I don't think classes would be necessary or even a good idea for a game like this. Make it skill based and allow the player to start with certain skills,attritbutes and items depending on the choices they make during the character creation process.
When you first start up the game the screen starts off black and then you hear the sound of a computer monitor being turned on and the login screen pops up which looks like the login to a companies website. After typing in your username and password a box appears verifying your user access then begins to load secure files. After this a larger box pops up asking what district you want to search (which server you want to play on), when you choose a progress bar pops up and begins downloading the database. After this you have a choice of either tracking a new "subject" (creating a new character), or watching an existing hit (playing your existing characters).
If you choose to play an existing character it tells you it's searching for exisiting hits and live videos appear across the screen of your exisiting characters in whatever location you left them. You can pick one which will then maximize to take up the entire screen before sending you to the actual game world.
If you choose to create a new character a box appears on the screen asking for the persons first and last name. After typing that in and hitting search a box pops up saying searching database, then subject found. After that you'll be asked to put in the character's basic info (age, sex , etc) and then create your toon. Once that's complete you'll choose your character's profession and traits that will determine your character's starting stats, items, and weapons (a chef might start with a butcher knife and someone who chooses the dexterous might handle new weapons better). After this a confirmation window will appear with all your character's info on one side and a portrait of your toon's face on the other. You can either choose to initiate tracking or exterminate tracking. When you choose to continue a map pop's up and a box pop's up over it saying locating subject. A red box will appear over and area as you zoom in on your character's starting locating before sending you in game.
Once in game your starting location is random to prevent too many players starting in one place. I think to make a survival horror work the world either has to be big enough or the population small enough that you feel isolated. While most MMORPGS require a high population, with a survival horror having 50 other players on screen kills the feeling of the game.
Sidetracking a bit, it would be fun if you could be thrown into the action right away like this. Maybe if you chose to be a doctor you start out in a hospital room tending a patient with bite wounds. After he dies you turn the heart rate monitor off and go to wash your hands when he comes back to life and you grab whatever you can find and have to kill him. Once he is dead you are shown a cinematic of you escaping the hospital before showing you after the infection spreads throughout the city.
Getting back to the game you could have a number of secret factions for you to join or oppose.
One could be the group that caused the contamination who is now trying to stop the spread and eliminate all knowledge of their involvement.
One could be a group of rebels who knows about the first group and is looking to infiltrate them and find out what they are doing.
One could be a military group that gets stranded
One could be a secret group that is actually the cause of the whole mess
Obviously I am being cliche but you get what I mean.
The first game can take place on an island and an ongoing storyline leads to the expansion having the virus spread off the island which would open up more areas.
lol do you mean somethink like Resident Evil world?
Yes! Now this would be something awsome to play. Might have some of the people as zombies and others as the STARs team. Not sure the best way to work it out but just thinking of a game like that is exciting.
Stalker turned into an MMO with a bunch more stuff added would rock. I'd play it at least. A FPS would be a nice change from the hack n slash.. horror games suck balls as hack n slash anyway.. AAAAAAAA! oh wait it'll take me a few hits.. whack.. whack.. whack.. ok not scarry anymore.. /quit.. BUT.. AAA! BANG BANG BANG! WTFXUPP! BANGBANG!..where you go? AAAAAAA! BANGBANGclickclick.. no ammo.. SOB!.. AAAA.. *pulls out knife*.. *heavy breathing*.. come on j00 bioch! I'LL CUT YA!..AAAA!.. *dead*.. FK!
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
It seems to me you're looking for a large-scale "Resident Evil: Outbreak", which was a game I found tremendously fun.
I think it'd be possible to do this. Perma-death, looting, death results in either a timeout or a faction switch. Spread players throughout the world, no levels, and maybe classes with a few unique skills.
It would definitely have to design it's own engine, as standard MMO mechanics wouldn't even be applicable (leveling, raiding, items restricted by level, etc), but if done properly, I'd love it.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
I agree skill base would be the best way to go about making this game. Where the story and key points about your charictors development would come from would be for me what profetion you choose. And have each of those profection have sub-profetions. For example Cops you could choose to be a Street Cop, Detective, Riot Squad, S.W.A.T. team meamber.And each of those will have a simular or the same story but their training and skill will be totaly diffrent. I dont think pvp will be part of the game (at least not at first). The point of the game will be to survive and help each other solve whats going on and get out alive. Not saying it couldnt happen, it just dosnt fit the story.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
I say don't have classes, but an open skill set type thing. Don't let people start out being martial arts masters, or weapons experts, just give em a lead pipe or a baseball bat or something, some basic open handed combat skills, basic medical skills, i.e. bandages, etc.
Have people train in specific areas to open higher tier skills, i.e. use a pipe or bat enough and open abilities for higher weapons of that type, such as after using a bat, pipe, etc for long enough, you open up different tiers of melee weapons...bludgeoning, blades, etc.
Have some kind of quest/drop/ in game scenario where you can unlock other skills such as higher level healing, i.e. disease removal/resistance, gun skills, explosives, etc.
Make the world post apocalyptic(sp?), have your zombies and mutated creatures, can have gangs of people/different factions fighting to control neighborhoods/areas, etc. Could even set this up to be pvp at some point.
But, how about having the zombies be infectious, etc, so if you get killed by one, your corpse will turn into an npc mob, complete with the same weapons you had. (or, for the sake of not having to make a new toon every time you die...a duplicate of you pops up..and you can still respawn yourself.) Or maybe just a mob that looks like you, but without the intelligent weapons skills. Which ever. Could base it on the tier of the mob too.
Have engineering as a craft for weaponry, chemistry type stuff to make healing potions/explosives, whatever.
Things of that nature.
Maybe even mechanics that can build and maintain vehicles of some sort? Make vehicles open type though, so you can't sit in a tank and lay waste to every thing.
Originally posted by mokona I agree skill base would be the best way to go about making this game. Where the story and key points about your charictors development would come from would be for me what profetion you choose. And have each of those profection have sub-profetions. For example Cops you could choose to be a Street Cop, Detective, Riot Squad, S.W.A.T. team meamber.And each of those will have a simular or the same story but their training and skill will be totaly diffrent. I dont think pvp will be part of the game (at least not at first). The point of the game will be to survive and help each other solve whats going on and get out alive. Not saying it couldnt happen, it just dosnt fit the story.
Pvp would actually make perfect sense. Take away all the laws, make people scared, no government to tell people what to do...they will revert to a feudal system.
Yes, they will band together for protection, but chances are they won't all agree on the same leaders, ideals, etc, so there will be different factions. These factions would fight over food supplies, territorial control, etc. It would actually make perfect sense.
what i have in mind is that to learn that skills we have to go to special place for that specific job....if u want to learn healing skills, u need to find a hospital and learn from the npc there, buff from a church, so on. And everyone can learn that skill if they want but it also has skill mastery level. With no classes and using skill based characters sounds so much better than specific classes.
Normally I do not advocate classes, but in a game like this it makes a lot of sense, not classes in the typical sense, meaning you make a choice and you are stuck on that linear path, but more like you pick a class which determines your skill bonuses and starting equipement, from there on out you can train in any skill you want.
The logic behind it is that before the outbreak every character would have had a job and a normal life, so it would make sense that they would retain all the skills from their job before, if you were a cop, you shouldn't have to start out with a pipe and crappy aim, you should get your gun and improved aim and all of your other cop skills. I think all classes should be common jobs, because the game is about common people, fighting zombies, there shouldn't be a badass zombie killer class, but you can make yourself a badass zombie killer.
Places like hospitals and other buisiness, wouldn't be functioning due to the outbreak, nor would anyone be there, I think the best place to learn new skills would be at refugee camps where people hold up and form a defence. In fact players could fortify areas to make a refuge, and even teach each other skills.
Also, I think that you can't put elements typically found in fantasy, meaning things like rezzing, buffs and tanking, shouldn't be present as it doesn't make sense in this enviroment. Medical people can only heal you while you are alive, if you die by non zombie related causes, you could be rezzed by an adrenaline shot or a defibulator, but if you are killed by a zombie or you were infected, you turn into a zombie.
This would be a game that doesn't concentrate so much on the health bar when fighting zombies, but more on not getting bit, scrathed is ok, it hurts but won't give you the virus. After you are bit you have only a while be fore you are turned into a zombie. But I do support respawning, because being forced to play as a zombie and never being able to play as a human again would be annoying.
On another note, zombies shouldn't increase in power, there wouldn't be a difference between one zombie and another, nor do I think they should carry weapons or have any special abilities, they mob you and bite you, that is what makes them scary.
Humans too shouldn't just keep increasing their power, it should be within the resonable range of human ability meaning the difference between max and min shouldn't be too great, I also think that health should never exceed 100, or any other predetermined number, if everyone has the same amount of health it would make the game less of a level/skill grind and more of a convincing horror experience, that and it makes more sense in general.
I really like the PvP idea, no doubt if something like this did happen there would much in fighting between people, makes perfect sense. Crafting skills are also a great idea, as people with crafts could help build refuges and upgrade weapons and equipement, they could play a noncombat role in the game if they desired.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I agree with those who says that some kind of starting profession should be good, for it reflects the former normal life of characters.
In order to avoid closed classes an idea should be that the charachters shoul tech abilities to each other. A "school like place" where the charachter may learn thing is totally unrealistic. But if you give player the chanche build shelters and safe place of various type, you can give 'em, the chanche to teach to each other there.
The "crafter" is also a good idea... all characheters will need veichles, weapons, communication systems, etc... this should lead to develop different crafting abilities, repairin a car is different from creating a blade or a gun....
Mmmm the idea of shelters lead to think also to another idea. Characters shold lcean up city parts (or villges) and the build barricades, walls etc in order to create safea areas. Somthing like Romero's "Land of the dead"... well we may use also Romero's intelligent zombies somewhere.
Right.. I'm stopping here or I'll be speking forever....
Mommy says I should play less, Boyfriend hates my pc, even my dog try killing my laptop... Hould I play less?
So many awesome ideas in this thread. I'd LOVE to have a survival horror MMO. Talked about this before on the forums here, but eh... nothing has come of it yet.
There are far too many Fantasy based MMOs now that it gets tiresome. Something news is needed.
I love the idea of zombies. Both slow and fast ones. I also think it'd be great to have it that if you're about to "die" you either have to have a friend kill you or you can suffer the fate of being transformed into a zombie as well. Turning on your friends and attacking them. I'm not certain as to how long you'd stay as a zombie or if that would mean perma death. Hrm...
There needs to be other nightmareish mobs as well. Not certain on if ghosts would work.
I think classes and levels shouldn't be involved. Perhaps have every character pick which skills to start out with and slowly gain experience that can be used to learn new traits. Everything from simple medical knowledge to jury-rigging tools from things laying about to picklocking to street fighting to hacking to... well... to many other ideas!
Maybe gaining "titles" instead of classes. Can be dependant on what skills you've decided to go with. More of a healer? Perhaps you're a nurse or a doctor depending on your characters knowledge.
For some reason i feel like playing Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines... I never finished it for some reason. Guess that could feed my horror game desire for now!
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Now Playing: EQ2 Prior Games (in no order): SWG, L2, RO, PT, ROSE, CoH/CoV, AO, UO, EVE, WoW and a bunch of others. _______
the morale/dread system from lotro would work really well in a game like this and would also allow more realistic versions of buffs.
When zombies are around,you lose a little morale,with higher penalties if for example you are surrounded by many zombies or there are bandits in the area. Cops could have a fear resistance aura,making others feel safe in their prescence reducing the amount of morale lost upon sighting enemies.
mercenary/bandit types would have heals similar to lotro captain class,upon killing a zombie they would let out a howl of bloodlust or victory,increasing(healing) the morale of others nearby.
citizens would provide buffs to melee types damage and evasion,the citizen needs protection so the people in his or her party would feel a greater need to fight for them,therefor gaining a bonus from the citizen being around.
I get so sad when I'm reading this thread. Levels, classes and shit like that should never exist in a great survival-MMO.
IMO a great survival game would be a game with only zombies (Shamblers & Runners, the classical ones) where your mission is to... survive. You have to eat, drink, find ammo and such or else you will die. You can fight other players so if you can't find any food you can kill the player you see having all those tasty hamburgers and loot him.
No, Exanimus (an MMO with only zombies) will suck IMHO since players can be zombies.
A survival horror should have the following core elements.
- No levels.
- Basic classes to develop from.
- A skill system.
Basically it would go like this. You chose from a basic list of Profession's which your character had before the world went crazy.
- Paramedic [If you chose this you have some specialist healing skills].
- Police [If you chose this you have some specialist handgun skills]
- Army [if you chose this you have some specialist Rifle skills].
- Till assistant[if you chose this you have some bartering skills and a wad of cash]
- Unemployed [if you chose this you have no specialist skills but you start out in a easier area].
The basic idea of this is for example if you chose the Paramedic you start out with a medical kit good for 2-3 uses and a handgun with 1 clip. As you progress through the game you can learn other skills to help you survive and you do this through 2 ways.
1 - You use an item such as the handgun to advance you handgun skills dependent on how accurate you are [as this is a FPS].
2 - You pay a NPC trainer in a survivor camp to train you in something.
3 - You find a new item such as the Shotgun and at first when you use it your not to good [the aiming reticle wobbles a lot and you do less damage and your Shotgun breaks down faster and its harder to maintain] But as you do use it you gain skills in shotgun use.
The game should be set in a world where everywhere in the world is effected by Zombies and related zombie like creatures but the game initially at least will be set on a island such as The isle of Wight for example. This will give you a large island to explore plus several villages and a couple of good sized cities. Later on if the game does well other places could become available. As touched on earlier there will be what i called 'Survivor camps', These are basically things like barricaded buildings camp sites etc that have walls and brocades built these will be safe areas for you to go to where its 100% safe. However if you want someones nice custom gun and his/hers ammo then when they leave the Camp follow them and when out of site of the camps guards kill him/her for his/her loot.
Also if you want you can form a grouping of people to increase your chances of survival called Survivor Bands, This will operate in a similar way to Guilds in other games except there is an upper size limit of about 15. However if you want to form a bigger group this can be done by forming an alliance between 2 or more bands. Also Zombie wise there will mainly be the slow Zombies that operate in small groups or singular but when you engage one the others in the are knows and converge on that point meaning if you are too slow at taken them down you can get swamped easily. Now i really like how Zombies work in resident evil so why not have new mutant lifeforms here too that way its not just killing the same Zombies over and over again but include some Higher up monsters too such as mutant dogs etc. Overall such a game has plenty of scope for innovating the MMO industry and this is one way it could be done.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Jean Rostand
The skill system is a good idea, my only fear with it is that it could get abused some how like it did in UO. If it was skill based (witch it should be) Killing monster would and exp into your survial bar, and depending on what weapon and skills you used during the fight you would get exp into that set. So it would work something like this, you kill a zombie you get 10 exp into your core set. You kiled him with a handgun so you get 5 exp for your hand gun set. The reson I think you should get less exp for what skills you used to to kill what ever is to provent people form having a super version of what ever class they are and never have to party with anyone ever I know that sounds bad but I want people to work together. And for the skills I going for a skill bassed tree with lots of branches that way you can make the class your in the way you want and not everyone may have the same build on the same class.
I think PvP should be senario based. Like you and your team could be trying to get supplys and the best place to get that is the mall or wearhouse distric. So we could have instant pvp zones in those areas and you would have to see who could get all the supplys they needed first befor the other side dose. also during that time maybe zombies and monster will start flooding in and you have to deal with them and the other team.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
The skill system is a good idea, my only fear with it is that it could get abused some how like it did in UO. If it was skill based (witch it should be) Killing monster would and exp into your survial bar, and depending on what weapon and skills you used during the fight you would get exp into that set. So it would work something like this, you kill a zombie you get 10 exp into your core set. You kiled him with a handgun so you get 5 exp for your hand gun set. The reson I think you should get less exp for what skills you used to to kill what ever is to provent people form having a super version of what ever class they are and never have to party with anyone ever I know that sounds bad but I want people to work together. And for the skills I going for a skill bassed tree with lots of branches that way you can make the class your in the way you want and not everyone may have the same build on the same class. I think PvP should be senario based. Like you and your team could be trying to get supplys and the best place to get that is the mall or wearhouse distric. So we could have instant pvp zones in those areas and you would have to see who could get all the supplys they needed first befor the other side dose. also during that time maybe zombies and monster will start flooding in and you have to deal with them and the other team.
Then put an upper liit on certain skill levels and have some truly powerfull Zombie monsters to provide a challenge.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Jean Rostand
You're quie fixed with zombies... but I think that an horror mmorpg might work well also with silent hill or fatal frame like scenario.
I was thinking about it, zombies are even to much used. Cinemas, comics, videogames.... last decent game with zombies I played was Cold Frear (RE4 and Outbreack suck). You do always the same things in this kind of games: fire you gun, run, heal, fire your gun, run, heal......
I would like a game wich truly makes you feel a sense of loniliness and anguish, a totally torn world.
The pen and paper rpg "Kult" (1st edtion for sure) should be great. It already has a good skill systems, that allows you to customize the character avoidin power playing. The game's scenario is one of the most original and disturbin I ever seen and I've been a game mistress for over 15 years.
You world seems just like the ordinary world we live in, but is all lie. An illusory prison built in order to prevent humanity to regain it's divine satus. But the true, horrible reality is fighting to emerge... so the world shatters in some palces showing the nightmerish scenario of an infinite concrete city "Metropolis", wch is the world true face. A barren, halw collapsed, series of builndgs made of steel, glass and stone... inhabited by by nigmares mankind once create as their servants and toys wich now hate us. Etc, etc....
Mommy says I should play less, Boyfriend hates my pc, even my dog try killing my laptop... Hould I play less?
You're quie fixed with zombies... but I think that an horror mmorpg might work well also with silent hill or fatal frame like scenario. I was thinking about it, zombies are even to much used. Cinemas, comics, videogames.... last decent game with zombies I played was Cold Frear (RE4 and Outbreack suck). You do always the same things in this kind of games: fire you gun, run, heal, fire your gun, run, heal...... I would like a game wich truly makes you feel a sense of loniliness and anguish, a totally torn world.
The pen and paper rpg "Kult" (1st edtion for sure) should be great. It already has a good skill systems, that allows you to customize the character avoidin power playing. The game's scenario is one of the most original and disturbin I ever seen and I've been a game mistress for over 15 years. You world seems just like the ordinary world we live in, but is all lie. An illusory prison built in order to prevent humanity to regain it's divine satus. But the true, horrible reality is fighting to emerge... so the world shatters in some palces showing the nightmerish scenario of an infinite concrete city "Metropolis", wch is the world true face. A barren, halw collapsed, series of builndgs made of steel, glass and stone... inhabited by by nigmares mankind once create as their servants and toys wich now hate us. Etc, etc....
The reson we talk about zombies is that they are a good beging yes there will be diffrent types of monster and horrors in the game, but zombies are just being used as an refrence point for everyone, its something commin and everyone knows.
As for the hole fake world and the real one is starting to show it self is not what I was thinking about. I would like the more Romero world where we all live but something horrable happens and we end up making a man made hell and a hand full of surviers (the players) have to stop it and live to tell your kids about.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
Normally I do not advocate classes, but in a game like this it makes a lot of sense, not classes in the typical sense, meaning you make a choice and you are stuck on that linear path, but more like you pick a class which determines your skill bonuses and starting equipement, from there on out you can train in any skill you want.
The logic behind it is that before the outbreak every character would have had a job and a normal life, so it would make sense that they would retain all the skills from their job before, if you were a cop, you shouldn't have to start out with a pipe and crappy aim, you should get your gun and improved aim and all of your other cop skills. I think all classes should be common jobs, because the game is about common people, fighting zombies, there shouldn't be a badass zombie killer class, but you can make yourself a badass zombie killer.
Places like hospitals and other buisiness, wouldn't be functioning due to the outbreak, nor would anyone be there, I think the best place to learn new skills would be at refugee camps where people hold up and form a defence. In fact players could fortify areas to make a refuge, and even teach each other skills.
Also, I think that you can't put elements typically found in fantasy, meaning things like rezzing, buffs and tanking, shouldn't be present as it doesn't make sense in this enviroment. Medical people can only heal you while you are alive, if you die by non zombie related causes, you could be rezzed by an adrenaline shot or a defibulator, but if you are killed by a zombie or you were infected, you turn into a zombie.
This would be a game that doesn't concentrate so much on the health bar when fighting zombies, but more on not getting bit, scrathed is ok, it hurts but won't give you the virus. After you are bit you have only a while be fore you are turned into a zombie. But I do support respawning, because being forced to play as a zombie and never being able to play as a human again would be annoying.
On another note, zombies shouldn't increase in power, there wouldn't be a difference between one zombie and another, nor do I think they should carry weapons or have any special abilities, they mob you and bite you, that is what makes them scary.
Humans too shouldn't just keep increasing their power, it should be within the resonable range of human ability meaning the difference between max and min shouldn't be too great, I also think that health should never exceed 100, or any other predetermined number, if everyone has the same amount of health it would make the game less of a level/skill grind and more of a convincing horror experience, that and it makes more sense in general.
I really like the PvP idea, no doubt if something like this did happen there would much in fighting between people, makes perfect sense. Crafting skills are also a great idea, as people with crafts could help build refuges and upgrade weapons and equipement, they could play a noncombat role in the game if they desired.
If someone manages to make something to the likes of Stalker I think it could work.
Have safe zones, cities where the danger is low, zones where things are sometimes not what they seem and then add cities that are buried under zombies and such. Players could then go in, get some loots, unlock missions and storylines then come back. You could even push the limits and add stuff like radioactive zone where, the second you enter the zone, a timer appears and it's all about how long you can survive the abyss while trying to get as deep as possible.
Safe zones is where the social is at...
And I think something more that would really make an horror game stay up... add none combat professions. Nothing better then having 3 marines followed by 5 civilians or exotic dancers! :P
But then again I think no safezone should be truely safe, essentially the players would be the ones that quarentine areas, and make them safer, but their quarentine could fall, and then they are either forced to leave or die.
Also this doesn't seem like the situation, i.e. a zombie outbreak, that would have missions, I find it hard to imagine how many NPCS would care about giving the player things in return for a task when they themselves are just trying to survive. To me a zombie horror game would have one goal, survive.
But the loot does make a good point, again I usually don't advocate this, but in this enviroment it makes sense, players should have to eat and drink to stay alive, this makes people go out to find supplies instead of just hoarding in an area. Also this would make more rivalry between groups, since they both need the same food and water, they could either share or fight over it. Add in the ability to get hurt and crippled in some way (temporarly) and become a burden to the group plus fighting over supplies and weapons, possibily even player on player looting and you give the players more moral dilemas then other MMOGs, it would make it a more unique experience to say the least.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Comments
I don't think classes would be necessary or even a good idea for a game like this. Make it skill based and allow the player to start with certain skills,attritbutes and items depending on the choices they make during the character creation process.
When you first start up the game the screen starts off black and then you hear the sound of a computer monitor being turned on and the login screen pops up which looks like the login to a companies website. After typing in your username and password a box appears verifying your user access then begins to load secure files. After this a larger box pops up asking what district you want to search (which server you want to play on), when you choose a progress bar pops up and begins downloading the database. After this you have a choice of either tracking a new "subject" (creating a new character), or watching an existing hit (playing your existing characters).
If you choose to play an existing character it tells you it's searching for exisiting hits and live videos appear across the screen of your exisiting characters in whatever location you left them. You can pick one which will then maximize to take up the entire screen before sending you to the actual game world.
If you choose to create a new character a box appears on the screen asking for the persons first and last name. After typing that in and hitting search a box pops up saying searching database, then subject found. After that you'll be asked to put in the character's basic info (age, sex , etc) and then create your toon. Once that's complete you'll choose your character's profession and traits that will determine your character's starting stats, items, and weapons (a chef might start with a butcher knife and someone who chooses the dexterous might handle new weapons better). After this a confirmation window will appear with all your character's info on one side and a portrait of your toon's face on the other. You can either choose to initiate tracking or exterminate tracking. When you choose to continue a map pop's up and a box pop's up over it saying locating subject. A red box will appear over and area as you zoom in on your character's starting locating before sending you in game.
Once in game your starting location is random to prevent too many players starting in one place. I think to make a survival horror work the world either has to be big enough or the population small enough that you feel isolated. While most MMORPGS require a high population, with a survival horror having 50 other players on screen kills the feeling of the game.
Sidetracking a bit, it would be fun if you could be thrown into the action right away like this. Maybe if you chose to be a doctor you start out in a hospital room tending a patient with bite wounds. After he dies you turn the heart rate monitor off and go to wash your hands when he comes back to life and you grab whatever you can find and have to kill him. Once he is dead you are shown a cinematic of you escaping the hospital before showing you after the infection spreads throughout the city.
Getting back to the game you could have a number of secret factions for you to join or oppose.
One could be the group that caused the contamination who is now trying to stop the spread and eliminate all knowledge of their involvement.
One could be a group of rebels who knows about the first group and is looking to infiltrate them and find out what they are doing.
One could be a military group that gets stranded
One could be a secret group that is actually the cause of the whole mess
Obviously I am being cliche but you get what I mean.
The first game can take place on an island and an ongoing storyline leads to the expansion having the virus spread off the island which would open up more areas.
Yes! Now this would be something awsome to play. Might have some of the people as zombies and others as the STARs team. Not sure the best way to work it out but just thinking of a game like that is exciting.
Stalker turned into an MMO with a bunch more stuff added would rock. I'd play it at least. A FPS would be a nice change from the hack n slash.. horror games suck balls as hack n slash anyway.. AAAAAAAA! oh wait it'll take me a few hits.. whack.. whack.. whack.. ok not scarry anymore.. /quit.. BUT.. AAA! BANG BANG BANG! WTFXUPP! BANGBANG!..where you go? AAAAAAA! BANGBANGclickclick.. no ammo.. SOB!.. AAAA.. *pulls out knife*.. *heavy breathing*.. come on j00 bioch! I'LL CUT YA!..AAAA!.. *dead*.. FK!
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
[ Playing ] Everquest II
[ Waiting ] Aion, Age of Conan
It seems to me you're looking for a large-scale "Resident Evil: Outbreak", which was a game I found tremendously fun.
I think it'd be possible to do this. Perma-death, looting, death results in either a timeout or a faction switch. Spread players throughout the world, no levels, and maybe classes with a few unique skills.
It would definitely have to design it's own engine, as standard MMO mechanics wouldn't even be applicable (leveling, raiding, items restricted by level, etc), but if done properly, I'd love it.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
I agree skill base would be the best way to go about making this game. Where the story and key points about your charictors development would come from would be for me what profetion you choose. And have each of those profection have sub-profetions. For example Cops you could choose to be a Street Cop, Detective, Riot Squad, S.W.A.T. team meamber.And each of those will have a simular or the same story but their training and skill will be totaly diffrent. I dont think pvp will be part of the game (at least not at first). The point of the game will be to survive and help each other solve whats going on and get out alive. Not saying it couldnt happen, it just dosnt fit the story.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
This idea actually sounds really cool.
I say don't have classes, but an open skill set type thing. Don't let people start out being martial arts masters, or weapons experts, just give em a lead pipe or a baseball bat or something, some basic open handed combat skills, basic medical skills, i.e. bandages, etc.
Have people train in specific areas to open higher tier skills, i.e. use a pipe or bat enough and open abilities for higher weapons of that type, such as after using a bat, pipe, etc for long enough, you open up different tiers of melee weapons...bludgeoning, blades, etc.
Have some kind of quest/drop/ in game scenario where you can unlock other skills such as higher level healing, i.e. disease removal/resistance, gun skills, explosives, etc.
Make the world post apocalyptic(sp?), have your zombies and mutated creatures, can have gangs of people/different factions fighting to control neighborhoods/areas, etc. Could even set this up to be pvp at some point.
But, how about having the zombies be infectious, etc, so if you get killed by one, your corpse will turn into an npc mob, complete with the same weapons you had. (or, for the sake of not having to make a new toon every time you die...a duplicate of you pops up..and you can still respawn yourself.) Or maybe just a mob that looks like you, but without the intelligent weapons skills. Which ever. Could base it on the tier of the mob too.
Have engineering as a craft for weaponry, chemistry type stuff to make healing potions/explosives, whatever.
Things of that nature.
Maybe even mechanics that can build and maintain vehicles of some sort? Make vehicles open type though, so you can't sit in a tank and lay waste to every thing.
Motorcycles and stuff would be cool I think.
D.
Pvp would actually make perfect sense. Take away all the laws, make people scared, no government to tell people what to do...they will revert to a feudal system.
Yes, they will band together for protection, but chances are they won't all agree on the same leaders, ideals, etc, so there will be different factions. These factions would fight over food supplies, territorial control, etc. It would actually make perfect sense.
D.
what i have in mind is that to learn that skills we have to go to special place for that specific job....if u want to learn healing skills, u need to find a hospital and learn from the npc there, buff from a church, so on. And everyone can learn that skill if they want but it also has skill mastery level. With no classes and using skill based characters sounds so much better than specific classes.
Normally I do not advocate classes, but in a game like this it makes a lot of sense, not classes in the typical sense, meaning you make a choice and you are stuck on that linear path, but more like you pick a class which determines your skill bonuses and starting equipement, from there on out you can train in any skill you want.
The logic behind it is that before the outbreak every character would have had a job and a normal life, so it would make sense that they would retain all the skills from their job before, if you were a cop, you shouldn't have to start out with a pipe and crappy aim, you should get your gun and improved aim and all of your other cop skills. I think all classes should be common jobs, because the game is about common people, fighting zombies, there shouldn't be a badass zombie killer class, but you can make yourself a badass zombie killer.
Places like hospitals and other buisiness, wouldn't be functioning due to the outbreak, nor would anyone be there, I think the best place to learn new skills would be at refugee camps where people hold up and form a defence. In fact players could fortify areas to make a refuge, and even teach each other skills.
Also, I think that you can't put elements typically found in fantasy, meaning things like rezzing, buffs and tanking, shouldn't be present as it doesn't make sense in this enviroment. Medical people can only heal you while you are alive, if you die by non zombie related causes, you could be rezzed by an adrenaline shot or a defibulator, but if you are killed by a zombie or you were infected, you turn into a zombie.
This would be a game that doesn't concentrate so much on the health bar when fighting zombies, but more on not getting bit, scrathed is ok, it hurts but won't give you the virus. After you are bit you have only a while be fore you are turned into a zombie. But I do support respawning, because being forced to play as a zombie and never being able to play as a human again would be annoying.
On another note, zombies shouldn't increase in power, there wouldn't be a difference between one zombie and another, nor do I think they should carry weapons or have any special abilities, they mob you and bite you, that is what makes them scary.
Humans too shouldn't just keep increasing their power, it should be within the resonable range of human ability meaning the difference between max and min shouldn't be too great, I also think that health should never exceed 100, or any other predetermined number, if everyone has the same amount of health it would make the game less of a level/skill grind and more of a convincing horror experience, that and it makes more sense in general.
I really like the PvP idea, no doubt if something like this did happen there would much in fighting between people, makes perfect sense. Crafting skills are also a great idea, as people with crafts could help build refuges and upgrade weapons and equipement, they could play a noncombat role in the game if they desired.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Buddie you must find a publisher for this ideas!!
I agree with those who says that some kind of starting profession should be good, for it reflects the former normal life of characters.
In order to avoid closed classes an idea should be that the charachters shoul tech abilities to each other. A "school like place" where the charachter may learn thing is totally unrealistic. But if you give player the chanche build shelters and safe place of various type, you can give 'em, the chanche to teach to each other there.
The "crafter" is also a good idea... all characheters will need veichles, weapons, communication systems, etc... this should lead to develop different crafting abilities, repairin a car is different from creating a blade or a gun....
Mmmm the idea of shelters lead to think also to another idea. Characters shold lcean up city parts (or villges) and the build barricades, walls etc in order to create safea areas. Somthing like Romero's "Land of the dead"... well we may use also Romero's intelligent zombies somewhere.
Right.. I'm stopping here or I'll be speking forever....
Mommy says I should play less,
Boyfriend hates my pc,
even my dog try killing my laptop...
Hould I play less?
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
I didn't see anyone mention Examinus in this thread (sorry if I missed it) but it is also a zombie horror mmorpg that is now in production stages.
www.examinusthegame.com
Must be over 18 though to register etc.
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
Can't wiew your link...
Mommy says I should play less,
Boyfriend hates my pc,
even my dog try killing my laptop...
Hould I play less?
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
So many awesome ideas in this thread. I'd LOVE to have a survival horror MMO. Talked about this before on the forums here, but eh... nothing has come of it yet.
There are far too many Fantasy based MMOs now that it gets tiresome. Something news is needed.
I love the idea of zombies. Both slow and fast ones. I also think it'd be great to have it that if you're about to "die" you either have to have a friend kill you or you can suffer the fate of being transformed into a zombie as well. Turning on your friends and attacking them. I'm not certain as to how long you'd stay as a zombie or if that would mean perma death. Hrm...
There needs to be other nightmareish mobs as well. Not certain on if ghosts would work.
I think classes and levels shouldn't be involved. Perhaps have every character pick which skills to start out with and slowly gain experience that can be used to learn new traits. Everything from simple medical knowledge to jury-rigging tools from things laying about to picklocking to street fighting to hacking to... well... to many other ideas!
Maybe gaining "titles" instead of classes. Can be dependant on what skills you've decided to go with. More of a healer? Perhaps you're a nurse or a doctor depending on your characters knowledge.
For some reason i feel like playing Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines... I never finished it for some reason. Guess that could feed my horror game desire for now!
_______
Now Playing:
EQ2
Prior Games (in no order):
SWG, L2, RO, PT, ROSE, CoH/CoV, AO, UO, EVE, WoW and a bunch of others.
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the morale/dread system from lotro would work really well in a game like this and would also allow more realistic versions of buffs.
When zombies are around,you lose a little morale,with higher penalties if for example you are surrounded by many zombies or there are bandits in the area. Cops could have a fear resistance aura,making others feel safe in their prescence reducing the amount of morale lost upon sighting enemies.
mercenary/bandit types would have heals similar to lotro captain class,upon killing a zombie they would let out a howl of bloodlust or victory,increasing(healing) the morale of others nearby.
citizens would provide buffs to melee types damage and evasion,the citizen needs protection so the people in his or her party would feel a greater need to fight for them,therefor gaining a bonus from the citizen being around.
I get so sad when I'm reading this thread. Levels, classes and shit like that should never exist in a great survival-MMO.
IMO a great survival game would be a game with only zombies (Shamblers & Runners, the classical ones) where your mission is to... survive. You have to eat, drink, find ammo and such or else you will die. You can fight other players so if you can't find any food you can kill the player you see having all those tasty hamburgers and loot him.
No, Exanimus (an MMO with only zombies) will suck IMHO since players can be zombies.
Think of The Dead movies but in an MMO world
A survival horror should have the following core elements.
- No levels.
- Basic classes to develop from.
- A skill system.
Basically it would go like this. You chose from a basic list of Profession's which your character had before the world went crazy.
- Paramedic [If you chose this you have some specialist healing skills].
- Police [If you chose this you have some specialist handgun skills]
- Army [if you chose this you have some specialist Rifle skills].
- Till assistant[if you chose this you have some bartering skills and a wad of cash]
- Unemployed [if you chose this you have no specialist skills but you start out in a easier area].
The basic idea of this is for example if you chose the Paramedic you start out with a medical kit good for 2-3 uses and a handgun with 1 clip. As you progress through the game you can learn other skills to help you survive and you do this through 2 ways.
1 - You use an item such as the handgun to advance you handgun skills dependent on how accurate you are [as this is a FPS].
2 - You pay a NPC trainer in a survivor camp to train you in something.
3 - You find a new item such as the Shotgun and at first when you use it your not to good [the aiming reticle wobbles a lot and you do less damage and your Shotgun breaks down faster and its harder to maintain] But as you do use it you gain skills in shotgun use.
The game should be set in a world where everywhere in the world is effected by Zombies and related zombie like creatures but the game initially at least will be set on a island such as The isle of Wight for example. This will give you a large island to explore plus several villages and a couple of good sized cities. Later on if the game does well other places could become available. As touched on earlier there will be what i called 'Survivor camps', These are basically things like barricaded buildings camp sites etc that have walls and brocades built these will be safe areas for you to go to where its 100% safe. However if you want someones nice custom gun and his/hers ammo then when they leave the Camp follow them and when out of site of the camps guards kill him/her for his/her loot.
Also if you want you can form a grouping of people to increase your chances of survival called Survivor Bands, This will operate in a similar way to Guilds in other games except there is an upper size limit of about 15. However if you want to form a bigger group this can be done by forming an alliance between 2 or more bands. Also Zombie wise there will mainly be the slow Zombies that operate in small groups or singular but when you engage one the others in the are knows and converge on that point meaning if you are too slow at taken them down you can get swamped easily. Now i really like how Zombies work in resident evil so why not have new mutant lifeforms here too that way its not just killing the same Zombies over and over again but include some Higher up monsters too such as mutant dogs etc. Overall such a game has plenty of scope for innovating the MMO industry and this is one way it could be done.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
The skill system is a good idea, my only fear with it is that it could get abused some how like it did in UO. If it was skill based (witch it should be) Killing monster would and exp into your survial bar, and depending on what weapon and skills you used during the fight you would get exp into that set. So it would work something like this, you kill a zombie you get 10 exp into your core set. You kiled him with a handgun so you get 5 exp for your hand gun set. The reson I think you should get less exp for what skills you used to to kill what ever is to provent people form having a super version of what ever class they are and never have to party with anyone ever I know that sounds bad but I want people to work together. And for the skills I going for a skill bassed tree with lots of branches that way you can make the class your in the way you want and not everyone may have the same build on the same class.
I think PvP should be senario based. Like you and your team could be trying to get supplys and the best place to get that is the mall or wearhouse distric. So we could have instant pvp zones in those areas and you would have to see who could get all the supplys they needed first befor the other side dose. also during that time maybe zombies and monster will start flooding in and you have to deal with them and the other team.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
Then put an upper liit on certain skill levels and have some truly powerfull Zombie monsters to provide a challenge.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
You're quie fixed with zombies... but I think that an horror mmorpg might work well also with silent hill or fatal frame like scenario.
I was thinking about it, zombies are even to much used. Cinemas, comics, videogames.... last decent game with zombies I played was Cold Frear (RE4 and Outbreack suck). You do always the same things in this kind of games: fire you gun, run, heal, fire your gun, run, heal......
I would like a game wich truly makes you feel a sense of loniliness and anguish, a totally torn world.
The pen and paper rpg "Kult" (1st edtion for sure) should be great. It already has a good skill systems, that allows you to customize the character avoidin power playing. The game's scenario is one of the most original and disturbin I ever seen and I've been a game mistress for over 15 years.
You world seems just like the ordinary world we live in, but is all lie. An illusory prison built in order to prevent humanity to regain it's divine satus. But the true, horrible reality is fighting to emerge... so the world shatters in some palces showing the nightmerish scenario of an infinite concrete city "Metropolis", wch is the world true face. A barren, halw collapsed, series of builndgs made of steel, glass and stone... inhabited by by nigmares mankind once create as their servants and toys wich now hate us. Etc, etc....
Mommy says I should play less,
Boyfriend hates my pc,
even my dog try killing my laptop...
Hould I play less?
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
The reson we talk about zombies is that they are a good beging yes there will be diffrent types of monster and horrors in the game, but zombies are just being used as an refrence point for everyone, its something commin and everyone knows.
As for the hole fake world and the real one is starting to show it self is not what I was thinking about. I would like the more Romero world where we all live but something horrable happens and we end up making a man made hell and a hand full of surviers (the players) have to stop it and live to tell your kids about.
If god loves the fools ,and god loves every one, dose that mean we are all fools.
Great thread and good post by this guy.
Some really good thoughts all round on this thread. Its reminding me of Shaun of the Dead.(or Dawn of the Dead)
Edit: hang on whats the aim of this game? Surely, the aim of all these is to see an end to the situation but with a mmo that can't happen.
This thread is a gold mine.
If someone manages to make something to the likes of Stalker I think it could work.
Have safe zones, cities where the danger is low, zones where things are sometimes not what they seem and then add cities that are buried under zombies and such. Players could then go in, get some loots, unlock missions and storylines then come back. You could even push the limits and add stuff like radioactive zone where, the second you enter the zone, a timer appears and it's all about how long you can survive the abyss while trying to get as deep as possible.
Safe zones is where the social is at...
And I think something more that would really make an horror game stay up... add none combat professions. Nothing better then having 3 marines followed by 5 civilians or exotic dancers! :P
But then again I think no safezone should be truely safe, essentially the players would be the ones that quarentine areas, and make them safer, but their quarentine could fall, and then they are either forced to leave or die.
Also this doesn't seem like the situation, i.e. a zombie outbreak, that would have missions, I find it hard to imagine how many NPCS would care about giving the player things in return for a task when they themselves are just trying to survive. To me a zombie horror game would have one goal, survive.
But the loot does make a good point, again I usually don't advocate this, but in this enviroment it makes sense, players should have to eat and drink to stay alive, this makes people go out to find supplies instead of just hoarding in an area. Also this would make more rivalry between groups, since they both need the same food and water, they could either share or fight over it. Add in the ability to get hurt and crippled in some way (temporarly) and become a burden to the group plus fighting over supplies and weapons, possibily even player on player looting and you give the players more moral dilemas then other MMOGs, it would make it a more unique experience to say the least.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit