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How to make a successful MMORPG fueled by player content
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
There have been a few posts recently about how to make a successful virtual world MMORPG that heavily relies on player created content. One of the big points to come out of these discussions was that such an MMORPG must have a feeling of purpose to be successful. This made me start to think about how this could be accomplished, and I think I have an idea for an MMORPG that can accomplish what we have been talking about. This MMORPG works by combining several MMORPG concepts with strategy game concepts to come up with a very meaningful virtual world experience. I will try to present this idea as briefly as possible, so please feel free to ask questions or bring up concerns, I would really appreciate feedback.
Basic Premise: This would be a fantasy MMORPG that takes place on an initially sparsely populated frontier world. At the start of the game, there would be a few NPC controlled “outposts” that provide city functions, but players would be responsible for organizing (guilds) and building the majority of the game’s cities. Each player can have an allegiance to a guild, and thus be associated with one city, or be a freelancer (no home city). The players would also be provided significant in-game tools for doing this, though the building of the cities would be accomplished through entirely in-game means and would require resources. Finally, these cities could be placed anywhere on the map that is outside of “zone of control” (more on this later) of another city; buildings in the cities can be organized in varied ways as well to give variety.
Players would spend the majority of their time in game battling other players for control of resources, fighting monsters, designing/building cities/houses, performing “missions,” or crafting. In addition, every now and again the world would be invaded by some hostile NPC force, and players would have to temporarily unite, or lose much to the invaders. Now you’re probably thinking, this sounds just like every other failed sandbox game out there, what makes it different? Here is a list of features/design-aspects that I think would really differentiate this game:
1. Make conflict meaningful: Cities will have “zones of control” that can be expanded by taking control points throughout the map. When a guild expands its zone of control, it gets a steady income of whatever resources are in that zone in the form of a tax. These resources can be used to improve cities, or provide players with items. In addition, players will feel very connected to their zones of control, because they will be able to see them, and the resources they provide, every time they look at their map, they will be presented in a format similar to how cultural borders look in a Civ game. This should make conflict meaningful because taking over new zones provide real and immediate benefits the players can see.
2. Limit personal loss to the player: Zones of control can be gained and lost, but the game will not be full loot, and actual cities can never be destroyed. This way, players won’t worry about venturing out and losing all their stuff, or having their precious cities and houses razed. Any losses to player conflict WILL be meaningful, but temporary and easily regained through military campaigns.
3. Make quests (missions) meaningful: All of the inter-player conflict that goes on will create many objectives that players will want to accomplish. For example, one guild may want to destroy a lumber mill controlled by another guild, or build a lumber mill in a recently acquired zone of control to produce resources. These objectives can be offered to other players in the form of open contracts that will be rewarded with gold/items/whatever. A guild member, or freelancer can take one of these contract and then they basically have a quest at that point. In addition, the quest actions of one player will sometimes create spontaneous quests for other players. For example, if one group of players have a mission to destroy a lumber mill, the players of the guild that owns the lumber mill will get a notification to defend the lumber mill once it is attacked, which will be like a quest to them directly in opposition of the attacking players.
I have a lot more ideas in my head, but I won’t say them now so that someone actually reads this
. So if you survived the read, what do you think? I think that a game with these design principals would be very interesting, it would basically provide players with a reason to play that is completely propagated by the community, eliminating the need for scripted content that dominates current MMORPGs.Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Comments
Make actions meaningful. Sounds like a good idea.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Won't work.
Most players don't care about meaningful this & that, particular if that requires work for them.
Most want to just jump in and fight. That is why features like dungeon finder tool is extremely popular.
And i won't trust other players to create content. Heck, if you think it is hard to find someone to organize a raid, now you want people to actually create quests?
I agree that most players just want to get involved right away, what you're talking about is basically accessibility. That's actually one of the core goals that I would want this game to achieve. I would want this game to have the in-depth PvP conflict that all sandbox fans clamor for, but to make it accessible to all players like a theme park is. This will allow them to just "jump in the fight."
For example, once a player joins a guild, they will be able to pull up the map and very easily see what their guild controls, where conquests are possible, what resources they are getting etc. This will make it clear what they need to do to get more territory, and will make the benefits of said conquest very clear as well.
As for the quests, I'm not talking about players making complex quests. I'm referring to something more like this...
The leaders of a guild will have certain options related to spending guild resources that regular members do not. One of these options will be to create "contracts" that other players can fulfill that will benefit the guild. Examples of said contracts could be:
1. Destroy enemy assets.
2. Build friendly assets.
3. Reclaim an area from monsters.
4. Assist in the assault of another guild's territory.
To show how creating these contracts would work, picture this. The guild wants to destroy an enemy lumber mill to cripple their ability to build siege weapons in the area. They lack the manpower to do it themselves, so they decide to create an open contract to do this. To create the contract, all they need to do is open the world map, click on the enemy lumber mill, select an option like "destroy" and then assign a monetary amount from the guild treasury that will be paid to the fulfiller of the contract upon completion.
Players could then view open contracts and move to fulfill them for cash. The contracts would remain open until they are fulfilled.
So my idea would be to make "player created quests" an easy, and organic part of the game. Players don't need to make a story, they just need to hire someone to do something that they need done. The system would support this and make it easy.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
If you give them the right tools they will band together and work as a team to make more meaningful content.
F'realz.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I like where you are going with your idea but you always seem to stop after describing a mechanic. You have not meantioned any real goals for players/guilds. Here are a few points I would like you to address:
- Define meaningful. If you cannot destroy other cities then there is no meaning to fighting. If you can destroy them, there is meaning but noone would play because of the fear of losing everything. So far no dev team has really managed to create 'meaningful actions' other than destroying what someone else has built. You talk about area control and gaining taxes. Why would a guild, or I, a single player, want this? What are the taxes for? You wrote "For example, one guild may want to destroy a lumber mill controlled by another guild". Yet again, why would a guild want this to happen? If its just to fuel the next conflict, then you have created a cycle of conflict just for the sake of fighting and without meaning.
- How are you going to balance out different sized guilds? If you have GoonSwarm on one side with 3000+ players, how can you compete with your "little" friendly 50 player guild? Will it just be another numbers game (drone wars...) or can a single player actually make a difference? A good way would be to have weapons / skills that scale on enemy numbers in a certain area or to increase logistic costs for attacking a city exponentially per player.
- Guilds creating quests seems fine, but I think you are underestimating the amount of quests needed to keep an MMO population happy. Add in players abusing the system for personal gain (leeching guild resources) and you will end up with a system where quests are only made for players in your inner circle. You write: "if one group of players have a mission to destroy a lumber mill, the players of the guild that owns the lumber mill will get a notification to defend the lumber mill once it is attacked". That sounds very time consuming. What can casual players who just want to login and play something easy for an hour do in your game?
- If you want players to create content, you have to reward them. Do not underestimate how much time and effort is needed to create top notch content. There is a reason why 75% of a dev team is made up of artists and game world / quest designers. Why should I use up my after work hours and weekend free time to create a part of a city? Especially if it can be destroyed?
That should be it for now ;-)
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Most players care about meaningful content but have very different ideas of what is 'meaningful'. A pure-PvE player will not consider PvP meaningful and a pure-PvP player sees little meaning in PvE. A casual player will see a lot of meaning in short intense fights and will see no real reason to engage in long, dull campaigns.
Not everyone sticks to just PvE or PvP throughout the entire game.
I wonder...Is having static indestructible forts that can be built on extensively with useful destructable parts considered to be meaningful PvP?
Thanks for the response Inf! You bring up a lot of good concerns, I have ideas for some of these concerns, but I didn't want to make my original post too long. Anyway, here is how I would address those concerns.
First Concern About Meaning:
First, let me define how I see cities as being different from the rest of the world. In this game, there will be two types of land, cities, or frontier. Cities are constructed by players and basically meant to be a "safe haven" where players can socialize, they will not be PvP enabled. In a city, you can build things like:
- Player homes
- Shops
- Special magical research centers that provide new abilities
- "Trophy" buildings to show off wealth and power (statues, fountains, huge pointless towers, etc.)
But to build all of these, you will need resources. That's where the frontier comes in. Frontier lands are untamed, resource rich lands. They can be adventured in OR claimed by a guild. When a frontier is claimed, the guild can "develop" the frontier land to make it provide resources, they can also build defenses to help keep the frontier in their hands. So examples of buildings you can build in a frontier are:
- Lumber Mills/Stone Quarries/Mines: All produce resources for the guild. These resources will be automatically collected and placed into the guild treasury for use in developing the guild's city or frontiers. They will cost gold to keep in operation.
- Towns: Small town inhabited by NPCs that pay taxes, so it generates gold for the guild.
- Defenses: Guard towers, Keeps, Castles, Moats, etc. Help the guild stop enemies from taking their frontiers.
So to answer your question about meaning, the basic point of the game is to capture frontier lands which provide resources so that you can develop your city. Developing your city will be an extremely long process (supplemented with expansions). You can basically build it from a small village, to a huge metropolis complete with cool special buildings like research laboratories that provide guild members with special abilities and items. Players would also get personal rewards for the territory their guild controls (like a wage almost).
One potential problem with this is that cities will eventually get so built up, that the game may lose meaning. But maybe this could be combated if some city buildings required "maintenance" in the form of resources, and would decay if the guild's frontier lands were not producing enough resources.
2. Balancing the Guild Sizes
Difficult question to answer! I like your idea. Another idea would be to basically give larger guilds smaller personal returns. So have the rewards for controlling territory split up between guild members. As such, a member of a 300 person guild would get 1/10th of what a member of a 30 person guild would get from controlling the same amount of frontier. Or maybe just hard cap guild size.
3. Making Enough Quests For Everyone / Casual Gamers
This is also a potential stumbling block. If there aren't enough quests for players, then players will start to fight over quests and it will become ridiculous. I think this can be addressed in part by making sure that guilds are always getting enough gold in the form of taxes and always have ample reason to make quests. For example, if we make it so enemy guilds can only build siege engines in frontiers where they have a lumber mill, then there is a huge incentive to either destroy/defend said lumber mill. If the lumber mill is destroyed, the guild can't wage war on adjacent territories!
I think that monsters can also help with this. If we make it so monsters will frequently try to attack guild assets in frontiers, then guilds will always have an incentive to defend their assets, or clear monsters out of them. So basically it comes down to giving guilds enough resources to create lots of quests, and giving them enough reasons to do so.
If this is done right, I think it will help casual gamers as well. A casual gamer will just log in, look at the open contracts, and see like 5 or 6 things they can do. Defend this mine...clear out these monsters...destroy this stone quarry...
Also for casual gamers, we can work to make these quests very accessible to them. Maybe have it so one player on a quest to destroy a building can lay down a "beacon" that allows a certain number of other players to instant travel in to help. It will allow casuals to just get right into the game.
4. Making it Desirable to Make Content
I think the key to this is making content generation not be such a chore. The objective of this game is to have players generate content for other players completely organically by doing what they want to do anyway. For example, wouldn't you want to decorate your own house? Show off your personal wealth by building a fountain? Destroy that lumber mill that the enemy guild is using to build a ballista that will destroy your pretty keep?
I'm basically not talking about players designing levels here using a world builder, all the tools will be in game stuff. I think we should allow players to be creative with their decorations and house layouts, maybe move around walls and such, but not to the point where it becomes like work.
Let me know what you think, thanks again!
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
What a player finds meaningfull in a game depends on where they fall on the PvE vs PvP and casual vs hardcore spectrum (and a number of other factors) with people at the differnt extremes having little in common with each other.
Personally I find territorial control PvP in MMORPGs not very meaningfull simply because any progression in it is so easily lost due to out-of-game factors (eg exams or vacation). I put way more importance on personal achievements in situations where I get to test myself out against a tough situation and prevail.
I also get more meaning from cooperative rather than competive challenges so I would get great satisfaction out of building up the castle but not really care about having one destroyed.
All you need is a pure player economy. The game design self repairs and content self develops with the right set of tools and additional tools added. All you need are goals and rules. Without that, too much time will be spent in fixing the design and exploiting the design for any natural player made content to be vialble.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I posit another kind of player content, let me know your thoughts.
A fully-fleshed out world where anyone can come and play with quests, an economy, guilds, the whole she-bang except the focus has been to make smart AI. Why?
First, better NPC interaction. NPCs will remember you, your choices on quests, etc. and react accordingly.
Second - and more importantly - so that you (the player) can build your own stories inside the game using the NPCs and items. You can then make these stories available to friends or for sale to other players. This isn't a script a la Ryzom, but having to work with the characteristics of the NPCs and the actions of the PCs in any tale created. And the content is completely optional.
Does it sound interesting?
From your point of view its sounds like "meaningful" means mostly forward progress, as long as you personally have a hand in what is accomplished. PvE always is more meaningful because it is always moving forward. PvP is less meaningful because there are setbacks. But I'm not sure I get why building something and getting it destroyed is more meaningful than territory control. Is it that with territory control you can't "leave your mark" or your progress isn't recorded? I would love to solve this "How to make PvP meaningful" problem.
I was hoping this would be a thread about UGC, but its really just about making another PvP focused game like Darkfall. I guess that passes for "player content" although the "content" part is debatable since its mostly just drama and ganking.
I would like to point out that I am an engineer by profession so I am naturally inclined to building bigger and better things. If what I built is to be destroyed, I want this to be a test of how good I was at building it and to make room for an even bigger version.
Territorial control tends to be about fighting over the same piece of land over and over so in essence it is about rebuilding the same thing over and over in the same form. At some point you run out of new ways to do it and you are just going through the motions without any new challenges.
Is there really any point to trying to make PvP meaningful when it exists solely between player-made guilds? I can manage to care more about whether BLU can steal RED's flag in a TF2 match than I could possibly care about defending a strategic lumber mill for the glory of Defiance or Asylum or Iron Guard or Swords of Anarchy or Covenant or Fragment or Divine Providence or Malice or Bonded by Blood or Insolence or Bad Touch or Ace of Spades or Phalanx or Retribution or any of the other endless stream of same-sounding uninspired megaguild names that crop up in every server of every game.