While $50 million isn't nothing for a real AAA MMO nowdays...
I would try to get a Wild West MMO going. So many possibilities with city building, crafting, professions, PVP, hunting, politics, gambling games, etc etc. I can't believe it han't been attempted.
Very little character progression. Make it an action/RPG hybrid. Permadeath (although using the clone options from Car Wars can limit that to some degree) so all you are loosing is goods and money since getting your character back up to caps will be pretty easy. Full PvP with a reputation system that will turn NPC's against you if you raid in their area. Reputation that's account based to limit griefing. Bounties given by law enforcement NPCs as well as PCs.
You could have all the arena's for varrying tournaments. For those not familiar, events are run by the value of your car. Prizes are usually letting you keep your ride if you live through at lower levels to heavy cash prizes for upper tier deuling.
Badlands for people that want gangs/anti gangs as well as space between towns. A RTS model for those interested in 'city' building. Player run companies to make all of the things in the game. No NPC vending. Goods have to get shipped, so truckers have a purpose.
Options for being a pedestrian to help cater to the social RP crowd as well as some last gasp heroics when your ride is totaled.
Ranked ladder for people who are the biggest money winners/kill leaders.
Left 4 dead style, persistant world survival horror.
EvE Style skill progression in order to encourage people to keep their account active even if they aren't playing a lot.
No Safe zones.
Sandbox elements of building shelters and harvesting resources to build weapons.
No classes. Skill based with FPS controls.
Play as either survivor or zombie. Both start with essentially the same abilities but survivors gain weapon and medic skills and zombies gain regeneration and puke/claws/summon skills.
I think this question was asked in another thread just a day ago but I'll awnser again with a wall of text (smiles). So what I Want to make is a space/ground game. Players will start out in there own personal transport vessel that seats one. You will start out gliding to your factions space station like in ds9. There will be an area where you have to glide to to park your ship which will pack up once you get to this area. After that you will enter into the space station. There will be mutiple decks looking out into the sandbox non instanced world of space from windows in the space station. There will be thousands of player vendors that buy/lease space in there factions space station for you to browse when ever you feel the need. There will be bars for buffs, entertainment and gambling which deal with buffs a bit too, and many other areas for different things in the space station like skills etc. There will be no levels all skills trained by npc/players.
After youve goton all your buffs, for more experienced players and got your fill of gambling or entertainemnt you can go out to go hunting on one of the thousands of planets all enhanced to the most realistic of nature. Players will have a badge system that will be clickable by all players and to see what some one has been up to. There will be thousands of ingame badges, all obtainable no matter when a player joins. There will be a pvp system through networks on each factions space station telling everyone when a war is going to happen and on what planet. All pvp is non instaned and winning factions gain control of that planets defences. Pvp is fast action, large scale no limits unreal tournement 3 style action with skills of course. Player cities will be createable any where and player space stations as well. Players will be able to enter combat in lage scale battles on planets with ships that steam pound land into the ground, a player will see the planet and can just fly into the planet and be in the action of pvp. There will be cameras set up all around the players factions space stations watching there comardes battle it out and be able to bet across faction space stations on the winners/losers. Players will be able to start there own faction and make there own space station after so many members join a single faction and allow them to create a station.
There will be hundreads of dungeons noninstances in the planets around the universe. All with badges to obtain for your character for everyone to see. I dont know how armor could play into all of this, any one got and suggestions? I like mmos that you can just where styles of clothing rather then dressing up a bunch of armor.
Crafting of course plays a big part of the game and many skill trees will evolve around just non combat. Alot of the game will be non combat, in fact the more non combat in games now a days I think the better. ITs truly a hard task to make a game real popular without combat. A good part of this game wouldnt need combat. Combat in this game could almost be like a sport, like soccer or football. Combat dosnt always have to be cruel and nasty to make a game enjoyable.
My best pvp experiences were in Darkfall. So I guess I would enhance that game.
Skillcap like in Mortal Online (or like UO)
Larger world and removal of teleports and portals. A ship needs to sail for at least 10 minutes before hitting land.
Better player housing; adding shops, workshops, inns, arenas (also "illegal" basement fighting pits) and churches.
Revamp of harvesting; adding real (underground) mines and lumberyards.
Adding farming; starvation of cities is possible if you don't supply them with food.
Adding NPC guards, which can be trained and upgraded with better equipment. (removing lighting towers)
Making magic spells really powerfull, but mana regain will be slow. Magic user will have to rest for 5-10 to gain full mana. Mana pots will be removed. In pnp AD&D mages had to rest to restore their used spells. Mages in my game will still have total freedom to cast any spell from their magictree, however they can only cast so many spells over a short time. Spells will be powerfull, mages will be powerfull in groupfights, but caught alone they are a bit more vunerable.
Regional "criminal" flagging. The clan (or faction or alliance) that controls the region can set the rules for when someone is flagged red by their actions. Notorious players will notice that their reputation can follow them to other regions. Especially based on racial kills. Jails will be added as will human branding.
Only one character. However people can have up to 3 henchmen/relatives which can count as alts. However none of these alts can have a grandmaster skill. They can be used as storekeepers, guards etc, but can also be controlled directly by the player.
Mini ingame games; like poker or blackjack, arena events, jousting, archey contests, regatta's and horse/chariot races.
Map making, including of treasure hunting. Clues can be found in ancient books.
Book making (both fluff as skills), recipe creation.
Complex crafting. No player can make everything. Hiring experts to melt the iron ore you mined.
Battle formations. What is a game with a solid shieldwall?
No healing spells and no pots. First aid and medical care will get you back up your feet, but you need some skill in it. Bandages will require at least 30 secs to take effect. Taken too much hits you'll have to receive medical care. Fallen in battle, people can triage you or when no doc is around, they have to carry you off. Even adding stretchers. really finished off, expect not to return right away in battle.
If someone handed me $50 million to do whatever game I wanted, I would hire the best artists and programmers to manifest my vision of life in a field mouse colony. The excitement! The danger! Colony vs. Colony turf wars! Home invasion missions!
Ok, maybe not. I'd probably make a fantasy game based on the setting I've been working on for the last couple of years.
No MMO. I'd pay off my bills, my families bills, get them property so that all they have to pay is real estate taxes and home owners insurance each year. Maybe I'd get a new car, but I'd likely invest in a business venture OTHER than an MMORPG. In my opinion MMORPG's have a really high failure rate.
I know this will sound a hek of a lot like Firefly for those of you who have seen the show, but I think its version of science fiction makes for a better type game than Star Wars or Star Trek.
I was trying to think of ways to change the cookie-cutter format of MMORPGs. One thought is to have the whole avatar system run like KOTOR did it. Basically each alt you create is a part of your crew. You have a captain(main), and then can create an engineer, a pilot, a mercenary for combat, a doctor, a merchant. Yada yada yada. Basically each alt slot would cost in-game finance to purchase and maintain being that the more alts you have the easier it is to run your ship or if you can't afford a ship yet, just be around to help out.
The alt slots should be limited so that a captain can custom tailor them to his preference of play. Want to be a trader? Choose a couple of merchants to allow you access to ports or help keep the prices down when buying and up when selling. Want to be a "pirate" of sorts? Choose more mercenaries. Want to just play it down the middle? Choose a doctor, engineer, pilot, 1 merchant and so on.
Now here is where the KOTOR and unique part really comes in. When an alt is not being played it is an npc. If you are playing as one of your alts your captain(main) and the rest of the alts are npcs. The tricky part is getting the AI just right. You should be able to play all the time as your captain and still be able to rely on your npc crew.
While playing WoW I got a little bored of my main. I did what everyone does and created an alt with different combat and crafting skills. However I hardly play the alt because I still have things to do with my main and playing my alt doesn't benefit my main in any way. This is where my idea is different. Anytime you log-on as an alt instead of a captain you can control the character just as well as the captain. It still can gain skills, take missions, anything you want it to do. Any other player wouldn't even be able to spot an alt from a captain. Let's say you are playing your mercenary alt today. What you could do is take a shuttle from your main ship where the captain and the rest of the crew is doing whatever NPCs do, and fly off to a dangerous underdeveloped world. Once there you can hire yourself out for a couple of combat oriented jobs to raise your firearm or brawling skills. After a good session you can return to your ship. Now the next time you play as your captain and go on a potentially dangerous mission you know your Mercenary will be able to protect you even better. Same goes for the doctor, pilot, merchant, engineer, or even the captain who will be able to choose any skill tree branches to climb same as the alts. No templates. The crew engineer can also have combat skills though it would not be as efficient in maintaining the ship.
Just a couple of final twists. The alt crew members, unlike the Captain, can all suffer perma death. I don't like the idea of a "1 strike-your out" kind of thing, but more like they get a certain amount of lives before they don't come back. This could be based on their chosen skills. Doctor and engineers and merchants have less lives than mercenaries. Since they would most likely stay with the ship on dangerous missions. This forces players into almost the same concerns as perma-death but just with alts. It also adds to a sense of loss.
Lastly both the purchase of alts and ships should be major milestones. A player must decide whether or not to spend his first fortune on a ship to help increase his/her profit so that they can start buying alt/crew slots..... or first buy an alt crew slot and then use the help to increase profit to later buy a ship. Both crew members and ships should be money sinks requiring constant money to keep available. When you can't put money into the ship it dies where-ever it is and you must use your shuttle to go to planets or space stations looking for work to get it going again. Crew members who are not paid sit around in their bunks and won't do anything for you. Their log-in slots are also unavailable until they are paid.
Oh.... and the last major detail....I promise. All player-characters are human, and all "Monsters" are human too. I like Firefly's view of the future where no aliens exist though there may be forms of mutants or insane cannibals for fun.
A few additions I'd make today:
If this wasn't set in the Firefly Universe(though I'd love to keep that franchise alive in some form) I would actually like to see a really amazing character creator that not only allowed absolutely any size and weight, but also allowed for players to create their own humanoid bipedal aliens from the toes or claws to the hair or horns. Obviously the challenge would be in predicting the combos and making sure all forms of clothing and gear fit well any creature a player creates .
I'd also like to add that recently I had what is probably a fairly obvious revelation when it comes to why we haven't seen the Sci-Fi MMORPG of our dreams. It is all about scale. When you are flying around in your spaceship it should feel like it felt to fly a Cargo-Plane or steer a Battleship or even an Aircraft Carrier in Battlefield 1942. They really got the mechanics of it right in making size a big factor. You shouldn't feel like you are controlling the ship with your mouse and keyboard but rather that you are controlling your character controlling the ship. Of course larger ships should require more crew members(the alt system would work very well here) with major natural bonuses to having live players manning weapons or repairs again just like in Battlefield 1942. I feel strongly that open PvP should play a major role in the game but only with a risk and justice system that forces players to police themselves.
Everyone who plays an MMORPG wants to be either a hero or a villian and without "Innocents" there really is no such thing. Crafting and Trading should absolutely not require combat skills like in WoW or LOTRO but be more profitable and enjoyable when you decide to devote little or no skill points to combat like in UO or SWG. This forces the player instead to rely on other players for protection or their alts. Of course each alt slot you use for a Mercenary or Combat-oriented character leaves less slots for Trader or Diplomatic Alts that would increase the profit you could make with each Cargo or Smuggling run or any similar non-combat mission.
Finally this would only work with a very very high population and likely a single server. I think the Technology exists for this today but it would be costly and a budget like suggested would be necessary. Even if I had the money I would hold off however many years I would have to before the tech was in place to guarantee the game thrived. Unfortunately a lot of franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were launched too soon. Lucas waited nearly 30 years until the tech was right to make Episodes I-III and MMORPG Developers should treat their ideas the same way.
A marriage between Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, and maybe some Vanguard
Set in the British Isles, with all the Celtic and Arthurian lore, and, like DAoC, possibly pulling in some outer realms like Midgard or some Greek myth perhaps.
I know this will sound a hek of a lot like Firefly for those of you who have seen the show, but I think its version of science fiction makes for a better type game than Star Wars or Star Trek.
I was trying to think of ways to change the cookie-cutter format of MMORPGs. One thought is to have the whole avatar system run like KOTOR did it. Basically each alt you create is a part of your crew. You have a captain(main), and then can create an engineer, a pilot, a mercenary for combat, a doctor, a merchant. Yada yada yada. Basically each alt slot would cost in-game finance to purchase and maintain being that the more alts you have the easier it is to run your ship or if you can't afford a ship yet, just be around to help out.
The alt slots should be limited so that a captain can custom tailor them to his preference of play. Want to be a trader? Choose a couple of merchants to allow you access to ports or help keep the prices down when buying and up when selling. Want to be a "pirate" of sorts? Choose more mercenaries. Want to just play it down the middle? Choose a doctor, engineer, pilot, 1 merchant and so on.
Now here is where the KOTOR and unique part really comes in. When an alt is not being played it is an npc. If you are playing as one of your alts your captain(main) and the rest of the alts are npcs. The tricky part is getting the AI just right. You should be able to play all the time as your captain and still be able to rely on your npc crew.
While playing WoW I got a little bored of my main. I did what everyone does and created an alt with different combat and crafting skills. However I hardly play the alt because I still have things to do with my main and playing my alt doesn't benefit my main in any way. This is where my idea is different. Anytime you log-on as an alt instead of a captain you can control the character just as well as the captain. It still can gain skills, take missions, anything you want it to do. Any other player wouldn't even be able to spot an alt from a captain. Let's say you are playing your mercenary alt today. What you could do is take a shuttle from your main ship where the captain and the rest of the crew is doing whatever NPCs do, and fly off to a dangerous underdeveloped world. Once there you can hire yourself out for a couple of combat oriented jobs to raise your firearm or brawling skills. After a good session you can return to your ship. Now the next time you play as your captain and go on a potentially dangerous mission you know your Mercenary will be able to protect you even better. Same goes for the doctor, pilot, merchant, engineer, or even the captain who will be able to choose any skill tree branches to climb same as the alts. No templates. The crew engineer can also have combat skills though it would not be as efficient in maintaining the ship.
Just a couple of final twists. The alt crew members, unlike the Captain, can all suffer perma death. I don't like the idea of a "1 strike-your out" kind of thing, but more like they get a certain amount of lives before they don't come back. This could be based on their chosen skills. Doctor and engineers and merchants have less lives than mercenaries. Since they would most likely stay with the ship on dangerous missions. This forces players into almost the same concerns as perma-death but just with alts. It also adds to a sense of loss.
Lastly both the purchase of alts and ships should be major milestones. A player must decide whether or not to spend his first fortune on a ship to help increase his/her profit so that they can start buying alt/crew slots..... or first buy an alt crew slot and then use the help to increase profit to later buy a ship. Both crew members and ships should be money sinks requiring constant money to keep available. When you can't put money into the ship it dies where-ever it is and you must use your shuttle to go to planets or space stations looking for work to get it going again. Crew members who are not paid sit around in their bunks and won't do anything for you. Their log-in slots are also unavailable until they are paid.
Oh.... and the last major detail....I promise. All player-characters are human, and all "Monsters" are human too. I like Firefly's view of the future where no aliens exist though there may be forms of mutants or insane cannibals for fun.
A few additions I'd make today:
If this wasn't set in the Firefly Universe(though I'd love to keep that franchise alive in some form) I would actually like to see a really amazing character creator that not only allowed absolutely any size and weight, but also allowed for players to create their own humanoid bipedal aliens from the toes or claws to the hair or horns. Obviously the challenge would be in predicting the combos and making sure all forms of clothing and gear fit well any creature a player creates .
I'd also like to add that recently I had what is probably a fairly obvious revelation when it comes to why we haven't seen the Sci-Fi MMORPG of our dreams. It is all about scale. When you are flying around in your spaceship it should feel like it felt to fly a Cargo-Plane or steer a Battleship or even an Aircraft Carrier in Battlefield 1942. They really got the mechanics of it right in making size a big factor. You shouldn't feel like you are controlling the ship with your mouse and keyboard but rather that you are controlling your character controlling the ship. Of course larger ships should require more crew members(the alt system would work very well here) with major natural bonuses to having live players manning weapons or repairs again just like in Battlefield 1942. I feel strongly that open PvP should play a major role in the game but only with a risk and justice system that forces players to police themselves. Everyone who plays an MMORPG wants to be either a hero or a villian and without "Innocents" there really is no such thing. Crafting and Trading should absolutely not require combat skills like in WoW or LOTRO but be more profitable and enjoyable when you decided to devote less or no skills to combat like in UO or SWG and instead rely on other players for protection or your alts. Of course each alt slot you use for a Mercenary or Combat-oriented character leaves less slots for Trader or Diplomatic Alts.
Finally this would only work with a very very high population and likely a single server. I think the Technology exists for this today but it would be costly and a budget like suggested would be necessary. Even if I had the money I would hold off however many years I would have to before the tech was in place to guarantee the game thrived. Unfortunately a lot of franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were launched too soon. Lucas waited nearly 30 years until the tech was right to make Episodes I-III and MMORPG Developers should treat their ideas the same way.
i would point everyone to wow - take the money and bail.
Lmfao....
Well with 50mil granted to make a mmo only, I would create with a team of 300 people a new kick ass action packed mmo "Zion And the Core of the Matrix system" IN Zion (Matrix) mmo you will be able to start out in the real world and fight Machines from Zion base and "vice versa" You will be able to play as Machines or Zions. With in the Matrix system you will be able to play as the Cable Machines, Linked Zions or Sys-Merovingian. As a Merovingian starting out you are a coded reality in the Matrix and you will have vast knowlege of the system over Linked zions and most Cable Machines (The Matrix is Merovingian players home) Linked zions are able to perform the impossible and have crafted codeders from Zion base to help them keep up in the system....... Lmao I am so sorry I kinda got lost in my own mind.
Probably a game based off of the old Island of Kesmai / Legends of Kesmai games.. Maybe even try and get the rights from EA but since they use some of the code that came from those games they are pretty tight about letting it go.
A game based around adventure and fun with pals.
If anything is left over .. Create a FPS game similar to Magestorm / Spellbinder.
I'd look to make a cross between several settings/genre's and take elements from each.
Mad Max, - semi post apocalyptic wilderness with large, open explorable areas, primarily by vehicle, with playable vehicular combat, completely customizable and player repairable vehicles.
Blade Runner/Judge Dredd - Technology concentrated in small, high rise claustrophobic areas with a thin veneer of respectability hiding the brutality present. (small areas of protection, rest is pretty much free for all)
Syndicate - What large corporations remain (NPC), run without many, if any scruples and offer out missions of varying acceptability to anyone willing to accept them with the requisite plus/minus reputations relating to other corporations.
Closed, gated and protected communities running things but occasionally venturing out providing looting opportunites etc... (The proverbial elites still living the high life) ( Vague idea, would need fleshing out)
Buildable habitats (consideration would need to taken re: supplies, resources, location, protection etc... but would effectively allow clans/guilds/corps/whatever to create their own communities, with scavenged tech and bits usable to upgrade existing things with.
A proper sense of distance, but with some semblance of compressed time ( for playabilities sake, but not too quick) coupled with no instant movement of items, people etc... gives the world scale while making one "hub" of everything, virtually unplayable. This spreads out the playerbase some for mutliple reasons, and makes hauling, protecting freight, scavenging, hunting, looting etc.. all have a purpose.
Very little advanced fuel tech still running, so alternative power needed for most things, with fuel being a precious commodity in multiple forms... (hybrid engine types, mini reactor engines etc...) perhaps tie this into a resource gathering part of the game where fuel can be "made" via a tech tree and player research etc...
Just off the top of my head...
----- Pay-to-Win / F2P will be the death of real gaming, Boycott it !!
WHat I want to see happen (yeah $50m wont do it...) is:
Someone builds a "metaverse" system where your identity/persona are persistent, and you acquire "build points" in your various adventures. Build points are spent when you enter a universe (what currently is a separate MMO) and start playing.
Then license out the rights to build universes to development companies, using your API, and abiding by certain restrictions as to how much game play time/effort translates to how many build points players are rewarded with.
So you've been playing for a while, and your account has 500 build points. You create a character for "Gunslinger World", where you want to be a shotgun-wielding bandito. Since gunslinger world uses 50 build points per level, you could create a "naked" character at lvl 10 or spend 400 for a lvl 8 guy and have 100 to spend on gear/skills. You play that for a few days, and your PUG takes down a whole town run by a corrupt marshall and his cronies from the oil company, so you win a bonus of 20 BP in addition to the 30 you'd get just for your time spent there.
You find out your buddies just started playing "Ninja World", though, so you decide to hop in with them. You build a lvl 20 (because NW only uses 15 build points per level) and have 250 points left for skills and gear. They say "dude we need a healer" so you ditch your plan to be a poison shuriken guy and instead make a buddhist monk character with pimp healing powers and a bitchin' quarterstaff that costs 100 bp all by itself.
Once you already have a character in one world, you might have to choose between overwriting that character (converting all his levels, skil levels and gear into raw BP) or start with a 40% bp penalty and keep your original guy.
I think the main reason I want this is after 12+ years of MMOs, if the content isn't aces I get bored pretty quick and want something different.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
Have been working on an idea for a galactic conflict and colonization game with a mix of sandbox and themepark. Develop a good ground game with more action oriented combat featuring elements like manual aiming and less reliance on large amounts of hotbar clicking. Also feature a space component with a mix of tactical and "twitch' based space combat and strategic fleet warfare elements. A lot of customization as far as characters, gear and equipment and ships/vehicles/mounts. A dynamic and complex crafting system in the spirit of SWG. No magic, instead magic is represented by psionics, technological augmentation and scientific/genetic manipulation. World shaping mechanics by means of teraforming of some planets, colonization of planets, control of space territories and player driven economic and social structures. Teraforming would also include mechinacs like trying to introduce new flora and species to environments. PvP elements such ground and space battlegrounds, siege battles, fleet warfare, and control for space and ground resources, locations and territories with a foundation of racial faction and player alliance interaction. Storyline quests, missions, raid events and scenarios, also the capacity to play the game and participate in the gameworld by being a crafter/manufacturer/business minded individual. Character development would be classless and skill/attribute based with players controlling and shaping their character stats/attributes/skills, no levels.
Comments
Same except I would tell them to make it 50 million dollars better.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
While $50 million isn't nothing for a real AAA MMO nowdays...
I would try to get a Wild West MMO going. So many possibilities with city building, crafting, professions, PVP, hunting, politics, gambling games, etc etc. I can't believe it han't been attempted.
Car Wars.
Very little character progression. Make it an action/RPG hybrid. Permadeath (although using the clone options from Car Wars can limit that to some degree) so all you are loosing is goods and money since getting your character back up to caps will be pretty easy. Full PvP with a reputation system that will turn NPC's against you if you raid in their area. Reputation that's account based to limit griefing. Bounties given by law enforcement NPCs as well as PCs.
You could have all the arena's for varrying tournaments. For those not familiar, events are run by the value of your car. Prizes are usually letting you keep your ride if you live through at lower levels to heavy cash prizes for upper tier deuling.
Badlands for people that want gangs/anti gangs as well as space between towns. A RTS model for those interested in 'city' building. Player run companies to make all of the things in the game. No NPC vending. Goods have to get shipped, so truckers have a purpose.
Options for being a pedestrian to help cater to the social RP crowd as well as some last gasp heroics when your ride is totaled.
Ranked ladder for people who are the biggest money winners/kill leaders.
Something along those lines would do it for me.
Left 4 dead style, persistant world survival horror.
EvE Style skill progression in order to encourage people to keep their account active even if they aren't playing a lot.
No Safe zones.
Sandbox elements of building shelters and harvesting resources to build weapons.
No classes. Skill based with FPS controls.
Play as either survivor or zombie. Both start with essentially the same abilities but survivors gain weapon and medic skills and zombies gain regeneration and puke/claws/summon skills.
I think this question was asked in another thread just a day ago but I'll awnser again with a wall of text (smiles). So what I Want to make is a space/ground game. Players will start out in there own personal transport vessel that seats one. You will start out gliding to your factions space station like in ds9. There will be an area where you have to glide to to park your ship which will pack up once you get to this area. After that you will enter into the space station. There will be mutiple decks looking out into the sandbox non instanced world of space from windows in the space station. There will be thousands of player vendors that buy/lease space in there factions space station for you to browse when ever you feel the need. There will be bars for buffs, entertainment and gambling which deal with buffs a bit too, and many other areas for different things in the space station like skills etc. There will be no levels all skills trained by npc/players.
After youve goton all your buffs, for more experienced players and got your fill of gambling or entertainemnt you can go out to go hunting on one of the thousands of planets all enhanced to the most realistic of nature. Players will have a badge system that will be clickable by all players and to see what some one has been up to. There will be thousands of ingame badges, all obtainable no matter when a player joins. There will be a pvp system through networks on each factions space station telling everyone when a war is going to happen and on what planet. All pvp is non instaned and winning factions gain control of that planets defences. Pvp is fast action, large scale no limits unreal tournement 3 style action with skills of course. Player cities will be createable any where and player space stations as well. Players will be able to enter combat in lage scale battles on planets with ships that steam pound land into the ground, a player will see the planet and can just fly into the planet and be in the action of pvp. There will be cameras set up all around the players factions space stations watching there comardes battle it out and be able to bet across faction space stations on the winners/losers. Players will be able to start there own faction and make there own space station after so many members join a single faction and allow them to create a station.
There will be hundreads of dungeons noninstances in the planets around the universe. All with badges to obtain for your character for everyone to see. I dont know how armor could play into all of this, any one got and suggestions? I like mmos that you can just where styles of clothing rather then dressing up a bunch of armor.
Crafting of course plays a big part of the game and many skill trees will evolve around just non combat. Alot of the game will be non combat, in fact the more non combat in games now a days I think the better. ITs truly a hard task to make a game real popular without combat. A good part of this game wouldnt need combat. Combat in this game could almost be like a sport, like soccer or football. Combat dosnt always have to be cruel and nasty to make a game enjoyable.
My best pvp experiences were in Darkfall. So I guess I would enhance that game.
Skillcap like in Mortal Online (or like UO)
Larger world and removal of teleports and portals. A ship needs to sail for at least 10 minutes before hitting land.
Better player housing; adding shops, workshops, inns, arenas (also "illegal" basement fighting pits) and churches.
Revamp of harvesting; adding real (underground) mines and lumberyards.
Adding farming; starvation of cities is possible if you don't supply them with food.
Adding NPC guards, which can be trained and upgraded with better equipment. (removing lighting towers)
Making magic spells really powerfull, but mana regain will be slow. Magic user will have to rest for 5-10 to gain full mana. Mana pots will be removed. In pnp AD&D mages had to rest to restore their used spells. Mages in my game will still have total freedom to cast any spell from their magictree, however they can only cast so many spells over a short time. Spells will be powerfull, mages will be powerfull in groupfights, but caught alone they are a bit more vunerable.
Regional "criminal" flagging. The clan (or faction or alliance) that controls the region can set the rules for when someone is flagged red by their actions. Notorious players will notice that their reputation can follow them to other regions. Especially based on racial kills. Jails will be added as will human branding.
Only one character. However people can have up to 3 henchmen/relatives which can count as alts. However none of these alts can have a grandmaster skill. They can be used as storekeepers, guards etc, but can also be controlled directly by the player.
Mini ingame games; like poker or blackjack, arena events, jousting, archey contests, regatta's and horse/chariot races.
Map making, including of treasure hunting. Clues can be found in ancient books.
Book making (both fluff as skills), recipe creation.
Complex crafting. No player can make everything. Hiring experts to melt the iron ore you mined.
Battle formations. What is a game with a solid shieldwall?
No healing spells and no pots. First aid and medical care will get you back up your feet, but you need some skill in it. Bandages will require at least 30 secs to take effect. Taken too much hits you'll have to receive medical care. Fallen in battle, people can triage you or when no doc is around, they have to carry you off. Even adding stretchers. really finished off, expect not to return right away in battle.
If someone handed me $50 million to do whatever game I wanted, I would hire the best artists and programmers to manifest my vision of life in a field mouse colony. The excitement! The danger! Colony vs. Colony turf wars! Home invasion missions!
Ok, maybe not. I'd probably make a fantasy game based on the setting I've been working on for the last couple of years.
Shadowrun in a Pre-CU SWG mold. With Open world PvP that mattered.
No MMO. I'd pay off my bills, my families bills, get them property so that all they have to pay is real estate taxes and home owners insurance each year. Maybe I'd get a new car, but I'd likely invest in a business venture OTHER than an MMORPG. In my opinion MMORPG's have a really high failure rate.
If I was handed 50 million dollars, why the hell would I make a video game?
Ferrari? check ---- Mansion? check----- Best gaming setup and retire at age 16? check
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...
I posted this here quite a few years ago:
I know this will sound a hek of a lot like Firefly for those of you who have seen the show, but I think its version of science fiction makes for a better type game than Star Wars or Star Trek.
I was trying to think of ways to change the cookie-cutter format of MMORPGs. One thought is to have the whole avatar system run like KOTOR did it. Basically each alt you create is a part of your crew. You have a captain(main), and then can create an engineer, a pilot, a mercenary for combat, a doctor, a merchant. Yada yada yada. Basically each alt slot would cost in-game finance to purchase and maintain being that the more alts you have the easier it is to run your ship or if you can't afford a ship yet, just be around to help out.
The alt slots should be limited so that a captain can custom tailor them to his preference of play. Want to be a trader? Choose a couple of merchants to allow you access to ports or help keep the prices down when buying and up when selling. Want to be a "pirate" of sorts? Choose more mercenaries. Want to just play it down the middle? Choose a doctor, engineer, pilot, 1 merchant and so on.
Now here is where the KOTOR and unique part really comes in. When an alt is not being played it is an npc. If you are playing as one of your alts your captain(main) and the rest of the alts are npcs. The tricky part is getting the AI just right. You should be able to play all the time as your captain and still be able to rely on your npc crew.
While playing WoW I got a little bored of my main. I did what everyone does and created an alt with different combat and crafting skills. However I hardly play the alt because I still have things to do with my main and playing my alt doesn't benefit my main in any way. This is where my idea is different. Anytime you log-on as an alt instead of a captain you can control the character just as well as the captain. It still can gain skills, take missions, anything you want it to do. Any other player wouldn't even be able to spot an alt from a captain. Let's say you are playing your mercenary alt today. What you could do is take a shuttle from your main ship where the captain and the rest of the crew is doing whatever NPCs do, and fly off to a dangerous underdeveloped world. Once there you can hire yourself out for a couple of combat oriented jobs to raise your firearm or brawling skills. After a good session you can return to your ship. Now the next time you play as your captain and go on a potentially dangerous mission you know your Mercenary will be able to protect you even better. Same goes for the doctor, pilot, merchant, engineer, or even the captain who will be able to choose any skill tree branches to climb same as the alts. No templates. The crew engineer can also have combat skills though it would not be as efficient in maintaining the ship.
Just a couple of final twists. The alt crew members, unlike the Captain, can all suffer perma death. I don't like the idea of a "1 strike-your out" kind of thing, but more like they get a certain amount of lives before they don't come back. This could be based on their chosen skills. Doctor and engineers and merchants have less lives than mercenaries. Since they would most likely stay with the ship on dangerous missions. This forces players into almost the same concerns as perma-death but just with alts. It also adds to a sense of loss.
Lastly both the purchase of alts and ships should be major milestones. A player must decide whether or not to spend his first fortune on a ship to help increase his/her profit so that they can start buying alt/crew slots..... or first buy an alt crew slot and then use the help to increase profit to later buy a ship. Both crew members and ships should be money sinks requiring constant money to keep available. When you can't put money into the ship it dies where-ever it is and you must use your shuttle to go to planets or space stations looking for work to get it going again. Crew members who are not paid sit around in their bunks and won't do anything for you. Their log-in slots are also unavailable until they are paid.
Oh.... and the last major detail....I promise. All player-characters are human, and all "Monsters" are human too. I like Firefly's view of the future where no aliens exist though there may be forms of mutants or insane cannibals for fun.
A few additions I'd make today:
If this wasn't set in the Firefly Universe(though I'd love to keep that franchise alive in some form) I would actually like to see a really amazing character creator that not only allowed absolutely any size and weight, but also allowed for players to create their own humanoid bipedal aliens from the toes or claws to the hair or horns. Obviously the challenge would be in predicting the combos and making sure all forms of clothing and gear fit well any creature a player creates .
I'd also like to add that recently I had what is probably a fairly obvious revelation when it comes to why we haven't seen the Sci-Fi MMORPG of our dreams. It is all about scale. When you are flying around in your spaceship it should feel like it felt to fly a Cargo-Plane or steer a Battleship or even an Aircraft Carrier in Battlefield 1942. They really got the mechanics of it right in making size a big factor. You shouldn't feel like you are controlling the ship with your mouse and keyboard but rather that you are controlling your character controlling the ship. Of course larger ships should require more crew members(the alt system would work very well here) with major natural bonuses to having live players manning weapons or repairs again just like in Battlefield 1942. I feel strongly that open PvP should play a major role in the game but only with a risk and justice system that forces players to police themselves.
Everyone who plays an MMORPG wants to be either a hero or a villian and without "Innocents" there really is no such thing. Crafting and Trading should absolutely not require combat skills like in WoW or LOTRO but be more profitable and enjoyable when you decide to devote little or no skill points to combat like in UO or SWG. This forces the player instead to rely on other players for protection or their alts. Of course each alt slot you use for a Mercenary or Combat-oriented character leaves less slots for Trader or Diplomatic Alts that would increase the profit you could make with each Cargo or Smuggling run or any similar non-combat mission.
Finally this would only work with a very very high population and likely a single server. I think the Technology exists for this today but it would be costly and a budget like suggested would be necessary. Even if I had the money I would hold off however many years I would have to before the tech was in place to guarantee the game thrived. Unfortunately a lot of franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were launched too soon. Lucas waited nearly 30 years until the tech was right to make Episodes I-III and MMORPG Developers should treat their ideas the same way.
A marriage between Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, and maybe some Vanguard
Set in the British Isles, with all the Celtic and Arthurian lore, and, like DAoC, possibly pulling in some outer realms like Midgard or some Greek myth perhaps.
Mr. Laserwolf, tear down this wall!
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...
Lmfao....
Well with 50mil granted to make a mmo only, I would create with a team of 300 people a new kick ass action packed mmo "Zion And the Core of the Matrix system" IN Zion (Matrix) mmo you will be able to start out in the real world and fight Machines from Zion base and "vice versa" You will be able to play as Machines or Zions. With in the Matrix system you will be able to play as the Cable Machines, Linked Zions or Sys-Merovingian. As a Merovingian starting out you are a coded reality in the Matrix and you will have vast knowlege of the system over Linked zions and most Cable Machines (The Matrix is Merovingian players home) Linked zions are able to perform the impossible and have crafted codeders from Zion base to help them keep up in the system....... Lmao I am so sorry I kinda got lost in my own mind.
Without thinking about the profit, I'll design an multi faction RvR games.
With profit in mind, I'll have to think alot more, before I decide.
Invest to hopefully aqcuire more.
Study what made or makes each high profile(most played not just most expensive made) MMO good.
Find ways to incorporate what makes those good into a MMO.
Focus much of development into solid gameplay, graphics can always be improved.
Don't go for the obvious and cliche story and lore elements:
Evil wants to destroy the world(where would they live? or rule?)
Good and evil are always easy to distinguish.
etc etc etc
A good idea but perhaps a expensive one and a hard one would be to create 2 distinct graphical packages for the game:
High Quality - Age of Conan, Oblivion, Final Fantasy, Crysis, etc etc
Moderate/Low Profile - World of Warcraft, Runes of Magic or go for a unique art style like Borderlands
I have my own game idea.
I first need a new Game Engine thats smooth like WoW, gameplay wise.
No Collision detection, Click to Move, Auto follow combat, auto turn.
Game world need to than be designed, and the lore afterwards to fit into the world.
World and Models need to be designed together.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I make Vanguard, but only polished from the start or I'd pay half to John Smedley so he'd never be involved in another MMO again.
Arcanum MMO. Enjoy your sandbox steampunk game.
Nah not really, no idea what I would make off hand, but that would be awesome
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
I just re read that post of mine. That pun wasnt intended.
the "No" part was suppose to aply to all of those
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I would try to design a game designer with actual creativity and talent!
but uh, I guess im just dreaming again
Probably a game based off of the old Island of Kesmai / Legends of Kesmai games.. Maybe even try and get the rights from EA but since they use some of the code that came from those games they are pretty tight about letting it go.
A game based around adventure and fun with pals.
If anything is left over .. Create a FPS game similar to Magestorm / Spellbinder.
I'd look to make a cross between several settings/genre's and take elements from each.
Mad Max, - semi post apocalyptic wilderness with large, open explorable areas, primarily by vehicle, with playable vehicular combat, completely customizable and player repairable vehicles.
Blade Runner/Judge Dredd - Technology concentrated in small, high rise claustrophobic areas with a thin veneer of respectability hiding the brutality present. (small areas of protection, rest is pretty much free for all)
Syndicate - What large corporations remain (NPC), run without many, if any scruples and offer out missions of varying acceptability to anyone willing to accept them with the requisite plus/minus reputations relating to other corporations.
Closed, gated and protected communities running things but occasionally venturing out providing looting opportunites etc... (The proverbial elites still living the high life) ( Vague idea, would need fleshing out)
Buildable habitats (consideration would need to taken re: supplies, resources, location, protection etc... but would effectively allow clans/guilds/corps/whatever to create their own communities, with scavenged tech and bits usable to upgrade existing things with.
A proper sense of distance, but with some semblance of compressed time ( for playabilities sake, but not too quick) coupled with no instant movement of items, people etc... gives the world scale while making one "hub" of everything, virtually unplayable. This spreads out the playerbase some for mutliple reasons, and makes hauling, protecting freight, scavenging, hunting, looting etc.. all have a purpose.
Very little advanced fuel tech still running, so alternative power needed for most things, with fuel being a precious commodity in multiple forms... (hybrid engine types, mini reactor engines etc...) perhaps tie this into a resource gathering part of the game where fuel can be "made" via a tech tree and player research etc...
Just off the top of my head...
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Pay-to-Win / F2P will be the death of real gaming, Boycott it !!
WHat I want to see happen (yeah $50m wont do it...) is:
Someone builds a "metaverse" system where your identity/persona are persistent, and you acquire "build points" in your various adventures. Build points are spent when you enter a universe (what currently is a separate MMO) and start playing.
Then license out the rights to build universes to development companies, using your API, and abiding by certain restrictions as to how much game play time/effort translates to how many build points players are rewarded with.
So you've been playing for a while, and your account has 500 build points. You create a character for "Gunslinger World", where you want to be a shotgun-wielding bandito. Since gunslinger world uses 50 build points per level, you could create a "naked" character at lvl 10 or spend 400 for a lvl 8 guy and have 100 to spend on gear/skills. You play that for a few days, and your PUG takes down a whole town run by a corrupt marshall and his cronies from the oil company, so you win a bonus of 20 BP in addition to the 30 you'd get just for your time spent there.
You find out your buddies just started playing "Ninja World", though, so you decide to hop in with them. You build a lvl 20 (because NW only uses 15 build points per level) and have 250 points left for skills and gear. They say "dude we need a healer" so you ditch your plan to be a poison shuriken guy and instead make a buddhist monk character with pimp healing powers and a bitchin' quarterstaff that costs 100 bp all by itself.
Once you already have a character in one world, you might have to choose between overwriting that character (converting all his levels, skil levels and gear into raw BP) or start with a 40% bp penalty and keep your original guy.
I think the main reason I want this is after 12+ years of MMOs, if the content isn't aces I get bored pretty quick and want something different.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
Have been working on an idea for a galactic conflict and colonization game with a mix of sandbox and themepark. Develop a good ground game with more action oriented combat featuring elements like manual aiming and less reliance on large amounts of hotbar clicking. Also feature a space component with a mix of tactical and "twitch' based space combat and strategic fleet warfare elements. A lot of customization as far as characters, gear and equipment and ships/vehicles/mounts. A dynamic and complex crafting system in the spirit of SWG. No magic, instead magic is represented by psionics, technological augmentation and scientific/genetic manipulation. World shaping mechanics by means of teraforming of some planets, colonization of planets, control of space territories and player driven economic and social structures. Teraforming would also include mechinacs like trying to introduce new flora and species to environments. PvP elements such ground and space battlegrounds, siege battles, fleet warfare, and control for space and ground resources, locations and territories with a foundation of racial faction and player alliance interaction. Storyline quests, missions, raid events and scenarios, also the capacity to play the game and participate in the gameworld by being a crafter/manufacturer/business minded individual. Character development would be classless and skill/attribute based with players controlling and shaping their character stats/attributes/skills, no levels.