also, try not to make the game rely off giant groups. Not every gamer has a huge freind base in their game that are all on at the same time, and have the time to find groups with random people. This gives the people with more free time a huge advantage.
However, if the game is not so heavily item based neither of these would matter much. Personally, im a big fan of skill based games over level/class based games. It gives more customization options and lets you most your character to your playstyle well. Also it keeps many people on the same page instead of very unbalanced classes.
Don't keep the game too repetitive. Grinding for hours or 1000s of quests that are the same thing just make the game boring. Everyone likes fresh and innovative ideas, or just changes in the game as they progress. Try to make an environment interactive, so the player feels like they are part of this world and they matter.
Another personal prefference is a complete looting system. Anyone can loot any monster kill, any dead player can be looted by anyone. Many people don't like this so probably offer various servers, some with full pvp, some with no pvp, and maybe one in between with tamed pvp. Then everyones happy.
As far as time period. Probably stray away from the fantasy, those are a dime a dozen. Maybe try ancient civiliaztion like egyptians and aztecs. or try colonial. something from the past but not during the medieval/rennaissance ya know. futuristic games are also quite common these days.
I do not really care about the setting as long as its an MMOFPS with manual dodge and aiming.
Other than that, what I would like to see is:
- complex crafting system (like from SWG). crafting should be an art not a mindless grind.
- a hostile environment (lots of radiation, acid rain, eruptions). players should fear the world and will need specialy crafted items to even survive in some areas.
- npc nations fighting it out. the npcs perform huge battles where the player can chip in and help out.
- a well designed guild system. guilds should be able to effectively protect their members somehow.
- item drops from level 1 npcs should be just as useful as from max level.
- players have a huge pool of skills to choose from but can only have a few of them available in the field (like guild wars). this goes well with an FPS.
- strong npcs rather than a huge number of weak ones
- guilds can claim territory and then setup factories/mines/labs, but then others can raid them
- give real benefits for teaming up (team XP, team skills, auras)
- no jack of all trades with perfect skills. if players have to specialize there will be demand for all sorts of chars
- truely challenging minigames with nice rewards. not everyone is 10 years old or has an IQ of -90.
- items should be very customizable. valuable weapons should be the ones that are fully upgraded and modded, not single rare drops.
- chars only level up when the XP bar is full and when they accomplish a class specific challenging quest.
- I dont care if its levels or skill based as long as there is not too much grind or the grind is not monotone.
- journeys between cities should be dangerous or long. this will ensure local economies.
I've still got a lot more I'd like to have in an MMO but that should get you going for a while. Not that I expect you to implement any of above. Im actually pretty sure your just going to make a bad Wow clone like everyone else in recent years but one can hope
.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
so far, after reading over several forums and listening to gamers I know.
Most people...
1. Want something that isn't traditional fantasy based.
2. Don't want levels.
3. want peath penalties, and maybe servers with harsh death penalties.
I was toying with the premise of a modernish theme. But, with some slight fantasy thrown in. Maybe what a modern fantasy world would look like.. Not so much what things actually DO look like. basically.. no castles, no elves, no orcs.. etc. But, people would still fight with swords.. axes.. they'd just be heavily "modified" to fit the time period.
I was also toying with the idea of having your characters "age" as their skills progress.. in appearance only.
no levels.. skill based. Possibly different specializations of skills if you want to "focus" on a certain ability or task.
lots of mini games ala FF. less quest, more mini games. Maybe include a way for players to create their OWN mini games, and portions of the game.. that don't affect the gameplay, but create a larger world to explore.
all animals.. would be tameable and rideable. If you see it, you can tame it basically. Mounts would also include non traditional mounts, such as hover crafts and more "futuristic" vehicles. These could be used for combat/travel.
Races: Human and a few sub classes of human. a few mutated races.
Several factions: tossing the idea of 3 different ones possibly 4. Factions cannot speak to each other unless they learn that factions language (which would be extremely hard to do)
Moderate instances, that could be ran with a group.. but could be attuned to be ran solo at a difficulty level that would be balanced with the difficulty of running it with a group. Not sure how yet to implement this so that people still prefer grouping to soloing. But I don't want to force grouping.
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these are just a few ideas I pulled out of my books.. any thoughts or comments welcome.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
A beefed up AI system. Give NPC's Mobs some sort of uniquenes.
In every MMO out there you can predict how an Mob will react. There are no variables or unexplained things - it's pretty much mathematics.
I know you're going with a modern day theme but here is an example -
Goblins like to attack in Mobs - if you run across a goblin it will not engage you - it will run to the nearest group of goblins and agro them all. Then one goblin from that group will run and try to get the next group.
Wolves - work in a pack - you may only see one but there are other that use the hide ability (invis) and when you engage multiple wolves attack - and if you're walking a long the wolves can track you down beyond normal agro radius. (no more short cuts through the woods.)
Cave dwelling orcs use fear to heard your group further into the dungeon - using magical powders to fear and blind you making you completely disoriented and lost when you come to.
Evil wood elves used their ranged ability and woodland finesse - the elves sense you and track you through the forest hiding and stalking - you wont know it but they are at a distance behind you only to start firing arrows at you once you one when engage in some other attack. (add!!)
And not all creatures types have to react the same way. For example -
Giants from the plains would use their size to shake the ground and stun you - then try to step on you - gotta keep your distance in this fight..
Giants from the hills would bat you with their club knocking you way out of the fight while he bashes away at your buddies.
You could have racial hatred - class hatred - even spell or ability hatred to throw off the agro scale.
There are soooooo many things that can be done and no one does them.. I know this would be a programming nightmare but think of how in depth and fun the game would be if you didn't know how the mob would react?
https://www.youtube.com/user/NemsGaming
No fantasy. Sci-fi preferred.
Leveling + class + quest .. but have to have good content.
Solo & casual friendly.
I would have to say a non lvling system totaly skill based basicly like original SWG well actualy i want old swg period bases and all, then add boss content kinda like everquest 1 and the pvp/pve aspect open world bosses and dungens.