The MMORPG i want

The MMO that should be.

Characters:

Characters should be a sum of stats (that actaully have direct correlations to the skills they reasonably correspond to),skill (all abilities in the game should be skills that are pickable to be learned by the Player for his character-NO class system) char motivation (the game should have compelling play that makes a char have a connection to his world.The char should have emotional ties to the world and npcs in it) and player motivation (the player should have reachable goals and motivations that cause him to WANT to have his char perform).

Stats:

Stats should be directly related to the skills they logically would affect.For instance,intelligence should have a direct effect on skills that rely on ones ability to reason and learn.Such skills would include things like Spell crafting,Diplomacy,Item crafting,Learning a new language or skill,etc..

Stats also should have a minor effect on skills they are not directly tied too.For instance intelligence should help one progress in almost all skills.

Stats should all affect mutliple skills in combination with other stats.For instance,strength and dex should BOTH affect combat as it happens.While strength, dex and intel should affect the combats skill rise.While str,dex and contitution (stamina) should affect how long one can perform combat.

Skills:

Any ability a char can perform should be a skill. ALL chars should have basic skills like kicking in a door, breaking an object,speaking their native tongue,running,swimming,etc...

ALL skills shold be interlinked with at least one other skill in a positive mannor AND a negative manor.For instance IF wearing heavy armor is skill based, it should have an effect on combat skills.Ones like bashing a target with your body (or something like a shield in which your body is thrown with the shield between you and the target) should get bonuses.Ones like dodging a blow,if dodging is a skill, should have a negative effect.

Skills should also have an exclusive penalty.For instance ,you wouldnt be able to bash in a door and cast a spell at the same time.Nor would you be able to climb up a wall while casting a spell.Cutting a gem while running would also be restricted to one or the other exclusive action.

Story:

Every character should be given or be allowed to chose a story line for themselves and even for thier guild.

These personal story lines would be based on the char backgroud and char future disires.They should be a story driven series of quests that a char or even a whole guild may follow.

These stories should those follwoing them to invite players/chars NOT following them to participate as the wanted by those follwing the story.Think of them as cameos.

The player /char should not be forced to follow a story if he or she chooses not to.But either way the story should progress fater a reasonable amount fo time.

Completetion of a story should allow the player or guild to pick another one from a group that has some tie to the last completed story.

For instance if in your story one of the quests making it up had you travel to the temple of the rat and in one or another lessen the amount of rats,the amount of power/influence the temple has,etc... A story about how the temple of Cats has grown in power and is seekign to do such and such becuase the Rat temples decline as given them the oppurtunity theyve been waiting for.

Feel free to ignore the simple names of "rat" and "cat". they are simply placeholders.

Each story should have muliple forks at some point.The more the better.These forks should make it possible to reach multiple possible endings. Again the more the better.

Character Progression:

The characters should be able to progress in many different ways in the game.Examples would be the abilities to progress in a skill,progress in the factions of world (npc and pc),progress in a personal story that may or may not have a major effect on the world,progress in a world story that MUST have a visiable and tangible effect on the world.

Progression in any way should come only from a quest.The quest can be a small simple quest available to everyone in an area, or a story driven quest.

Occuaptions:

Characters should be able to join a faction in a job like manner.Black smiths wont just teach every individual who walks up and says "teach me".

But those who join the trade faction and earn an introduction may be taught.

Once in a faction, npcs should occassionally approach the player with requests that are based on the faction.If the trade faction, and if a smith, the player should be approached by npcs to fulfil smith contracts from time to time.

These contracts would also be able to be asked for by other players for a player.So another player could approach you and ask you to contract to making him a new set of barding for his horse.the player can accept or refuse any contract.

However, in order for the player to remian in the factions good standing and continue to recieve the perks of such, it would be required that the char turn in a set number of finiched contracts to his faction superior and of course the factions cut of any proceeds.

Contracts should be done in such a way as to allow the player to have his char do the work required in a contract while the player is offline,in some cases.The amount of contracts allowed to be completed in such a manner will be based on influence/standing/rank within the faction which of course would be majorly based on online participation in the factions goals.

Occupations should have ranks,which are awarded or removed due to the chars performance.

 

Combat:

Combat should always have a purpose.There should always be a result from it.Decide to enter the farmers field and slay his cows simply because they are there, expect the famer to react. Expect the farmer to try and stop you, call the guard,hire anotehr to kill you, etc...

NO vacuumes.You affect something , expect it to cause reactions.

Combat should be designed to incorporate player skill,char skill ,environment, and equipment. In that order of importance.

Combat should be action or decision based.Choose your attack and defense settings(sliders that allow you to favor defense/recovery over offensive.Made up of points decided by the total of skills).Choose the specific attack aimed at the specific part of the target (swing for the head, leg ,side etc..)Choose the specific defense.Block the incoming attack by correctly positioning your shield or performing a parry with your weapon.

Speed at which a char uses a weapon including recovery from a missing swing would be decided with the paramaters of the weapon by the skill of the user.So a weapon would have a set range of speed for its attack and recovery,this speed would than further be adjusted by the skill level of the char with said weapon.Keep in minda that stats can directly affect skills, so stats would also indirectly affect this speed thru their effect on the skill.

Examples of environment affecting combat.

So using a longbow while standing on an unstable area (such as a swaying tree branch) should lower your chance of success.

Using a longbow while swimming the same.

Using a longbow when you foe is within hand to hand range should also end badly for the would be archer.

Items:

Items should almost never be more conclusive in an action than the player OR char skill.

Items should experience wear, degrade in performance and be breakable.

Items should almost always be craftable.

PvP:

PvP should be decided by the world as far as how and when it can occur.It should all be structured.It should be plentiful and meaningful to those partaking.

PvP should be asigned as missions by the factions in the world.

PvP missions could/ would be attainable thru the local military which would give out PvP missions against those NOT of its faction.

These could be missions assigned in an open war with another faction, or ones meant as covert actions agaisnt a faction simply not liked.

PvP factions should include criminal organizations, law enforcement organizations,military organizations,trade organizations,politcal organizations, etc....

PvP missions should be schedulable.I should be able to arrange for a PvP mission from a faction PvP mission giver for a certain date and time (both realife and ingame).

PvP missions should begiven on an oppions basis.This means when 10 people ask for a PvP mission from a military faction PvP mission giver of the realm from King Johns realm,a counter mission should become available at military faction pvp mission givers who oppose King Johns realm.

PvP faction mission givers should now of and not award missions to those who have a large standing wiht an opposing faction.So if you really lay into King Johns faction by doing mission that are counter/opposing that realms,you wont be given missions by King johns realm UNLESS certain conditions apply.

PvP faction rewards will depend on your standing with the faction giving the mission and the assumed(by the giver) difficulty of the mission.

All rewards that can be gotten thru any other play style,will be possible to be get thru PvP missions.

 

Crafting:

Crafting should reguire skill of both the player and the char.ALL crafting should consist of a mini-game.

For instance, your making a sword.

You should have to heat the metal to the appropriate color (easy to see for the player and then act)
You should have to pound the metal ( a target spot appears on the metal and you have to strike it)( the spots moves reguiring you to retarget and strike the new spot, as the metal is worked)
You should have to watch the color of the metal and quality of the sword as you work it, so that you know whether to reheat it agian,move on to the next step etc.. (again all done with visual cues)

Your success in these steps should decide the quality of the item crafted.
Heat the metal at the right times, pound the metal in the right spots, get a quality sword.
Each time you fail to heat the metal properly,each time you fail to hit the spot, the end result sword goes down in qaulity.

Make crafting something that truly has to mastered not only by the character but by the player.

The world:

The world should be very alive. NPCs should greatly outnumber pcs in the world at all times.NPCs should themselves have lives and schedules they follow.With the propper approach you should be able to alter the npcs schedule.

For instance, an NPC finishes his day at the shop he owns and goes home or to the bar,etc...The player should be able to locate said NPC and thru various methods convince him to reopen the store for a while for the pc.The methods could/should include things like bribes,coercion, faction influence ,etc..All with consqeunces.

The world itself should be huge.No single player should be able to travel to and see it in its entirety.Travel should be a major and risky undertaking when it goes too far from the chars known areas.Travel forms should be limited.Common transports like horse, carriage,ship etc.. should all exist .Common travel forms like feet and personal mounts should be able to go (terrain limited)anywhere the player wants them to.Mass transit systems should only travel to population centers.Special travel abilities like teleports and gates should only work to travel to well known locations.If you havent been to a place before you cant teleport to it. If you use a gate, it will only take you to its counterpart gate location.Sommons should onyl be possible you know the target well and its location well.

The world itself should contiually make itself known to the char thru its npcs. Expect the npcs who work for the factions (like the King,trade factions,etc) to come and congratulate you on your recent successes and of course remind you of the obligations(taxes paid, new tasks completed,etc..) you must now meet.They should regularly seek you out and ask things of you.

 

Roleplaying:

If the MMO is billed as a rpg as well,roleplaying should have set structures and rules.Paladin like characters should not be able to consort with Priests of Death ,pain and suffering without some serious consequences.The city guard should NOT be able to go into business on the side with the localk crime lord without a taking a major hit on his faction influence, local reputation, etc...

Acting outside the games defined roles should always result in a penalty for the char doing so.Characters that have roles that are defined by the games world should be special cases.These occupations should only be able to be entered into on purpose by the player and should reguire a specific behavior to be kept up. failure to act so, should always result in loss of any skills,influence,etc,, associated with the occupation.

So for instance.If the world has an occupation (palaidn) that consists of maintaining a behavoir approved by a faction (like a church or religion),that allows access to skills (like turn undead in the name of God),quests (seeking your god ordained mount),rewards (holy sword,holy mount,etc), influence,etc.. associated with that faction,the player should have to earn his position in that occupational field by completing some special specific tasks.Once the position in the occupation is earner,failure to live up to the standards will result in loss of position, loss of occupation.loss of rewards tied to that occupation, as well as any skills tied also.

Such occupations should have constant tests for the character as part of the regular gameplay.So if the world says Paladins are charitable,npcs shoudl constantly target players of such an occupation for donations.Failure to act as the church wishes,donate when asked, woudl result in a penalty to the char that affects their continued position in said occupation.

Penalties should vary and be progressive.So while continaully refusing to make the donations asked for by the npcs, the char would find itself with a continually growing penalty that can end in expulsion from the occupation.While breaking a major behavior rule could result in instant and permannent expulsion from the occupation with a serious faction hit to the player regarding said faction.

Now again these role oriented professions should rare compared to the none restricted behavior occupations.

Actions by the player should have a continual affect on the factions in the world as the players standing with them is concerned.The world and its inhabitants(npc and pc alike) should always be oiffering ways to test the players behavior and reward or penalize as each faction agrees or disagrees with the players behavoir in these tests.

 

Death :

Death should be something thats very rare, situational and always of consequence.

Most defeats of a char by an npc will leave the char incapacitated and lying there.The char would/could than arrive at a healer or restoratiev location by reasonable means.These means would unclude passing npcs finding the char and bringing it to a local inn ,church,fort,lodge,etc...

The penalty for being defeated in this manner would be the lose of some items.Dont expect the npc to carry every scrap of your gear AND your body.Also expect some recovery time for the char, which will tick off in game time, wether or not the char is online.

The character could also wake up to find himself alone bloody,injured and confused.He could than use an auto travel setting that would manually take control of the char and make it travel to the nearest known location of help.Again this also could occur if the char was offline.

Both of these results and methods of recovery allow the player to let his char get better in a reasonable manner without tying the player to the downtime.During this downtime for that char, the player could log into an alt and play it while the time passes for the other defeated char.Certain crafting or other skills could be performed will the char is recovering also.So the player can if he chooses continue to play the recovering char while it recovers.

Death however should be unaviodable in certain situations.Yes, permannent death.The situations in which permanent death could occur should be clearly descernable to the even vaguely intelligent player.For instance a quest in which one has to travel to deep into a volcanoe and slay a vicious deadly firedemon who lives there and occastionally ventures out to devour  the inhabitants of the worlds souls in demonic fire ,is not likely to be a situation in which a passerby will find your incapacitated body and return it safely to civilization.The quest for such a mission should clearly state the people who have tried to end this demons terror raids have failed to return or be recovered.The giver should clearly and in NO uncertyain terms express to the person asking about the mission that failure likely means death.Permanent death.

This type of mission should be considered the toughest and most rewarding the game has to offer.They should exist in "raid" form ,group form and in solo form.

 

Moving on to the next char:

There should be at least two ways to move onto a new character. The first would simply be to create a new character and start him from scratch enjoying the different paths such a new start could bring.The second is to take over a "relative" of the first character. A son,brother etc.. who was very close to the char you have decided to stop playing due to either retirement or death,who has kept pace fairly (but not totally ) with the old character. This relative character would have many of the same skills, occupations,etc.. of the former char,but they might not be as high or divided the same way.

In this second form of moving on to a new char, you would get a new char that had the same basic skill set as the former char.These skills could be assigned during the first characters life as the carry over skills.Then when the second, the new relative char was brought into play it would have those skill pre assigned to it and the amount of accomplishment(usually measure in experience) to spend on those preset chosen skills as the player chooses.

 

End Game:

There would be no predefined endgame to reach.You the player could of course decide to move on to another character in one of the ways mentioned,but the first character would always have the option of learning a new skill,joining a new faction,striking out to explore some region never scene by the char,etc...The old character would always be able to change the direction of his life and experience something new (especially a faction),but in small steps.

So although the old character could not jump directly into a crime factions from a well established law enforcement faction, he would be able to find a faction that was somewhere between the two and in building his influence/rank/rep in that new middle faction move closer to being able to join the oringinally opposing faction.It might take a course thru a few factions to alter your rep such that you could join the desired new faction, but it would be possible.

 

No this is not spell or grammar checked.Take it as you will. Its a design i long for and would have no major complaints about.It been in the works for over 10 years,being reworked,reworded and re-examined.And although the work itself is lost about every 1 to 2 years for one reason or another, with each loss its restarted again.

And yes, this is the condensed version.

Adn no, i wont argue any points about it.