If I may inquire, would you kindly elaborate on this concept?
If a city needs resources they don't have, you can take a job from a constantly updating job board, get what's needed, ant and turn it in for gold or other rewards. Other than that, there may be occasional misc jobs for small rewards. Another example would be, if a city is being plagued by foxes, they may send you to clear a nearby den.
I'd make a PVP heavy MMO set in an old west setting. FPS mechanics but heavy crafting oriented. I'd have about 8 initial archetypes to choose from. When you choose an archetype, lets say bank robber, bounty hunter, Native American, hunter/trapper etc. you will be diametrically opposed to one of the other archetypes, and loosely assigned a player that you're competing directly with from the get go who is playing an archetype that is meant to stop attack or hinder you in some way. This would be kind of a lightly prefabricated storymode to get both players initiated into the game.
These initial altercations could result in a variety of ways, like that Native American decided to take pity on the poor settler and befriend him, the bank robber and the bounty hunter cut a deal to split the money, only for the bank robber to betray him and shoot him in the back, etc. You get the idea, depending on the players choices involved and the like. And depending on how these stories play out that determines your characters disposition and place in the world, assigns you a faction, a general role, and if you weren't happy with it you could start a new character and play through the intro again. I suppose the idea would be to encourage interaction and get the player engaged right from the start instead of just telling them to go shoot 5 wild boars and bring back their tusks or whatever. And would be a good basis for factions actually mattering and teaming up people who had similar goals in the game instead of just the usual aesthetic differences.
As for the game itself I'd like to borrow from SWG and have the hunter/mining pursuits really be the backbone of the game and the economy, build a really deep crafting system off of that. Combat wouldn't need that much balancing as it's mostly twitch based. As long as it's not like Age of Conan and the starter experience is the only thing good about the game, it'd be pretty interesting.
The mobile market is actually ripe for a great top down starship MMO. Check out the game Pocket Starships in the App Store. Combat is fluid and engaging and the game looks good. Consider a similar game with these features:
1. In depth crafting and economy.
Trade
Bounty Hunting
Escort Missions
Exploration
2. More emphasis on guilds / territorial control.
Player owned structures.
Player made factions.
Running your own bases and mining operations.
3. Increased depth of ship customization.
The mobile market is almost as starved for a good game as the MMO market. The only two mobile games out there I can recommend in good faith is Minecraft Pocket Edition and Magic Duels. Most everything else not only are clones, but they are clones of game models so simple they can hardly be called games. I think the game model I described would be a huge hit if well done and well advertized.
If I may inquire, would you kindly elaborate on this concept?
If a city needs resources they don't have, you can take a job from a constantly updating job board, get what's needed, ant and turn it in for gold or other rewards. Other than that, there may be occasional misc jobs for small rewards. Another example would be, if a city is being plagued by foxes, they may send you to clear a nearby den.
And if quest givers are rewarding too many players with iron swords then maybe the town requires more iron and would give a task to players mine and deliver it?
Rewards will mostly be in the form of gold and useful surplus resources rather than actual items. But you got the right idea.
To elaborate on the town systems, the name of the game (not the actual NAME) is resource management and, in the long run (if you find yourself running more than just a shack in the woods) politics. Player owned towns can set up trade with neighbouring NPC or player towns, or they can (with enough resources) wage war. This goes for large cities, too. If a player owned city sets up good connections with multiple villages and cities, they may have the ability to conglomerate them into a Territory (call it a kingdom, dukedom, whatever.)
NPC territories may wage their own wars (which are again semi-random) be it full out seiges or assassination attempts. Player owned territories will be able to do these too.
Players can either strike out on their own, or buy property within a city. If you are a citizen in a city, you are required to pay the owners a tax, but are protected by their law system (basically, if a player kills you, the murderer has a bounty placed on them and can be hunted by players or, if they're close to the victim's host territory, the guards.)
My Vision for my MMORPG that is currently in design phase. Hopeful to use Unity Engine.
1. Theme: Sandpark MMO in regards to Everquest, of how they still have vertical level progression, Class based, Mid Fantasy. As for the theme, think of a blend of Everquest, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
2. Incorporate, Challenge, Community, Imersion and Variety in all facets of gameplay.
3. A vast open/seamless world that's incorporates a wilderness, not full cultivated, opportunity to explore and adventure.
4. Heavy PVE gameplay, with an emphasis and incentive of group play.
5. A reinvention of the trinity gameplay model. Not omitting the trinity roles but rather a new approach to how it tackles combat trough a reinvention of the tank role.
6. Robust and adaptive combat mechanics for the three archetype of classes. (Tab Targeting, not twitch). European Swordsmanship translated into the Guard System for Melees, Spell Combo System for magic users and the Draw Back Mechanic for the Archer.
7. Multi-behavioral AI, that can potentially adapt in combat to create chaos in battle, which allows the players to be on their toes. Varying degrees of AI rank to determine challenge. I believe adaptive AI will be the next step in PVE gameplay evolution.
8. Three tiers of PVE gameplay. Missives which are task, bounty hunter, harvest, escort, Seek and Find. Missives are for 1-4 players and reward in low to moderate competition with moderate coin. - Dedicated Quests are soloable continuous quest lines that are in 3 categories; 1: Class, 2: Race and 3: Lore. Dedicated Quests provide special abilities and traits for your character. - Adventures are dynamic content that takes the players all over the world, through wilderness and dungeons. Adventures can trigger zone or world events and has opportunity to change the behavior of a zone. Adventures are for 5-6 players.
9. Separate Crafting Classes that make up for a player ran Economy and determine supply and demand of items. Crafting classes come with intriguing mini games to immerse your self as a crafter. Open up shops to sell your wares.
10. Universal Stats that is not dedicated to certain classes.
11. Customizable gear sets and items with varying types of templates. Mix and match templates for gear design. Dye your gear as well.
12. Allocate Stat points into your gear for further character customization and play style. 80% of gear is crafted or reforged. Gear slot determines how many different stats you can allocate in that piece. And Grade of Quality (Low, Medium, High) determines how many total stat points per piece.
13. Follow an intriguing novel like story line that sets the course of events in the game world. - Players are not already heroes, every character is considered a citizen of the world. Must earn to be a hero. The story, lore and world will incentivize RP players.
14. Engrave history and characters into the Scrolls of Time to actually be apart of the lore font the world.
15. End game content includes: Raid Campaigns, which are traditional dungeon crawls, boss endurance and castle like siege warfare (offensive and defensive). Paths of Discipline which act like the AA system on Everquest and other varying content.
There is more but I think 15 points would be just fine now.
My Vision for my MMORPG that is currently in design phase. Hopeful to use Unity Engine.
1. Theme: Sandpark MMO in regards to Everquest, of how they still have vertical level progression, Class based, Mid Fantasy. As for the theme, think of a blend of Everquest, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
2. Incorporate, Challenge, Community, Imersion and Variety in all facets of gameplay.
3. A vast open/seamless world that's incorporates a wilderness, not full cultivated, opportunity to explore and adventure.
4. Heavy PVE gameplay, with an emphasis and incentive of group play.
5. A reinvention of the trinity gameplay model. Not omitting the trinity roles but rather a new approach to how it tackles combat trough a reinvention of the tank role.
6. Robust and adaptive combat mechanics for the three archetype of classes. (Tab Targeting, not twitch). European Swordsmanship translated into the Guard System for Melees, Spell Combo System for magic users and the Draw Back Mechanic for the Archer.
7. Multi-behavioral AI, that can potentially adapt in combat to create chaos in battle, which allows the players to be on their toes. Varying degrees of AI rank to determine challenge. I believe adaptive AI will be the next step in PVE gameplay evolution.
8. Three tiers of PVE gameplay. Missives which are task, bounty hunter, harvest, escort, Seek and Find. Missives are for 1-4 players and reward in low to moderate competition with moderate coin. - Dedicated Quests are soloable continuous quest lines that are in 3 categories; 1: Class, 2: Race and 3: Lore. Dedicated Quests provide special abilities and traits for your character. - Adventures are dynamic content that takes the players all over the world, through wilderness and dungeons. Adventures can trigger zone or world events and has opportunity to change the behavior of a zone. Adventures are for 5-6 players.
9. Separate Crafting Classes that make up for a player ran Economy and determine supply and demand of items. Crafting classes come with intriguing mini games to immerse your self as a crafter. Open up shops to sell your wares.
10. Universal Stats that is not dedicated to certain classes.
11. Customizable gear sets and items with varying types of templates. Mix and match templates for gear design. Dye your gear as well.
12. Allocate Stat points into your gear for further character customization and play style. 80% of gear is crafted or reforged. Gear slot determines how many different stats you can allocate in that piece. And Grade of Quality (Low, Medium, High) determines how many total stat points per piece.
13. Follow an intriguing novel like story line that sets the course of events in the game world. - Players are not already heroes, every character is considered a citizen of the world. Must earn to be a hero. The story, lore and world will incentivize RP players.
14. Engrave history and characters into the Scrolls of Time to actually be apart of the lore font the world.
15. End game content includes: Raid Campaigns, which are traditional dungeon crawls, boss endurance and castle like siege warfare (offensive and defensive). Paths ignored Discpline which act like the AA system on Everquest and other varying content.
There is more but I think 15 points would be just fine now.
My Vision for my MMORPG that is currently in design phase. Hopeful to use Unity Engine.
1. Theme: Sandpark MMO in regards to Everquest, of how they still have vertical level progression, Class based, Mid Fantasy. As for the theme, think of a blend of Everquest, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
2. Incorporate, Challenge, Community, Imersion and Variety in all facets of gameplay.
3. A vast open/seamless world that's incorporates a wilderness, not full cultivated, opportunity to explore and adventure.
4. Heavy PVE gameplay, with an emphasis and incentive of group play.
5. A reinvention of the trinity gameplay model. Not omitting the trinity roles but rather a new approach to how it tackles combat trough a reinvention of the tank role.
6. Robust and adaptive combat mechanics for the three archetype of classes. (Tab Targeting, not twitch). European Swordsmanship translated into the Guard System for Melees, Spell Combo System for magic users and the Draw Back Mechanic for the Archer.
7. Multi-behavioral AI, that can potentially adapt in combat to create chaos in battle, which allows the players to be on their toes. Varying degrees of AI rank to determine challenge. I believe adaptive AI will be the next step in PVE gameplay evolution.
8. Three tiers of PVE gameplay. Missives which are task, bounty hunter, harvest, escort, Seek and Find. Missives are for 1-4 players and reward in low to moderate competition with moderate coin. - Dedicated Quests are soloable continuous quest lines that are in 3 categories; 1: Class, 2: Race and 3: Lore. Dedicated Quests provide special abilities and traits for your character. - Adventures are dynamic content that takes the players all over the world, through wilderness and dungeons. Adventures can trigger zone or world events and has opportunity to change the behavior of a zone. Adventures are for 5-6 players.
9. Separate Crafting Classes that make up for a player ran Economy and determine supply and demand of items. Crafting classes come with intriguing mini games to immerse your self as a crafter. Open up shops to sell your wares.
10. Universal Stats that is not dedicated to certain classes.
11. Customizable gear sets and items with varying types of templates. Mix and match templates for gear design. Dye your gear as well.
12. Allocate Stat points into your gear for further character customization and play style. 80% of gear is crafted or reforged. Gear slot determines how many different stats you can allocate in that piece. And Grade of Quality (Low, Medium, High) determines how many total stat points per piece.
13. Follow an intriguing novel like story line that sets the course of events in the game world. - Players are not already heroes, every character is considered a citizen of the world. Must earn to be a hero. The story, lore and world will incentivize RP players.
14. Engrave history and characters into the Scrolls of Time to actually be apart of the lore font the world.
15. End game content includes: Raid Campaigns, which are traditional dungeon crawls, boss endurance and castle like siege warfare (offensive and defensive). Paths ignored Discpline which act like the AA system on Everquest and other varying content.
There is more but I think 15 points would be just fine now.
What kind of reinventions to the trinity?
Let me give you a very brief on the surface response.
The trinity game play creates the 'tank and spank' strategy and what is heavily focused in development for their core combat. The catalyst to this all is contingent on the tank role. The trinity gameplay really doesn' work without a tank, it can sort of work without a healer, see Gw2. But the heart of the trinity is the Tank Role.
In order to reinvent the trinity is to reinvent how to approach the tank role, when that happens it alters the landscape for combat and should diminish the need for the tank and spank game play. Essentially, the tank role is no longer considered just defensive, but rather the tank role jumps to the archetype role, meaning that any melee class can be a tank. In this new proposal of the trinity, tanks are defined to keep melee NPC's off caster/support classes. So that creates another layer of roles which creates a new dynamic. It should create a mini battle format where each player has a responsibility in the encounter. Let me briefly explain...
The new layer of roles are categorized as an Attacker or Support. Melee/caster DPS = Attackers, and Healers = support. As a side note, all of my caster classes have two roles, IE: Damage/Debuffing or Damage/CC ect. Melee class roles are different and are determined on the type of fighter they are, IE: Countering Fighter, Offensive Fighter ect.
Melee and Casters can both be Attacker Classes. Naturally, melee vs melee and caster vs caster, however, there will be times when that is not the case and melee may fight caster or vice versa, depends on a plethora of variables. Let me give you an example I typically give when explaining...
Player Group = 3 Melee, 2 Caster and 1 Healer, whereas NPC Group = 4 Melee and 2 Healers. Depending if the group has CC or not depends on the strategy of which you will tackle this encounter of NPCs. Let's say the Group does not have access to CC. So 3/4 Melee NPCs are accounted for, but one is lose. Do the 2 Caster Attackers focus the melee NPC not accounted for? Or do they each take a healer? Or does one caster attempt to solo the unaccounted melee NPC? Just really depends on some variables, which may include, composition of classes in your group, how comfortable the player is, the type of NPC and what behavior they can elicit, and their AI rank.
So the idea is to simply have 1v1 battles in a group setting. It's suppose to simulate a mini battle and make combat encounters a bit more realistic and add more elements of strategy. Of course there are things in place to negate full tank and spank gameplay like Disengage penalties ect. Think of it like the game of football. Each player has their own separate role on the field and performs it 1v1, but when its working together as one cohesive unit its still considered group game play. I think this new approach would be really interesting and allow a ton of replayability as each encounter may be unique. I want players to be come tacticians. By communicating before an encounter (a pack of mobs), this will help players talk in groups and get to know each other better.
Sorry, when talking about game design, It's hard for me to keep it super short lol. I hope this helps. I am sure this creates a ton of questions.
I know at least for me I don't want to see the trinity reinvented so much as a reversion to the way things were pre-trinity. So many roles that can be played within a party that everyone focusing on one of three one-dimensional roles =/= good party. It equals a party that is absolutely unprepared for any challenge beyond tank and spank.
Example 1: Enemies in the dungeon are not always the same, and not every enemy of the same race / appearance has the same strength and weaknesses (You can't just look up goblin stats on a wiki and know the strengths and weaknesses of every goblin ever). Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies requires someone in the party who has the ability to do so.
Example 2: Given the randomization of enemies the location of all enemies is not known when you start a dungeon. Having someone with stealth to scout rooms before the party comes charging in can be the difference between a wipe and a win.
Example 3: There is no respawning in dungeons, and traps that can one shot party members in random locations. You need someone who can check for traps.
Example 4: You can get past certain enemies with skills such as bluff, intimidate, disguise and diplomacy without having to fight. You may even be able to turn neutral or enemy NPCs into allied NPCs who will help you with other parts of the dungeon.
Example 5: Are those plants growing on the wall harmful, useless, or something that could buff my stats for the coming boss fight? Having someone who can identify them would let you know.
And of course way more options for creative uses of utility spells to get past or trivialize encounters. I don't care what people say the trinity is a construct of MMOs. You run a modern MMO trinity in a P&P campaign and the enemies will walk right past your tank, gank your healer, and then you'll all die to traps as you flee because you have some kind of DPSer with knives in place of an actual rogue.
The trinity makes sense for super simplistic games with a singular focus on combat. It doesn't make sense for virtual worlds and the places MMOs now actually have the technical capabilities to be.
The trinity makes sense for super simplistic games with a singular focus on combat. It doesn't make sense for virtual worlds and the places MMOs now actually have the technical capabilities to be.
And yet people cried buckets when GW2 removed the trinity model, they whined that removing the trinity model removed group play, Until Anet buckled to their wants....
Anet's approach is the approach of forcefully removing the trinity by killing trinity roles.
Pre-MMOs were semi-capable of the trinity but nobody used it because aggro didn't exist as it does in MMOs, and there were so many things that could benefit the party that having people focus on singular roles is considered a bad idea.
Anet's approach does kind of kill group play by making every class fill the same general role. The D&D approach strengthens group play and fosters build diversity by making encounters so rich and varied in what you could potentially face that you need a party that covers as many roles as possible.
I would be a backer and pay the people who made my favorite RPG, into an MMO.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I would do a classic fantasy game with wizards, elves, dragons etc.
Gameplay will be classic roleplaying game style - you have stats, abilities have cooldowns, etc.
Class and combat design will be a main focus of the game design, right after story telling and interface design. It would have static classes. Different classes would have very different gameplay. Namely aspects of the game that are really important on one class might be completely irrelevant on another, causing a very different gaming experience when a gamer descides to play a new character with a different class. It would have complex and dynamic combat. Depending upon class, the player for example might have to manage certain counters to activate his better abilities.
It would have seamless worlds that would be planets; if you travel long enough in one direction you would arrive again at your origin. If you gain the ability to fly you could see that you're on a round planet. Different planets would have different properties, too.
There would be portals between planets, however you cannot use them unless you are of high enough level. Traveling to planets of lower level is allowed, however you would lose access to your higher level abilities while on the lower level planet. On the other hand, training your lower level abilities will also improve the overall power of your character, making traveling to lower level planets worthwhile. This allows you to experience the whole game and play with lowlevel players, and this allows the programmers to add to all levels of the game at any time without anyone missing out. In total there would be ten levels.
Leveling up is done through both ability and gear acquisition. Traveling to a higher level planet will remove (suppress) your lower level gear; you still will receive its benefits but you'll have to work on a new set of gear on that new level again. Abilities are gained through various sources; while at low level the player simply might have to find a trainer, for higher level abilities the trainers might only just set the first step, but then items, questlines etc have to be solved to actually gain access, and once the character gained the ability, it has to be trained by using it in combat as well.
This process gets more complicated the higher the level. For example certain abilities will improve, however to learn the higher level ability, one has to know the prerequisite abilities for it first.
Anyone can learn all abilities available for their class, however the number of abilities a character can actively access during combat is limited and has to be preselected out of combat. Certain signature abilities are always available; for example a healer class can always heal and resurrect. Both gear and abilities gives you a score; you have to meet a certain minimum before you gain a level.
There will also be subclassing and further class customization. This
however completely varies with class. For example a Cleric needs to pick
a cause (deity) and during the course of levelup a number of domains.
Graphics will have rather low priority. However as stated before the worlds will be seamless.
Planets will be mostly 'empty', filled by random generators. Finding the quest areas will thus be a task of serious exploration. While this will be possible (and very time consuming) to do by foot, players will gain different ways of fast travel and fast exploration, partly also based on their class. For example on a Kashyyyk-like planet with extreme trees, a druid might move around very fast through tree to tree teleportation. A wizard on the other hand will have to create portals in order to reach a new place. Everyone of course will gain access to various mounts and there will be items that allow certain kinds of travel, for example there might be teleportation stones that allow to access certain main portals on a planet.
I would do a classic fantasy game with wizards, elves, dragons etc.
Gameplay will be classic roleplaying game style - you have stats, abilities have cooldowns, etc.
Class and combat design will be a main focus of the game design, right after story telling and interface design. It would have static classes. Different classes would have very different gameplay. Namely aspects of the game that are really important on one class might be completely irrelevant on another, causing a very different gaming experience when a gamer descides to play a new character with a different class. It would have complex and dynamic combat. Depending upon class, the player for example might have to manage certain counters to activate his better abilities.
It would have seamless worlds that would be planets; if you travel long enough in one direction you would arrive again at your origin. If you gain the ability to fly you could see that you're on a round planet. Different planets would have different properties, too.
There would be portals between planets, however you cannot use them unless you are of high enough level. Traveling to planets of lower level is allowed, however you would lose access to your higher level abilities while on the lower level planet. On the other hand, training your lower level abilities will also improve the overall power of your character, making traveling to lower level planets worthwhile. This allows you to experience the whole game and play with lowlevel players, and this allows the programmers to add to all levels of the game at any time without anyone missing out. In total there would be ten levels.
Leveling up is done through both ability and gear acquisition. Traveling to a higher level planet will remove (suppress) your lower level gear; you still will receive its benefits but you'll have to work on a new set of gear on that new level again. Abilities are gained through various sources; while at low level the player simply might have to find a trainer, for higher level abilities the trainers might only just set the first step, but then items, questlines etc have to be solved to actually gain access, and once the character gained the ability, it has to be trained by using it in combat as well.
This process gets more complicated the higher the level. For example certain abilities will improve, however to learn the higher level ability, one has to know the prerequisite abilities for it first.
Anyone can learn all abilities available for their class, however the number of abilities a character can actively access during combat is limited and has to be preselected out of combat. Certain signature abilities are always available; for example a healer class can always heal and resurrect. Both gear and abilities gives you a score; you have to meet a certain minimum before you gain a level.
There will also be subclassing and further class customization. This
however completely varies with class. For example a Cleric needs to pick
a cause (deity) and during the course of levelup a number of domains.
Graphics will have rather low priority. However as stated before the worlds will be seamless.
Planets will be mostly 'empty', filled by random generators. Finding the quest areas will thus be a task of serious exploration. While this will be possible (and very time consuming) to do by foot, players will gain different ways of fast travel and fast exploration, partly also based on their class. For example on a Kashyyyk-like planet with extreme trees, a druid might move around very fast through tree to tree teleportation. A wizard on the other hand will have to create portals in order to reach a new place. Everyone of course will gain access to various mounts and there will be items that allow certain kinds of travel, for example there might be teleportation stones that allow to access certain main portals on a planet.
Very powerful post,
This stuff would capture intrigue as you level. It would give you reason to want to press on, as apposed to a game like GW2 and many others where all you get is a new weapon slot to stick your staff in. It's like the only eating one chip, you always want more.
You talk about Graphics have low priority........ I would say Graphics have even lower priority to REALLY instill the features your talking about..... Graphics being the priority in mmos as of late are killing the mmo. Eye candy only takes us only so far, it doesn't take long from saying this game looks fantastic to this game is boring lets stop playing !!!!
It's only 2017 you can't have both graphics and deep rich game play in an mmo. It consumes too many resources.
Anet's approach was the opposite approach to what I am discussing.
Why couldn't you play a primary healer in GW2? Because primary healers didn't exist. The game literally wouldn't allow you to play them.
I get the feeling that you never played GW2 or. at the very least, never got far with it. GW2, did have healers, and I suppose if you really wanted to, you could expect the group to carry you as you only use 1/3 the function of your class in GW2 and only heal.
However, even at the start of the game, there were Healers in GW2, The two most common forms of healers were Water Elementalist and Shout Guards, because, regardless of the fact that every class could heal, there were varying degrees on how well they could save themselves, and for the harder dungeons like Arah, CoE, HoW, (and even Sorrows when it first came out) were pretty rough if you did not have a Healing/Support class in the group, often having more then one, given they could do other tasks as well as heal, so having that 'healer' was important to survival, being able to have your health restored while your own healing ability was on cool-down was a party saving assist, it also allowed some classes to go full zerker while other classes mixed in things Apothecary or Clerics runes, which allowed them to heal better, and maximize their role of healer.
The thing was in GW2, while there were 'healers', they were never the "sit in the corner and only heal" type of healers that people like yourself think of when they think Healers, in GW2, the classes and builds that could heal the whole group, were also dynamic and able to fill several roles at once.
I know at least for me I don't want to see the trinity reinvented so much as a reversion to the way things were pre-trinity. So many roles that can be played within a party that everyone focusing on one of three one-dimensional roles =/= good party. It equals a party that is absolutely unprepared for any challenge beyond tank and spank.
Example 1: Enemies in the dungeon are not always the same, and not every enemy of the same race / appearance has the same strength and weaknesses (You can't just look up goblin stats on a wiki and know the strengths and weaknesses of every goblin ever). Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies requires someone in the party who has the ability to do so.
Example 2: Given the randomization of enemies the location of all enemies is not known when you start a dungeon. Having someone with stealth to scout rooms before the party comes charging in can be the difference between a wipe and a win.
Example 3: There is no respawning in dungeons, and traps that can one shot party members in random locations. You need someone who can check for traps.
Example 4: You can get past certain enemies with skills such as bluff, intimidate, disguise and diplomacy without having to fight. You may even be able to turn neutral or enemy NPCs into allied NPCs who will help you with other parts of the dungeon.
Example 5: Are those plants growing on the wall harmful, useless, or something that could buff my stats for the coming boss fight? Having someone who can identify them would let you know.
And of course way more options for creative uses of utility spells to get past or trivialize encounters. I don't care what people say the trinity is a construct of MMOs. You run a modern MMO trinity in a P&P campaign and the enemies will walk right past your tank, gank your healer, and then you'll all die to traps as you flee because you have some kind of DPSer with knives in place of an actual rogue.
The trinity makes sense for super simplistic games with a singular focus on combat. It doesn't make sense for virtual worlds and the places MMOs now actually have the technical capabilities to be.
I assume this reply is in response to my reinvention of the trinity. I do agree with you sentiment that the current approach to the trinity model elicits one dimensional game play. It's easier to program and develop because there are so many resources out there for it. I think in my proposal of the reinvention omits one dimensional gameplay and makes combat more strategic and a bit more realistic.
What I underlined in your post, I agree. That is why it makes more sense for two tiers of roles. Attackers & Support and then sub roles (traditional roles) within that layer. It makes sense for melee to engage with other melee and other magic casters to engage with others naturally in combat. If you think of a real fight, with 6v6. Naturally melee would go after melee and magic after magic. If someone were to 'tank & spank' one NPC they would expose themselves and receive critical hits. That's why there is an engage mechanic with a disengage penalty to incentive this sort of gameplay. If your response wasn't meant me, I apologize.
It makes sense for melee to engage with other melee and other magic casters to engage with others naturally in combat. If you think of a real fight, with 6v6. Naturally melee would go after melee and magic after magic.
I am gonna have to totally disagree with you on this one, anyone that has played team combat MOBA's knows that you play against their weakness, IE: if you have a cloth clad caster, you have the beefy barb charge and put everything into taking the magic-caster out of the fight, and engage their barb with a ranger that uses ranged to kite... to keep them occupied. Always kill the healers first, and always defend your own support.
Melee don't go after Melee... Melee go after Casters.. and the only reason why Melee are fighting each other, is because Melee also defend the caster from the melee that are trying to kill them... Just like Assault defends Heavies.. .
It makes sense for melee to engage with other melee and other magic casters to engage with others naturally in combat. If you think of a real fight, with 6v6. Naturally melee would go after melee and magic after magic.
I am gonna have to totally disagree with you on this one, anyone that has played team combat MOBA's knows that you play against their weakness, IE: if you have a cloth clad caster, you have the beefy barb charge and put everything into taking the magic-caster out of the fight, and engage their barb with a ranger that uses ranged to kite... to keep them occupied. Always kill the healers first, and always defend your own support.
Melee don't go after Melee... Melee go after Casters.. and the only reason why Melee are fighting each other, is because Melee also defend the caster from the melee that are trying to kill them... Just like Assault defends Heavies.. .
Well what I am proposing does not even constitute the sort of combat let alone genre I was going for. MOBA's and MMORPG are two separate things. I don't know how you thought my idea was tied to MOBAS? Not sure how you came up with that. MOBAS are pvp, this is for PVE. Like I said in my post, this is for PVE Gameplay, there will be mechanics in place for melee vs melee and caster vs caster, first. if that is not the case of course melee can fight caster or vice versa. There are engage mechanics that semi-lock the player or npc to the player. If you disengage once the npc is engaged with you, then you get a disengage penalty which results in critical strikes against you which may cause death. I have thought this through and looked at all of the angles i can fathom.
Well If I had full control and millions in funding I would sure in hell wont read this forum due to few simple reasons.
1: People on this site love to dig deep and slaughter everything about the game, the CEO, the programmers, the art directors, feature list, engine, graphic, animation, colour, you name it. 2: It's a scam 3:That is a massive feature list you have there, no way you can pull thrue with that team of yours I know I have years of forum experience, so I know how it works, kind of threads. 4:You use THAT engine...na na na, you doing it all wrong. 5: You will fail, I will post several threads in different gaming community how you fail so I can return to those threads few years later and necro and write I told you so.
So as I sead my dream MMO wont be blighted on this toxic board.
While I admire some of the leading mmo makers for their imagination, I would not subject myself to that type of financial risk or that many people posting that I suck.
Which is too bad for those of you who might otherwise enjoy a game about Gothic vampires with large bosoms.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
While I admire some of the leading mmo makers for their imagination, I would not subject myself to that type of financial risk or that many people posting that I suck.
Which is too bad for those of you who might otherwise enjoy a game about Gothic vampires with large bosoms.
I'm not a huge Vampire fan, but hay, I'll play it....Could be fun
What if we let an A.I create us a MMORPG that functions to everyone's concept? It would have the ability to control in-game assets and NPCs, as well as create and change content in the game. That would be interesting to see... I wonder what it would come up with.
Comments
These initial altercations could result in a variety of ways, like that Native American decided to take pity on the poor settler and befriend him, the bank robber and the bounty hunter cut a deal to split the money, only for the bank robber to betray him and shoot him in the back, etc. You get the idea, depending on the players choices involved and the like. And depending on how these stories play out that determines your characters disposition and place in the world, assigns you a faction, a general role, and if you weren't happy with it you could start a new character and play through the intro again. I suppose the idea would be to encourage interaction and get the player engaged right from the start instead of just telling them to go shoot 5 wild boars and bring back their tusks or whatever. And would be a good basis for factions actually mattering and teaming up people who had similar goals in the game instead of just the usual aesthetic differences.
As for the game itself I'd like to borrow from SWG and have the hunter/mining pursuits really be the backbone of the game and the economy, build a really deep crafting system off of that. Combat wouldn't need that much balancing as it's mostly twitch based. As long as it's not like Age of Conan and the starter experience is the only thing good about the game, it'd be pretty interesting.
The mobile market is actually ripe for a great top down starship MMO. Check out the game Pocket Starships in the App Store. Combat is fluid and engaging and the game looks good. Consider a similar game with these features:
1. In depth crafting and economy.
- Trade
- Bounty Hunting
- Escort Missions
- Exploration
2. More emphasis on guilds / territorial control.3. Increased depth of ship customization.
The mobile market is almost as starved for a good game as the MMO market. The only two mobile games out there I can recommend in good faith is Minecraft Pocket Edition and Magic Duels. Most everything else not only are clones, but they are clones of game models so simple they can hardly be called games.
I think the game model I described would be a huge hit if well done and well advertized.
1. Theme: Sandpark MMO in regards to Everquest, of how they still have vertical level progression, Class based, Mid Fantasy. As for the theme, think of a blend of Everquest, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
2. Incorporate, Challenge, Community, Imersion and Variety in all facets of gameplay.
3. A vast open/seamless world that's incorporates a wilderness, not full cultivated, opportunity to explore and adventure.
4. Heavy PVE gameplay, with an emphasis and incentive of group play.
5. A reinvention of the trinity gameplay model. Not omitting the trinity roles but rather a new approach to how it tackles combat trough a reinvention of the tank role.
6. Robust and adaptive combat mechanics for the three archetype of classes. (Tab Targeting, not twitch). European Swordsmanship translated into the Guard System for Melees, Spell Combo System for magic users and the Draw Back Mechanic for the Archer.
7. Multi-behavioral AI, that can potentially adapt in combat to create chaos in battle, which allows the players to be on their toes. Varying degrees of AI rank to determine challenge. I believe adaptive AI will be the next step in PVE gameplay evolution.
8. Three tiers of PVE gameplay. Missives which are task, bounty hunter, harvest, escort, Seek and Find. Missives are for 1-4 players and reward in low to moderate competition with moderate coin. - Dedicated Quests are soloable continuous quest lines that are in 3 categories; 1: Class, 2: Race and 3: Lore. Dedicated Quests provide special abilities and traits for your character. - Adventures are dynamic content that takes the players all over the world, through wilderness and dungeons. Adventures can trigger zone or world events and has opportunity to change the behavior of a zone. Adventures are for 5-6 players.
9. Separate Crafting Classes that make up for a player ran Economy and determine supply and demand of items. Crafting classes come with intriguing mini games to immerse your self as a crafter. Open up shops to sell your wares.
10. Universal Stats that is not dedicated to certain classes.
11. Customizable gear sets and items with varying types of templates. Mix and match templates for gear design. Dye your gear as well.
12. Allocate Stat points into your gear for further character customization and play style. 80% of gear is crafted or reforged. Gear slot determines how many different stats you can allocate in that piece. And Grade of Quality (Low, Medium, High) determines how many total stat points per piece.
13. Follow an intriguing novel like story line that sets the course of events in the game world. - Players are not already heroes, every character is considered a citizen of the world. Must earn to be a hero. The story, lore and world will incentivize RP players.
14. Engrave history and characters into the Scrolls of Time to actually be apart of the lore font the world.
15. End game content includes: Raid Campaigns, which are traditional dungeon crawls, boss endurance and castle like siege warfare (offensive and defensive). Paths of Discipline which act like the AA system on Everquest and other varying content.
There is more but I think 15 points would be just fine now.
The trinity game play creates the 'tank and spank' strategy and what is heavily focused in development for their core combat. The catalyst to this all is contingent on the tank role. The trinity gameplay really doesn' work without a tank, it can sort of work without a healer, see Gw2. But the heart of the trinity is the Tank Role.
In order to reinvent the trinity is to reinvent how to approach the tank role, when that happens it alters the landscape for combat and should diminish the need for the tank and spank game play. Essentially, the tank role is no longer considered just defensive, but rather the tank role jumps to the archetype role, meaning that any melee class can be a tank. In this new proposal of the trinity, tanks are defined to keep melee NPC's off caster/support classes. So that creates another layer of roles which creates a new dynamic. It should create a mini battle format where each player has a responsibility in the encounter. Let me briefly explain...
The new layer of roles are categorized as an Attacker or Support. Melee/caster DPS = Attackers, and Healers = support. As a side note, all of my caster classes have two roles, IE: Damage/Debuffing or Damage/CC ect. Melee class roles are different and are determined on the type of fighter they are, IE: Countering Fighter, Offensive Fighter ect.
Melee and Casters can both be Attacker Classes. Naturally, melee vs melee and caster vs caster, however, there will be times when that is not the case and melee may fight caster or vice versa, depends on a plethora of variables. Let me give you an example I typically give when explaining...
Player Group = 3 Melee, 2 Caster and 1 Healer, whereas NPC Group = 4 Melee and 2 Healers. Depending if the group has CC or not depends on the strategy of which you will tackle this encounter of NPCs. Let's say the Group does not have access to CC. So 3/4 Melee NPCs are accounted for, but one is lose. Do the 2 Caster Attackers focus the melee NPC not accounted for? Or do they each take a healer? Or does one caster attempt to solo the unaccounted melee NPC? Just really depends on some variables, which may include, composition of classes in your group, how comfortable the player is, the type of NPC and what behavior they can elicit, and their AI rank.
So the idea is to simply have 1v1 battles in a group setting. It's suppose to simulate a mini battle and make combat encounters a bit more realistic and add more elements of strategy. Of course there are things in place to negate full tank and spank gameplay like Disengage penalties ect. Think of it like the game of football. Each player has their own separate role on the field and performs it 1v1, but when its working together as one cohesive unit its still considered group game play. I think this new approach would be really interesting and allow a ton of replayability as each encounter may be unique. I want players to be come tacticians. By communicating before an encounter (a pack of mobs), this will help players talk in groups and get to know each other better.
Sorry, when talking about game design, It's hard for me to keep it super short lol. I hope this helps. I am sure this creates a ton of questions.
Example 1: Enemies in the dungeon are not always the same, and not every enemy of the same race / appearance has the same strength and weaknesses (You can't just look up goblin stats on a wiki and know the strengths and weaknesses of every goblin ever). Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies requires someone in the party who has the ability to do so.
Example 2: Given the randomization of enemies the location of all enemies is not known when you start a dungeon. Having someone with stealth to scout rooms before the party comes charging in can be the difference between a wipe and a win.
Example 3: There is no respawning in dungeons, and traps that can one shot party members in random locations. You need someone who can check for traps.
Example 4: You can get past certain enemies with skills such as bluff, intimidate, disguise and diplomacy without having to fight. You may even be able to turn neutral or enemy NPCs into allied NPCs who will help you with other parts of the dungeon.
Example 5: Are those plants growing on the wall harmful, useless, or something that could buff my stats for the coming boss fight? Having someone who can identify them would let you know.
And of course way more options for creative uses of utility spells to get past or trivialize encounters. I don't care what people say the trinity is a construct of MMOs. You run a modern MMO trinity in a P&P campaign and the enemies will walk right past your tank, gank your healer, and then you'll all die to traps as you flee because you have some kind of DPSer with knives in place of an actual rogue.
The trinity makes sense for super simplistic games with a singular focus on combat. It doesn't make sense for virtual worlds and the places MMOs now actually have the technical capabilities to be.
Why couldn't you play a primary healer in GW2? Because primary healers didn't exist. The game literally wouldn't allow you to play them.
Why don't more people play primary healers in D&D? Because primary healers aren't as good as classes that can heal and do other things.
Anet's approach is the approach of forcefully removing the trinity by killing trinity roles.
Pre-MMOs were semi-capable of the trinity but nobody used it because aggro didn't exist as it does in MMOs, and there were so many things that could benefit the party that having people focus on singular roles is considered a bad idea.
Anet's approach does kind of kill group play by making every class fill the same general role. The D&D approach strengthens group play and fosters build diversity by making encounters so rich and varied in what you could potentially face that you need a party that covers as many roles as possible.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Gameplay will be classic roleplaying game style - you have stats, abilities have cooldowns, etc.
Class and combat design will be a main focus of the game design, right after story telling and interface design. It would have static classes. Different classes would have very different gameplay. Namely aspects of the game that are really important on one class might be completely irrelevant on another, causing a very different gaming experience when a gamer descides to play a new character with a different class. It would have complex and dynamic combat. Depending upon class, the player for example might have to manage certain counters to activate his better abilities.
It would have seamless worlds that would be planets; if you travel long enough in one direction you would arrive again at your origin. If you gain the ability to fly you could see that you're on a round planet. Different planets would have different properties, too.
There would be portals between planets, however you cannot use them unless you are of high enough level. Traveling to planets of lower level is allowed, however you would lose access to your higher level abilities while on the lower level planet. On the other hand, training your lower level abilities will also improve the overall power of your character, making traveling to lower level planets worthwhile. This allows you to experience the whole game and play with lowlevel players, and this allows the programmers to add to all levels of the game at any time without anyone missing out. In total there would be ten levels.
Leveling up is done through both ability and gear acquisition. Traveling to a higher level planet will remove (suppress) your lower level gear; you still will receive its benefits but you'll have to work on a new set of gear on that new level again. Abilities are gained through various sources; while at low level the player simply might have to find a trainer, for higher level abilities the trainers might only just set the first step, but then items, questlines etc have to be solved to actually gain access, and once the character gained the ability, it has to be trained by using it in combat as well.
This process gets more complicated the higher the level. For example certain abilities will improve, however to learn the higher level ability, one has to know the prerequisite abilities for it first.
Anyone can learn all abilities available for their class, however the number of abilities a character can actively access during combat is limited and has to be preselected out of combat. Certain signature abilities are always available; for example a healer class can always heal and resurrect. Both gear and abilities gives you a score; you have to meet a certain minimum before you gain a level.
There will also be subclassing and further class customization. This however completely varies with class. For example a Cleric needs to pick a cause (deity) and during the course of levelup a number of domains.
Graphics will have rather low priority. However as stated before the worlds will be seamless.
Planets will be mostly 'empty', filled by random generators. Finding the quest areas will thus be a task of serious exploration. While this will be possible (and very time consuming) to do by foot, players will gain different ways of fast travel and fast exploration, partly also based on their class. For example on a Kashyyyk-like planet with extreme trees, a druid might move around very fast through tree to tree teleportation. A wizard on the other hand will have to create portals in order to reach a new place. Everyone of course will gain access to various mounts and there will be items that allow certain kinds of travel, for example there might be teleportation stones that allow to access certain main portals on a planet.
Very powerful post,
This stuff would capture intrigue as you level. It would give you reason to want to press on, as apposed to a game like GW2 and many others where all you get is a new weapon slot to stick your staff in. It's like the only eating one chip, you always want more.
You talk about Graphics have low priority........ I would say Graphics have even lower priority to REALLY instill the features your talking about..... Graphics being the priority in mmos as of late are killing the mmo. Eye candy only takes us only so far, it doesn't take long from saying this game looks fantastic to this game is boring lets stop playing !!!!
It's only 2017 you can't have both graphics and deep rich game play in an mmo. It consumes too many resources.
However, even at the start of the game, there were Healers in GW2, The two most common forms of healers were Water Elementalist and Shout Guards, because, regardless of the fact that every class could heal, there were varying degrees on how well they could save themselves, and for the harder dungeons like Arah, CoE, HoW, (and even Sorrows when it first came out) were pretty rough if you did not have a Healing/Support class in the group, often having more then one, given they could do other tasks as well as heal, so having that 'healer' was important to survival, being able to have your health restored while your own healing ability was on cool-down was a party saving assist, it also allowed some classes to go full zerker while other classes mixed in things Apothecary or Clerics runes, which allowed them to heal better, and maximize their role of healer.
The thing was in GW2, while there were 'healers', they were never the "sit in the corner and only heal" type of healers that people like yourself think of when they think Healers, in GW2, the classes and builds that could heal the whole group, were also dynamic and able to fill several roles at once.
What I underlined in your post, I agree. That is why it makes more sense for two tiers of roles. Attackers & Support and then sub roles (traditional roles) within that layer. It makes sense for melee to engage with other melee and other magic casters to engage with others naturally in combat. If you think of a real fight, with 6v6. Naturally melee would go after melee and magic after magic. If someone were to 'tank & spank' one NPC they would expose themselves and receive critical hits. That's why there is an engage mechanic with a disengage penalty to incentive this sort of gameplay. If your response wasn't meant me, I apologize.
MAGA
Melee don't go after Melee... Melee go after Casters.. and the only reason why Melee are fighting each other, is because Melee also defend the caster from the melee that are trying to kill them... Just like Assault defends Heavies.. .
MAGA
1: People on this site love to dig deep and slaughter everything about the game, the CEO, the programmers, the art directors, feature list, engine, graphic, animation, colour, you name it.
2: It's a scam
3:That is a massive feature list you have there, no way you can pull thrue with that team of yours I know I have years of forum experience, so I know how it works, kind of threads.
4:You use THAT engine...na na na, you doing it all wrong.
5: You will fail, I will post several threads in different gaming community how you fail so I can return to those threads few years later and necro and write I told you so.
So as I sead my dream MMO wont be blighted on this toxic board.
It will be MY dream.
Which is too bad for those of you who might otherwise enjoy a game about Gothic vampires with large bosoms.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'm not a huge Vampire fan, but hay, I'll play it....Could be fun