My perfect MMORPG would focus on realism more than anything. It would also have a huge array of tools for roleplayers and be pretty much targetted at that audience.
Combat
Combat would be very different to other MMORPG's. There would be no health bar at all but would focus mainly on realistic injuries. For example, if you get stabbed in the arm than that arm is now useless, you cannot hold a sword or do anything until it is healed. Players would have to rely on armour and spells to protect themselves and have a skill set for specific areas. Combat would be similar to Skyrim with the option of third person or first person. The weather and environment would also play a big part, for example heavy fog would effect your Accuracy skill and Ice would cause you to slip and fall at random.
Also there is no level invincibilty either, if you are a player who has maxed out his Swordsman skill and is equipped with high quality armour and epic items great. But if a newbie comes up to you with his starting dagger and you are AFK, if he stabs you in the face, YOU WILL DIE!!!
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
Fantasy in an absoutely huge world. I would want it so big that you could walk for ages and still be in the middle of no where.
Crafting
All items can be crafted and I want tons of items from weapons and swords to books, quills, bed pans and bowls. I want the lot. Crafting is complex and time consuming depending on what you build. If you are making a quill than yeah that will take a couple of minutes. If your building a house than that will take a few hours. Everything has a life expectancy and decays over time, the length of this depends on the crafters skill, the quality of material and the quality of tools you are using to make the product with. Items can be repaired but only by crafters and even after a lot of repairs the item will eventually break beyond repair. It wont disappear so you can still use it as an ornament or whatever.
Dungeons
Instances wont exist in my MMORPG, I think any scenario that takes a player out of the real world defeats the point of playing in an online world game. You might as well just play a console game on multiplayer.
Dungeons will exist but in the open world, the world will be so big however that it will take time to get to them and each one will be different, requiring different people with different skills to complete. For example, some dungeons will hold mobs resistant to magic and so range and melee attacks would be better suited and vice versa. Dungeons would also change, and mobs would move to different locations randomly from where they were last killed.
Economy
The economy will be completely player driven and rely heavily on not just the quest and loot drivers but players who want to run taverns, shops and gambling dens. All will work to support the other so there is never a gap in the economy. Inflation will be handled by item decay.
Player Levels/Skills
Each player gains skill points when you complete a certain task. For example if you use your sword and kill a dude that might get you a skill point in Swordsmanship. If you craft a beverage in your tavern that will get you a skill point in Brewing. These skill points are allocated at set times and cannot be grinded, for example you cannot bot your character to kill boars for hours and then come back an expect to be maxed out. You will get a skill point but there is a rest period after each point is given.
There is a maximum number of points you can obtain in each field and then you will be known as a 'Skill Master'. You could even complete a quest and go on to become a 'Skill Professor' and have the ability to teach other in that field. This unfortunately locks your skill field to maximum meaning most other skill fields will not be obtainable as you can only have a set number of skill points.
Questing
Questing must be dynamic and the same quest should never be in the same place again. The quests should move about the world and change depending on location. For example, if Mr James Bond wants me to find a gold staff from the local cave then great I do it for him but then he should never ask me or anyone else for that matter to do the same thing again. He should also remember what quests I have done for him and randomly bring up the fact I did that, maybe even offer me a drink or something to eat.
Quests should be part of a game but not the dominate part of it like mosts MMORPG's.
Player Customization
Player characters should be fully customisable. You can change pretty much anything and everything about your character but within reason to your chosen race. For example, if your human you cannot give yourself Orc style teeth or Elf like ears.
Player Housing
Houses can be built anywhere except in key areas like on roads, on top of spawn points, mountains or anywhere where there is already primary interaction. Houses range from small huts to large fortresses. Each house can be decorated and equipped to how they like and each item gives a benefit in some way shape or form. For example, a bed of X quality will give you a Y amount of rest bonus. A cooking pot with X quality will give you Y extra skill points to your cooking skill.
Players will also be able to hire vendors and guards to protect their property.
Raiding
Raiding shouldn't be about a gear grind, in fact gear will only provide a bonus to your abilities and not be the end all like most MMORPG's. Players will have something called chronicles which will sort of tell the story about your character, when you complete a certain raid your chronicles will record it. You can decide to be good or bad, if you kill monsters than your chronicles will record you as hero and will be highlighted on news boards across the world. However, if you kill everything, innocents too then you will be the bad guy and your chronicle will record you as such.
PvP
There will be three server types PVE where PVP is completely turned off. Normal where PVP is on and RP Normal which is the same as normal but exclusively for RP. There will also be designated safe zones in major locations, if for example you attack a major city than players can go to safe bunkers that are heavily guarded and where you cannot be attacked. Guards will also be very difficult to kill and will have horns they blow to attract the attention of other guards.
And theres more
A few other things too:
Bounty Hunting for people who have killed you will be available.
Notice Boards and News Papers will highlight major events done by players.
NPC have opinions on you and other players effecting how they interact with you.
Weather effects you, if it is raining get in side or you could catch a cold. Not good!!!
Mining requires a mining camp and isn't instant as is other resource gathering.
Huge amount of emotes, including group emotes that allow you to do the action precisely at the same time.
Camps for those who don't want a home.
Player Cities where people can vote in a mayor.
Random events throughout the world ranging from small (serial killer in the area), medium (flooding that effects food and resource prices) and large (a plague that can even kill players).
Believe it or not buy dying should be rare and there will be severe penalities if you do die.
No global or area chat channels, you can only talk to people near you. You even cannot chat to other guild members unless they are within proximatey. A guild newspaper and notice board will comminicate news and information.
Let me guess, you also write letters where you change the language used in every sentence, so only a language genius has any chance of understanding what the hell you are talking about ?
Why exactly am I supposed to know and have played all these games ? Most entries are completely meaningless, even if I HAVE played them, because you dont actually say what the hell you are talking about exactly.
You didn't aim that at me but I get your point.
Originally posted by free2play
Originally posted by spaceport
ArcheAge + SWTOR's questing + Tera's Combat.
Add Tera Graphics, Armor skins, EVE Inventory system
- ArcheAge is a sandbox world - You cut downt he tree, you make the plank, you get some nails, you build a house. You plant a garden, you pave a road. Its actionable.
- SW-TOR Questing. Honest? I don't want this. Questing is static and creates trails of one time content. I'd rather have event quests you can participate in or ignore. Level in the open world, make plenty of mobs for sandbox grinding.
- Tera Combat. Tera is using crosshair targeting rather than lock a target and auto attack or mash specials untill its dead. I don't expect it will feel any different after I've killed 500 mobs but it will make macro farming a bitch so I'm all in.
- Tera Graphics The game has incredible scenery, very vivid at a distance and up close. Everything glitters and gleams. Its a fantasy world.
- Tera Armor skins Spelling it out: I WANT BEWBIES. Smexy, bad ass girls in skimpy armor and male chars that all look like Van Damme and Vin Diesel. I want it to be Hollywood.
- EVE Inventory EVE has infinite Inventory. You can carry weight and volume based on your ship and can store as much stuff as you can make room for. In a fantasy world if I want to cart logs around, I need a cart. Volume matters but if I have a 40 foot warehouse I can pack it full of junk from now 'till it is full. If I have a basement under a castle and I want I can have 500 swords and 80 cord of lumber out back.
I don't think there ever can be a perfect MMO seeing as everyone has a different opinion on whar they would consider to be perfect. Even people who love the MMO they are playing have things they'd like to see changed about it.
For example, one of the things id like to see in an MMO again is socialising and a sense of community rather than people just running around grinding with limited or zero interaction.
Asheron's Call's Loot system, Armor Dyes, Patron/Vassal system (without chains)
Horizons Crafting and Class mixing, ability to be every class on 1 char if you want, but exp scales exponentially hard the more you mix, some skills cross classes
Rifts soul trees, mixed with asheron's call's exp spending, mixed with Horizons
EQ2's AA earning system, EQ's AA spending availability
SWG Economy
Horizons World Building
Asheron's Call's Dungeons
Asheron's Call's PVP
Original Asheron's Call's spell learning component, trial and error was epic
If you dont mind, i would like to add Asherons Call crafting, because i think it goes perfect with their random loot system.
for people who dont know what it is, you dont actually make the armor or weapon from scratch. you gather up random loot off mobs and salvage them into their base material. so for example if you have a sword that is made from steel you salvage it and get 5 steel. and steel could be used to increase armor rateing, so you would then use your crafting skill to apply it to your armor piece and raise the armor rateing on it.
all items are made of somthing it could be steel, copper, sunstone what ever. and each thing in the game has some kind of stat increase it could be armor rateing, attack speed, acid protection so on and so on, but you can only applay i think 5 times to a item. so you must choose what is best for your items.
it actually makes crafting worth it in the long run, you can " tinker " any item you loot and since its Random loot you never know what your going to get. there is no " best ever " weapon and armor out there. you could allways find somthing just a little better and once you get it you will want to tinker with the stats and make it even better.
Guess who? While you're doing that, I'll put my thoughts below.
People just don't carry the psyche to handle any game where everything you see and do is on the border of epic. In the orignial SWG, I didn't see the value in harvesting for hours or even days just to find out 100 other people did the same thing and flooded the market with raw materials that I no longer can afford to harvest. While this might seem closer to the real world, it put me in a position to decide if my time was well spent or just wasted. In another mmo, the ghetto harvest became a main theme. Hundreds of people were flooding the market with raw materials, and while that is real and has some value, it wasn't my idea of fun.
I play mmos to release stress, communicate with others across the globe, to share ideas and thoughts that may or may not involve the game itself. One might say that I use mmogs to the extreme extent that they truly represent... a visual chat line.
I wasn't picking on the og about crafting. I agree that certain items, when achieved or earnestly acquired have rooted sentiment. In one mmog, I've hoarded my starting gear.... a tunic and a rickety staff. Players will always find ways to improve games but what we need to know is that developers have business plans that are sometimes years into the future (which is a good thing for any business)... "What do you to be doing in five years?"
The smart developer will pay close attention to it's subscribers, continuously improve their own product while keeping an open eye and mind on their competitors. This is the success of Blizzard. I remember how excited I was to get home and open my 5.25" disk of World of Warcraft. It was the end-product of a written book. It was crude, simple, and easy to play. Where has that changed in the Cataclysm?
WoW has made life so simple, a five year old can pick it up and master the mechanics in a very short time. One of the simplest and yet coolest features in WoW is the ability to jump... that's right! Jumping. A house pet can learn to tap the spacebar after a given period of time... what else can I say, "keep it simple -that is the mainstream of this world".
There is no perfect MMOG, afterall, imperfect people play these games. So I leave you with this question, if the town moved away, would there still be a town idiot? I think so.
Good thoughts and ideas you have. It would surprise me if any developer read it.
I would want to have a highly competitive PVP MMO in equivalence to Guild Wars 2 (forming social servers -> forming a highly competitive Environment within a server) The idea comes from WOW where you are supposed to be put up against another bad side. But the problem here is that you simply cannot fail, you are the hero, nevertheless. If you are Horde you have the feeling that Alliance is losing and for the Alliance player it is just the other way round. The only competitive aspects are instanced PVP or open PVP which I think is a bad joke because it is simply, gank or get ganked in most cases.
Well it is maybe not everybody's case but i think there are alot of people that agree with the rough concept.
Combat
The combat system should be simple to learn and easy to master, few skills available with a lot of customization and skills, abilities and stuff are dependent of how you are armed (both armor and weapon) It would be just in MOBA like LOL, so that the stuff that you wear defines your strategy not your class.
Also I want alot of Movement, for example Heavy Armor have combat variables (magical equip;-) ) that makes you slower but tougher. This would incorporate mounted combat, this is a feature I see alot potential. But it would be candy...^^
Skills should be similar to LOL positioning and timing is the key not perfect rota or Build setup...
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
Candy, I like candy but I do not need it. What I mean is that I do not care the concept works for every setting where there is a conflict between at least 2 factions (I like 3^^)
And well if I could choose one than it would be steampunk with fantasy elements such as magic or fantasy races.
Crafting
I'm not sure how to put this because I never really thought of a good system... it is important for economy so I let others decide, nobody develops MMOs on his own...
Dungeons
Well I always liked those so I am just happy with the best from the business^^
Economy
Crafting?
Player Levels/Skills
> Combat >
Questing
GW2 + PVP = Awesome. Never had a game where you could fail... This is really interesting idea (normally you win ALL THE TIME, ALL THE QUESTS)
Player Customization
Candy...
Player Housing
Candy... Wtf this is a game I want gameplay its nice for leisure time between gameplay sessions but not so important 4me.
Raiding
Very interesting lets think about something new: PUG Raiding + Big Groups(200+) + PVP + Event based + Instanced part of a zone + Context based + Set raid times +++
I would also include normal raids for our elite raider friends.
Overall this is an idea that I had thought of a few times already but never really came up with a solid conceot
PvP
I don't have to add more, it is the purpose of this game...
I wanted to be more precise or in detail but I have to go now...
For the record I don't there is a perfect MMO and I think there are many types of games that could be fun.
But these things are pretty fun to do so,
Setting
I would like to see a MMO set in a universe similar to the Hellboy comics, that is a more modern fantasy environment with influence from streampunk, horror and pulp comics.
2 factions one more magic oriented and the other more tech oriented.
Player Skills/Levels
I use a character progression system like CoH, in the sense that you have a main power or ability set, like a class that defines what your character is all about but you also have secondary and tertiary ability sets that you can pick which are open to everyone. Primary to tertiary goes from major to minor.
For example
Primary: Pyromancy
Secondary: Pistols, Brawling
Tertiary: Lockpicking, Perception, Lore
Primary ability sets are major sets that define your character, they give you a central mechanic that you use and in a way is your class. Secondary are more specific they are used to suppliment your primary selection. Tertiary are support abilities like lockpicking that offer special advantages to a player or group.
Character builds consist of abilities and perks. You get more abilities and perks than you can use at once so you have to swap them out. Leveling up gives you a talent point which you can spend in one of the talent tree type ability sets. You unlock new abilities and perks this way.
Traditional stats are gone. Your character bonuses are determined by the perks you have equiped. The only base increase in stats is from spending talent points which you get from leveling up and give you a small base power increase per point/level.
Items are very focused, you don't get stat boosting items. Items instead pertain to the exact hing they are used for, a blade gives bonuses to blade abilities, guns for gun abilities etc. all ability sets have items associated with them, so a pyromancer might use a lighter as a focus for his powers and the lighter gives bonuses only to the pyromancers fire abilities.
Character race matters in the sense that eac race has some passive abilities and an active ability, all characters have a special ability slot dedicated to their racial ability and racial passives unlike other perks are always active and unswappable. There are multiple choices for racial passives and active abilities per race so the player can pick what their racial passive and active ability is.
Character Customization
I believe in letting players look how they want, so I follow the City of Heroes philosophy. Your selection is tempered through based on you racial and ability choices, only elves can wear elven clothing fo example, or only characters that use the brute ability set can make their character really muscular. So you can look how you want but you have to look the part.
Combat
Since it is this modern dark fantasy setting, the combat system needs to be able to handle melee, ranged and an assortment of powers.
I prefer more action oriented systems. I also follow the Guild Wars philosophy of giving players fewer abilities. I would use a 3rd person action combat system similar to DCUO. Although you only have about 6-8 abilities, abilities are also context sensitive, having different effects in different situations, so in stealth your abilities change, switching weapons changes abilities etc. You also have different "stances" you can switch between, these are like switching roles as they alter your abilities and stats. So you only have a few abilities at a time but over all you have many different abilities you can use.
Combat uses teams roles based on offense, defense and support. It is NOT tank healer and DPS. Offense is about killing power, offense includes damage but also abilities like snares and charges, abilities focused on catching and killing enemies. Defense focuses on protection, not tanking, this includes knockbacks, shields and turrets to deter enemies and protect allies. Support does exactly that supports via buffs debuffs scouting, and healing regen. You can't be a traditional healer, you can use health regen buffs to help allies heal faster but cannot heal people directly. Every character has an interuptable self heal.
Crafting
I don't like crafting being something only the most dedicated, ie boring, of people can use. I am also not a fan of forcing people to depend on crafters, like not allowing people to loot items or making items break.
Everyone can create, customize and upgrade their own gear this is done without the need to level up crafting in the traditional sense all you need is the appropriate tools, this includes stuff like hammers and stationary things, etter items require better tools. You do pick a style of crafting, like tech or magic items but you can make any type of item in the game via crafting.
The interdependency of crafting comes from materials, everyone needs materials to make items and items require materials from multiple gathering skills to make. You can only learn one gathering skill, so you have to buy materials from other gatherers to make an item. Gathering isn't simply like mining ore and smelting it, you can process materials in a variety of ways and use different techniques and ingredients to give the material different properties, ie crafting matrials.
So in summary, everyone can craft everything. Crafting requires materials. Gatherers harvest and "craft" these materials to be used or sold.
Economy
I would use an auction house system becase they are really good for listing and findig items. One change is the inclusion of multiple auction systems, like trade groups, these groups have seperate auction system so you have to look at each auction system seperately you can buy and sell between so their is oppotunity to play the market more and cross factional trade via a third party, for instance goblins may have their own black market auction system.
Player Housing
Simply put players can have air ships (zeppelins) that they can travel with. Airships exist in an overworld version of the game world, that is the skies over the game world, so you can't fly you zeppelin like 10 ft. off the ground. Zeppelins can only land in places with zeppelin docs so it isn't like a flying mount. Zeppelins can be owned by any number of people and can be customized inside and out. Zeppelins can also be used in guild warfare as zeppelins can have guns mounted to them and can be boarded. Zeppelins come in a variety of sizes and styles with different stats as well as the items you equip to zeppelins such as guns and engines.
Questing
In the open world everything is a public quest. There are a variety of events that could happen that can be dynamically generated using the template,
Who
What
Where
The mob type determines the what and where, trolls act different from raiders. Events respond to player actions, one event chains to another based on cause and effect and some randoness. This is like the GW2 model I believe. Includes a LFG tool.
Dungeons
Dungeons are like flashpoints in SWTOR, highly story driven instanced missions where players can effect the outcome by making choices. Instanced does not mean in a cave or building but also in a private instanced version of the open world. Raids are just big dugeons. Includes a LFG tool
PvP
Open, open PvP is like dynamic events for PvP, they are dynamically spawned based on population, area and number of people, they can also change based on player behaviour. For instance a zone with one side ganking the other could lead to a cat and mouse style PvP event that plays on the unbalanced nature of open PvP and if the other side gets more people the PvP event changes. Open PvP equalizes everybodies levels. There is a LFG tool for open PvP.
Instanced, instanced PvP is like dungeons for PvP, these are more tightly balanced, like battlegrounds. There are a veriety of game types ranging from capture the flag to DoTA style games. Joined by entering a PvP que and when the the que pops a transport vessel comes and flys you to the warzone, like griffons in WoW. Instanced PvP equalizes everybodies levels.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
futile exercise. what one perosn think is perfect mmo is completly diffrent from another players. People can give what they think would be perfect and the next person absolutly hate it.
Curious on this perfect MMO, but how do you/We, the developers, plan to make raids interestings for people to want to do if, if their is no reward for doing so. Would there be a LFD tool for raids to make grouping easier? Because in WoW I found it hard to get people together to run lower level raid dungeons when the reward was mean less. Also how will you balance out PvP? What, use FFA PvP? How you plan to make PvP balanced and fun for the majority, and not just the niche group that likes current gen FFA PvP?
Mix of both. Allow the user a chance to choose which of the two they prefer. For server reasons, RPG combat works well. It's also preferred by a lot of people who have kids or play while doign other things. I think it may also help prevent burn out. However, it also gets old. While True FPS and RPG toggles is not really viable, a faked approach which gives a faked fps approach (similar to Tabula Rasa or Hellgate) could allow for a toggle.
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
I prefer sci-fi or post-apocalyptic. I also enjoy fantasy but it's just been done so many times. I think with Sci-fi you can put users in so many different settings that it is my overall favorite.
Crafting
Most importantly I think don't want crafters to feel forced into combat. Some randomized results though is also important, and crafting items being comparable with the best raid items is also important. Rather than getting items strictly from raids, give crafting components that can produce great items.
Dungeons
Open world with mutating elements to duplicate the advantages of instances in an open world setting. This does of course mean that more content must be created, but it will keep the world interesting.
Economy
I loved UO's fluctuating economy, and SWG's player driven economy. I think those are both good starts. Items must decay and destroy though to prevent mudflation. No more expansions, instead give a steady flow of free updates, and as a result of that no more giant leaps in item quality for each expansion to get players to upgrade.
Player Levels/Skills
Skills based with special abilities gained as you skill up.
Questing
I'm a huge fan of generated quests and epic scale. I think generation is the way to go because you can provide hundreds of templates rather than hundreds of quests. Then users can reuse those templates, but with randomized steps, npcs, etc. Quests should be more than just a bunch of variants on kill x or deliver y. Players should be required to think sometimes.
Player Customization
Customization is important, but I don't think it's one of the most important things. Having different looks is great. Being able to dye them is also great. But I care more about gameplay than I do cosmetics.
Player Housing
Player created cities and sieges. Give players benefits for contributing to cities.
Raiding
Generated boss abilities and random raid mobs is important. Spawn some of them through events such as public quests. Raids should be fun things that players stumble into and need to solve rather than something you study on a web site then gather 20 people together to do based on premade strategies.
PvP
I'm fine with Open World or Faction based PvP. But griefing style gameplay should not be encouraged. Give PvP a meaning, and reward players for participating in the intended way. For example sieges allow for guild based warfare. That's fine. But long term users sitting in town killing new players for no reason other than to ruin their day should be strongly discouraged.
Comments
My perfect MMORPG would focus on realism more than anything. It would also have a huge array of tools for roleplayers and be pretty much targetted at that audience.
Combat
Combat would be very different to other MMORPG's. There would be no health bar at all but would focus mainly on realistic injuries. For example, if you get stabbed in the arm than that arm is now useless, you cannot hold a sword or do anything until it is healed. Players would have to rely on armour and spells to protect themselves and have a skill set for specific areas. Combat would be similar to Skyrim with the option of third person or first person. The weather and environment would also play a big part, for example heavy fog would effect your Accuracy skill and Ice would cause you to slip and fall at random.
Also there is no level invincibilty either, if you are a player who has maxed out his Swordsman skill and is equipped with high quality armour and epic items great. But if a newbie comes up to you with his starting dagger and you are AFK, if he stabs you in the face, YOU WILL DIE!!!
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
Fantasy in an absoutely huge world. I would want it so big that you could walk for ages and still be in the middle of no where.
Crafting
All items can be crafted and I want tons of items from weapons and swords to books, quills, bed pans and bowls. I want the lot. Crafting is complex and time consuming depending on what you build. If you are making a quill than yeah that will take a couple of minutes. If your building a house than that will take a few hours. Everything has a life expectancy and decays over time, the length of this depends on the crafters skill, the quality of material and the quality of tools you are using to make the product with. Items can be repaired but only by crafters and even after a lot of repairs the item will eventually break beyond repair. It wont disappear so you can still use it as an ornament or whatever.
Dungeons
Instances wont exist in my MMORPG, I think any scenario that takes a player out of the real world defeats the point of playing in an online world game. You might as well just play a console game on multiplayer.
Dungeons will exist but in the open world, the world will be so big however that it will take time to get to them and each one will be different, requiring different people with different skills to complete. For example, some dungeons will hold mobs resistant to magic and so range and melee attacks would be better suited and vice versa. Dungeons would also change, and mobs would move to different locations randomly from where they were last killed.
Economy
The economy will be completely player driven and rely heavily on not just the quest and loot drivers but players who want to run taverns, shops and gambling dens. All will work to support the other so there is never a gap in the economy. Inflation will be handled by item decay.
Player Levels/Skills
Each player gains skill points when you complete a certain task. For example if you use your sword and kill a dude that might get you a skill point in Swordsmanship. If you craft a beverage in your tavern that will get you a skill point in Brewing. These skill points are allocated at set times and cannot be grinded, for example you cannot bot your character to kill boars for hours and then come back an expect to be maxed out. You will get a skill point but there is a rest period after each point is given.
There is a maximum number of points you can obtain in each field and then you will be known as a 'Skill Master'. You could even complete a quest and go on to become a 'Skill Professor' and have the ability to teach other in that field. This unfortunately locks your skill field to maximum meaning most other skill fields will not be obtainable as you can only have a set number of skill points.
Questing
Questing must be dynamic and the same quest should never be in the same place again. The quests should move about the world and change depending on location. For example, if Mr James Bond wants me to find a gold staff from the local cave then great I do it for him but then he should never ask me or anyone else for that matter to do the same thing again. He should also remember what quests I have done for him and randomly bring up the fact I did that, maybe even offer me a drink or something to eat.
Quests should be part of a game but not the dominate part of it like mosts MMORPG's.
Player Customization
Player characters should be fully customisable. You can change pretty much anything and everything about your character but within reason to your chosen race. For example, if your human you cannot give yourself Orc style teeth or Elf like ears.
Player Housing
Houses can be built anywhere except in key areas like on roads, on top of spawn points, mountains or anywhere where there is already primary interaction. Houses range from small huts to large fortresses. Each house can be decorated and equipped to how they like and each item gives a benefit in some way shape or form. For example, a bed of X quality will give you a Y amount of rest bonus. A cooking pot with X quality will give you Y extra skill points to your cooking skill.
Players will also be able to hire vendors and guards to protect their property.
Raiding
Raiding shouldn't be about a gear grind, in fact gear will only provide a bonus to your abilities and not be the end all like most MMORPG's. Players will have something called chronicles which will sort of tell the story about your character, when you complete a certain raid your chronicles will record it. You can decide to be good or bad, if you kill monsters than your chronicles will record you as hero and will be highlighted on news boards across the world. However, if you kill everything, innocents too then you will be the bad guy and your chronicle will record you as such.
PvP
There will be three server types PVE where PVP is completely turned off. Normal where PVP is on and RP Normal which is the same as normal but exclusively for RP. There will also be designated safe zones in major locations, if for example you attack a major city than players can go to safe bunkers that are heavily guarded and where you cannot be attacked. Guards will also be very difficult to kill and will have horns they blow to attract the attention of other guards.
And theres more
A few other things too:
Bounty Hunting for people who have killed you will be available.
Notice Boards and News Papers will highlight major events done by players.
NPC have opinions on you and other players effecting how they interact with you.
Weather effects you, if it is raining get in side or you could catch a cold. Not good!!!
Mining requires a mining camp and isn't instant as is other resource gathering.
Huge amount of emotes, including group emotes that allow you to do the action precisely at the same time.
Camps for those who don't want a home.
Player Cities where people can vote in a mayor.
Random events throughout the world ranging from small (serial killer in the area), medium (flooding that effects food and resource prices) and large (a plague that can even kill players).
Believe it or not buy dying should be rare and there will be severe penalities if you do die.
No global or area chat channels, you can only talk to people near you. You even cannot chat to other guild members unless they are within proximatey. A guild newspaper and notice board will comminicate news and information.
You didn't aim that at me but I get your point.
- ArcheAge is a sandbox world - You cut downt he tree, you make the plank, you get some nails, you build a house. You plant a garden, you pave a road. Its actionable.
- SW-TOR Questing. Honest? I don't want this. Questing is static and creates trails of one time content. I'd rather have event quests you can participate in or ignore. Level in the open world, make plenty of mobs for sandbox grinding.
- Tera Combat. Tera is using crosshair targeting rather than lock a target and auto attack or mash specials untill its dead. I don't expect it will feel any different after I've killed 500 mobs but it will make macro farming a bitch so I'm all in.
- Tera Graphics The game has incredible scenery, very vivid at a distance and up close. Everything glitters and gleams. Its a fantasy world.
- Tera Armor skins Spelling it out: I WANT BEWBIES. Smexy, bad ass girls in skimpy armor and male chars that all look like Van Damme and Vin Diesel. I want it to be Hollywood.
- EVE Inventory EVE has infinite Inventory. You can carry weight and volume based on your ship and can store as much stuff as you can make room for. In a fantasy world if I want to cart logs around, I need a cart. Volume matters but if I have a 40 foot warehouse I can pack it full of junk from now 'till it is full. If I have a basement under a castle and I want I can have 500 swords and 80 cord of lumber out back.
I don't think there ever can be a perfect MMO seeing as everyone has a different opinion on whar they would consider to be perfect. Even people who love the MMO they are playing have things they'd like to see changed about it.
For example, one of the things id like to see in an MMO again is socialising and a sense of community rather than people just running around grinding with limited or zero interaction.
there will always be people that will have only negative things to say about the game
it could get a perfect 10 rating but they will always tell you to STAY CLEAR
If you dont mind, i would like to add Asherons Call crafting, because i think it goes perfect with their random loot system.
for people who dont know what it is, you dont actually make the armor or weapon from scratch. you gather up random loot off mobs and salvage them into their base material. so for example if you have a sword that is made from steel you salvage it and get 5 steel. and steel could be used to increase armor rateing, so you would then use your crafting skill to apply it to your armor piece and raise the armor rateing on it.
all items are made of somthing it could be steel, copper, sunstone what ever. and each thing in the game has some kind of stat increase it could be armor rateing, attack speed, acid protection so on and so on, but you can only applay i think 5 times to a item. so you must choose what is best for your items.
it actually makes crafting worth it in the long run, you can " tinker " any item you loot and since its Random loot you never know what your going to get. there is no " best ever " weapon and armor out there. you could allways find somthing just a little better and once you get it you will want to tinker with the stats and make it even better.
Guess who? While you're doing that, I'll put my thoughts below.
People just don't carry the psyche to handle any game where everything you see and do is on the border of epic. In the orignial SWG, I didn't see the value in harvesting for hours or even days just to find out 100 other people did the same thing and flooded the market with raw materials that I no longer can afford to harvest. While this might seem closer to the real world, it put me in a position to decide if my time was well spent or just wasted. In another mmo, the ghetto harvest became a main theme. Hundreds of people were flooding the market with raw materials, and while that is real and has some value, it wasn't my idea of fun.
I play mmos to release stress, communicate with others across the globe, to share ideas and thoughts that may or may not involve the game itself. One might say that I use mmogs to the extreme extent that they truly represent... a visual chat line.
I wasn't picking on the og about crafting. I agree that certain items, when achieved or earnestly acquired have rooted sentiment. In one mmog, I've hoarded my starting gear.... a tunic and a rickety staff. Players will always find ways to improve games but what we need to know is that developers have business plans that are sometimes years into the future (which is a good thing for any business)... "What do you to be doing in five years?"
The smart developer will pay close attention to it's subscribers, continuously improve their own product while keeping an open eye and mind on their competitors. This is the success of Blizzard. I remember how excited I was to get home and open my 5.25" disk of World of Warcraft. It was the end-product of a written book. It was crude, simple, and easy to play. Where has that changed in the Cataclysm?
WoW has made life so simple, a five year old can pick it up and master the mechanics in a very short time. One of the simplest and yet coolest features in WoW is the ability to jump... that's right! Jumping. A house pet can learn to tap the spacebar after a given period of time... what else can I say, "keep it simple -that is the mainstream of this world".
There is no perfect MMOG, afterall, imperfect people play these games. So I leave you with this question, if the town moved away, would there still be a town idiot? I think so.
Good thoughts and ideas you have. It would surprise me if any developer read it.
Ataaka, because realism isn't my idea of fun.
I would want to have a highly competitive PVP MMO in equivalence to Guild Wars 2 (forming social servers -> forming a highly competitive Environment within a server) The idea comes from WOW where you are supposed to be put up against another bad side. But the problem here is that you simply cannot fail, you are the hero, nevertheless. If you are Horde you have the feeling that Alliance is losing and for the Alliance player it is just the other way round. The only competitive aspects are instanced PVP or open PVP which I think is a bad joke because it is simply, gank or get ganked in most cases.
Well it is maybe not everybody's case but i think there are alot of people that agree with the rough concept.
Combat
The combat system should be simple to learn and easy to master, few skills available with a lot of customization and skills, abilities and stuff are dependent of how you are armed (both armor and weapon) It would be just in MOBA like LOL, so that the stuff that you wear defines your strategy not your class.
Also I want alot of Movement, for example Heavy Armor have combat variables (magical equip;-) ) that makes you slower but tougher. This would incorporate mounted combat, this is a feature I see alot potential. But it would be candy...^^
Skills should be similar to LOL positioning and timing is the key not perfect rota or Build setup...
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
Candy, I like candy but I do not need it. What I mean is that I do not care the concept works for every setting where there is a conflict between at least 2 factions (I like 3^^)
And well if I could choose one than it would be steampunk with fantasy elements such as magic or fantasy races.
Crafting
I'm not sure how to put this because I never really thought of a good system... it is important for economy so I let others decide, nobody develops MMOs on his own...
Dungeons
Well I always liked those so I am just happy with the best from the business^^
Economy
Crafting?
Player Levels/Skills
> Combat >
Questing
GW2 + PVP = Awesome. Never had a game where you could fail... This is really interesting idea (normally you win ALL THE TIME, ALL THE QUESTS)
Player Customization
Candy...
Player Housing
Candy... Wtf this is a game I want gameplay its nice for leisure time between gameplay sessions but not so important 4me.
Raiding
Very interesting lets think about something new: PUG Raiding + Big Groups(200+) + PVP + Event based + Instanced part of a zone + Context based + Set raid times +++
I would also include normal raids for our elite raider friends.
Overall this is an idea that I had thought of a few times already but never really came up with a solid conceot
PvP
I don't have to add more, it is the purpose of this game...
I wanted to be more precise or in detail but I have to go now...
For the record I don't there is a perfect MMO and I think there are many types of games that could be fun.
But these things are pretty fun to do so,
Setting
I would like to see a MMO set in a universe similar to the Hellboy comics, that is a more modern fantasy environment with influence from streampunk, horror and pulp comics.
2 factions one more magic oriented and the other more tech oriented.
Player Skills/Levels
I use a character progression system like CoH, in the sense that you have a main power or ability set, like a class that defines what your character is all about but you also have secondary and tertiary ability sets that you can pick which are open to everyone. Primary to tertiary goes from major to minor.
For example
Primary: Pyromancy
Secondary: Pistols, Brawling
Tertiary: Lockpicking, Perception, Lore
Primary ability sets are major sets that define your character, they give you a central mechanic that you use and in a way is your class. Secondary are more specific they are used to suppliment your primary selection. Tertiary are support abilities like lockpicking that offer special advantages to a player or group.
Character builds consist of abilities and perks. You get more abilities and perks than you can use at once so you have to swap them out. Leveling up gives you a talent point which you can spend in one of the talent tree type ability sets. You unlock new abilities and perks this way.
Traditional stats are gone. Your character bonuses are determined by the perks you have equiped. The only base increase in stats is from spending talent points which you get from leveling up and give you a small base power increase per point/level.
Items are very focused, you don't get stat boosting items. Items instead pertain to the exact hing they are used for, a blade gives bonuses to blade abilities, guns for gun abilities etc. all ability sets have items associated with them, so a pyromancer might use a lighter as a focus for his powers and the lighter gives bonuses only to the pyromancers fire abilities.
Character race matters in the sense that eac race has some passive abilities and an active ability, all characters have a special ability slot dedicated to their racial ability and racial passives unlike other perks are always active and unswappable. There are multiple choices for racial passives and active abilities per race so the player can pick what their racial passive and active ability is.
Character Customization
I believe in letting players look how they want, so I follow the City of Heroes philosophy. Your selection is tempered through based on you racial and ability choices, only elves can wear elven clothing fo example, or only characters that use the brute ability set can make their character really muscular. So you can look how you want but you have to look the part.
Combat
Since it is this modern dark fantasy setting, the combat system needs to be able to handle melee, ranged and an assortment of powers.
I prefer more action oriented systems. I also follow the Guild Wars philosophy of giving players fewer abilities. I would use a 3rd person action combat system similar to DCUO. Although you only have about 6-8 abilities, abilities are also context sensitive, having different effects in different situations, so in stealth your abilities change, switching weapons changes abilities etc. You also have different "stances" you can switch between, these are like switching roles as they alter your abilities and stats. So you only have a few abilities at a time but over all you have many different abilities you can use.
Combat uses teams roles based on offense, defense and support. It is NOT tank healer and DPS. Offense is about killing power, offense includes damage but also abilities like snares and charges, abilities focused on catching and killing enemies. Defense focuses on protection, not tanking, this includes knockbacks, shields and turrets to deter enemies and protect allies. Support does exactly that supports via buffs debuffs scouting, and healing regen. You can't be a traditional healer, you can use health regen buffs to help allies heal faster but cannot heal people directly. Every character has an interuptable self heal.
Crafting
I don't like crafting being something only the most dedicated, ie boring, of people can use. I am also not a fan of forcing people to depend on crafters, like not allowing people to loot items or making items break.
Everyone can create, customize and upgrade their own gear this is done without the need to level up crafting in the traditional sense all you need is the appropriate tools, this includes stuff like hammers and stationary things, etter items require better tools. You do pick a style of crafting, like tech or magic items but you can make any type of item in the game via crafting.
The interdependency of crafting comes from materials, everyone needs materials to make items and items require materials from multiple gathering skills to make. You can only learn one gathering skill, so you have to buy materials from other gatherers to make an item. Gathering isn't simply like mining ore and smelting it, you can process materials in a variety of ways and use different techniques and ingredients to give the material different properties, ie crafting matrials.
So in summary, everyone can craft everything. Crafting requires materials. Gatherers harvest and "craft" these materials to be used or sold.
Economy
I would use an auction house system becase they are really good for listing and findig items. One change is the inclusion of multiple auction systems, like trade groups, these groups have seperate auction system so you have to look at each auction system seperately you can buy and sell between so their is oppotunity to play the market more and cross factional trade via a third party, for instance goblins may have their own black market auction system.
Player Housing
Simply put players can have air ships (zeppelins) that they can travel with. Airships exist in an overworld version of the game world, that is the skies over the game world, so you can't fly you zeppelin like 10 ft. off the ground. Zeppelins can only land in places with zeppelin docs so it isn't like a flying mount. Zeppelins can be owned by any number of people and can be customized inside and out. Zeppelins can also be used in guild warfare as zeppelins can have guns mounted to them and can be boarded. Zeppelins come in a variety of sizes and styles with different stats as well as the items you equip to zeppelins such as guns and engines.
Questing
In the open world everything is a public quest. There are a variety of events that could happen that can be dynamically generated using the template,
Who
What
Where
The mob type determines the what and where, trolls act different from raiders. Events respond to player actions, one event chains to another based on cause and effect and some randoness. This is like the GW2 model I believe. Includes a LFG tool.
Dungeons
Dungeons are like flashpoints in SWTOR, highly story driven instanced missions where players can effect the outcome by making choices. Instanced does not mean in a cave or building but also in a private instanced version of the open world. Raids are just big dugeons. Includes a LFG tool
PvP
Open, open PvP is like dynamic events for PvP, they are dynamically spawned based on population, area and number of people, they can also change based on player behaviour. For instance a zone with one side ganking the other could lead to a cat and mouse style PvP event that plays on the unbalanced nature of open PvP and if the other side gets more people the PvP event changes. Open PvP equalizes everybodies levels. There is a LFG tool for open PvP.
Instanced, instanced PvP is like dungeons for PvP, these are more tightly balanced, like battlegrounds. There are a veriety of game types ranging from capture the flag to DoTA style games. Joined by entering a PvP que and when the the que pops a transport vessel comes and flys you to the warzone, like griffons in WoW. Instanced PvP equalizes everybodies levels.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
futile exercise. what one perosn think is perfect mmo is completly diffrent from another players. People can give what they think would be perfect and the next person absolutly hate it.
Also how will you balance out PvP? What, use FFA PvP? How you plan to make PvP balanced and fun for the majority, and not just the niche group that likes current gen FFA PvP?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
well as a basis for say 50% of your game
DAOC PVP
SWG crafting
COH/COV character advancement
Skyrim PVE
Planetside Combat
Then add a whole load of new stuff we havent seen before
Give it an original setting like erm... Victorian steampunk Jules Verne type thing or something
And NO INSTANCING true seamless world (yes even dungeons)
Combat
Mix of both. Allow the user a chance to choose which of the two they prefer. For server reasons, RPG combat works well. It's also preferred by a lot of people who have kids or play while doign other things. I think it may also help prevent burn out. However, it also gets old. While True FPS and RPG toggles is not really viable, a faked approach which gives a faked fps approach (similar to Tabula Rasa or Hellgate) could allow for a toggle.
Setting (Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.)
I prefer sci-fi or post-apocalyptic. I also enjoy fantasy but it's just been done so many times. I think with Sci-fi you can put users in so many different settings that it is my overall favorite.
Crafting
Most importantly I think don't want crafters to feel forced into combat. Some randomized results though is also important, and crafting items being comparable with the best raid items is also important. Rather than getting items strictly from raids, give crafting components that can produce great items.
Dungeons
Open world with mutating elements to duplicate the advantages of instances in an open world setting. This does of course mean that more content must be created, but it will keep the world interesting.
Economy
I loved UO's fluctuating economy, and SWG's player driven economy. I think those are both good starts. Items must decay and destroy though to prevent mudflation. No more expansions, instead give a steady flow of free updates, and as a result of that no more giant leaps in item quality for each expansion to get players to upgrade.
Player Levels/Skills
Skills based with special abilities gained as you skill up.
Questing
I'm a huge fan of generated quests and epic scale. I think generation is the way to go because you can provide hundreds of templates rather than hundreds of quests. Then users can reuse those templates, but with randomized steps, npcs, etc. Quests should be more than just a bunch of variants on kill x or deliver y. Players should be required to think sometimes.
Player Customization
Customization is important, but I don't think it's one of the most important things. Having different looks is great. Being able to dye them is also great. But I care more about gameplay than I do cosmetics.
Player Housing
Player created cities and sieges. Give players benefits for contributing to cities.
Raiding
Generated boss abilities and random raid mobs is important. Spawn some of them through events such as public quests. Raids should be fun things that players stumble into and need to solve rather than something you study on a web site then gather 20 people together to do based on premade strategies.
PvP
I'm fine with Open World or Faction based PvP. But griefing style gameplay should not be encouraged. Give PvP a meaning, and reward players for participating in the intended way. For example sieges allow for guild based warfare. That's fine. But long term users sitting in town killing new players for no reason other than to ruin their day should be strongly discouraged.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.