The Idea sounds fun, mabye full pvp could go in to, if civilization dies then there are gonna be raiders, people who move from place to place, hmmm now it sounds like it could be a mix of EVE (never played) L4D (never played) and DF (never played), hmm, I'd play it.
brilliant. rather than coming up with ideas (since everybody on this entire site has those) you could tell us you have just finished building a survival MMO. I mean you have right, because I would love to play it right now. In fact, I think I might fire up left 4 dead right now ...
Forum signatures are stupid and annoying. I've turned mine off.
I think it would be more like in the "safe zone" you would see everyone there, and then outside you could only see your party, although it would have to be a mmorps (massive multiplayer online roleplaying shooter) i think this could be a really good game,there could be a type of information tree, that gives you information about the zombies (like what could distract them, or what weak points you would shoot) for the more zombies you kill the more information about them you would get.
I saw a post earlier about having cities build their own quest chains, to lead new players to their cities. I think that's a pretty great idea. I also have a way to solve your quest reward problem- eliminate currency completely.
If you want someone to join your cause, what do you do? You offer them incentives. Generally, in most militaristic nations (or even the US military), they offered weapons, training, and protection (being armor or otherwise) to help you do what you need to do for them.
A way this game could truly take form and break the mold is - custom rewards. Each city has the main leader (mayor/governor) and that leader is, in a sandbox type game, a real PC. That PC needs to commission other players who have different crafting jobs to supply a quota per day to fulfill their needs for new people joining the game and completing their quests. Anyone who does want to become a part of your nation, can, but must prove themselves. Whether it would be through finding a member of a nation you are at war against and killing them, and returning with their head, or gathering high in demand resources for the city (this could be set every day by the head of the nation, what resources are needed most, what they would like to spend more time and resources developing) it could almost be kind of like an RTS in that aspect.
A perfect example of such a game, on a much lesser scale and obviously different settings, would be Savage 2. You have your commander who asks you to do something, points you in the right direction, acts as the head of the nation, and then you have people who can function as builders, or npc builders.
Perhaps once a city is built, NPC guards and NPC workers can be recruited or bought to join the city. These NPC and guards would not have the ability to respawn, so an invasion by zombies or attack of a warring nation could potentially result in a loss of population. Allow the players to interact with NPC's and even join parties with them during attacks, allow them to heal the NPC's or be healed by the NPC's. The nation leader could even have a hand in building the personalities of individual NPC's.
Or, perhaps, another alternative would be that your character is always logged into the game, even when you "log out" but you simply become either an NPC or maybe even a zombie, or a horde of zombies, until you log back in. Before you discard this idea as idiotic, please read on for another few seconds. Having a high population in a city creates a better chance of staving off an attack, whereas having a lower population at a certain time of attack, would provide a lower chance of survival of the entire city. It would be similar to real life, because while some people are sleeping and others are out on watch posts, and you have an invasion, the chances of everyone that exists in that town hearing the call to arms or being able to wake up and help is unrealistic, and provides more of an incentive for players to be on when they can, and be ever vigilant in the defense of their city and/or homeland at any cost.
To truly be a sandbox MMO, everything needs to be able to be designed by players, whether it's the NPC's, the way their city operates, or the laws of the land. You need to be able to create customized jobs and roles within your nation, and truly have the free reign to build whatever you can imagine, or invision, if you dedicate enough time and energy and resources to do it.
It's a great dream, and would be amazing under any kind of genre, not just survival. Here's to hoping that something that could be so amazing, could really happen.
The problem with this genre for the last 5 or so years is that all the Dev houses are to busy trying to score the next WoW and not really all that interested in making anything original or risky.
If it strays to far from the WoW model they get scared.
It doesn't help that games that have tried to do something different failed miserably mainly do to technical and design issues.
I love the Zombie genre and would love to see something like this...who knows, "World War Z" is being made into a movie, maybe someone will give it a go....
but I doubt it. If it don't have elves and dwarfs in it with classes, levels, 2 generic facions and with raids and generic PvP, no one wants anything to do with it...
...including us the players
The key to MMO's today (which western developers are having a hard time grasping) is originality is what the players want BUT the game has to work, the days of the MMO community cutting you a break for a bad launch ended 7 or 8 years ago....get with the program already. If you launch a technical crap game these days no matter how original the idea, it's doomed.
great... so you've got Hellgate: London without instances (which make this whole idea more feasible anywho) and more of a sandbox feel instead of repetition =/ Bah, I love horror mmos, if requiem had more of a population and wasn't so cut-&-dry, I'd probably be addicted to it... Guess we'll see what happens when secret online comes out =p Article was great, though I don't really see how this is an untapped genre =/
I smell a great PvP title here. You choose zombies or humans. And fight for various parts of control from the massive world which is a city like a dystopic los angeles or new york city.
Or maybe everyone starts off as human, and if your an unlucky sap who dies enough without getting vaccinated, you turn into a zombie, and now your character is a zombie toon who's goal is to kill human NPCs to lvl up, and human PCs for gear/titles/respect.
The game goes on until 90% of the population is zombie, and then it resets, with an advantage going to the length of time you survived, a special title, better gear or what not on the new restart.
You can clear out buildings and fortify them with your guild. Tons of different classes and crafting ideas here.
I think this idea for an MMORPG would be great. I'd stress the PvP aspect of it.
I like this idea a lot, and have thought about it many times. However, I say screw the whole idea of basing a survival MMO around quests. There could be a few here and there for the sake of advancement, but the whole point of the game would be to survive. Your character would randomly start in a location around the game world, whether that's on top of a skyscraper, or in the middle of nowhere on a farm. You would then do just that, survive.
There would be many servers with the capacity for maybe 500-1000 players so as to truely feel alone in a huge world. Your character would advance by actually doing things, and not just leveling up (although I realize there would have to be something to prevent people from farming skills). There would be skills for pistols, rifles, demolitions, engineering (to build barricades, and to possibly craft guns and ammo), agility skills (like free-running to make your way around safely), and others. Eventually, you would find other players and combine your skills in order to survive.
This would not be a permanent world. There would be a time limit from either 1 week to 1 month, depending on the server type. As a result, the zombie population would grow stronger as time moves on. The goal here would be to survive until the end of this limit. If you do, you win. You would get some sort of reward from this to carry on to the next playthrough, like maybe keeping your character. If you die, you would have to start over from square one. There could also be a hardcore server where if you die, that's it, and you just become a zombie for the rest of the duration.
The whole point here would be to place emphasis on surviving. There shouldn't be some bullshit like killing yourself just so you can be teleported to the nearest town. I also don't like the idea of having the game never end, and there being a million safe havens 3 years after the game has launched. The newer players should be able to experience this survival first hand, and also feel a part of the world as the weeks go by and the game world continues to grow. There would also be no instances at all, just a giant world.
Realistic features like hunger and thirst would also be involved, so that you can't organize 5 people to build a super mega barricade that you never have to leave.
So how exactly would downtime be handled? Sure a "colony" or "safe house" would do fine when there are people there to protect it, but if the majority of people who live there are signed off , the zombies or whatever other enemies will easily overrun the place. It would get so ridiculously frustrating signing back in to a destroyed home base, one that you may have spent a lot of time making great, simply because people have to sleep sometime. I don't really see how this can be fixed without changing the whole sandbox approach or making the zombies WAAYYYY less violent than they should be and then the fun, survival part of it would be gone.
I suppose reinforced gates could keep things safe, but then you'd effectively be making your base indestructable, and killing the scary, survival atmosphere again. Maybe a colony could only be formed by large enough groups of players, forcing interdependency like the article says, while also insuring a relative amount of safety at most times. A large, village-sized group of people (at least game-wise) would make a maintainable area, but a small group of friends on the same time zone would consistently get their homes razed when they're not playing.
Well everyone...there is one...Dead Frontier Online...It's browser based...birds eye view...but...there is one.
http://www.deadfrontier.com/ check it out....the idea about being a doctor, lawyer thing is in it too...Seems the different occupations affect some skills you have thou...you do start out alone though...there are 6 player games and a PVP can be enabled I think...you just come back to life if you die so far as I can tell yet...but anyway give a check....and it's free too.
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
While reading this article, a particular comic series immediately came to mind and it would be cool to implement some parts of this. Anyone read the comic series "The Walking Dead"? Its basically a comic series set in a world taken over almost completely by zombies save a handful of people and its focus on the story emphasizes on the survival of these characters and how they go about it doing it less so than about straight zombie attacks/killing. I think some concepts can be used from this comic series within an MMORPG i.e. Finding a place to establish self + group, clearing this place of the zombies, securing the parameters around the place etc. Anyone read this comic series?
Ive been looking for gmes like this, But what they might want to do is make it like a Third Person Shooter as people ahs said before Guns and Sharp/blunt weapons kills zombies not magic, but like you can hide behind barricades, go into towers with a sniper and kill zombies, their awareness should be low but at nightfall the strong zombies would come out wich can scent humans, and teh encapment would be attacked (city) and you had to defend the city, and the further you come in teh game the stronger these zombies would be, you ahve all seen Left 4 Dead, the have Fast zombies, Slow Zombies, Strong Zombies, Ranged Tounge Zombies and Hordes, and there should be One spot where zombies should be somewhat more active then other places making this the Zombie Origin of creation, also if youve seen the movie Resident Evil 3, you can se that the worls is destroyed, eclectricity is gone, only a few survivors is left and have to fight, but still there are small palces wich survivors are still alive and making it alone, these are just ideas for Developers who might want to think about making the game, cus a RPG Zombie game dosnt work, Click stand there hit or shoot longrange waiting for zombie to come in? No thanks id rather play Left 4 Dead then, make a party System wich allows a small group to go out of town fighting their way through hordes of monsters (up to 20+ players) Why so many you ask? well 4 people vs hordes of zombies dosnt work, 10 people vs horde will work better cus they can have 4 people watching their back and warn them if someone comes while 2 watches each their side and the rest aims forward, Why a Third Person you might ask, Well because First Person shooter makes it just another clone of Left 4 Dead, Third Person makes it more unique and you can watch you back this way so you dont get suprised attack behind by a fast zombie, Why not click and Shoot, because this goes under RPG and RPG+Zombies=Fail cus you cant react fast enough you have to mass click around yourself to take out hordes, also weapons should be added in different categories, pistols, SMG, Shotguns (probaly most used), Machineguns, Rifles, Sniper, Bazooka (if you want), Grenades, Swords, Knife, axe... You get the drift, and also make different classes (Copy from DMC here a little) Gunslinger (Dual Pistol and SMG), Swordmaster(Dual Swords or shield), Sniper, Grenadier(Bazooka and Grenades), Builder (for town project), Defenders (Uses Stationary Machineguns and carries them around), Rifle Sergeant(Uses Rifles), and tehy can use all weapons but only 1 at the time, remember to put reload so that others must defend you while you reload, make it so taht everyone carries 1 Pistol and 1 Good gun (like in L4D) or else everyone can just Solo it like starting killing horde, goes out of ammo Reload takes to long, Change weapon Fire again, reload to slow change weapon again, and make it so you cant change primary weapon when outside town, what you leave the town with is waht you must deal with,
Towns:
Makes it so you must build it from scratch others may take refugee in your town as they pass by, (Must be builder to make) and this should be able to be overrun by zombies and destroyed (unless you got good defence) also make NPC that can defend when you get money and stuff, but you ahve to buy weapons (or find) to give them
Weapons:
Make it able to chose from many weapons to their class
Classes:
Magicians and Zombies dont work together so dont bother having a caster class, have combat, long range, Short range, Medium range, tanker, Supporter, Medic and classes like used in war today or else it will be unbalancing
Thats pretty much what i got if anyone bothers reading i know its alot of Typos in there
So how exactly would downtime be handled? Sure a "colony" or "safe house" would do fine when there are people there to protect it, but if the majority of people who live there are signed off , the zombies or whatever other enemies will easily overrun the place. It would get so ridiculously frustrating signing back in to a destroyed home base, one that you may have spent a lot of time making great, simply because people have to sleep sometime. I don't really see how this can be fixed without changing the whole sandbox approach or making the zombies WAAYYYY less violent than they should be and then the fun, survival part of it would be gone. I suppose reinforced gates could keep things safe, but then you'd effectively be making your base indestructable, and killing the scary, survival atmosphere again. Maybe a colony could only be formed by large enough groups of players, forcing interdependency like the article says, while also insuring a relative amount of safety at most times. A large, village-sized group of people (at least game-wise) would make a maintainable area, but a small group of friends on the same time zone would consistently get their homes razed when they're not playing.
Maybe make it so that if a 'safe area' is being overrun, all the players resting there come in as AI-controlled defenders? At least that would eliminate some of the ludicrousness of having 100 potential defenders sleeping through a zombie invasion.
I'll go along with the people saying that death would have to have extremely severe consequences, if not permadeath. Simply because in a survival horror game, there's no horror if survival is trivial. People need to really really not want to die for it to work.
I would also say NO player zombies. Ever. If you die as a human and just come back as a zombie, and being a zombie is just as cool and fun as being a survivor is, then once again it dilutes the survival horror aspect.
Personally, I'd scrap the idea of zombies all together. If you want some sort of post-apocalyptic survival horror game, how about something like the old movie 'Escape From New York'? A big city has been transformed into a prison, and the players are inmates. Like in the movie, the inmates split up into different gangs that fight for control over territory and resources. Players can choose a gang affiliation when they create their characters and that determines how NPC's of other gangs react to them. Crafters might specialize in scrounging and rigging up inventions out of scrap material. Once a month, the government airdrops food and other supplies into the city and lets the inmates fight over them.
I've always liked your MMO ideas, but there seems to be a common thread: lack of scalability. All of your ideas could make great Multiplayer Online games, but not many (including this one) are feasible when it comes to the Massively part. How much will the game feel like Survival Horror when there are hundreds of people in the same "cities"? How many times is that farmer going to be rescued and then plopped back where he was found for another group to rescue? The answer to those questions may be instancing, but if you're instancing practically the entire game, what's the point of making it Massively Multiplayer?
well for one the OP said their would be one farmer (to rules them all!) so its not some endly respawn its resources everyone has to kill for or share. That said the design has merit but has a few massive zombie infested semi holes in it.
"Hi i'm new let me...oh you already saved the world"
With a player driven city the eary adoptors would make the world, so now its a year in your a new player. What do you do? Find some new spot to form a new city and recruit fellow founders/merchents EXCEPT "uh why would i help you The City of Bob is right over there, fully furnished"
"I hate PvP"
If resorces, such as farmers, are limited that means City vs City conflicts. Some people just want to shoot zombies not other players but PvP is being forced, and again think of the new player. You JUST arrived into the city of bob, have only basic gear and now the rival city of "Hot Bewwbs" run in and kills everyone after you just escaped the waste land.
3: Greifers
Nuff' said.
Simple solution to at least one of the problems...
The original idea said that you build a safe-haven and when it gets overrun you move and rebuild, and the skills you've picked up let you build faster/better... So you have every player city under fairly constant attack by small amounts of zombies, with periodic and increasingly large waves of zombies... The longer the city exists, the bigger the periodic waves get... Might be twice a day at random times or something like that... Your city gets overrun, you gather the survivors and either try and clear it out or move and start over.
Perma-death is never an option for an MMO, financially speaking no game would survive if they implemented that, not enough people would play it, it's really just that simple. To say you can't have survival horror with permadeath is just silly, RE, L4D, Dead Rising, Fallout 3, etc. etc. all have some mechanic that allows you to reset your game, granted it's a bit different than an MMO because maybe times you "retry it after you already died once" but still, there should be some way to make it work. But perhaps some sort of mechanic that punishes the entire nearby community would be a powerful and effective death detterrant. Not only do you lose your equipment and such when you die, but perhaps there are counters for each region's zombies, and if they kill a certain # of people with a certain amount of skill in X category, eventually the zombies evolve and gain access to a similar skill or ability themselves, making them a greater threat to everyone.
It would be interesting because it would make it so that if everyone chooses uber X skill to learn, eventually the zombies will kill enough of them to get X uber skill/evolution themselves, and then everyone in that area has to deal with it or vacate the area.
Perhaps an alternative to death each time is a cure, evenyone left still alive has at least some resistance to the virus, and as such can accept a cure more readily if they get killed/zombiefied. But each time they get cured maybe something withing them corrupts, like they gain a permanent scar or a skill becomes weakened, something of that nature.
Just brainstorming some ideas, death in an MMO is always a difficult thing to implement in a reasonable and fair manner that maintains the integrety of the universe.
As for character creation, it should definitely start with a huge variety of beginning options, each of which convey a different beginning boost to you. Cash currency would be no longer accepted by most everyone, so if you were a lawyer, you wouldn't have additional wealth, but you might have advanced critical thinking skills that help you in certain areas, or might be better at charming and convincing people to do things your way. If you were a fireman you would start off with more str/agi/hp and maybe a fire axe, something of that nature. Once you start then you yourself can direct where you want your player to go, in terms of what skills to learn, but perhaps you always lean towards certain types of skills in regards to learning them faster, because you are predisposed that way.
It's already a rediculously overplayed browser flash game. Why not lose the 2D element, make it 1st Person, have 200 players play out the scenario of defending a base for a period of time against hordes of zombies and it can be the major selling point.
After each wave you can reinforce different upgrades, each player can spend money they earn on new weapons and armor for the next wave of zombies. Not sure what everything else would be, but this could be the core of an MMO and be a fun open world/instanced event for player built cities.
My idea: Tower Defense MMO. It's already a rediculously overplayed browser flash game. Why not lose the 2D element, make it 1st Person, have 200 players play out the scenario of defending a base for a period of time against hordes of zombies and it can be the major selling point. After each wave you can reinforce different upgrades, each player can spend money they earn on new weapons and armor for the next wave of zombies. Not sure what everything else would be, but this could be the core of an MMO and be a fun open world/instanced event for player built cities. Thoughts?
I dont think that would hit off, standing there are shooting at zombies charging, and First Person, no thanks id rather go play a 2 DTower Defence
My idea: Tower Defense MMO. It's already a rediculously overplayed browser flash game. Why not lose the 2D element, make it 1st Person, have 200 players play out the scenario of defending a base for a period of time against hordes of zombies and it can be the major selling point. After each wave you can reinforce different upgrades, each player can spend money they earn on new weapons and armor for the next wave of zombies. Not sure what everything else would be, but this could be the core of an MMO and be a fun open world/instanced event for player built cities. Thoughts?
Well, I personally love base defense games and such gameplay would be a big part of a Zombie survival MMO. Other gameplay would focus on resource gathering and upgrading the settlement (both in terms of defenses and quality of life).
Settlements should receive swarm attacks every few hours or so, with the numbers of zombies growing slowly over time. The overall goal of the game would be to make your settlement last as long as possible until the inevitable overrun. Players could receive 'Survival Points' based on their settlement's longevity to rate their personal success for Epeen purposes.
Another feature I would say is a must is - friendly fire. It's a staple of zombie flicks to have some idiot trying to use a gun to unlock a gas pump, or getting careless with a chainsaw in an amoured bus.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I like it. Not into the perma death thing so much...but I can see respawning in a first person view...blurry screen that comes into focus with a medic hovering over you...telling you how you were lucky that a roving supply hunting party had found you nearly dead and brought you back to whichever safespot you were closest to. (of course...you'd probably have to have an option to opt out of the cutscene thing cause it would get old after awhile.)
Also, I'd say whatever supplies/weapons you had on you when you die you'd have to drop. Part of the dangers of dying.
Have people able to learn medic skills...Perhaps not so much the "you've been infected...hahaha!" thing, but why not have bleeding wounds be a danger...you can be bandaged in the field to stop bleeding, but you need to get to a safe haven to the surgeon to actually fix it.
Maybe some drugs could learn to be created and administered by medics to "sustain you" in the field...I.E. give you hitpoints..but not actually be able to heal you. You'd still bleed out over time.
People could learn to craft crossbows and bows, melee weapons...bats with spikes through them....pounding out axes and such with scrap metal, etc and so on. Hell, maybe even some kind of grenade/molotov cocktails...etc. Don't have weapons be the endall be all...but skills with those types of weapons perhaps...blocking skills, evasion skills, blunt/edged..ranged..xbow, bow..hell...shotgun..whatever.
Comments
The Idea sounds fun, mabye full pvp could go in to, if civilization dies then there are gonna be raiders, people who move from place to place, hmmm now it sounds like it could be a mix of EVE (never played) L4D (never played) and DF (never played), hmm, I'd play it.
brilliant. rather than coming up with ideas (since everybody on this entire site has those) you could tell us you have just finished building a survival MMO. I mean you have right, because I would love to play it right now. In fact, I think I might fire up left 4 dead right now ...
Forum signatures are stupid and annoying. I've turned mine off.
I think it would be more like in the "safe zone" you would see everyone there, and then outside you could only see your party, although it would have to be a mmorps (massive multiplayer online roleplaying shooter) i think this could be a really good game, there could be a type of information tree, that gives you information about the zombies (like what could distract them, or what weak points you would shoot) for the more zombies you kill the more information about them you would get.
OMG! NO!
I saw a post earlier about having cities build their own quest chains, to lead new players to their cities. I think that's a pretty great idea. I also have a way to solve your quest reward problem- eliminate currency completely.
If you want someone to join your cause, what do you do? You offer them incentives. Generally, in most militaristic nations (or even the US military), they offered weapons, training, and protection (being armor or otherwise) to help you do what you need to do for them.
A way this game could truly take form and break the mold is - custom rewards. Each city has the main leader (mayor/governor) and that leader is, in a sandbox type game, a real PC. That PC needs to commission other players who have different crafting jobs to supply a quota per day to fulfill their needs for new people joining the game and completing their quests. Anyone who does want to become a part of your nation, can, but must prove themselves. Whether it would be through finding a member of a nation you are at war against and killing them, and returning with their head, or gathering high in demand resources for the city (this could be set every day by the head of the nation, what resources are needed most, what they would like to spend more time and resources developing) it could almost be kind of like an RTS in that aspect.
A perfect example of such a game, on a much lesser scale and obviously different settings, would be Savage 2. You have your commander who asks you to do something, points you in the right direction, acts as the head of the nation, and then you have people who can function as builders, or npc builders.
Perhaps once a city is built, NPC guards and NPC workers can be recruited or bought to join the city. These NPC and guards would not have the ability to respawn, so an invasion by zombies or attack of a warring nation could potentially result in a loss of population. Allow the players to interact with NPC's and even join parties with them during attacks, allow them to heal the NPC's or be healed by the NPC's. The nation leader could even have a hand in building the personalities of individual NPC's.
Or, perhaps, another alternative would be that your character is always logged into the game, even when you "log out" but you simply become either an NPC or maybe even a zombie, or a horde of zombies, until you log back in. Before you discard this idea as idiotic, please read on for another few seconds. Having a high population in a city creates a better chance of staving off an attack, whereas having a lower population at a certain time of attack, would provide a lower chance of survival of the entire city. It would be similar to real life, because while some people are sleeping and others are out on watch posts, and you have an invasion, the chances of everyone that exists in that town hearing the call to arms or being able to wake up and help is unrealistic, and provides more of an incentive for players to be on when they can, and be ever vigilant in the defense of their city and/or homeland at any cost.
To truly be a sandbox MMO, everything needs to be able to be designed by players, whether it's the NPC's, the way their city operates, or the laws of the land. You need to be able to create customized jobs and roles within your nation, and truly have the free reign to build whatever you can imagine, or invision, if you dedicate enough time and energy and resources to do it.
It's a great dream, and would be amazing under any kind of genre, not just survival. Here's to hoping that something that could be so amazing, could really happen.
The problem with this genre for the last 5 or so years is that all the Dev houses are to busy trying to score the next WoW and not really all that interested in making anything original or risky.
If it strays to far from the WoW model they get scared.
It doesn't help that games that have tried to do something different failed miserably mainly do to technical and design issues.
I love the Zombie genre and would love to see something like this...who knows, "World War Z" is being made into a movie, maybe someone will give it a go....
but I doubt it. If it don't have elves and dwarfs in it with classes, levels, 2 generic facions and with raids and generic PvP, no one wants anything to do with it...
...including us the players
The key to MMO's today (which western developers are having a hard time grasping) is originality is what the players want BUT the game has to work, the days of the MMO community cutting you a break for a bad launch ended 7 or 8 years ago....get with the program already. If you launch a technical crap game these days no matter how original the idea, it's doomed.
I think there are plenty of devs out there who want to take a chance. It's the investors who say no.
Got to start small, to keep costs down, and grow the game after release.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Would love to be able to play the bad guys.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
great... so you've got Hellgate: London without instances (which make this whole idea more feasible anywho) and more of a sandbox feel instead of repetition =/ Bah, I love horror mmos, if requiem had more of a population and wasn't so cut-&-dry, I'd probably be addicted to it... Guess we'll see what happens when secret online comes out =p Article was great, though I don't really see how this is an untapped genre =/
I smell a great PvP title here. You choose zombies or humans. And fight for various parts of control from the massive world which is a city like a dystopic los angeles or new york city.
Or maybe everyone starts off as human, and if your an unlucky sap who dies enough without getting vaccinated, you turn into a zombie, and now your character is a zombie toon who's goal is to kill human NPCs to lvl up, and human PCs for gear/titles/respect.
The game goes on until 90% of the population is zombie, and then it resets, with an advantage going to the length of time you survived, a special title, better gear or what not on the new restart.
You can clear out buildings and fortify them with your guild. Tons of different classes and crafting ideas here.
I think this idea for an MMORPG would be great. I'd stress the PvP aspect of it.
Why not a Survival MMO?
Easy. Because it's a silly, lame and uninteresting concept.
I like this idea a lot, and have thought about it many times. However, I say screw the whole idea of basing a survival MMO around quests. There could be a few here and there for the sake of advancement, but the whole point of the game would be to survive. Your character would randomly start in a location around the game world, whether that's on top of a skyscraper, or in the middle of nowhere on a farm. You would then do just that, survive.
There would be many servers with the capacity for maybe 500-1000 players so as to truely feel alone in a huge world. Your character would advance by actually doing things, and not just leveling up (although I realize there would have to be something to prevent people from farming skills). There would be skills for pistols, rifles, demolitions, engineering (to build barricades, and to possibly craft guns and ammo), agility skills (like free-running to make your way around safely), and others. Eventually, you would find other players and combine your skills in order to survive.
This would not be a permanent world. There would be a time limit from either 1 week to 1 month, depending on the server type. As a result, the zombie population would grow stronger as time moves on. The goal here would be to survive until the end of this limit. If you do, you win. You would get some sort of reward from this to carry on to the next playthrough, like maybe keeping your character. If you die, you would have to start over from square one. There could also be a hardcore server where if you die, that's it, and you just become a zombie for the rest of the duration.
The whole point here would be to place emphasis on surviving. There shouldn't be some bullshit like killing yourself just so you can be teleported to the nearest town. I also don't like the idea of having the game never end, and there being a million safe havens 3 years after the game has launched. The newer players should be able to experience this survival first hand, and also feel a part of the world as the weeks go by and the game world continues to grow. There would also be no instances at all, just a giant world.
Realistic features like hunger and thirst would also be involved, so that you can't organize 5 people to build a super mega barricade that you never have to leave.
wow at wall of text, ok im done
To you it is. Look at the number of pages commenting on this thread. This is a hot topic.
SOMEONE MAKE THIS GAME AND I WILL BUY IT!
So how exactly would downtime be handled? Sure a "colony" or "safe house" would do fine when there are people there to protect it, but if the majority of people who live there are signed off , the zombies or whatever other enemies will easily overrun the place. It would get so ridiculously frustrating signing back in to a destroyed home base, one that you may have spent a lot of time making great, simply because people have to sleep sometime. I don't really see how this can be fixed without changing the whole sandbox approach or making the zombies WAAYYYY less violent than they should be and then the fun, survival part of it would be gone.
I suppose reinforced gates could keep things safe, but then you'd effectively be making your base indestructable, and killing the scary, survival atmosphere again. Maybe a colony could only be formed by large enough groups of players, forcing interdependency like the article says, while also insuring a relative amount of safety at most times. A large, village-sized group of people (at least game-wise) would make a maintainable area, but a small group of friends on the same time zone would consistently get their homes razed when they're not playing.
Well everyone...there is one...Dead Frontier Online...It's browser based...birds eye view...but...there is one.
http://www.deadfrontier.com/ check it out....the idea about being a doctor, lawyer thing is in it too...Seems the different occupations affect some skills you have thou...you do start out alone though...there are 6 player games and a PVP can be enabled I think...you just come back to life if you die so far as I can tell yet...but anyway give a check....and it's free too.
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
While reading this article, a particular comic series immediately came to mind and it would be cool to implement some parts of this. Anyone read the comic series "The Walking Dead"? Its basically a comic series set in a world taken over almost completely by zombies save a handful of people and its focus on the story emphasizes on the survival of these characters and how they go about it doing it less so than about straight zombie attacks/killing. I think some concepts can be used from this comic series within an MMORPG i.e. Finding a place to establish self + group, clearing this place of the zombies, securing the parameters around the place etc. Anyone read this comic series?
Ive been looking for gmes like this, But what they might want to do is make it like a Third Person Shooter as people ahs said before Guns and Sharp/blunt weapons kills zombies not magic, but like you can hide behind barricades, go into towers with a sniper and kill zombies, their awareness should be low but at nightfall the strong zombies would come out wich can scent humans, and teh encapment would be attacked (city) and you had to defend the city, and the further you come in teh game the stronger these zombies would be, you ahve all seen Left 4 Dead, the have Fast zombies, Slow Zombies, Strong Zombies, Ranged Tounge Zombies and Hordes, and there should be One spot where zombies should be somewhat more active then other places making this the Zombie Origin of creation, also if youve seen the movie Resident Evil 3, you can se that the worls is destroyed, eclectricity is gone, only a few survivors is left and have to fight, but still there are small palces wich survivors are still alive and making it alone, these are just ideas for Developers who might want to think about making the game, cus a RPG Zombie game dosnt work, Click stand there hit or shoot longrange waiting for zombie to come in? No thanks id rather play Left 4 Dead then, make a party System wich allows a small group to go out of town fighting their way through hordes of monsters (up to 20+ players) Why so many you ask? well 4 people vs hordes of zombies dosnt work, 10 people vs horde will work better cus they can have 4 people watching their back and warn them if someone comes while 2 watches each their side and the rest aims forward, Why a Third Person you might ask, Well because First Person shooter makes it just another clone of Left 4 Dead, Third Person makes it more unique and you can watch you back this way so you dont get suprised attack behind by a fast zombie, Why not click and Shoot, because this goes under RPG and RPG+Zombies=Fail cus you cant react fast enough you have to mass click around yourself to take out hordes, also weapons should be added in different categories, pistols, SMG, Shotguns (probaly most used), Machineguns, Rifles, Sniper, Bazooka (if you want), Grenades, Swords, Knife, axe... You get the drift, and also make different classes (Copy from DMC here a little) Gunslinger (Dual Pistol and SMG), Swordmaster(Dual Swords or shield), Sniper, Grenadier(Bazooka and Grenades), Builder (for town project), Defenders (Uses Stationary Machineguns and carries them around), Rifle Sergeant(Uses Rifles), and tehy can use all weapons but only 1 at the time, remember to put reload so that others must defend you while you reload, make it so taht everyone carries 1 Pistol and 1 Good gun (like in L4D) or else everyone can just Solo it like starting killing horde, goes out of ammo Reload takes to long, Change weapon Fire again, reload to slow change weapon again, and make it so you cant change primary weapon when outside town, what you leave the town with is waht you must deal with,
Towns:
Makes it so you must build it from scratch others may take refugee in your town as they pass by, (Must be builder to make) and this should be able to be overrun by zombies and destroyed (unless you got good defence) also make NPC that can defend when you get money and stuff, but you ahve to buy weapons (or find) to give them
Weapons:
Make it able to chose from many weapons to their class
Classes:
Magicians and Zombies dont work together so dont bother having a caster class, have combat, long range, Short range, Medium range, tanker, Supporter, Medic and classes like used in war today or else it will be unbalancing
Thats pretty much what i got if anyone bothers reading i know its alot of Typos in there
To live and Die By Fire
Maybe make it so that if a 'safe area' is being overrun, all the players resting there come in as AI-controlled defenders? At least that would eliminate some of the ludicrousness of having 100 potential defenders sleeping through a zombie invasion.
I'll go along with the people saying that death would have to have extremely severe consequences, if not permadeath. Simply because in a survival horror game, there's no horror if survival is trivial. People need to really really not want to die for it to work.
I would also say NO player zombies. Ever. If you die as a human and just come back as a zombie, and being a zombie is just as cool and fun as being a survivor is, then once again it dilutes the survival horror aspect.
Personally, I'd scrap the idea of zombies all together. If you want some sort of post-apocalyptic survival horror game, how about something like the old movie 'Escape From New York'? A big city has been transformed into a prison, and the players are inmates. Like in the movie, the inmates split up into different gangs that fight for control over territory and resources. Players can choose a gang affiliation when they create their characters and that determines how NPC's of other gangs react to them. Crafters might specialize in scrounging and rigging up inventions out of scrap material. Once a month, the government airdrops food and other supplies into the city and lets the inmates fight over them.
well for one the OP said their would be one farmer (to rules them all!) so its not some endly respawn its resources everyone has to kill for or share. That said the design has merit but has a few massive zombie infested semi holes in it.
"Hi i'm new let me...oh you already saved the world"
With a player driven city the eary adoptors would make the world, so now its a year in your a new player. What do you do? Find some new spot to form a new city and recruit fellow founders/merchents EXCEPT "uh why would i help you The City of Bob is right over there, fully furnished"
"I hate PvP"
If resorces, such as farmers, are limited that means City vs City conflicts. Some people just want to shoot zombies not other players but PvP is being forced, and again think of the new player. You JUST arrived into the city of bob, have only basic gear and now the rival city of "Hot Bewwbs" run in and kills everyone after you just escaped the waste land.
3: Greifers
Nuff' said.
Simple solution to at least one of the problems...
The original idea said that you build a safe-haven and when it gets overrun you move and rebuild, and the skills you've picked up let you build faster/better... So you have every player city under fairly constant attack by small amounts of zombies, with periodic and increasingly large waves of zombies... The longer the city exists, the bigger the periodic waves get... Might be twice a day at random times or something like that... Your city gets overrun, you gather the survivors and either try and clear it out or move and start over.
Perma-death is never an option for an MMO, financially speaking no game would survive if they implemented that, not enough people would play it, it's really just that simple. To say you can't have survival horror with permadeath is just silly, RE, L4D, Dead Rising, Fallout 3, etc. etc. all have some mechanic that allows you to reset your game, granted it's a bit different than an MMO because maybe times you "retry it after you already died once" but still, there should be some way to make it work. But perhaps some sort of mechanic that punishes the entire nearby community would be a powerful and effective death detterrant. Not only do you lose your equipment and such when you die, but perhaps there are counters for each region's zombies, and if they kill a certain # of people with a certain amount of skill in X category, eventually the zombies evolve and gain access to a similar skill or ability themselves, making them a greater threat to everyone.
It would be interesting because it would make it so that if everyone chooses uber X skill to learn, eventually the zombies will kill enough of them to get X uber skill/evolution themselves, and then everyone in that area has to deal with it or vacate the area.
Perhaps an alternative to death each time is a cure, evenyone left still alive has at least some resistance to the virus, and as such can accept a cure more readily if they get killed/zombiefied. But each time they get cured maybe something withing them corrupts, like they gain a permanent scar or a skill becomes weakened, something of that nature.
Just brainstorming some ideas, death in an MMO is always a difficult thing to implement in a reasonable and fair manner that maintains the integrety of the universe.
As for character creation, it should definitely start with a huge variety of beginning options, each of which convey a different beginning boost to you. Cash currency would be no longer accepted by most everyone, so if you were a lawyer, you wouldn't have additional wealth, but you might have advanced critical thinking skills that help you in certain areas, or might be better at charming and convincing people to do things your way. If you were a fireman you would start off with more str/agi/hp and maybe a fire axe, something of that nature. Once you start then you yourself can direct where you want your player to go, in terms of what skills to learn, but perhaps you always lean towards certain types of skills in regards to learning them faster, because you are predisposed that way.
make a zombie MMO and you will never see me again.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
My idea: Tower Defense MMO.
It's already a rediculously overplayed browser flash game. Why not lose the 2D element, make it 1st Person, have 200 players play out the scenario of defending a base for a period of time against hordes of zombies and it can be the major selling point.
After each wave you can reinforce different upgrades, each player can spend money they earn on new weapons and armor for the next wave of zombies. Not sure what everything else would be, but this could be the core of an MMO and be a fun open world/instanced event for player built cities.
Thoughts?
I dont think that would hit off, standing there are shooting at zombies charging, and First Person, no thanks id rather go play a 2 DTower Defence
To live and Die By Fire
Well, I personally love base defense games and such gameplay would be a big part of a Zombie survival MMO. Other gameplay would focus on resource gathering and upgrading the settlement (both in terms of defenses and quality of life).
Settlements should receive swarm attacks every few hours or so, with the numbers of zombies growing slowly over time. The overall goal of the game would be to make your settlement last as long as possible until the inevitable overrun. Players could receive 'Survival Points' based on their settlement's longevity to rate their personal success for Epeen purposes.
Another feature I would say is a must is - friendly fire. It's a staple of zombie flicks to have some idiot trying to use a gun to unlock a gas pump, or getting careless with a chainsaw in an amoured bus.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I like it. Not into the perma death thing so much...but I can see respawning in a first person view...blurry screen that comes into focus with a medic hovering over you...telling you how you were lucky that a roving supply hunting party had found you nearly dead and brought you back to whichever safespot you were closest to. (of course...you'd probably have to have an option to opt out of the cutscene thing cause it would get old after awhile.)
Also, I'd say whatever supplies/weapons you had on you when you die you'd have to drop. Part of the dangers of dying.
Have people able to learn medic skills...Perhaps not so much the "you've been infected...hahaha!" thing, but why not have bleeding wounds be a danger...you can be bandaged in the field to stop bleeding, but you need to get to a safe haven to the surgeon to actually fix it.
Maybe some drugs could learn to be created and administered by medics to "sustain you" in the field...I.E. give you hitpoints..but not actually be able to heal you. You'd still bleed out over time.
People could learn to craft crossbows and bows, melee weapons...bats with spikes through them....pounding out axes and such with scrap metal, etc and so on. Hell, maybe even some kind of grenade/molotov cocktails...etc. Don't have weapons be the endall be all...but skills with those types of weapons perhaps...blocking skills, evasion skills, blunt/edged..ranged..xbow, bow..hell...shotgun..whatever.