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If you were the lead developer, tell me about your game.
SkillCosby
Member Posts: 684
If I had complete control over development, my game would consist of the following:
#1. Gigantic "Full of Content" and Seemless Worlds - Worlds so large that distant places actually feel distant.
#2. Deep Character Creation - I want to morph it all, e.g., the face, the eyes, the hair, and the body structure.
#3. More than Two Damn Factions - Good Vs. Evil is old and boring. I want to experience multiple factions who combat over the resources of the world.
#4. Non-personal and Optional Theme Park Questing - No more "I'm a special little snowflake who's going to control the fate of the world." How can one feel special when they see an endless amount of other players completing the same destiny quest? The quests should have a "neutral" aura about them - an idea or purpose that doesn't show any type of personal splendor.
#5. Randomized Item Statistics - I kill a bear in EverQuest II. The bear drops a chest. I already know that the contents of the chest will either be "Club of the Bear", "Small Shield", or some worthless Adept 1 book. Boring. I want it to drop any item with randomized stats (within zone/level limits). If two bows drop, one could dish out 5-15 DMG whereas the other might dish out 8-16 DMG.
#6. Optional SandBox Elements - World Housing & Player Cities / Bases is a must. This is a fantastic element to any end-game. Outside of raiding, what options do we really have come end-game? I think it would be pretty damn fun to team up and take down your rival's city, burn it to the ground, and post about it on the forums. This fuels anger and generates excitement. Sustain.
#7. The End of Instanced PvP (On PvP Servers) - I want to vomit in my mouth when I read of how the "Next Gen MMO" will handle PvP - Instanced. What is massive about 5v5 or 8v8 instanced Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, or Domination? Is this a ******* joke? I want a game that gives purpose to World PvP and the element of surprise.
#8. No More Static Classes - You call 'em whatever the heck you want, e.g., Hunter, Ranger, Archer, etc. It's the same old hogwash. A player should have the ability to select a certain amount of skill from an endless pool of options. Each person's character should be nearly unique in some form.
#9. Optional Social Tools - Would it hurt to get a little creative? I'd like to see "hangouts" with incentives and the LoTRO-like ability to play in-game instruments with your keyboard. These tools are greatly overlooked and add so much more to the quality of the community. Killing cannot be the only option.
#10. Deep Crafting - EXAMPLE: I'm going to craft a Drum Set. What sound do I want? If I'm going after that heavy metal sounding "thud", I'll most likely choose maple wood, due to its greater weight and lower sound velocity. If I want a brighter sound, I'd choose a wood like Birch because it's less dense. This same concept should apply to weapon crafting, e.g., a certain mixture of metals will produce this, while a certain blend of metals will produce that. There should be endless amounts of different resources to survey for and consume.
#11. Mounts that Actually Move - Since I already yearn for gigantic content-filled worlds, I should have enough room for a fast moving mount. It's pretty lame to have a horse that only travels +10 over basic run speed.
#12. Removal of Enemy Levels (PvP Server) - Imagine if Kreese knew Miyagi's level... This image alone would make any ganker think twice:
#13. Payment Methods - Make up your ******* mind. Is this a monthly fee game or a cash shop game? I will not play both. There is nothing within the MMO realm more annoying than paying $14.99 per month WHILE having to watching your mates burn past you in leveling because they purchased additional XP Pots for $5.00. Lame. I know this will never happen, but if it were up to me, it would be a flat monthly subscription cost with absolutely no microtransactions, pre-order rewards, cross-promotion rewards, convention attendee rewards, or bonus CE rewards. If you want a particular item in-game, then go and earn it in game.
#14. Follow the "X" - I accept a quest. Will it be difficult? No. Why? Because I can simply hit "M" for map, follow the "X", complete the task, and return to end the quest. Sigh.
#15. I'm a hero. Can I climb a tree or wall? Probably not - You can climb in my game.
$16. My game would have blood, tits, and ass.
#17. Reasonable Weapon / Armor Sizes - for Halloween, I created my own "Brown Knight" costume out of cardboard and tape. I could barely move. I remember thinking, "What the heck would someone do if this was made of steel?" I'd like to see armor / weapon sizes within reason or at least not as far extreme as some games. It's starting to look stupid.
Comments
I like all of what you want in your mmo. And sadly, most of what you want in your mmo was attempted with Mortal Online without much overall success. I haven't played MO for about 8 months now, but I hear it is still a mess and an empty world. Ashamed the one group who had the perfect vision of what so many want in an mmo don't have the resources to make it come true with the quality and end results we would want.
I would also add sea warfare and ship building in the game to everything you mentioned. Darkfall has ship warfare that is INSANELY FUN. If Darkfall does indeed have a free weekend coming up, I highly encourage anyone who hasn't rode a boat in that game to try it. Driving and manning the cannons on a boat out at sea is way more fun then I would have ever imagined.
- Zaxx
My game is an MMO with some action elements. Combat is viscreal and epic in scope.
1. Set in a high fantasy world that contains 4 continents, each continent is home to a specific style of races. Differing humans on one. Elves, Dark Elves and Wood Elves on another. Barbarians, Orcs and trolls on another. Goblins, Dwarves and Kobalds on the final. Each continent is huge, think the size of dereth 10km x 10km or bigger.
2. There is no factions but the differing races have segmented capitol cities that are highly racist who forbid the other races to enter. This sets the stage for PvP on PvP servers and Consensual Flagging PvE severs.
3. Combat Is action based with active dodging and blocking/parrying with Armor Level of base armor used as the generic damage reduction for die rolling needs. 1 character versus many enemies is the norm for combat.
4. No hand holding, no bread crumbing of characters, world is harsh and the death penaltys reflect this.
5. Leveling takes months (years for casuals) many many levels (at least 200) with a skill based XP character system similar to Asherons Call.
6. Method of leveling is doing non traditional questing that are detailed and encourages grouping with slightly higher beneficial XP rewards for groups over the soloer.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
using a system to build a class you want.
I wouldnt be able to make a Paladin, nor a Death Knight class. and you know it. in GW1, you could spec warrior/necro
but that didnt feel like a Death Knight, nor as interesting as a class that was made to be a Death Knight, would feel.
same for Warrior/Monk. it didnt feel like a Paladin, and wasnt a good replacement. but I heard the same argument you are using, that you can make your own class. but really we couldnt
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I really like your idea in #10 about crafting instruments with different tonalities. That would be super fun for an audio programmer to take on.
Stormlord Jorvias
Fryer of Conductive Foes
@OP
It's good to aim high and big but it's another to keep it real. You have not mentioned 2 critical parts of your development process.
1) What game engine capable of running all these features?
2) What is your financial capital to pull off all these features?
You should associate a cost with each feature and decide if that feature is worth keeping. With a small budget, most of those feature is going to get scrapped.
Nice topic by the way.
Ready for GW2!!!
I want Shadowbane (city building, crafting, no quests, alliance system, etc) with:
Updated graphics.
Better code (no sb.exe issues, less lag, less easy to exploit/cheat, etc)
Replace point-and-click movement system to WASD.
Larger world with everyon on same shard.
I'd be happy with that.
On a side note:
Whoever used MO as an example of why the OP wish list wouldn't work... MO is a crappy example. The sandbox features is not what makes it a mess. The incompetent company behind it is the real culprit for its current state.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
1. Can't work due to hardware limitations, there will be a small hiccup though when transfering from one massive piece to the other using Hero Engine and there is a 60 area limitation.
2. APB already did this, just go along with their editor and add more bones to change shapes and sizes in the character models.
3. Multiple factions is doable, but mainly people don't do this because it get's too damn confusing, Perfect World Games are a example of this.
4. Totally doable, in fact the content should be filled with non specialized quests that don't make you feel like your the answer, in fact it should make it look like your nothing more than a commonner that happened to get lucky to do the quest. Themepark is good to make a nice pve environment, then switch to roleplay and pvp sandbox for endgame. So it goes pve themepark for first and middle game, then roleplay and pvp instanced for end game.
5. Sounds good, but I would rather have it items that are based on giving bonuses to strategical element skills like +5% to lightning, and +5% to magic damage. The damage should be FLAT, no fluctuations unless determined by enemy armor and dodge rate.
6. Sounds good, should be the main focus of end game alongside roleplay and pvp mechanics.
7. Instanced should be 1000v1000 pvp on specialized maps allowing environmental damage, utlra dynamic scaling content, and should be MOVED away from regular PVE. Server structure, bandwidth and technical issues apply.
8. Classless pick and choose your skills sounds great, but majority of the people just go WTF and call it gay and fake. I can see where you want to go with it, but people still want guidance. You can balance it by making skills that would group together like classes and you can pick and choose out of the different skill "clusters".
9. WoW does it best with in game machinima like tools. Rock bands, Racing tracts, ect. Mini games are ftw.
10. Deep crafting is great, but it has been done before. People tend to like everything in greater choices, but every item that can be crafted should be simplified. Don't make complex equations just to craft it. Allow players to make a item, then skin it the way they want to.
11. Mount AI needs a bit of improvement. Mine would do a lot more than just be stationary but to some extent mounts will also need to lead into mount combat.
12. Don't have a problem with that, I have a problem with the INSPECT in general for enemy factions.
13. Buy 2 Play With optional subscription and cash shop. The more options and packages that your community votes for, the more money you make. No problem with that here.
14. Quests can become more dynamic more or less.
15. That sounds cool, wouldn't see any harm in doing that.
16. Too many games already have that. Nothing new here.
17. Nope, its up to the eye of the target audience to vote that in. Most are done for specifics and are symbolic of strength and stature. You can keep them at a regular size on scale, just that some pole arms are really big, and some 2 handed dragon slaying swords needed to be big for reach and for cutting through tough armors. Nothing wrong here, can just make a variation of sizes depending on the items "status".
Recommended game engine? Hero Engine. Secondary Recommended game engine? Big World. If you got a giant project then go with Unreal Engine 3 and Atlas Technology. Best buck you can spend as a indie is on Hero.
I struggle not with life, money, emotions, and world, but against old mindsets and selves to be proven obsolete in a age and time of rapid changes. Go create fun, so you can have fun.
Step 1.
Take Everquest Pre Luclin
Step 2.
Take pre trammel UO
Step 3.
Place into blender
Step 4.
Enjoy!
My game:
A Brave New World
500 years into the future.
It is 250 years after WW3, and as predicted, it went full nuclear. The major governments of the world saw it coming, and built huge bunkers deep under ground. The people quickly filled the bunkers to capacity, and shortly thereafter, the nukes were used. The bunker doors were closed and set to stay closed for 250 years.
Three genrations have now passed. The fourth generation is reaching their end, and your generation will be the one to finally exit the bunkers. Your DNA has been archived, if needed for future use.
As the doors slowly unlock, amidst the hiss of air, the craking, grinding, and clanging of metal, you start to head down the staging hall. It is indeed, a brave new world.
*The game will take place on earth, the geography of the earth will generally be true to present life. The game world will be scaled, but will be the biggest game world created.
*The bunker is where every new player starts. It is also the respawn area, due to DNA being stored there. Each continent will have at least two bunkers.
*No money. Everything will be through bartering.
*Profession and levelling system will be comparable to SWG-PreCU.
*Be anything you want to be. Do you want to be a gatherer, a hunter, a scientist, law enforcement, merchant, manufacturer? All professions will depend on each other.
*Player structures, cities, and terraforming.
*Players, tribes, and governments may claim land, and enforce their own lawsand said land can be forcefully taken.
*Players can create and enforce laws and taxes on land that they own.
*The area around the bunkers are safe zones. Once outside that area, it is FFA, unless you are on player owned land that does not allow it. You can still mark yourself as hostile and break the laws of the land (even killing unmarked players).
*Bounty system for players that go hostile in non-hostile player territory.
*Ability for player societies to progress through different trees, including Science, Technology, Religious, and Social, and more. This will, over time, unlock new content, items, and professions based on which trees were progressed through
*All items that you own will be marked as yours, but nothing is bound to you. If the item switches ownership, you will no longer be marked as the owner.
*Any item can be insured at the bunker. You will still lose your items upon death, but a reward will be given to any players that can craft and replace the items.
*Real ecology (herds of animals that migrate, forests that repopulate over time (if allowed to by the players), etc.
*Day/night/season cycle, along with weather patterns.
*Death should be a major setback. If you choose to resurrect at the bunker, you have the choice of instant rez, but with a loss of skill points (which will slowly regenerate at a rate that will get you back to normal in twice the time it would take for you to wait out the death penalty). and items that were on your body, or wait the precribed amount of time and not lose any skill points. Rezzing at a player city is instant, and you will lose the items you have on you, along with losing a set amount of skill points completely, until you can work them up again.
This may be a lame response but I would allow the people under me to work in groups, brain storm, etc. While I have a few ideas in my head for an MMO, I think its a mistake to not use the creative power of the people working for you. Programmers, artists, accountants, etc are all going to have different experiences and expertise that will give them a unique perspective that could prove invaluable. Then come with my own ideas.
Then continue to brainstorm and mesh everyone good ideas into a few outlines for different games. Decide on the 'best' and cut the feature list down to its most basic, essential features. Once the basic game is developed and running well, then decide from what was cut to add in. I have always thought that a lot of developers get way over their head in features. Better to cut down and get the basics right. By that point in development you have a better handle on what will and wont work in the game, what your team can and cannot accomplish, etc. Also it gives you the option to release early due to low funds you can still release a solid game even if its lacking in a depth of content.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.