My wish list for an MMO; a work in progress.
I want a game that will allow me to appear as I wish to appear, and not look like everyone else. In most games, once the players reach the end game content, they all want the same equipment, so we all end up looking the exact same. If all I want is some cosmetic choices to look much different than everyone else, why can’t I do this even if we do have the same gear? If I want to look like a Samurai, a Celtic warrior, a Pirate or a Guardsman, these characters could all be wearing the exact same gear but appear different and add a lot of spice for players who get bored looking like everyone else.
I want to be able to build a base and not just a useless piece of real estate. If I want a wizard’s tower, a thieves den, a guild hall or a hidden base somewhere, I want to be able to build one and not just have it look pretty; I want it to have some functionality. I want storage space, healing facilities, training facilities, portals to enter various areas in the game. I want a place where guild members can go to chat and meet, without all the rest of the gaming world having access to our space. It should be a place to be defended if well known to others, a place that could be found if not carefully hidden.
I want rare base items to add bonuses to the guild members affiliated to the base which hold these items and for wars to be fought over them - outside factions and inside - creating a more complex social and political environment for gamers to work through. For instance, another guild can try to take a rare item from the base and the guild members will have to defend their base from the invaders. Where alliances become a larger issue and just because you’re on the same faction doesn’t mean you want to fight along side each other.
I want reputation to mean something more than just cheaper goods and availability to items/recipes. If a renowned hero appears in a village for the first time, his reputation will precede him... if his reputation is large enough to warrant it. Hero’s will be welcomed and tales of his deeds will be heard in the tavern and streets and venders will offer random deals, or enemies of the area will cause alarms to sound and families to leave the streets in fear of harm from the enemy. This will also leave an option open for people with no reputation to wander freely around or for enemies to attempt to disguise themselves in hopes of getting what they need and venturing behind enemy lines.
I want players attacking an opposition’s outpost/village to have a warrant posted for that player and the longer the attack the greater the reward. Other players and NPC bounty hunters will begin to appear to attempt to capture/kill the player and the NPC’s level will increase as they are continually beaten by the attacking player until that player is finally forced to retreat or be killed/captured.
I don’t want death and respawn to always be the outcome for attacking outposts/villages. If a player could be captured and held in a prison which forces players to either post bail, wait out their jail time or attempt a jail break, this could also create greater intrigue and danger to the game.
I want some rare items to be ‘one of a kind’ within the game. An item, and not always an end game item, that comes with its own history and lore giving the holder some unique power. An item which cannot be traded or sold only lost or dropped depending upon the players actions.
I want to be able to set my character to do a task for “X” amount of time so I can log off and attend to other things in life and not be forced to always sit for hours on end to increase skills or collect resources. This task has a time limit so the player knows when the task will be completed and if they desire to have their character do something else it will allow them to log back on at that time to continue playing or do another task.
I want to be able to acquire some NPC’s for myself to control and work for me. The gaming world never sleeps, but we must, if we could have a couple NPC’s run our store, protect or base, collect resources, run errands, NPC’s who would interact on our behalf with our instructions to other players or the game environment itself (propose alliances, trades, etc). We could equip or NPC’s and train them with some basic skills to aid them in their tasks and also to defend themselves.
I want to throw away the cap level, if a players wants to spend the next three years playing his game and advancing his character, should he not be rewarded for doing this and not hitting that games level cap and hoping that the next expansion will give him something new to do or new skills to play with? Just increase the experience level requirements accordingly so these are more monumental events, something shared throughout the realm so both allies and enemies alike hear of the news.
I want an in game bulletin board or NPC who can give you updates about what’s happened within the game recently. You could find out if a rare monster was killed and by who, if an outpost is currently under attack, if a legendary item was found today and by who, any special events going on or upcoming; basically your local news, except in game news.
U want......TO MUCH !
Sat Apr 26 2008 3:42PM ReportThis is really idealistic and what i want too. You really covered what I want in an mmo. Unfortunately, that's not coming for a while at least. Lets just pray for it =P
Sat Apr 26 2008 4:06PM ReportSome of these are already in play in various games, just not in one single game.
Sat Apr 26 2008 4:08PM ReportI would play that game
Sat Apr 26 2008 4:15PM ReportSounds like City of Heroes, except for some of the latter wishes.
Sat Apr 26 2008 4:33PM ReportI know a game where you can get most of that today.
It's called life. It relies on player skill and lots of time in the game.
Sat Apr 26 2008 4:43PM ReportYour right, CoH, a little EO, a little wow and the rest are just my wishes.
Sat Apr 26 2008 5:02PM ReportI would definatley play a game like this. this sort of sounds like Horizons..the game would have been great..didnt pan out
SWG could have been like this as well but didnt pan out..
I hope AoC(Age of Conan) will pan out :)
Sat Apr 26 2008 6:32PM Reporti like what you had to say with the exception of the level cap thing. I am of the opinion that a level cap is a necessary evil and I welcome it because it changes the focus of the game from power leveling to other aspects of the game. When I hit the level cap I stop worrying about what level my friends are and if I can group with them. Its a nice sigh of relief...
Sat Apr 26 2008 8:24PM ReportTron: That's why you use a "soft-cap" instead of a "hard-cap" on the level. A hard level cap means at a certain point it is impossible to advance any further. A soft level cap means that at a certain point it becomes unrealistic to advance much farther... but, never impossible to continue leveling.
Sat Apr 26 2008 8:54PM Reportum i guess WoW's adding where u can edit your gear to appear as u want it to so there ya go. everyone will be playing good stuff like AOC and WARhammer and ull be playing wow
Sat Apr 26 2008 9:17PM ReportExactly, a hard cap leaves the player bored and stagnant after a while, and as I already said, if a player wants to play the same game, the same toon for three years, why should he be penalized with a hard cap and bored.
A stagnant player = bored player = a cancelled account.
Sat Apr 26 2008 9:28PM ReportKamyn, I like your thinking. Todays developers think we need another RPG that forces people to fellow/guild/party or otherwise communicate. There are enough people who do not wish join the rat race of needs and wants. I would rather 'become something more' than a Level XXX Class whatnot with 1 of 7million uber staves.
Why do I need 'Kara'? (for instance) Can't I just adventure my way into equal loot? If so...why not??
Why hasn't some cool dev used the Diablo loot scheme to the fullest? Gee Wiz!! How old is that game?
My wish...
Give us a game where we can own businesses, adventure, craft, build guilds and have Diablo Style Loot.
*gasp* I just found the Writing Keyboard of the Novelists Hand!!! It's just that easy.
Sun Apr 27 2008 1:16AM ReportI want to be able to set my character to do a task for “X” amount of time so I can log off and attend to other things in life and not be forced to always sit for hours on end to increase skills or collect resources.
Yuck. I want games that make everything fun so I never want to let the game play itself. That's a sign of bad design, in my opinion. The guys at blizzard started off great with the idea 'ITC?ISF?' test for everything. Unfortunately it turns out that repeating things dozens of times is not cool or fun, no matter how good it was the first time.
Sun Apr 27 2008 7:40AM ReportYou ever try fishing in wow.... yikes, talk about painfully slow and boring.
Sun Apr 27 2008 9:19AM Reportthere once was a game like this... was called Face of Mankind.
now this game is dead, due to developpers trying to always make it better, yet worst.... and never listening to the real community...
now they're making Face of mankind rebirth
Sun Apr 27 2008 12:55PM Reportone word EVE
Sun Apr 27 2008 1:57PM Reporteve sucks and i dont know why people play it and why it is always brought up on this site.
Sun Apr 27 2008 8:21PM ReportEVE is a niche game, cmann. If you don't like it, whatever... but, it has excellent design features just like Shadowbane did in its day. I couldn't play Shadowbane, I probably couldn't play EVE 'hardcore', but I recognize their innovations.
I like the idea of letting your character do things offline... Certain things SHOULD take a long time. Building a castle/bridge/house/temple/whatever should take a long time otherwise it isn't a reward it's a gift, and I don't want a game to give me things I want to beat the crap out of something until I earn it.
And what about your merchant stand that you spent 60 IRL hours personally playing a mini-game to make? Now you have to personally attend it to make any money out of it? Character automation has definite merits.
WoW has Diablo style loot... It's called green or 'magic' items... in Diablo they are blue... but they are still only magic items. Then WoW has rare items... they're blue... in Diablo they are yellow or something... and epics are purple... in Diablo they are gold................. I think the excessive ellipses say it all. Not saying it's a bad idea... just that you're implying that WoW specifically and MMOs in general haven't done it yet.
Because next-gen doesn't have outfit customization the next next-gen shouldn't? wtf? Custom outfits in WoW will do the same thing they did in Asheron's Call... keep the game alive a little longer so Blizzard/Turbine can make some more money off it and show future designers what is possible.
Mon Apr 28 2008 12:14AM ReportHi Kamyn! Good read.
Just so you know, you aren't alone in your thoughts. I agree with almost everything you've said. I'll do my best, as a developer, to get it done, I promise! :)
The main limitations on most of your (our) ideas there are technical. The coding and implementation is too hard. Piss poor excuse, I know.
In any case, wish me luck trying to get Interplay to do those. :P
Mon Apr 28 2008 2:38AM ReportRegardless if we agreed or not, I appreciate everyones thoughts and comments. My wish list is a Work In Progress and these types of forums allow me to rethink and tweak it, and consider games or idea's I haven't thought of myself.
Thanx to all,
Kamyn
Tue Apr 29 2008 5:31PM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
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