Not related to P&P gaming: Problems with MMO Gaming

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah, straight PC vs PC might be the way to go.

[Falgund]

Well, in say, WoW, if you made each fight last 10 times as long; you could get away with 10 times less monsters.

Some WoW encounters already last 10+minutes (But they are not your standard monster).

[Judging__Eagle]

No, i mean, like, 'track' an animal, find it's spoor, find the palces that it's been eating; then kill it in it's den or while it's done eating and tired.

You do that at lvl X to kill mosnter Y.

[Judging__Eagle]

I got a new idea for this.

What if players could 'run' monsters?

Like, a monster, is a range of powers, and other players can operate them?

Monsters would be given a 'mission', and the player stays as that character, until the mission is complete, or abandoned.

The premise is that the players get approached in the dream realm, or in the land of the dead, by death, or some sort of death Power, and asked if they would be willing to perfrom a task for them, for a 'reward', when they return to life.

After that, the player can just 'que' up by using an interface item, or an item in their inventory.

One other thing I'd like to get rid of, is the idea of "item" storage, or change it. WoW took a good step in moving keys to an 'unlimited' size bag, as well as changing mounts and vanity pets from items that took up bag/bank slots, into a "mounts" and "pets" panel.

Making similar panels for other things should be an option, and since, honestly, people like to play dress up, they should be able to play dress up. Every player could seriously have a 'page' or panel that stores different items that a player has seen drop (being at a fight where an item drops gives everyone that item, honestly, that's the best way to go); but the main difference in 'weapons' is that they look different. That's it.

I could see this game being maybe like a really complicated version of 'castle crashers', or the "windwalker" zelda game with it's simple looking, but actually really aesthetically pleasing, characters, scenery and props. 'Simple' can be awesome.

[Vnonymous]

You've posted nothing but terrible ideas and clearly missed at least half of what Jack was saying.

[Judging__Eagle]

What part Vnon?

The part where models, environments, and more keep costs down if you reuse the same base model for all of your character species (faces will be species unique, and will probably be drawings, not full on modelled faces with face rigs), and give them all the same single rig, once? or where you intentionally aim for simplistic, but well designed, environments?

The part where you don't have players 'fight' AIs, but rather other players (who operate monsters)? Because that is 1) actually challenging, and 2) easier to code and saves some server load?

Fill me in, I've either not been clear about what I'm talking about, or I'm still missing something.

[Murtak]

PvP sounds great until the griefing begins. Players as monsters sounds great, until the monsters meet at a predetermined place to let themselves get repeatedly to give players experience. Alternatively, Players as monsters sounds great until the griefing begins.

If you let players fight each other, they will do it and some of them will use it for harassment. If you let players fight as monsters you just made additional player races. If said monsters can attack players you are back to PvP. None of that is necessarily bad, but you have to realize what can and will happen.

[Judging__Eagle]

Yep, I know about griefing. I know it well.

The system that I'm thinking about is something along the following. It's meant to be a lot like the way that LARPs reuse their content (members of cast), by reusing players to fill out roles. In this case, players are being used to run important monsters.

Players as monsters is pretty much the way that "real" monsters are run, and such monsters are uncommon.

When a herd of basilisks invades a town, each is run by a different player. Each has a limited list of powers; and they are then expected to use them.

Powers can seriously be "you cannot deal lethal damage", and "you petrify things, 10 minutes". You can prevent a player from doing things with a monster by not giving them specific options. So, a monster may have a power that allows them to apply some effect on PCs, and any PC affected 'counts'. However, at the same time, the creature may not be able to deal damage to kill players. (then again, most damage never 'kills' a player. It just knocks a creature down. Actually killing an other creature is something that takes time, and a helpless/down target. So, a monster might have the ability to drop players, but they may have the ability to kill downed players removed from their list of options.

Honestly, having monsters act like they are afraid of players, because they can't actually hurt them, is something that I'm fine with.

The objectives that a 'monster' might have could be something like "kill X animals", or "kill X npc", or "disable X amount of PCs with your Y ability".

The idea is that a player will be given either a set, or random, creature, with a limited set of powers; then an objective to use those powers. If the player completes the mission, they can either 'escape' (log out), or keep encountering NPCs and PCs (more rewards per creatures past the quota, until the player logs).

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As for leveling/xp; killing monsters is how you get items. Leveling up is only accomplished if a player completes a specific quest for that level, or, you're just given your level based on how long you've owned your account (up to a certain cap).

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"Grind" by players will be more about them "gathering" resources, and building things.

The reason that players will leave town and track down an Iron Boar, will be to get it's tusks and hide. For players to get good items, they'll need rare materials. Which is where the magic and mythic tiers of monsters fit the bill.

kSo, there will be two or three types of PvP. PCs vs PCs, as their PCs. Players tracking down magical/mythical, monsters (which are run by players) for resources; and Players running magical/mythical monsters in an aggressive manner in specific locations.

Putting limits on what the monsters can do (areas they can travel to/through; abilities they have; type of damage they can deal) will keep a Player-Monster from being actually annoying.

Monsters are supposed to be bad for a town, and players are not supposed to want them coming into town.

If players do things like build walls, or ..... sigh, I think that I need to DL a free copy of Shadowbane, that game had all of the world building stuff. That, and the LOVE MMO.

[Murtak]

Yep, I know about griefing. I know it well.

The system that I'm thinking about is something along the following. It's meant to be a lot like the way that LARPs reuse their content (members of cast), by reusing players to fill out roles. In this case, players are being used to run important monsters.

Players as monsters is pretty much the way that "real" monsters are run, and such monsters are uncommon.

When a herd of basilisks invades a town, each is run by a different player. Each has a limited list of powers; and they are then expected to use them.

Powers can seriously be "you cannot deal lethal damage", and "you petrify things, 10 minutes". You can prevent a player from doing things with a monster by not giving them specific options. So, a monster may have a power that allows them to apply some effect on PCs, and any PC affected 'counts'. However, at the same time, the creature may not be able to deal damage to kill players. (then again, most damage never 'kills' a player. It just knocks a creature down. Actually killing an other creature is something that takes time, and a helpless/down target. So, a monster might have the ability to drop players, but they may have the ability to kill downed players removed from their list of options.

Honestly, having monsters act like they are afraid of players, because they can't actually hurt them, is something that I'm fine with.

The objectives that a 'monster' might have could be something like "kill X animals", or "kill X npc", or "disable X amount of PCs with your Y ability".

The idea is that a player will be given either a set, or random, creature, with a limited set of powers; then an objective to use those powers. If the player completes the mission, they can either 'escape' (log out), or keep encountering NPCs and PCs (more rewards per creatures past the quota, until the player logs).

What is keeping the monsters from just standing there and let themselves be slaughtered for experience/quests? What is stopping regular players from just gathering in the town square and let themselves be hit with the monster ability so the monsters can complete their mission? What is keeping monster players and regular players from just ignoring each other?

Monsters are supposed to be bad for a town, and players are not supposed to want them coming into town.

None of what you outlined makes monsters bad for a town.

[Judging__Eagle]

Monsters don't give xp, I really don't want players to kill monsters for XP. Loot, yes, xp, no. I don't think that part has been very clear.

Killing a monster gives you loot, that's it. Even then, loot is only available if the monster had been a threat. Killing angry hogs isn't as important as killing Loki's Bronze Boar. After a while, boar hides mean nothing to a character. They need golden tusks, iron-hides, magical livers, etc. in order to get better things.

Some sort of "young", "juvenile", "adult", "mature" etc. system could be used for monsters. The more quests that a 'monster' has completed, the bigger the monster gets, and the more rewards the player gets upon 'monster' death. Players who kill the monster get more rewards based on the accomplishments of the creature they've killed. If you kill a monster that has killed 30 people, that's noted, and you get a reward based on that. The rewards from a killed creature are spread out among everyone who helped kill it (and yes, you can include healing allies in that; WoW does that, and a healer can seriously 'get' kills in PvP battlegrounds).

Leveling up requires the player to undergo some sort of ingame exam or test.

This could vary from having to complete a dungeon run


Players don't get anything if they don't accomplish their goals as a monster.

Monster goals could be things like:

-steal a bunch of things (destroy Player resources)
-destroy a structure (destroy player created structures)
-sabotage something under construction (prevent, or delay, construction)
-put X amount of people unconsious/dead/soul drained

Most of the above will be things that players do not want to have happen. Taking things from players is a good thing.

One model that I'm thinking of, would be to have each player given a random creature, at a 'random' location (not likely, more like, a place that the GM's have flagged as a place to target). Until the creature's goals have been accomplished, the player can keep logging in as that creature; and advancing that creature's powers. Before sending in the creature out to their death.

Sort of like a 'monster' character slot, that changes when a player logs in.

Having a list of monster 'types' to choose from, and then a random placement into a chosen creature on the world map.

From there, the player is given their list of objectives, and has to figure out the best way for their Shore Basilisk/Drake/Giant Scorpion/etc. to perform those tasks.

What I'd like to see, is that seemingly random creatures will approach towns and attack people. If they aren't dealt with, they'll run off, and keep getting stronger. Eventually, a creature will be powerful enough that people will go searching for the creature. Tales of the golden scorpion of Makor will bring PCs to what could normally be considered backwater places. The Golden Scorpion's player gets in-game rewards for murdering helpless people in town, and stealing cattle, on a regular basis.

Monster hunters get a bunch of rare materials from killing a rare creature; plus some of the loot the creature has been generating by accomplishing it's goals (rings in its guts, etc.).

Having a cooldown on a creature after they have accomplished their goal is probably important. You want a creature to be trackable, and killable. Having a creature have to spend 1 hour in game, after they have accomplished a goal. If they log off, the creature is left where the player last left it, and using basic AI to control its actions.

I want to encourage players on both sides to both power up their monsters, to get more rewards; and to hunt down powerful monsters, in order to get better equipment.

[Hyudra]

The earlier discussion in the thread touches on conceptual ideas that I've discussed with a friend for the past few months.

Advancement & the Item System

• The problem: When you get down to it, the hunger for advancement is at the root of most MMO difficulties. This creates scenarios where there's a requisite amount of grind before you can start having fun. For the worst offenders, the grind is supposed to be the fun and when you're done grinding there's nothing left for you to do. Korean MMOs are big offenders here, but you've still got games like WoW which brainwash players into thinking that advancement is the only thing that matters. No offense, JE, but your OP is filled with such a sentiment.
  
  Solution: No levels, gear is based on the idea of 'sidegrades' rather than 'upgrades'. This means that a player who just started can, if he's as skilled, be on par with the guy who has played for 100 hours. Player efforts are rewarded in other ways. Aesthetics (stuff that looks good), options, community based growth (like improving a communal settlement), accumulation of stuff with convenience that doesn't impact combat.

Static Design

• The Problem: Jack the Quick touched on this. To create one element of the game, there's a vast amount of work involved from a sizeable team. X amount of money and X amount of hours creates a single area which players tend to blast through in a fraction of the time that it took to create. In the economy of effort, here, you can't keep up, which encourages grind in design, to slow the players down and reuse the same areas, same monsters, same skills, again and again.
  
  A Solution: Create the building blocks, not the building. Rather than create a class, you create the individual skills and give players the ability to design their own classes by picking an assortment of abilities. Rather than create the 12 rooms of a dungeon, you take 12 individual rooms and add them to a growing pool of rooms your server can use for procedurally generated instances. Yes, there are sacrifices, but you get more longevity without the emphasis on grind.

Balance

• The problem: MMOs build on the notion that you're a hero. To be a hero, most naturally want to stand out. Standing out means, for lack of a better term, min-maxing. Players gravitate towards the best skills, classes and builds because it makes them feel stronger overall. The flip side of this, however, is that those choices deemed 'underpowered' fall by the wayside. Players who want to be a chemist, when the archdiocese class is clearly better, are forced to choose between being effective and playing the class they want. Balancing a system, insofar as it is possible, is an uphill battle with a handful of developers against tens/hundreds of thousands of players that will break your game down into raw numbers and walk away with the optimal setup.
  
  A Solution: It's nigh impossible for developers to balance a game on their own. I'd propose a system where the game balances itself.
  
  Let's say players build with a selection of 25 skill points and 10 equipment slots. An ability (such as 'Fireball') can cost anywhere from 1 to 5 of your skill points, depending on how strong and versatile it is. For equipment slots, you can equip any hat or helmet you own in the 'head' slot. You can swap out gear or skills in town, so builds can be totally changed on the fly. The stats of your skills/gear and the number of skill points it takes to obtain your Fireball skill are adjusted by the designers as required.
  
  Where the game would balance itself would be a 'total value' system, where gear and skills have a fluctuating value, depending on how often they're being used and how successful players are while they've got those skills/gear, as tracked by the server. With a cap on how much total value your combination of gear & skills have, there's a restriction on how much you can optimize. If everyone on the server is using Fireball because it pwns face, then Fireball's value rises and players are increasingly pushed to pick less optimal skills and gear to keep it slotted.
  
  There's side benefits to this too. Because 'sidegrades' can never be entirely equal, this naturally helps balance out minor differences. It also helps highlight issues for the designers, as trends emerge in the values and some stuff just never gets used, even with a value of 0.

The Two Faction System

• Problem: MMOs as of late tend to have a 'Red vs. Blue' mentality. When Red is better, more populous or more successful than Blue, Blue's players stop playing, and the gap widens. Often there's nothing blue can do to fight back against the superior red, and there's a great deal of discouragement. We've seen this in WoW, we've seen it in WAR, we've seen it in Aion.
  
  Solution: Three factions minimum. If Blue and Yellow can gang up against the superior Red, there's hope. If the mechanics allow for small scale truces or if there're incentives to attack the superior faction, all the better.

I'd go into more detail, like with crafting (I fully support and had ideas towards a minigame-driven crafting system, but that'd be twice as long as this post alone), but I'll leave it at that.

[Judging__Eagle]

Hyudra,

Thanks for the post.

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Gear Grind

I think that my ideas on 'gear' are similar to yours. Players can get by fine without magical or mythical items in the system I'm working on.

I'm thinking of going for the following item break down:

Mundane:
-primitive (Every PC can scrounge this)
-standard (PC Crafted, NPC Bought)
-exceptional (PC crafted)

The only difference between all of the above is how much they affect Active Ability CDs. A primitive or standard, item 'might' fail; and prevent a player from using an appropriate ability for a short duration (5-10 seconds). While the exceptional is something that a Player will want to get, since it will not fail as often (almost never).

Magical:

masterwork - effort
imbued - blood
enchanted - soul

Plus, one of:
+Rare Material
+Ritual
+

Mythical
-Personell - (something that gives you minion NPCs) - Patronage/Fealty
-National - (something that people within any one nation should recognize. If I say that I have Gen. Custer's Sabre; that should mean something) - Historic Item
-Global (things known across the whole world; seriously, things like Gungir, Excalibur, Triton's Trident; fit in here, things that 'gods' have given to mortals) - Deific Patron

The 'cost' for making magical stuff will be that the player has a constant de-buff on them until an object's crafting is completed.

The whole concept of "failing" to craft something is fucktarded.

As is leveling up your crafting. If a player chooses a Minor in Craft Minerals, then they can craft anything that is minerals. That's it.

The difference will be that a player who has the Major skill to craft Mythic items, can craft a lot faster.

Mythic things are not meant for common use. There may be several National level weapons for a single nation, but they will hopefully be different from each other (Custer's Sabre, Jimmy Page's Axe, Geronimo's Knife, Lincon's Rifle, Washington's Teeth, Unabomber's Workshop, Adolf's Kamphfy Chair).

Global things are things that people across several nations, or even globally, have heard about. Joshua's Cross, Hobbe's Fortress, Da Vinci's Murder-Chariots, Huitzilopochtli's Rubber Ball and Macahuitl.

For some reason, Huitzilopochtli sounds like he should be a baseball player. One with a bum left leg. >_>

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Content Grind

Right now, I'm aiming for a single stock humanoid body; rigged.

Then very well unwrapped using something like Headus UV unwrap; and textured in a manner that registers well at a distance. A Fish-man will have groupings of 3 scales, not realistically drawn scales all over their body.

However, character faces will be given more detail.

I'm not sure on how exactly, either as a sphere, or a basic sphere with a box jaw


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I'm thinking that a resource model based on players "Acting" as monsters might be useful. Resource farming is lame on so many levels.

Being allowed to go murder PCs, and then given shinies by the dark reaper; solves two problems.

1) players have aggressive monsters, that will have reasonable pathing, tactics, AI, etc. that come into town

2) players don't have to farm nodes, or monsters ( ... that stuff fills me with so much ick).



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Balance:

I'm aiming for a single system, classless system.

Abilities are bought along two main types of purchasing tracks.

Either climbing from Continual, to Encounter to Daily; and unlocking powers that are expected to be used less often.

Or, by buying Minor, Moderate or Major powers. Buying a Minor isn't a big deal; and a player can be expected to have "murder unconscious creatures without taking 5 minutes", or "can shoot magical blasts of energy", or "can wield melee/bows/large thrown/2H weapons weapons" or "can fight unarmed as well as other people can with weapons" or "can use light melee weapons/concealable weapons/small thrown weapons/crossbows".

Moderates are more restricted. I'm thinking of 1 Moderate per 3 Minors that a character knows.

Majors are more restricted still. With 1 Major per 3 Moderates, or 9 Minors.

Players will be capped at 5 Majors, 15 moderates, and 45 minors.

Those are split up by a player between Active, Reactive, or Non-Combat abilities.


.... and that doesn't really address your post on Balance. However, this is how I'm going to deal with Balance (for now). A single system that every player buys into to pick up different options for their adventurer.

The main way that abilities are limited is not terms of a character moving or not, instead, they are regulated by their Cool Down. So, a person can move, and shoot, or move and cast, however, all of the in game abilities are going to available to all PCs.

I'm actually fine with a "healer" PC, to be able to Poison, or cripple people with their tools. And basic weapons training in a wide mix of options is 1 minor. Since weapons all deal the same amount of damage, the game a player has to go for is more of "what do I want my character to do", not "longswords > scimitars/shortswords; unless ur a TWF, then dual shortswds". I don't want people to be rewarded or punished for their gear choices. Anyone can 'wear' armour, but it slows you down a bit, or generates 'noise' (DDO's 'visible' noise for move silently vs listen, and gradual transparency for hide/spot was genius). Training in wearing armour gives bonuses, not the ability to wear armour.

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On factions. I honestly hate them. At least, the way that they are commonly treated.

Especially hard-coded ones that are forced on the player for no really good reason.

WoW is a brutal offender for this. As a person, I seriously do not like the faction that I'm a member of. If I could, my Night Elf would seriously have joined the Tauren, at the very least.

EQ's ability for players to change their standing with a faction is reasonable; but the amount of grinding involved is stupid.

WoW has done some really massive progress in making this grind seem less so; by having players wear "tabards" of the faction they want to increase their reputation with. The idea being that if you go murder monsters with [Assholes Anonymous] on your tabard, that you've spread awareness for AA.

I'd personally like for some system where a player can pledge fealty to groups that do not look like the PC. So, if you're an Orc, you can join the Elf war camps. Until you do something like kill an Elf in town, or remove your name from their list of members.

I'm thinking that something akin to the Shadowbane method might work. I'm still researching how the guild/nation/kindgom/empire dynamics work in SB, but it is interesting.
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Notes on character models/face.

I think that I've hit the break point that I wanted to reach on the ability for players to modify their appearance.

I know that I want players to be able to 'put on' equipment; basic things, like armour, or hold a weapon. Which means in-game models.

So, going for pretty basic things, allows for 1) objects that are recognizable, at a distance; and 2) stuff that's easier to model. One weapon of each main type. Detailing is left up to the player, or for down the road.


Appearance of Choice, Choice of appearance.

Giving players the ability to tweak stuff in their appearance, endlessly, is a game that people are really willing to play. People are willing to go to all sorts of different, weaksauce, locations, sometimes even BS annoying locations.

People like their special mounts, and cool looking weapons, but giving them a set of sliders to customize their items is something that I like.

The idea of "building blocks" is one that I really like. Much like the way that Spore uses an in game editor to allow a player to modify their gear.

I think that Spore might have lost out in some of its own awesomeness because it catered to people who were going to favour function above form. Since the game didn't really reward playing around to make stuff look cool, the players didn't do so. Instead creating a million penis monsters.

If player submitted content was reviewed, and voted upon, and its use stats tracked, then there could be a way to reward players for content that they have created, that other players have used.

So, if someone gets really clever, and builds a Chu-Ko-Nu rack, or a very large ship (something like the Chinese Treasure ships), then that's cool. They figured out a way to build a device that can give out a lot of suppressive fire, or a ship big enough to be a floating fortress.


Having components, that can be used to create objects, is an idea that I love, but I'm not sure if it's feasible or not. The trick would be to have several simple tools, made of different materials; "tools" nodes, objects that always work in a specific manner. Something like The Incredible Machine; except for Making a Crossbow. Using different materials allows the result to look different, or attack in a different manner.
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Damage Types

-sigh-

Ok, I'm honestly not sure on this.

1 There's the Inimical Model, where something affects its opposite. Fire burns Water, Water Douses Fire. Not many games have this.

2 Then the Cyclic Model, where one thing affects other things. Fire Burns Earth, which smothers Wind, which dries Water, which douses Fire. RO, and many J-type games have this model.

3 Then there is the 'Numerical Resistance'/'immunity' model. Where you get some resistance to reduce the damage, but it's not one where your elemental damage is a real bonus against anything.

I prefer 2. Lighting swords, and Ice Swords are cool. They don't have to do anything special. Just deal even +1 more damage (this game is assuming that weapons only deal 1 point of damage, and creatures have a base of 3 'SBL' (Stamina Body Life) (I'm not sure on how, or if, PCs will be able to earn more 'body' as they level up).

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I should probably write a list of all of the games that I like enough to steal from; and what I don't like about them, that I will try and modify in my version.

[Hyudra]

Re: Players as monsters

• I think for basic monsters, an average AI is fine. I think I'd lean towards a longer TTK (Time to kill) with a higher difficulty, but I think the real problem is bosses.
  
  The primary issue with bosses is that they're the capstone of any given stretch of PvE, but it really boils down to trial, error and patterns. In WoW, WAR and many other games, many players will know the pattern of the boss attacks before they even fight the boss, thanks to wikis and word of mouth. I think this is a damn shame.
  
  There's two solutions to this. One is to apply the building block design: Rather than design bosses as a whole, you use, say, templates. Perhaps there's a boss subtype and a boss class. You go into the bottom level of a dungeon and there's a Yeti boss; the players don't have any indication of what his attacks are (even if they've fought Yeti bosses before). If he's a Dire Yeti Shaman boss, perhaps he has some vicious attacks, leaps and roars coupled with summoning of spirits. If he's a Frigid Yeti Warrior, perhaps a cone of ice breath and the ability to grab chunks of earth/glacier out of the ground and hurl them around the room. By that same note, a Frigid Wyvern Brute might have the ice breath, but other attacks besides.
  
  The other solution is player-run bosses. This could even be a big incentive for play. Assume you have a Red Nation vs. Blue Nation vs. Yellow Nation system. A player that meets the prerequisites (finding specific treasure, perhaps) can queue for a boss performance and practice in arenas. If a Red Nation party finds the boss, then any Blue or Yellow nation players that have queued can be that boss. Human intelligence for boss encounters, boss encounters that are less about "don't make a mistake" and more "think fast!"

Aesthetic

• Won't get into depth here, but basic tie-in to your discussion of crafting and appearance.
  
  Concept: High level crafters can take the stats from one piece of armor and transplant to the art of another. Reward for focusing on crafting, highly desirable to 'Johnny' players.

Got an appointment, but I'll chime in later (or edit) with thoughts on resources/crafting and elemental types.

[Judging__Eagle]

Heh.

Good, you know what I want.

I really do like the idea on Players running boss fights.

You could even do it in WoW right now, and give players "extra" badges, and then suddenly, all of the lame heroics that I can face-roll heals in humanoid form (instead of tree-form) on my Druid would be more of a challenge.

I'll be back later as well, I appreciate your ideas.

[Hyudra]

Resources & Crafting

• I've been writing up a set of rules for my MMO design, though I can't program and it'll never get off the ground. Here's the concept I had for gear & resources.
  
  Gear breaks down into loose categories, but ultimately isn't defined by strict boundaries, since there wouldn't be a strict class system. Ergo, there can middle grounds between leather and chain (ie. Brigadine), or whatever. Armor would have stats like HP, an armor value, weight and intrinsic abilities. Part of the stats would be dependent on the armor type, part would be based on the armor material.
  
  So you can have two medium-ish armor types:
  
  Chain Shirt
  +250 health
  Armor: 3
  Weight: 2.5
  Durability: 10
  +2 skill points in Battle
  
  Scout Vest
  +225 health
  Armor: 2
  Weight: 2
  Durability: 10
  +1 skill point in Battle
  +2 skill points in Agility
  
  Then you have individual materials, which could come from cloth, ore, leather, etc. To use metals as an example:
  
  Iron:
  +50 health
  Armor: 2
  Weight: .5
  Durability: /15
  
  Steel:
  +25 health
  Armor: 3
  Weight: 1
  Durability: /20
  
  So you could mix and match materials to individual armors, with tradeoffs for each choice. Add a new material to the game, and there's suddenly a lot of possibilities for all gear that can be crafted using that material.

Elemental Types

• You debated the ways elements could counter one another. I ask: is this necessary? I can't help but think of the Searing Flames debacle in Guild Wars:
  
  Long story short, the Nightfall expansion came out, and one of the Elementalist skills was Searing Flames. Set the target and all nearby foes on fire (strong DoT). If anyone in the area is already on fire, inflict big damage instead. People cottoned on to the fact that hey, teams of 8 with 5 people packing Searing Flames were pretty pwn. All the elementalists would cast it at the same time and everyone in the target area would abruptly die.
  
  That led people to start running with Mantra of Flame, which halved incoming fire damage and gave you energy whenever you took it... so the elementalist teams started packing Winter, which made all fire damage in the area cold damage instead... so people started packing Mantra of Frost.
  
  You see where that's going. It's probably the best example of MMO metagaming I can think of, and it touches on your concept of 'water counters fire'.
  
  I'd say avoid that whole nightmare. Go with the 'numerical resistance' with specialist builds, perhaps, but there's really no merit to emphasizing the elements unless you want a convoluted metagame.

More on Magic

• Consider this magic system. Again, I return to the 'building blocks', only it's very dynamic here.
  
  Ten elements, with the primaries being Fire, Water, Air, Earth. The secondaries are derived from the primaries, so fire + air = lightning. Fire + earth = iron. All in all, you've got Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning, Iron, Steam, Wood, Crystal, Frost.
  
  Then you've got individual incantations. 'Blast', 'Dart', 'Jaunt', 'Wall', 'Shield', and so on.
  
  You pick your repertoire of elements and incantations as you do any set of skills, then you mix and match on the fly in combat. Fire plus blast = an abrupt cone of fire. Fire + Jaunt = a comet-like leap across the battlefield with a fiery explosion as you land. Conversely, Lightning + Jaunt might be a teleport or blink effect.
  
  Then you differentiate the elements with a base set of values. Fire is better for AoE, iron penetrates armor better, and so on.
  
  Lastly, most element types would influence the battlefield. Frost might freeze water into platforms. Fire could set plant life (and people) on fire. Air might throw loose crates and enemies around. Earth would create large stones to obstruct the battlefield. Yadda yadda.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well... that's honestly a lot more than I'd like for complexity in 'magic'.

Personally, magic, and non-magic should be equally complex.

A Mage and a Warrior should face off, and unless people know who the warrior, or the mage is to begin with.

elemental shit

The Elemental System that I'm aiming for is probably more along the lines of Ragnarok Online.

I've really always liked the element/species system that the game had.

Every creature in the game has both an element, and a species. Even the players (players are Neutral/Demi-Human; using different types of either elemental armours, or a monster 'card' placed into a 'slotted' armour can make a player a different element).


more on magic:

The idea is interesting, but I think it's one that could be fraught with problems of balance as more abilities are listed.

I'm personally trying to create "single" lists for 'special' powers; and a person can buy them if they are a medic, psychic, mage, archer, or swordsman.

[Roy]

Ok, I'm still not entirely sure what this thread is about. But it's a JE thread, so I'm not really surprised by this.

Thing is, MMOs operate on a different principle than normal RPGs out of necessity. In a single player RPG, the goal is to sell boxes. And this means anything from 'have really pretty graphics' to actually *gasp* 'making a quality game'.

So you buy it and you play it for a dozen, or a hundred hours or whatever and they got theirs already. And if it's a good game you'll tell people as much, and some of them will go buy it too.

MMOs however make most of their money off the monthly subscription fees. In such cases the goal isn't to get you to start playing, it's to get you to keep playing.

Big Problem #1: "Farming"

People farm monsters to get items in-game to sell for cash:

If by cash you mean in game currency, that's one of the things that keeps you playing. If you mean actual US dollars, most of the MMO companies don't like that and will try and cockblock your ebaying. Though it's more common you farm items in game to improve your character than to sell to others.

Big Problem #2: "Getting a group"

Even on a relly fvcking big server you can seldom find the people that can fill out your group; level differences, class differnces etc. all add up to some groups never getting who they want and some players never getting groups.

Delays for getting a group, combined with needing specific groups to do stuff is another thing that keeps you playing. If a quest takes 30 minutes and you can go right away, you can grind it once in 30 minutes. If it takes another 30 to get a party, congrats. You're playing twice as long. This is why most of em are very specific about what classes can and cannot do, and try and focus on 'perfect parties' as much as possible.

Now most of em consider it a problem if a certain class has nothing to do, because then people of that class will quit. But long delays to get a party? Yeah, working as intended.

I'm not even sure what the other stuff is about so I'm ignoring it. But the thing is, an MMO that didn't follow these principles wouldn't have players for long because they'd be done with the game. At which point they stop paying. Servers need money to run, so JE's idea is doomed to fail.

Case in point? DDO. Yes, I went there. If you don't want to hear the why skip to the last line.

When the game first came out it was advertised as an unconventional MMO. You level up by completing objectives and not grinding mobs, no to very low grind in general, combat is more about skill than gear etc.

And for a while, they did that. Thing is, this got old. Very fast.

People hit cap in about... one week. And given that many status effects were permanent until removed at the time, and you lost XP for dying that's saying something. Why? Because people quickly figured out what quests were and were not worthwhile, and just grinded those to cap. WW, STK, TR, Delera's, Stormcleave, CO6. Done.

At the time chests didn't reset. As in you looted a chest... 8 times. And then you'd get reduced loot for another 7 or so. And then you get nothing. At all.

Players got pissed off and quit until they added a ransack timer. Once that was added, people began grinding the high level quests repeatedly for loot. Players wanted more like this, so they got it.

DDO finally added a real raid. It proceeded to insta gib everyone for a few months and piss people off until it was learned. Then everyone started on the guide kick.

It quickly became apparent that the 'no grind' game not only wasn't that popular, but that players actually WANTED grind. Yeah, really.

Next area comes out. What's in there? Many different awesome items with a low drop rate, and a raid with a douchebag flagging mechanic and one really awesome piece of caster loot.

Even so, after hitting the new level cap to avoid losing XP to deaths people didn't mind grinding it. Though, small player base.

And this repeated for the next few mods. More and more grind added, existing players kept happy. Not many new ones coming in, likely due to lack of advertising. Of course the more they do this, the more they make it like a normal MMO.

Cue mod 6. This is the Shroud mod. What's in the Shroud? Well the most important part is the boss fight. Surround him, turn on auto attack, and get mass healed. Done. And the loot? Actually pretty damn good, and worth grinding for... but still quite grindy. This is regarded as the best or second best release by most. Not just because of the grind, but because there is real and noticeable progress. If you need 3 of item a, 3 of item b, and 3 of item c and you get 2 as and a b, you are closer to your goal and know exactly how much closer you are. Even if you don't get any of those items, you will get something. And you can sell that something, or trade it for something you do want.

Now it's actually a good thing the Shroud doesn't require dynamic combat. Why? It's too fucking laggy to implement it, so if you had to do it you would fail. But even so, the longer they went on the more they made it like a normal MMO.

By the time they reannounced it and started their kick to try and pull in new players? Not really that much different from any other MMO. You grind x for y, you need to know what to do even before you have ever done it, and most encounters come down to a numbers contest (and someone off tanking lag).

And what do you know? They got a lot more players. I'm not counting the free players in this. I mean the ones that stick around.

Point is, the MMO that isn't like an MMO thing? It doesn't fucking work from a financial perspective.

[Judging__Eagle]

I think that looking at games like Ultima Online, Eve, Shadowbane and ... Planetside (I think it was called that) might be something that I want to do. I want this game to be more about players working with, or against, each other. I'd rather have players grind things that will affect the game in some way.

[Murtak]

Point is, the MMO that isn't like an MMO thing? It doesn't fucking work from a financial perspective.

It might, but certainly not without changing the basic paradigm of the game. If you have a PvE game and the game can be finished in a week then eventually new players will finish it in a week. So if you want to make leveling easy you can't make leveling the goal. If you want to make getting cool items easy, getting cool items can not be the goal of the game.

If, on the other hand, the objective is control of the game map so you can change the world, then you can have people level fast. Imagine a standard PvE game, where you can control points by completing quests or killing bosses. If a given faction controls a point for a predetermined amount of time, they get to change the zone. Eternal darkness over a city, driving out the fire giant tribe into another zone, building a bridge over a chasm, that sort of thing.

Suddenly people leveling to the max level in a week does not sound so bad. Suddenly people will want to go for bosses who offer sub-par loot, just to get that control point. The entire game changes. Of course you will likely run into other issues. But you can totally make a MMORPG work for those who do not want to grind (while still offering grinding for those who want it).

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm also thinking that items should also affect the game.

The "brokers" system from DDO is one that I like a lot. Items should just be tradeable.

Ranks of items that I'd like to see:

Junk - NPC Trash, this stuff "feeds" the NPC economy.

Crafting Items -
3 types (Mineral, Plant, Animal) ,
3 grades (Mundane, Magic, Mythic);
maybe 3 subgrades for each That's 81 total options; and

Mineral
Igneous,
Metamorphic,
Sedimentary

Plant
-Sessile
-Mobile
-Hybrid

Animal
-something
-something
-something


Mundane

Magic

Mythic
-Personnel (Excalibur,
-Regional (
-Global (Triton's Trident, Cobra's Pyramid of Darkness)


Donating Junk, and the NPC population:

If you give in enough "trash" food, or Clothing, armour, weapons, etc. the NPCs in town will 'count' as having weapons, armour, etc. (there's a "pool", if X amount of gear is present, an NPC spawns in the area, of the type of city that was donated to). Players can donate to the places that they like, so the Cobalt enclaves can get larger, and eventually become parts of the Yahoo, Elf (Alfar) and Halfling (Burahobbit) villages.

[Qaenyin]

Something that I've always felt is missing is the ability for players to determine their own character's alignment and purposes. This is something that was implemented in Everquest way back when and even in that game has been largely forgotten ever since the Luclin expansion started creating happy go lucky genericified "quest hubs".

If you're an evil dude, good dudes don't like you. Some other evil dudes don't like you, just because you're competition or they think their evil is way more awesome than your evil and don't think you should be allowed in their evil club. These things can be laid out when you make a character, but be flexible or changable:

Say group of evil dudes A is being pestered by generic goblin faction B. You can kill members of generic goblin faction B to make Evil Dudes A like you more. Alternately you can kill Evil Dudes A to make Holy Justice Paladins C like you more for saving them the trouble. MMORPGs can have actual, in game, USABLE pseudo-politics and faction relationships that your character can openly flow through as they/you prefer. It's been done. Just no one these days wants to bother because people are too concerned about precise game balance. They have an issue with the fact that Evil Dudes A might have more awesome badass scythes of the death god than Paladins C have uber holy avengers of dragon asskicking. When you just make one genericified "mediator dudes of this particular expansion" faction then there's no worry about balance, everyone gets the same stupid crap.

I personally think people are too obsessed about balance and that game designers focus on too broad an audience. It's like that old saying, you can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but never all the people all of the time, and MMO devs are too busy trying to do just that. Part of this is because of the huge overhead involved in MMO development, but that turns it into a crapshoot; either everyone loves your game or everyone hates it because you only put half a foot in everyone's collective doors at the same time and no particular crowd wants to let you in.

MMORPGs do not necessarily have to have pvp. They do for the most part sort of need to have pve, since character advancement is what defines an RPG, although some sort of player-oriented game would work it would advance very poorly in the latter portion of its life span(having too many high level players means no new players would feel welcome), still, you can focus a game on pvp and just have pve in place to advance your character and teach you how to play so you can pvp.

MMORPG devs need to pick a niche and not waste what precious money they have trying to half ass every crowd at once. They'd have more money to draw in any specific crowd they decided to cater to that way, be it the roleplayers, the pvpers, the raiders, the grinders, the quest and storyline lovers, whatever.