I want to start a thread for people to dump ideas into, ideas for abilities, classes, creatures, items places you name it.  Just leave full fledged game ideas or specific mechanics to other threads, this is for specifics regardless of genre or game type.

Hopefully we can get a list going for people to share and get ideas from.  Try to be a little specific, like in what way you were thinking something would be used and don't worry about balance issues.

Also I realize this should probably be in the "Characters and Skills" subforum but no one ever goes there.

These are some things I have thought of recently

Ability Sets/Classes

Nick - Aka Nicks of Time - origin magical or mutation - creates localized time distortions, meaning only affects a certain area, to affect the battlefield, uses clocks to focus powers

Abilities

• Halt Time - stops everyone around the Nick other then him and his team for X seconds, Tap-single Charge-AoE
• Rewind - time flows backwards X seconds in the past to undo whatever was done, can be used as a resurection of sorts, conical AoE Charge-longer time
• Tempus Fugit -  The Nick can accelerate himself or team members causing them to move at a quickened pace Tap-single Charge-AoE
• Glimpse of the Future - Cast the target far into the future aging them doing damage and causing their stats to be deminished Tap-single Charge-conical AoE
• Anachronism - Summon a paerson or thing from the past through a time rift to fight your foes, cannot control the summon Charge
• Stich in Time - Intermittenly creates rifts around the Nick doing AoE DOT Channel
• Grandfather Paradox - Exploit an alternate time line to change the course of actions for you and your team, ie blink to another locate, Charge-AoE
• Chronos - passive - You are as ageless as time and as such your (energy, mana action points) depletes at a slower pace.

Telepath - origin mutation or psionics - Uses the power of their mind to  manipulate the minds and thoughts of others

Abilities

• Hypnotize - Directly control the actions of one target, Channel
• Id - DoT damage that decreases accuracy and slows attack time, Channel-conical AoE
• Projection - Does DoT to the target and returns energy to you, Charge-Adds accuracy debuff
• Empathy - Heal the target, Tap-single Charge-Conical AoE
• Transference - Tranfer debuffs from you to the target, Tap
• Delusion - Confuses the target adding a chance to do damage to their allies, Charge-increases time
• SuperEgo - Greatly enhances your damage resistance and resistance to stuns, fear and confuse, Tap
• Ego - passive - Gives you increased resistance to stuns, fears and confuse, returns energy when an effect is resisted

Engineer - origin technology - uses skill in mechcanics and explosives to dispatch foes, engineers always need to carry spanners

Abilities

• Sentry - creates a gun turret at the location, turrets can be controlled, Charge
• Mine Field - creates mines at the location that explode is an enemy is within proximity, Tap
• Barricade - creates a barrier at the location that can be used for cover and block areas, Charge
• Remote Charge - Places charge on the targeted area that you can detonate remotely, Tap(2x) detonate
• Recon Bot - increase your preception and ability to detect enemies on your minimap, Charge
• Battle Armor - You get inside of your battle armor increasing you defense and melee damage greatly, Charge
• Grappling Hook - Use it to pull forself up to things or pull things over to you, Tap
• Gearhead - passive - Increases your energy regeneration the more gadets you have in use

Creatures

Jack in Irons - A behemoth man that had a taste for human flesh was imprisoned after a series murders through the countryside, now he is clad in a large muzzle that prevents him from biting people and turning his head and uses his own shackles as weapons, he resides in unamed prison. Setting - Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Steampunk, Superhero, Post Apocalyptic

Gerrors - Blind Subterrainian creatures with pale grey skin large mouth with small pointed teeth and tiny eyes that are very sensitive to light.  They are very thin and agile, their hip bones and spine can be easily seen through their skin, they walk on all fours like a gorilla.  They navigate by smell and attack prey in packs, making a coughing hiss to communicate.  Light hurts their eyes and it is the only way to keep them at bay.  Setting - Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Steampunk, Sci-Fi, Post Apocalyptic

Omni-target abilities.  Can target both self/allies/enemies

WindFlow:  all damage -20%,  movement speed +20%

AccelerateMetabolism:  Damage from status effecs +20%,  damage taken +5%,  Damage dealt +20%

Freeze:  Armor potiental -20%,  damage from status effects -20%

Great Thread idea, Not sure why it was not started before now but I am glade that it is started.

Why does every faction have to have identical resources available to them? If each resources can be used identically but be vastly different it would add more content for players to 'explore' and keep them on the same line that they are already on.

Granted this is ideally used for Crafting and specifically relating to Agricultural resources for things like Textiles, Food, etc.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Just leave full fledged game ideas or specific mechanics to other threads, this is for specifics regardless of genre or game type.

This part is what is throwing me off the discussion a bit. I don't design classes, structure, or anything for that matter without knowing what setting I am working with. So basically, I am the type to write first, design second, and that makes it hard for me to think of "generic" MMO ideas. I spend my time making a "game worthy of the setting involved", and rarely come upon a mechanical idea that I then turn into a setting based on need. I can't really throw out much of what "could work with any game", because truthfully - not much will. I'll try and update as it comes to me though.

1. Preparations for a PC and Console Launch

Beyond the obvious technical issues, the main design point is to focus on the controls; and the limited amount of options in part to any console counterpart to a game. Most games will want to use face buttons and triggers set to the various actions in-game, and this limits choices in combat to a large extent. My suggestion is to employ the various combinations at hand.

1234|5678|90-=

Above is the 12 button hotbar we all know an love (or loathe). It's split in 3 sections so that the common 4 face buttons can control the center (5678), while the left/right triggers in conjunction with the face buttons will execute the left/right sides respectively. This "aesthetic" should be something seen on both sides of the user base with the keyboard icons on any colored template the console might have (or other icon made larger), and should hopefully get the idea across if they ever choose to swap formats from PC to Console, or vica versa.

Taking the idea further would be a way to toggle the hotbars up and down using the very common "3rd button" hidden in most thumbstick peripherals. That takes from the general use of putting them in line with crouching/running actions though, but if your game lacks them, use em'. You can go into a concept with this in mind even if you don't plan a console launch, having forethought applied to the game in general that allows (and emphasizes) playing with a traditional gamepad goes a long way.

2. Financial Methods

I think it's safe to say there is a line between that which is "cash-shop" and that of the "subscription" route. I'm not going to get into any methodology about both sides, but I will point out where the line can be blurred; and that is based on the production values of a game. You simply can't compete with the standard 15$ a month rate with such high-end competition, and a CS game is risky simply because it runs on "donations for items". When you find yourself at an impasse at how to structure your finances with a game that can't compete with the big boys - get creative.

2a. Hybrid Method - By posing a low subscription rate you can draw in players simply based on price, but when that is not enough you would have to resort to cash-shop incentives. There is promise in both sides of CS items being traded in game; one, if you can trade the items it sets up players who buy items to trade for ones in-game they haven't gotten - two, if you cannot trade items, it suggests more people use the cash-shop in general, but some people will never do so. That is the only fallback of any CS method, complete reluctance.

2b. Currency Method - Despite what method you employ, there is bumper funds in having a special currency that can be bought from the CS and can be traded player to player. Depending on any other forms of in-game currency and markets it could cause upsets, but to that I would recommend this form be the only one. How you decide whether it's meant to flow between players or exit via NPC vendors is up to you, but the cost/exchange rates have to be modest depending on how deep you go.

2c. Expansion Method - Again, being any CS or sub model does not matter here as each major content edition is parsed out in purchasable "packets". New maps, DB items, emotes, encounters - all can be sold individually or in packs at a price that can hopefully cover costs over time. I believe spacing it out by type (emote packs, map packs, etc) could work, but the more you breaj it down, the more the general public will feel that you are "nickel and dimeing them". The methodology for "lots of choices to buy" applies only with in-game items, such as cosmetic features (clothes, haircuts, etc) and adds to the plethora of things to be had - but when put towards what "content you have to buy", people will most likely be turned off. All of this is a game vs perceptions in order to get funding though, and most people assume a free game is doing them a favor they never need to repay in order to keep it going.

2d. Commercials/Advertising - Let me be frank, advertising money is a very good source of income, and commercials are sometimes the highlight of television (see the Super Bowl for proof). There IS a way to employ both without completely upsetting the fabric of the playerbase's expectation level - though you will get flak for it regardless from smart-asses since the industry usually is too afraid to seek funding there. IF you going into the concept with the idea of setting up this advert method in mind, you can conjure ways to seed it in without any disruption. I would recommend going with any modern to sci-fi setting (as is only fitting) and design a major element of the level environments to display advertising in the disguise of a "bustling area". Scrolling adverts on walls, terminals with many commercials on reels, the options are endless - and because of the saturation, you stand to make room for a lot of sponsors. The more they shuffle, the more players will notice those changes as well, and I assume they would be welcome, as long as it's not mandatory to be exposed to it. I do wonder if a loading screen of in-game characters fighting over a Pepsi is the line though.

Well I meant ideas that you hadn't fleshedout much yet or put into context but thought were neat .

Multipassenger vehicles

2 kinds,

Personal Craft - Has X seats to seat people in. ex.  small boat, car, carriage, helecopter

Open Craft -  Open vehicles that carry anyone that fits on it,  ex. ship, train, zeppelin, spacecraft.

Vehicle Storage -  vehicles of all kinds have a place to store items on/in them, storage capacity depends on size and type of vehicle.

Vehicle Stats - Something like top speed, acceleration, braking, durrability, handeling and cargo space.

Vehicle Assesories - Items like boosts, armor, radar and weapons to change how the vehicle functions.

Traits/talents/perks

Seductive Demeanor - females only - Causes you to gain less aggro from male NPCs

Night Owl - You gain more energy/mana/whatever and heal faster durring the night

Altruism - Your abilities get a bonus as your teamates take more damage

Elven Grace - elves only - You have very good balance and have a resistance to knockdown effects

Dwarven Stout - dwarves only - As a dwarf any alcohol you consume also heals you.

Death's Embrace - Being undead you heal at enhanced speeds, can breath water and are more resiliant than normal, but you suffer a loss of disposition with most NPCs, this talent makes you undead.

Cynacism - Being inherently distrustful of people it is easier for you to detect lies and see through disguises.

Places

Jemson City - A city located below the earths crust in the extensive subterrainian tunnel system.  It is settled on top of large stalagemites rising out of a giant lava flow, the stalagmites are connected with bridges and zip lines.  Jemson Cith has acces to many different types of minnerals which are ported into the city from the tunnel systems and from the lava river, carried by specialized boats with very think and insulated hulls to withstand the heat.  From there the minerals are delivers to the surface via trains that travel to and from the surface.

Optimized PC control scheme.

Laptop-friendly.

Mouse

MOVEMENT

X / Y Axis = Aim (1st person), Cursor Movement (3rd person)

Left-Click = Action 1 (1st person) Select Target (NO CAMERA MODIFIER, 3rd person)

Right-Click = Action 2 (1st person) Camera Modifier (hold, 3rd person)

Wheel = Inventory Select or Zoom in "scope mode" (1st person) Camera Zoom (3rd person)

Keyboard

MOVEMENT

ESDF = forward, left, backpedal, right respectively.

Space = jump

Alt = crouch

B = prone

ACTIONS

Num 2 - 6 = Inventory quick slots.

R = Action / Use / Reload.

AWTG = ability toolbar quick slots, default is hotkey deck* 1.

Shift = modifier** to activate deck 2.

Ctrl = modifier to activate deck 3.

Caps = modifier to activate deck 4.

C = modifier to activate deck 5.

F1 - F12 = Social / Non-combat toolbar. Modifiers can apply.

Esc = Clear target, close menu

~ or Mouse4 = Cancel modifier

* decks are what I call the various layers of toolbar hotkeys. There are 4 options per deck. I believe any more than 20 abilities per character is absurd in any game's design.

** modifiers may work better as 'toggle to action' where the key only needs to be pressed once (not held), and when a hotkey is used, the deck returns to default deck 1. Think of the shift / ctrl modifiers on a cellphone's text keypad.

MISC

Tab = context menu / target radial-menu

Q = quick-voice menu / comm-rose

V = voice key

PG Up / PG Dn = camera or scope zoom in / out, if no mouse wheel present

Home = Reset to default camera

End = Tactical camera

Other keys may be assigned to quick-access panels or miscellaneous actions, such as guild / chat windows, character info panels, flashlight, etc.

WoW Hero Class -

The Ranger

Proficiencies : Daggers, 1h Swords, Crossbows, Bows

Talents : Brutality(Melee), Scouting(Ranged/Stealth), Speed(Mobile Ranged)

Resource: 100-150 Energy + 3 Ranger Tokens

Definitions -

Ranger Tokens : Ranger tokens are tokens that allow you to use special moves, like Speed Aura, Brutal Aura, and Subtle Aura. Ranger tokens have a five minute cool down on each.

Energy works for basic moves like Double Shot, Gut, and Flash.

Several Abilities -

Speed Aura : Only  attainable when in Speed Talent. +50% Speed/-50% Damage and Armor and -30% Energy. Speed Aura also allows you to use your auto shot, and all of your abilities while moving. (Ten minute cool down, Duration : Ulimited.)

Brutal Aura : Only attainable when in Brutal Talent. +40% Damage/-25% Health and -10% Armor. (Ten minute cool down, Duration : Ulimited.)

Subtle Aura : Only attainable when in Scouting Talent. Ranger goes stealth + 10% speed boost/-20% Armor and -10% energy. (Ten minute cool down, Duration : Ulimited.)

[[Feed back please? Will add more later.]]

Re-Worked Social Foundation

Characters

The character's name does not need to be unique (everyone could be John or Jane Smith if they so choose). The character's appearance may be changed at any time (clothes are inexpensive compared to genetic modification / re-cloning).

No names nor any form of identification are shown above characters during gameplay. Characters must be identified by their appearances and ID codes. No longer do you look for names in a crowd, you look for familiar faces and clothing (the zoom feature may be useful for this) or have to locate them in your friend's list.

To talk to somebody, target and hail them (possibly with an action key, H, for instance). It will notify them in their emote chat and indicate a soft-target notification around your character for them. "I" could be a "toggle ignore target's hails" button. Other chat options may include the ability to ignore all hails.

Hailing system must be non-intrusive in the UI to prevent abuse.

ID Codes

At first log-in, you are assigned a unique "tripcode" or some form of unique identification code for server tracking and friend management purposes. This code may be changed upon request at the cost of in-game currency, and at most once per hour. You can optionally change your character's name when you do this.

The server attributes these codes to the account and CD key you entered upon installation.

To manage friends, tell somebody in chat what your code is and ask them to add you. You will be prompted to accept (with a notification of what code and name is requesting), and they will appear on your friend's list under the name and code they used. They will see your character as online as long as you have the same code... if you change your code, they will see you as offline, and the same is true if they change their code. You can select them on your friend list and choose from these options:

• update code information
  
• update code and name information
  
• [Toggle ON / OFF]automatically update tripcode and name information
  
• Delete Friend
  

You can find out an individual's code by right-clicking them and selecting "find ID-code" or purchase some equipment to do this for you automatically - which will display the codes in chat under the character's name. Such equipment is considered hostile and will be confiscated by officials if seen in operation. FInding an individual's ID-code will cost you in-game currency - if the indivdual purchased and maintains an active security license, it will be impossible to see the code without hacking it (an activity which officials will punish on sight).

If you are harassed by an anonymous individual, target their character or right-click any text string of theirs recorded in chat and select "find ID-code." Once you have that, open the abuse / harassment reporting panel and enter that code where indicated under "involved parties." Even if the code is outdated, the server keeps track of which codes belong to which account. Even if you don't know who it was or who they are now, the server does.

Chat

"/say" is the default local channel. The further away from the source a character is, the more faint the text appears to be. Further away and with object interference, some words or parts of words may be replaced by asterisks (or a custom 'squiggle' symbol designed for this purpose). In dense crowds within an (as of yet undetermined) area (threshold of 40+ characters), some words may become unintelligible. Seek a quiet place to get away from the disruptions.

All chat channels work like CB / AM / FM radios in text form. Tune to a number and listen in to a conversation or crowd. Special equipment can be used to sweep frequencies for key words (hostile equipment which will be confiscated if seen by officials), or simply check if there was recent activity (legitimate / safe equipment). Private chat channels (channel scramblers) must be purchased with in-game currency, which dampens words by 90% to those who do not have the decryption code.

When characters talk on chat channels, they can also be heard locally, as in /say but with 20% word dampening. Seek a secuded place to speak privately or purchase specialized in-game equipment to dampen your local audio leakage by an additional 59 to 79%.

You have a cell phone in-game. To talk to somebody specifically, you can enter their code and open a private chat session with them. This cost is determined by what they've set as a fee for private calls (as in EVE Online). If they are on your friend's list (and you are on theirs) the cost is free by default.

The idea here is to allow anonymity without requiring players to change characters, while still not impede friendships online. Players may be whomever they choose at any time and even disappear entirely off the grid. This is to encourage players to escape from one another or build better bonds through trust.

In later revision, the ID code section will be updated and streamlined to make the system appear fool-proof and intuitive / user-friendly in the white papers.

Human short term memory is 5 plus or minus 2.   Which means that Outside of muscle memory, and similar one can only store 3 to 7 things.   Anything above this is using a combination of memory tricks to achieve such an effect.

This means in a design perspective why so few options typically make sense in any give situation,  or why other games just blatently give a hard limit on the number of options available.   This affects all aspects of game design whether or not designers realize it or not.

For instance in the prince of persia games you have around 4 options to think about when running along a wall(keep going, jump off, hit a bar, slide down a tapastry).   This includes mapping/planning through an area(of which they'll likely only have 3-5 obasticles to an obvious location, even if you have another set afterwards) and while playing through it.

Co-op RTS

Capture Points: Locations on the map that can be captured by a realm, just by standing near the flag so the bar can shift to your team, like Battlefield Heroes.  Enemies coming near the flag distruts the capture process.

Resource Nodes: Give you X points every Y seconds, effected by your sides tech too, points are needed to convert buildings you captured into usable ones, like armory, triage and so forth.  Points are also needed to upgrade tech.

Points:  By holding a resource node your side gets points,  each player on the team gets some points each tick too, they also get points for defeating other players, destroying things, and doing objectives.

Commanders: A commander is choosen for your side much like a raid leader, somehow I am not sure how yet, each area in the map can have a commander.  The commander manages the tech tree, decides what buildings to make and set War Objectives.  Commander can be voted out.  The commander can also continue to play while managing tech and buildings, it shouldn't be too difficult.  The commanders power extends as far as it can as long as it emenates from the home region, so if you push enemies back out of the woods you ccan begin attacking the mountains too and capturing points. 

Squad Leaders: Squad leaders are group leaders, They can set goals for the team to do, which give the team points.  The squad tool is ver straight forward with the ability to auto group and form open groups as well as view all groups open or otherwise in the area.

Tech Tree:  Think talent tree for WoW, each building type has little tech trees that the commander can spec into to determine what can be built and what the building does.  It does not get into the nitty gritty of resource efficiency and the like you will see why .

Buildings: The services of the buildings can be used by the individual players by expending points, from their personal coffer, some effects are automatic though.  The extent of what the player can do depends on what tech the commander has choosen for your army.  For example at the Tank Factory, the player could have options of body type, wheel type, guns and bonuses like boost, depending how the tank factory is speced.  This is more then visual it also changes the way the vehicle works.  So the player can have lots of options to make a small fast tank with boost and miniguns but little armor or a slow heavy armored hulk with mortars and a flame thrower.

/start rambling

This is a really roundabout way of stating the obvious. How fun.

I've long been a proponent to non-linear games and have even gone as far as bashing linearity wherever it is found in some righteous fury of verbiage-laden stupidity, but now through some hopefully more objective reasoning I can see the value of both styles.

Linearity appeals to our mechanical nature through reflex and learned response (reviewing the past, preparing for the future, and establishing reliable, repeatable references), while non-linearity appeals to our thoughtful nature through experimentation and artful understanding (grasping the dynamics of "now" and the welcoming of new ideas). They are very much opposites, but also important parts of the same entity - that being the human mind (the left and the right). One will not work without the other in this so-called "yin and yang" of our minds.

If there is a dominance of one over the other, there will be resistance and uprising in the subordinate sector until an equilibrium is reached. If dominance is maintained by one for too long, there cannot be an equilibrium reached as one side will begin to surrender to the superior force. If an equilibrium is not maintained, there will be either chaos or stagnancy. I believe this to be true in these cases: if an individual thinks too much with the left side of their brain, their mind will stagnate and they will become a robot - they act according to a schedule and nothing new is welcomed or desired; and if an individual thinks too much with the right side of their brain, they will essentially become insane - they have no means to organize their thoughts.

The left desires stability and contentment. Order. Good.

The right desires curiosity and exploration. Chaos. Evil.

Linear games tend to follow a certain predictable order and offer little beyond what they were made to do, while non-linear games tend to be very open and at most times confusing or chaotic to their users.

What I've been doing up until this point is categorizing them as two different types, as I have done above. I think now that this is not an objective approach to understanding video game design - and my viewing one or the other as superior was an emotional response to the domination of linearity in the current run of games.

I think, for the perfect game to be made, it must contain both linear and non-linear aspects in hopefully equal portions. However, while it is possible to measure linearity in all its forms, it is not possible to measure non-linearity. Linearity is a play-pen with a few toys, non-linearity is an extra-dimensional gate that leads to an unknown world: you know what's in the play-pen, but not what's beyond that gate. How do you measure what you do not know?

The human mind is incredibly complex and my generalized summary of it is likely flawed on many levels, but I use it not as a final model to refer to for exact reference, but as a general point of perspective to establish a wider domain.

It can be said that we are driven to survive and compete by the left side of our brains, but we are also driven to play and to perform acts of complete selflessness by the right. So what is in control? The left or the right? Philosophers will likely say "the left." Artists will happily declare "the right." The religious may tell you "neither."

Objectively, it is both. There is no "left brain" or "right brain" there is only "the brain"... and I have been claiming that non-linearity is required for a good game while linearity is not, which is a complete falsehood under this context. For the purpose of understanding, there is no "north pole" and "south pole" of our lovely planet, there is only "the planet's axis of rotation." If you follow that example, I can tell you that there is no linear or non-linear part to a game, there is only "a game."

You can't remove the pieces from the context, you'll get something broken and useless, like what good is a brain with a non-functional left side? What good is a "south pole" when applied to a pyramid?

It is not wise to build a game from chosen pieces of previous works, you must either clone a previous working example and modify it to "fit", or start from scratch and build everything within its own brand new context. We tend to do the former more than the latter because the latter is often impossible.

For reference: the enjoyment level of a game is determined by the combination of all known variables (the linear and the non-linear), so all known and often-used variables must be present for the game to be found comparably enjoyable to previous ones. That's the evolution of games: clone and adapt. Drop useless or conflicting features, keep working features, and add new features to prepare for or establish an emergent need.

The linearity is still needed, as it is a part of us and we enjoy it, but there is an emergent need for more non-linearity as the balance of power shifts from contentment in domination to the questioning of old rules.

I suppose the only safe approach is to "salt to taste" and continue to experiment until an equilibrium of both linear and non-linear content is found. At this rate, it may take a few decades.

/end rambling

Idea Splinters

Custom Media

• LOTRO's music system is ingenious, this system should be improved... and then taken another step further into the domains of television broadcasting or acting in plays.
  
• Custom animations for acting.
  
  • After a model has been assigned bones and helper nodes, the hard part is done. It would be possible, given enough time, to develop a tool that allows players to create and assign custom animations to their own characters.
    
  • This can be done in the same traditional method as current animations: set key frames and position the model to taste. However, instead of saving the position of polygons and paths for animation data, the position of the bones will be saved instead (the bones and their constraints are saved within the game's standard content library).
    
• If LOTRO has proven that midi data can be streamed to everyone across a huge network with minimal bandwidth usage, then surely it is possible for internally standardized animation / bone data to be streamed as well.
  

Essential Downtime

• Not everyone enjoys repeating the same ordeal a thousand times, but that can't be helped when there's a rush to get to the end. There needs to be some limitations to prevent this rush, but they also need to seem natural. Recent methods of limitation seem to directly restrict players from enjoying it as they please. An indirect method would be more welcome.
  
• SWG used Battle Fatigue as an excuse to keep players from exhausting the game's content too quickly... and it's a very good idea, as long as it has some substance to justify it.
  
• Substance in this case would be "something to do while you can't effectively do combat." The answer was crafting in older MMORPGs, SWG answered with entertainers and a very beefy crafting system.
  
• Distract from the main game with justified mini-games.
  

Hardcore and Casual Soft-cap (! probably not too great !)

• Hardcore players are min-maxers, always exhausting content before we wished they did. So give them a bone to chew while casual players can still play with them.
  
• A "level cap" enters the equation by default. The range is 1 to 20.
  
• These levels take an average amount of time to complete. Casual players will find them fulfilling, hardcore players will find them easy.
  
• A level 1 will have a hard time fighting a level 2, and a level 2 would be not match for a level 4, etc. etc. until level 20. New abilities are unlocked and higher stats are gained until that final level.
  
• The "soft cap" is level 20... but there is a great amount of levels after that (1000, let's say). Each level after 20 is nearly insignificant and takes a while to get; a fraction of a fraction of the previous bonuses are granted, meaning that there is always room for improvement but the improvement's worth is up to the player's dedication.
  
• In this model, a level 1 could not ever hope to win vs. a level 19, and a level 19 would have quite a hard time with a level 20, but a level 20 could compete against a level 1000 and it would be considered mostly fair with slight favor on the higher level by a mere margin.
  
• Casual players aren't directly affected and can enjoy the game at the plateau, hardcore players have a lofty goal to attain and can chip away at a mountain for the rest of their lives.

Personal Space

• Everyone loves a personal thinking space, but the idea of what a thinking space is differs from one individual to another. It's not always a house or a space ship or an underground base, after all.
  
• Some extremely general area that can be customized and personalized in a multitude of ways is needed here.
  
• The space should be "housed" away from the rest of the world, but still freely accessible from outside should the owner so desire.
  
• I have no idea how this would work. I keep referring to Second Life subconsciously as a solution, but I would rather not have that database nightmare to deal with. Perhaps the personal instances could be saved client-side and instance data would be transferred peer-to-peer, with the game server as a torrent tracker.

Core Classes

• Brawler
  
  • Archer
    
  • Fighter / Barbarian
    
  • Tank / Knight
    
• Specialist
  
  • Rogue / Sneaky guy
    
  • Healer / Priest
    
  • Debuffer / Sorcerer
    
• Magic Guy
  
  • Nuke
    
  • Crowd Controller
    
  • Summoner

Establishing Playable Attributes

Type 1

• Directly controlled by the player, cannot be hi-jacked or altered by the game.
  

Type 2

• Directly controlled by the player, can be hi-jacked or altered by the game.
  

Type 3

• Influenced / indirectly controlled by the player, cannot be hi-jacked or altered by the game.
  

Type 4

• Influenced / indirectly controlled by the player, can be hi-jacked or altered by the game.
  

Type 5

• Not controlled or influenced by the player.
  

Examples

Players Health                    :: Type 2

Enemy Mob's Health           :: Type 4

Enemy Player's Health        :: Type 4

Player's UI                          :: Type 1

Enemy Player's UI               :: Type 3

Terrain                                :: Type 5

Character Personality

I think it is very important to be able to create a personality for your character.

Characters you make in a game are like characters in a book or film and the game you play is the story.

Your character has to be well characterized to make a good story, otherwise you are just playing for the spectacle and while still fun I think it makes for a more shallow experience.

RPGs to me are just an advanced form of story telling where you are interacting with the story as it is told and sometime are the narator yourself.

Tools and mechanics I think helps with characterizing your character.

Unique Appearence and Abilities:  Clothing and weapons choices tell a lot about personality, players need the ability to pick what they want to use so they can form this aspect of their personality and not have it dictated by mechanics, ie this is the best sword so you use it.  Abilities too tell about the character's personality as such you need to prohibit obvious combinations that make no sense, lore wise and personality wise and encourage players to focus so they do not cherry pick the best abilities and create power builds, which also destroy characterization.  But also set a hard cap on the number of abilities people can have, not at once but in total, because without limitation your character losses any character traits they had and become some bizarre "perfect" character that is completely uninteresting, flaws make for interesting characters.

Movement and Voice: This is under utilized.  A voice that you can adjust the pitch and tone to as well as pick what phrases your character says helps convey the personality of your character, movement is a large part as well.  Humans use body language all the time in the real world and having choices as to how your character animates can be used in the same way to lear about other characters personalities.  The way someone sounds, what they say and how they move says a lot about them.

Background and Purpose:  Being able to write bios are a good addition but beyond that players need to be able to select an origin for their character that effects how they interact in the world like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.  Because this goes beyond a bio and makes your origin an actual aspect of the game that can be communicated to people beyond text.  Players also need to be able to create a purpose for their character, they can do this by profession, which needs to be more than just making things, something like diplomat or bounty hunter, as a profession indicates personality as well, but also by giving players choices to be made in game, different ways to finish quests and have effects in your characters relations with other NPCs and players, gain trust and create enemies and by all means make the in game factions something worth while to join with ideologies players can actually care about.  This aspect is obviously hampered by the multiplayer aspect MMO at that, but I don't think player made factions and the lke are a solution as those are painfully shallow that lack the motivations that make real people interesting, ironically.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Character Personality

I would like to add to this; Posture and Expression

When I first hopped in Aion and made a bunch of chars to usurp names I took a moment to check their idle postures and cycling expressions and it really impressed me... until I found out they are set to specific classes and that really buggered me good. I remember making a mage character that was supposed to be on the 'diabolical' angle with how it looked and when I got it in game it assumed a 'humble schoolgirl' posture that didn't suit the look I gave it. I then remade that char short and fatter to suit the expressions it was giving off while idling, and that screwed with any personalization I wanted to begin with as I then went with what looked the most comfortable to me.

Now I think when I first made a bunch of these chars I didn't assume it was class-based and figured that maybe the devs were actually smart enough to tie in the idling poses to the faces I made, perhaps tied to the sliders, but sadly it wasn't the case (I just got lucky on the first choices). Looking back at that mistaken idea, I think therein is the *best* way to implement "character personality" in tying them to poses, posture and expressions that suit the characters given personality.

1. In Creation - Where the sliders  would give your character points in "expression" pools for the above stated points. A lifted brow leans towards happy expressions and the tight one towards the polar side. Whether the lips are pursed or not could lean towards a list of things that build up your characters "natural expressions" when idling. I myself am going this route in a concept based on human psychology, as well as another I consider a "social mmo".

2. In Choices - Doing certain acts in missions can simply lead to invisible bars filling/lowering that determine much of the idling mention above. In this case though, I would tie all acts to an attributive point to base the expressions on; like if the choices show signs of greed (which could make the char "savvy" looking in a bad way) or benevolence (which gives the "aloof hero face"). There are tons of vices/virtues (as I call them in a concept I'm doing this in) that can be listed and linked to how the character expresses itself visually.

This is a tangent from what I was talking about earlier.

Professions:  I think it is high time we started thinking about professions in MMOs.  Usually you either adventure or do some side activity like make things, which is the only option outside of adventuring.

I think adventure should be the core part of the game since I think that is why people play RPGs.  But when you don't want to adventure what is left?

I think you should expand upon the idea of having a profession, more than creating items but providing different services to other players.  These professions should not be treated like regular skills, like they normally are, but rather a job that you rank up in after performing tasks, think Sims 3.  Ranking up gives you more power to create and do things to help other players.

For example a bounty hunter can chase down high ranking PKers for money to help keep the peace, while also suffering the PKer with a longer respawn time.  As a bounty hunter ranks up in their profession they build contacts go after bigger targets in a larger area and can eventually run their own bounty office issuing bounties on peoples heads.  Or a diplomat that spend their time talking to nuetral NPCs to convince them to join your side for up coming battles, as you rank up you can up trade routes with NPCs to share technology and extend treaties.  Or a policeman that patrols the city to protect players and cities from the bandit mobs that would harm and steal from them, ranking up to eventually issuing orders to the town gaurds.  These professions also include traditional production professions but instead focused on making things to benefit everybody and better society as a whole rather than just items to sell to individuals.

These professions could come with their own set of quests for players to do to rank up and make money.

As an aside these professions allow the players to effect the world but I would not recomend players running the world, the former means the world can function without player involvement but players can help it and alter it a bit the latter means players make and run all the infrastruture previously mentioned and if they don't there will be issues.  For sake of consistancy and quality I recoment the former.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Character Personality

I would like to add to this; Posture and Expression

I'm imagining a categorized list of various facial elements and body parts you can link together in a hypergraph and modify the chain order and blend values of the individual blocks to make unique character animations.

Blending transforms in-game to get custom morph targets and eventually animations, essentially.

However, this would require some fancy footwork in the way of animation programming. It sounds simpler than it is, but blending individual transform operations into a new morph target is something that's done in the native software packages for a reason. That won't be easy to do in real time, and saving that data server-side may take up too much space (and cause bandwidth issues when everyone has their own animations). Which would lead to exploitations and imposed limitations, which would influence players to break those new rules, which would lead to... oh jeezus, just forget I said anything.

Tanking Methods

Encasement

• Player encases other players in a tank vehicle.
  
• Weakness is positional, protects all players.
  
• Enter / exit sickness for X seconds on destruction of vehicle or willing entry / exit.
  
• If vehicle is destroyed, players are stunned and heavily damaged.
  
• More rules to come if the idea survives testing.

Attraction / Absorption

• Tank attracts and absorbs ranged weapons fire.
  
• 4 damage types in the game.
  
• Tank can absorb and ignore 1 damage type at 100%, and 2 neighboring damage types at 50% at one time.
  
  • Player takes 0% damage from selected type, 50% from neighboring types.
    
• Damage type selection looks like a "Simon Says" toy. Select a color to protect @ 100%, the two neighboring types are automatically set to 50%.
  
  • The selected damage type is attracted at maximum range (all weapons fire attracted from any weapon), the neighboring damage types are attracted at 50% effectiveness (long-range weapons can ignore the attraction and hit nearby allies regardless).
    
• This assumes it takes time to switch weapon types and that ammo supplies are limited.
  
  • Takes X seconds for players to switch damage types on their weapons.
  • Takes X+10%X seconds for players to change selected protection.
• Friendly fire applies.
  • Friendlies that fire the selected weapon damage type will damage their tank at 30% normal damage. Friendlies that fire neighboring damage types ignore the attraction penalty entirely.

Non-Combat Professions

Inspired by Cactusmanx. I'll try to post some not-before-mentioned stuff.

Crafting

• Aesthetic Item creation
  
• Combat Item creation
  
• Support Item creation
  
• Resource Collection
  

Duty

• Courier / Delivery Service
  
• Taxi / Bus / Shuttle Service
  
• Escort Service
  
• Police / Guard Patrol Service (Rent-A-Cop)
  

Active Commissions

• Convoy Guard
  
• Sabotage / Infiltration
  
• Diplomacy
  

Passive Services

• Entertaining
  
  • Music
    
  • Dancing
    
  • Acting
    
• Medical
  
• Aesthetic Character Modification
  

Recreational

• Racing
  
• Traditional Fishing
  
• Rhythm Matching
  
• Board Games
  
• Various Card Games
  
  • Trading card game?
    
• Painting / Sketching
  
• In-Game Television
  
• In-Game Forum Interfacing
  

Crafting

Aesthetic Item Creation

• Stuff your character wears to make the digital you feel pretty.
  

Combat Item Creation

• Bows, swords, impact hammers, laser rifles, etc.
  

Support Item Creation

• Potions, medkits, stims, horses, star ships, etc.
  

Resource Collection

• Collect stuff to make stuff.
  

Duty

Courier / Delivery Service

• NPC and Player-Driven job.
  
• Players leave things at a depot.
  
• It's your job to take them where they need to go within the time limit.
  
• If you don't make it in time, the item is warped to it's destination and you don't get paid.
  

Taxi / Bus / Shuttle Service

• NPC and Player-Driven job.
  
• NPCs and players wait around and hail for taxis and wait at bus stops.
  
• Get them to their destination fast!
  
• Bonus money is awarded by your firm for risky shortcuts and stylish driving. Players can tip the driver for a job well done.
  
• If time expires, the passenger is warped to their destination and you don't get paid.
  

Escort Service

• NPC and Player-Driven job.
  
• NPCs and players wait around at an escort station.
  
• It's your job to guide the individual to their destination with as little trouble as possible. Take the safest routes and ensure their safety! Players will auto-follow and auto-enter vehicles.
  
• These jobs pay a lot. Bonuses are rewarded for customer safety and timely delivery to their chosen destinations.
  
• If time expires or the customer is hurt too badly, they will be warped back to their starting position before their untimely demise!
  

Rent-A-Cop

• NPC job.
  
• Offer service as a Rent-A-Cop and guard a compound from intruders.
  
• Bonuses are awarded for successful and valid alerts. Greater bonuses are rewarded for unarmed take-downs and arrests.
  
• These jobs pay by the minute. Most contracts are for 10 to 15 minutes. There is higher pay in high-risk areas, but there's more scum in those areas and the real cops take longer to respond when you sound the alarm. You might have to do some risky manual labor...
  
• When time expires, a bonus is rewarded if nothing was lost or stolen and nobody (including bad guys) was killed.
  

Active Commissions

Convoy Guard

• Commission board contract (player-only).
  
• Respond to a convoy protection commission on a commission board.
  
• 2 to 5 levels of payment. The commissioning player decides what the payment levels are. The minimal payment is displayed first on the commission board.
  
• Minimal payment is always rewarded once the commission is accepted, whether or not the player follows through with the commission.
  
• The commissioner determines what level of payment to reward the player's work when the job ends.
  

Sabotage / Infiltration

• Commission board contract (player-only).
  
• Respond to a sabotage or infiltration commission on a commission board.
  
• Details are hidden for security purposes.
  
• When accepted, the commissioner will have access to your exclusive player profile (previous transactions, previous associations, etc.) and will determine whether or not you are eligible for the commission (may take a day or two for a response if the commissioner decides not to investigate your background further).
  
• The player will contact you with details if you are accepted.
  
• Your job is to retrieve an item from or sabotage equipment inside a player or NPC compound.
  
• This must be done within a time limit, which is activated once you are sent the details. The time limit can expire while you are offline after you have seen the details.
  
• If the time limit expires, you receive no reward and the commission is canceled.
  

Diplomacy

• Commission board contract (player-only).
  
• Respond to a diplomacy commission on a commission board.
  
  • If there are two diplomacy commissions dealing with the same parties, but with different commissioners, you may only choose one.
    
• Details regarding a dispute are shown in the commission board log. It's your job to settle that dispute and serve as a mediator or advisor for one or both of parties involved. The commissioner was either one or both of the parties.
  
• This is a chat-based commission. It's your job to settle the problem the parties are having through chat... so success is entirely up to your abilities as a real life politician, lawyer, or judge.
  
• The commissioning part(ies) choose if you are paid or not.
  

Passive Services

Entertaining

• DJing / Radio Hosting
  
  • Choose to play in-game music from a playlist, or make a custom playlist from music in your personal library and stream it locally or through a radio channel.
    
• Dancing
  
  • Dance to the music to entertain yourself and other people.
    
  • Everyone can do it. The more, the better (more players = faster healing and faster over-heal bonuses).
    
  • Only works in clubs and specific venues.
    
  • If have the profession, you are allowed to use multiple and custom animations and perform anywhere, even in a camp or elite venues.
    
• Musical Composition
  
  • Use in-game tools to develop your own midi-based music.
    
  • Compositions may include multiple instruments, however you'll need other players to play with you to make a full band or orchestra.
    
  • You can play the instruments live and free style using the QWERTY keyboard or an external midi-compatible device if you so choose.
    
• Acting
  
  • using in-game tools to create custom animations and timed dialogue, you can have you and your friends' characters play out a Broadway classic.
    
  • Acting is limited to stages and acting venues, where watching players can vote whether they want to see it or not (voting 'no' removes their on-stage character models from view until otherwise indicated).
    
• Television
  
  • If your acting is good enough, host a television show with voiced commentary.
    
  • Videos can be taken via in-game tools (and saved to YouTube) or streamed live.
    
  • If there are no interesting shows on, you can watch the Arena TV or the official in-game news cast.
    

Medical

• You're a doctor, the hospital is always busy and you'll be paid per patient you successfully treat.
  
• NPCs and Players are involved in this. You're paid more for tending to players.
  
• Tending to a wounded character can either:
  
  • a) start a mini-game like some popular Atlus game
    
  • b) heal the character randomly for some amount of wounds based on the tools you use
    
• Players will automatically heal while inside a hospital, but the process is slow. Doctors are needed.
  

Aesthetic Character Modification

• Don't like your ugly mug? Get it changed by a professional! Or change it yourself, granted you have the skills.
  
• Players and NPCs demand this service often. Prospective customers will wait outside a parlor to have their faces rearranged. And hair / accessories, too.
  
• While waiting, players (and NPCs) will be able to tweak their appearances before seeing you to finalize it. You can finalize it or suggest changes.
  
• You are paid per individual that visits you.
  

Recreational

Racing

• Race tracks can be found everywhere in many forms.
  
• Both players and NPCs will race at official tournaments.
  
  • The winners of the tournament receive unique trophies to show off for their accomplishments.
    
• Only players can run time trials.
  
  • The best time for the week gets paid a jackpot multiplied by a factor of the quickness in completion.

Traditional Fishing

• Unlike the commercial fishing used in resource collection, traditional fishing is going about it the old fashioned way: wait out by the shore with your trusty fishy stick and bait the line.
  
• Wait for a while.
  
• And wait some more.
  
• When the big one bites, fight with it in a mini-game and reel it in!
  
• Trophy fish can only be found through this means.
  

Rhythm Matching

• This is an option for the dancing and music professions. If you like to pound away at your keyboard or a compatible dance mat while your character dances or jams out the tunes on screen, you can.
  

Board Games

• Classic games you can play in-game with friends.
  
• Chess, Checkers, Mahjong, a variant of Monopoly, etc.
  

Card Games

• Classic card games you can play with friends.
  
• Poker, Blackjack, War!, etc.
  
• Also, if development time permits, a trading card game based on the game world (one that doesn't cost players real money! Only in-game money).
  

Painting / Sketching

• Somehow put a stripped-down Corel Painter or GIMP into the game for players to use to create or import images and save them to their hard drives. Upload the images and post them for sale as paintings in a private broker (so if you draw dirty things, people don't see them everywhere on the public market).
  
• That said, custom paintings are not allowed in public places.
  

In-Game Television

• Stream your desktop live in your allotted time slot on your assigned channel, or link to a youtube video.
  
• If you don't feel like hosting, flip channels or navigate a list of what's on to find your interests.
  
• Official tutorial videos are shown here.
• The Arena channels show current matches going on.

In-Game Official Forum Interfacing

• Why hasn't this been done yet?