Originally posted by b.alex

The mmorpg genre has been run by sheep for over a decade, cmon

I stopped reading there. Turbine is an excellent company that made 2 very good games. DDO was very original regarding MMO's (not games obviously since its DnD). All Points Bulletin was also very original in design. Youre also implying that EQ wasn't original. Age of Conan gave us amazing music with a world filled with detail and very nice world designs.

Each game (major game) brings something new to the table whether you believe so or not. I don't like how you call the men and women that design such detailed worlds and those who create stories sheep.

Just because you get bored of games quickly doesnt mean they're all the same (assumption of you not liking current games cause you claim the boring.

Also, you can't be a sheep and run something. That would be a wolf, making us the sheep.

Trying one more time to get this to post:

You are one of a dozen or so species of highly advanced, immortal spacefarers (you can choose to be a human, or one or two close variations on homo sapiens, other species range from bipedal to bizarre).  You start out in charge of a planet in a group of solar systems that belong your species.  You are your planet's ruler and caretaker.  If you screw up, your species will not be happy with you, nor will other players, since your successes and failures affect your species well being as a whole.  

Trade exists between all species, and travel times between solar systems are reasonably quick.  Some species get along better than others by tradition, but the players will ultimately decide current alignments through discussion and popular vote.  (To prevent alt sabotage, each player only gets one character slot and one account.  If you kill off your character to start over as another species, that's fine, but you can't take any of your resources or influence with you.)

Your planet has an ecology and many species (possibly starting with sentient species, possibly starting with a selection of species that you can evolve to sentience, depending on what species you choose to play as).  You control how your planet's species evolve, what is produced, what technology to research, and what defenses to put in place.  (For those who played them, think Master of Orion 1 and 2, then cross that with Spore, and throw in some Eve).  And since I'm dropping various much-loved bits of games into my blender, let's put Anarchy Online's skill system and something similar to its implant system in as well, which allows you to customize your character's strengths and weakness down to a fine point and, in AO, made possible such ridiculous yet still functional creations as the atrox nanotechnician and the opifex enforcer).  

You can land on anyone's planet, and anyone can land on yours, so long as the planet has been discovered (newcomers can have some breathing space to develop their world in peace by being invisible to other players for a set time period, or until the newcomer decides to reveal the location of her planet).

You can walk around on your planet or on another person's if you brought the appropriate protective gear.  You can drive or fly if you brought the appropriate vehicles.  Anyone can kill the people and wildlife on anyone's planet (with the appropriate weaponry), can sabotage their production (with the appropriate skills), and steal their trade secrets and resources (again, with appropriate equipment and skills).  If two species are at war, you will gain reputation and monetary rewards from your own species for attacking an enemy planet.  

You can attack the planet of an enemy species randomly and receive reputation and rewards, but for those who like doing quests/missions, you can also seek out a council member (an NPC) on your species origin world (acts as a mission hub and safe gathering place for each species).  The council member will give you a quest to attack the planet of a specific player who has recently attacked one of your species planets.  Sometimes the planet will require an air attack, sometimes you will have to attack on foot, sometimes you can attack in ground assault vehicles, solo or in a team (teaming will be safer and more efficient, but solo acts of sabotage and assassination are possible, both to carry out assigned missions and by players who simply pick a player planet and go after it for their own reasons).

If your planet is attacked, you will receive notification.  If you are online and able to reach your planet in time, you can control your defenses by hand and even go out in a vehicle, aircraft, or on foot to battle your enemies personally.  If you are not online, how you've developed and deployed your planet's defenses will determine how much death and destruction, theft, and plundering an enemy can wreak.  A defense system that is ultra strong against sabotage and espionage will necessarily have weaknesses elsewhere, however, attackers may not know what the defense strengths and weaknesses are, and players can alter their specializations over a fairly short period of time, say a matter of days or a week.

Different species will have different traditions regarding rules of warfare.  The players will decide together whether and how to alter these traditions, but the sentient societies you rule over will be affected by the changes players make, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.  

There will also be neutral commerce planets and space stations where players can set up apartments and businesses.  Anyone can walk into your business, only you and invited guests may enter your apartment (except perhaps for those with the proper breaking and entering skills).  There will be pvp areas in these commerce zones, but those who cannot or do not wish to pvp will be able to access the markets without wading through a sea of snipers.  However, killing your enemies in these zones will reward reputation and will be very lucrative, both for looting opportunities in some areas, and in your species resource and currency rewards.  Conversely, attacking allied species can lead to fines and lost reputation.

While you are given some starting equipment by your species, NPCs sell nothing.  The economy is completely player driven.  But your starter equipment will be enough to churn out the things you need for your planet and to get a foothold in the market, so no player or group of players can hold a completely crippling monopoly on any vital resource or item.  Nor can any one person or species craft everything.  Species will have to depend on each other for vital offensive components and resources.

If your mismanagement or the destruction wreaked by other players renders your planet uninhabitable, your species will provide you with another planet and starter resources.  However, there will be ways to save dying planets, and because your species will confiscate most of your holdings before they will grant you a new planet, it's not a good idea to flit about the universe starting needless wars, polluting, and strip mining.  

Your character, besides being the absolute, immortal ruler of a planet, has a personal life, hobbies and interests that you can choose to put skill points into.  Do you like playing an instrument as well as being a ruthless dictator?  No problem, Nero, pick up that fiddle and entertain your fellow immortals on your way down to some hapless rival's world or in your favorite commerce zone.  (I'm stealing this bit from SWG, even though I never got to play it before it changed, the complexity and breadth of professions make me sorry I missed out).  Are you the sort of immortal ruler who likes to take a break and explore space in search of new resources and screen shot-worthy supernovas?  Cartography and exploration skills are for you.

It's a game with something for almost everybody (except maybe the fantasy fans, and why not have a species or two with some fantastical 'magikesque abilities and a few unicorn looking critters running around on their home planets?).

The problem is, I don't see it working, not unless Blizzard or whoever eventually dethrones Blizzard and becomes the next mega giant MMO maker does it, and then instantly draws in a population the size of WoW's.

And then the company tackling this beast of a game would need a team of super geniuses working day and night on balance issues so that players and species aren't vulnerable to being obliterated by other players.  

And then this all has to go on one, or at most a few servers, so the galaxy doesn't swallow a few million people, burp quietly, and echo emptily.  

Now throw in space combat and the mechanics of evolving planets subject to manipulation by players, and we have a nervous breakdown-inducing nightmare of a game for developers.  

(But if someone actually could pull this off, I think it would be a fun game to play.)
 

Well if i had the money and the equipment and the people to start my own gaming business, i have always thought that a western type mmo set back in the days of the wild wild west.  instead of having a made up land, have the actual geography of all of the land the way it was back then around the montana's and neighboring states.  you only had one mount, a horse of course, unless your craft was say like a carpenter and could build wagons, houses, etc...  you dont have auction houses, instead, you have small communities, like deadwood, that you could purchase land from and open up whatever you could, depending on your craft, or I.Q. in the game i guess, and that would be the place that you would make your money, along with everyone else.  you could buy whatever you needed by visiting these small communities.  and everyone knows as well as i do, that word of mouth went a long way back in them days.   there is no teleporting, hearthing, and whatever means of travel that other people have seem to come up with.  you rode your horse.  you may have gotten attacked on the way.  guess what, there is your pvp.  you were robbed, you robbed other people.  you try to steal horses, or herd cattle to make some extra dough.  whatever the means was, it was a rough time in someone's life back then.  remember panning for gold?  why not, people will take time to fish, or farm for certain items they need for their crafting to make some cash.  so why not stop at a nearby stream and pan some gold.  who knows, you may get lucky.  

True, there were more guns than anything, but there were indians who used bows and arrows, threw tomahawks.  there were cowboys who carried TNT in their saddlebags, ropes for wrangling cattle, horses, or maybe people?  i mean there are so many things that a person could do.  it is endless.   Instances you say?  well does an instance have to be in a dungeon or cave or hole or building.  how about in the open, on mountaintops like the old westerns use to have where you had your enemy surrounded.   what about robbing stagecoaches, there is your boss right there, take out everyone involved with the stagecoach, reap the rewards.

what kind of rewards you say?  i dont know, it could be anything, from some epic six shooter, or epic rope to make wrangling easier, or epic TNT.  whatever.  what about bounties.  they had bounties back then.  again, there is another instance, dungeon, raid, whatever you want to call it.

the different classes would be like cowboys, indians ( if it doesnt offend anyone ), bandits, mexicans ( if that doesnt offend anyone ).  these are all the type of people that actually lived back in those days.  anyways, this is just what i came up with.  if it is stupid, i am sorry for wasting your time.  i thought this would be kind of neat, especially if the graphics were really awesome, and the gameplay was real competitive, etc...

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

Sure heres an idea for a completely original MMO.  Its so original Im not even sure what its going to be until I finish writing this post?  Ready?

The world is huge.  Not just huge in terms of horizontal landmass, but huge in terms of vertical mass as well.  There are three levels. 

Level 1 - Underground.

Level 2 - Surface

Level 3 - Air

Each level is a complete world, think of each as their own world, encased by another world, but all dependent on a hollow world concept where in theory you could go lower or higher and keep experiencing different bioshperes and ways of life.  For expediency we are going to stick with these 3, though.

Each of these worlds is influenced by extradimensional space, a great sundering of elements, energy, and life in general.  The standard Air - Earth - Fire - Water will do.   So now our hollow world stands in the middle, as a convergence point of these various energies that attempt to pull it apart.

Influences of Air

Things will be tall.  Things will lack emotion, be excessively cerebral.  Things will be pale.   Things will have an affinity towards electricity.  Things will have an affinity towards air travel.  Inhabitants will be aloof.   Cultures will be spread out thinly.   People might be rare, and getting rarer much like a gas dissipates into smaller and smaller parts per million.   Great cities might be falling into ruin as their inhabitants, once numbering in the thousands, now number a mere ten or less.

Creatures might look like this:

Influences of Earth

Dust to Dust.  Things here would be dead, dying, or coexist with that element.  Inhabitants would be fatalistic, rigid in their ways, tiny (but not dwarves how cliche).   They would work with metals, be technologically adept.   Theyd be rather steam punk.   These would be inventors, but their inventions would be practical --- and theyd also reflect the chaos going on around them.   Many might be incomplete, or seem nonsensical to us in their construction.   Combat would be very normal to this influence.   So would tenacity.   Growth would be longed for, but the pulling apart of the world at its edges would make any growth a sad process.

Influences of Water

Water would be mysterious, menacing.   Water is the element of lies and deception.  Things are never what they seem  Your worst enemy could be a friend, and best friend... well... Technology would be limited to what is useful in aquatics, or what is useful for war (always self defense... ha ha ha).  Water culture would be very similar to Persia.  Sultans, harems, politics, intrique, and subtlety.

Influences of Fire

Fire would be aggression, rage, turmoil, and life.  Raw energy.  Untamed.   People who existed close to the fire sphere would exist in a land that constantly tried to swallow up their meager civilizations, while each civilization strove to outdo another.   Sparsely populated and obviously in decline, these individuals are quick to embrace change, and quicker still to discard it.  They are creatures of passion.

As one moved up and down the hollow world chain the influences of different elements would become greater or less, depending on their proximity to the center, with earth being the most central and air being the farthest out.

But what does it all mean?

You as a player would begin as an awakened individual from the pre sundering.  Your species did the division of the world during a great technical age, obstensibly to save itself.  It had discovered magic and technology, and had used these abilities to great ends, but it had not discovered peace.   In order to save itself, and the universe from complete annihilation as people fought each other for control they divided the world.   The division however was incomplete.  You cant divide a world down if you exist within it.  So the world continues to slowly break apart.... and the beings that did it?   They are now a part of the chain, being broken down into mere remnants of what they were.  Continuing their wars now not just against each other, but against all the creations of the sundering.

And theyve forgotten why theyre doing it.   Dying just like their world, the knowledge of what happened and why has been lost.

Player characters know about this, having lived up to the time of the plan before beign suddenly, mysteriously put to sleep... somewhere.

Your decadent descendents know you are different. from them.  They can still sense the magic, but arent good at it.   You arent good at it either (at first) but you still exude it.   If they dont envy you out of curiosity they want to kill you.  So does the rest of the world.  It senses what you are.   You have few friends.  And you realize that if you do not find a way to reverse the damage the world will absolutely end.

The purpose of the players is to find a way to reverse things.

So how can this be done?

This is a sandbox world.  You can use your magic and technology to cultivate, spread knowledge, create peace, instigate war, anything at all that restores the balance.   The game tracks your progress, and you can both increase and decrease in mana (magical power) as you succeed or fail in your endeavors.   Player housing, guilds, all of these things dont just exist as an afterthought, theyre part of the system of achieving balance in a world tearing itself apart.   If your house is excessive in water influence, you must find ways to raise its other influences while combating the decay and ill will generated by introduction of opposing elements into the sphere.   If your guild is too fire heavy (aggressive) or too water heavy (decietful) you need to balance it out.

Yeah.

So this isnt a whole dev novel.  In fact is just an idea off the top of my head.  But you asked for original, not technolgically easy.

Love it.  Would be interesting seeing a dali-esque world.  I couldn't see the masses clenching on, unfortunately, but it sounds nice.

ok I've got one rolling around in my head but I've put it more in a list of ideas and it's not 100% original but I'll chuck it in here anyway. sum it up in one sentance "A true virtual world".

1. All npc's belong to a faction, and all factions have goals, plans, needs, likes, dislikes and can take and lose space. All factions are controlled by an AI that will change the plans of their members based on whats happening in the world. All factions are joinable. Factions don't all have to have the same structure for example wild life factions may have many different groups that constantly attack/eat each other that would offer very few benefits to joining. You can be a member of multiple factions at once.

2. Choosable death penalty. Starting from no death penalties (instant respawn at a base) you could add more and more death penalties from a list of possible death penalties. the higher/more death penalty you have the more bonuses you get, top death penalties being permanant ones such as permadeath. Each death penalty lets you add more stats (read below) and provides bonuses relative to that penalty eg. chance of destroying your weapon increases weapon damage.

3. All characters npc's and pc's are born, need food/water/sleep and can die (if pushed too hard ^). Would need to have a greatly accelerated life cycle (such as mitosis) so replacements are quick. Npc's will also have their own personal goals and move around in the world, similar to say Oblivion.

4. No more static quests: quests would be based on the current needs of each of the factions and would be set by each of faction AI. Much more of the game however would come from taking up 'occupations' such as a front line soldier where you get paid for each kill and how much you participate in battles.

5. More complex morality and standing systems. Most games have these as simple good <-----> bad. Instead have say greed, lust, loyalty, gluttony etc. and a similar system for standings.

6. You do not dissapear when you log off, you go on a sort of autopilot that will eat, drink, sleep and practice though practicing won't advance your skills like you would, could just be implemented as an exp boost for so long after you've been practicing. your character can survive without you but they will not advance, they won't be very effective and they won't have any goals (though you can set simple tasks like go from town A to town B). Use of the autopilot and multiple characters would be the way to play the game, add many features for players to tweak and customize their autopilot how they like but limit it so to not replace humans. Ideally you could be playing one character and quickly switch to another when an alert comes up that they require your attention (they got attacked traveling to town B).

7. You would be able to command armies of npc's similar to a pet or summon system. Not everyone would, it would just be one of the skill sets you could go for. would have a command system based in 5's: 5 man = 1 squad, 5 squads = 1 platoon, 5 platoons = 1 army etc. Commanders would give out bonuses and orders but the more man there are the more their bonuses are stretched. You could have players take any position under here such as a player taking a platoon position with no npc's under them and taking all the platoon bonuses, or a player taking a platoon position with their own npc's under them getting the army leader and platoon leader bonuses. The other two main skillsets are berserker (good at lots of targets) assassin (good at single target).

8. A large amount of the players abilities would be based off their 'weapon'/equipment, eg. a good healing ability requires a medical kit. you could have 2 possibly more weapons equiped at any time and a limited carry capacity. If you wanted to have more abilities or carry more you would use npc's as surrogate ability casters or pack mules.

9. Characters 'class' would be based off skills, stats, fighting style and equipment. Any skill can be trained by anyone these determine what you can do but certain skills will require certain stats or equipment, stats can be respec'd at any time before a battle and determine how effective you are at what you do, more death penalties unlocks more stats to distribute. Fighting style are certain skills that act like stats, you can train all of them but only so many can be active at once.

10. Weapon fighting style skills are broken into 3 groups general, branch and specific. Each weapon has a mixture of each of the 3 types of skills associated with it in varrying percentages. For example a twin headed halberd has general types: chopping 10%, stabbing 10% long weapons 20% - branch: halberd 30% - specific: twin headed halberd 30%.

For each of the skills their is a counter fighting style skill that reduces the damage you receive from weapons that use that skill. The idea behind these 2 skills is to make it easy to switch to similar weapons and prevent any weapon from becoming too FoTM as you can specifically counter it.

Originally posted by LadyAlibi

Originally posted by b.alex

 

 If good ideas are cheap and plentiful then why are we so shocked and forever changed when we hear an original one? Money is an idea. Society is an idea. Law is an idea. Religion is an idea. Do they have any power over you? Ideas are the most powerful thing known in the universe. Never forget that.

Oh, please, we're talking about GAME ideas, for goodness' sake, not larger concepts in the REAL world. And I have yet to meet a GAME idea that makes the slightest bit of difference in my life. If I ever play a game that shocks me and changes my life, I will quit playing games, having reached the ultimate level of pathetic nerdiness.

Sure, good game ideas make someone somewhere a lot of money, but not without good implementation. For that matter, it's the IMPLEMENTATION of society, law, and religion that matter, far more than the ideas. 

 

(EDIT: On the other hand, people buy Dean Koontz books, so maybe bad ideas and poor implementation have an audience too.)

I think his tone was aiming at a larger picture. I didnt like how emo it sounded so i thought i should say something. But videogames shouldnt be stereotyped so easily, they are not much different from music or art. Many people find good values in those two things. Though when you think about it. the monalisa is just paper and some paint. so relax, its just another way of communicating some interesting ideas.

---

1. All npc's belong to a faction, and all factions have goals, plans, needs, likes, dislikes and can take and lose space. All factions are controlled by an AI that will change the plans of their members based on whats happening in the world. All factions are joinable. Factions don't all have to have the same structure for example wild life factions may have many different groups that constantly attack/eat each other that would offer very few benefits to joining. You can be a member of multiple factions at once.

3. All characters npc's and pc's are born, need food/water/sleep and can die (if pushed too hard ^). Would need to have a greatly accelerated life cycle (such as mitosis) so replacements are quick. Npc's will also have their own personal goals and move around in the world, similar to say Oblivion.

4. No more static quests: quests would be based on the current needs of each of the factions and would be set by each of faction AI. Much more of the game however would come from taking up 'occupations' such as a front line soldier where you get paid for each kill and how much you participate in battles.

---

thats interesting, essentially you're saying mmorpg- more rpg and with some ideas how that should be done.

A mmo where the intro is of you.

Of 99years old on your death bed, grim reaper offers you a chance to enter this magical portal and start your life over again with some consequences.

You step through the portal you are teleported back to the dinosaure age as a baby, with some ultimate kick ass ninja skills.

Best story EVER.

People who think they have a completely original idea for anything are usually not very educated people who read a book once but can't recall what it was about.

Originally posted by Dawngreeter

People who think they have a completely original idea for anything are usually not very educated people who read a book once but can't recall what it was about.

LOL. Obvious troll is obvious. And wrong. And ignorant. And self-defining.

However, if you're referring to literary ideas as a basic premise, then yes. The basic ideas and thoughts of humans are pretty much recorded at a coarse level. That'd be plot. And even that is contested.

Unfortunately for you, that's where the ideas stop. See, writers take a basic premise all the time and rewrite them.

I could go on to name pretty much everything else in creation, but I don't wana bore you.

Evidently someone you thought was smart once told you that, or something, and now you think it sounds witty.

My suggestion would be to go read some books. Try some writing by, oh, I dunno, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, or Plato even? Maybe when you finish, you'll be able to articulate some thoughts.

After all, by your own premise, you shouldn't even be speaking; since we all already know what you're gonna say?

You seem to be confusing originality with ingenuity.

Originally posted by Dawngreeter

You seem to be confusing originality with ingenuity.

I'll bite and guess you were mumbling in my direction.

Your statement was: "People who think they have a completely original idea for anything are usually not very educated people who read a book once but can't recall what it was about."

So, according to you:

There can be no original idea for anything; as everything has already been thought of.

I imagine, the picayune argument will be you said "completely", but that is impossible to know; and is a moot argument.

I'm guessing by your statement above that you believe ingenuity is possible without new ideas; however ingenuity involves ideas. Always. I'm thinking you're addlepated or just trolling.

See, ingenuity covers a group of concepts (and concepts are ideas, donchaknow) ; all of them generally involve generating new ideas or permutations from thought.

Bear in mind, you could possibly have an idea without ingenuity; but I'm betting you'd be hard pressed to prove that.

Therefore: you can't really have ingenuity without ideas; and I'm  thinking ideas are going to be, at a basic level based on ingenuity at some level. The idea that no one can have a completely original thought is silly, and unknowable.

While it would, I suppose, be possible to re-create an idea from something someone once read and forgot; it is likely the end result in that case is a natural progression as the idea writes itself from concept-templates.

You REALLY need Plato and Hume.

You seem to be having a lot of fun with the argument. That's nice. Bogus condensenscion and silly attempt to "win" a discussion aside, I'm enjoying the exchange as well.

Here's your stumbling point - a new permutation of old ideas is not a completely original idea. Or, to sidestep the issue of "completely" being used as an excuse, it doesn't qualify as plain old original either. I'd delve deeper here and state that your consciousness is incapable of coming up with anything new, you're just juggling what you gather through experiences but that might be way too meta for the discussion at hand.

Hence why you confuse ingenuity with originality. And hence why it's silly talking about a "completely original MMO". It's like talking about a completely original way to hammer a nail. No matter how crazy you get, you are still using the same hammer to hit the same nail for the same old purposes, using the same old principles.

Originally posted by Dawngreeter

You seem to be having a lot of fun with the argument. That's nice. Bogus condensenscion and silly attempt to "win" a discussion aside, I'm enjoying the exchange as well.

So you're trying to win too, then? And who's being condescending now? I didn't start down that road. You did with your first troll post.

Here's your stumbling point - a new permutation of old ideas is not a completely original idea. Or, to sidestep the issue of "completely" being used as an excuse, it doesn't qualify as plain old original either. I'd delve deeper here and state that your consciousness is incapable of coming up with anything new, you're just juggling what you gather through experiences but that might be way too meta for the discussion at hand.

And both assertions you've mentioned here were already pre-refuted by me. At least you could read my posts.

*sigh*

"I imagine, the picayune argument will be you said "completely", but that is impossible to know; and is a moot argument." -- premise 1 refuted.

"While it would, I suppose, be possible to re-create an idea from something someone once read and forgot; it is likely the end result in that case is a natural progression as the idea writes itself from concept-templates."

That whole concept-templates thing is your second assertion.

I'm guessing by the "meta" *chuckle* argument that your idea is that concept arrives from root-concepts and therefore human kind can't create a really new concept because everything is built from basic symbol sets.

Hence why you confuse ingenuity with originality. And hence why it's silly talking about a "completely original MMO". It's like talking about a completely original way to hammer a nail. No matter how crazy you get, you are still using the same hammer to hit the same nail for the same old purposes, using the same old principles.

Nope, you haven't said anything yet. In fact, all you've done here is a non-sequitir premise. Not to mention, you offered nothing on my "confusion of blah blakety blah". I explained the concepts and offered arguments. You did nothing to counter them. (Which, I don't blame you for playing to the peanut gallery. You don't have a leg to stand on.)

And, addressing nails, who came up with the idea originally? Didn't they have an original idea? How about a nail gun? I'm not sure I remember those in the middle ages? Rome?

Push drivers? How about those?

You're "argument", when you have one, is so silly it is either trolling or moot.

Go ahead, though, it is amusing.

 A game where everyone is a shapeshifter. You can change into virtually everything, a dog, a scarecrow, a rock in the desert. Rogue's would wait as a tree for a victim to pass by and then backstab them. Mages would specialize in different forms with different powers. Warriors would try to become especially hard rocks.

Imagine the following scene: A small frog leaps out of a pond, shapeshifts to an ape and starts to punch away at a tree only to get backstabbed by the bush behind him when suddenly all die from a fireball which was cast by a bird-mage in the sky. The mage is then killed by an archer disguised as a human who then gets gutted by the bunny the human was just playing with.

I think I need more sleep -_-

Originally posted by b.alex

I`m curious to see what ideas the masses have. If you can describe in only a few sentences a completely original idea for an mmo that is like nothing else out there, post it here. Make it as abstract as you want!

 

I`m making this post because almost all "original" ideas arent original, honestly. I`m hoping for some huge and outside the box stuff.

The mmorpg genre has been run by sheep for over a decade, cmon, I know you guys have great ideas. Now where are they?

 

Here are some slightly different games to get your immagination going.

portal

guild wars

spore

little big planet

 

These are only slightly off the rocker, can you do better?

 And MMORPG, where players are building their own mmorpg to competed in the game world against each other.  Includes management of money, time and other resources. The goal is to produce a game which makes the most profit over a simulated and accelerated ten year period.

I'm not going to read through ten pages of on topic and babbling gibberish posts so forgive me if some one already post the idea of a MMO that centers around the after-life. Perhapes in a kind of pergatory where good and evil are battling for final control of you. I don't know but would be crazy. One of the unique features would be that because you are dead there are no tangible possessions or items, everything is a manifestation of your will.

I have always had three ideas for MMORPGs. They aren't necessarily original though, but would be to the MMO genre. They share some general gameplay ideas.

The first is more sci-fi based and based around the colonization of the new world using some elements inspired by civilization. The very first players would actually complete quests from crafting to gathering to hunting that would help build the starter city. Over time the starter ciry would expand and grow as more people completed quests. New stores would open with new quests based off items found locally as the borders expand and eventually the city would grow large enough to send out settlers to help settle new cities. As you visit  these new cities you open up these areas to start in with alts if desired. Since these alts would actually be born on the planet they may have different characteristics based off where you choose to start. You would also have different class or skills or professions based off the city you choose and the surrounding environment. New players would be able to eventually choose other areas to start in once the city grew large enough or the enough of the population has at least passed through the city. If you choose to be born in a city instead of a new person landing on the planet, you would have less choice over what you look like. Your choice would be to pick the woman from the city who is your mother and you would never know who your father was since he was just someone passing through the town.  You would also gain slight bonuses based off what female you choose and at random based off the skills and profession of some random player who visited the town in the last set period of time.

Eventually you would encounter other intelligent species, peaceful and aggressive, on the planet opening up new races potentially as expansions of course.

The second idea is more of a modern day post apocalyptic/supernatural based game. It is somewhat inspired by books like Dies the Fire. One day most modern technology just stops working and the rules change. Things as new as electronics and even as old as gun powder just no longer work the way they should. As a result people are forced to go back to the way things were. People turn what they can into armor and weapons. Everyone is forced to live off the land. You would have a broad range of class and profession choices. You would even have a class and profession dedicated to making things the way they were or figuring out the new rules. This class would constantly be testing and tweaking old world tech to see if they can make advances. As individuals or groups discover new rules, it adds slowly to the world allowing crafters more options when making gear. This would also over time introduce magic into the game and other things like creatures previously thought to be myths or extinct.

The third and final idea is more horror/supernatural based. In short, after a third major world war which signicantly destroys a large portion of the human population,  the supoernatural community which has lived among us forever decides they no longer like the way humans are running the world and decide to take over.  The humans decide to join forces and try to hunt the vampires, zombies, and weres out there. You would be scavenging and making weapons out of whatever you can find while also going hunting. This last part is the part I don't know how you would make it work without turning off a portion of the community.

As you hunt and encounter the various supernatural creatures, you actually gain the chance to get infected and turn into a zombie, vamp or were. While there would be potential cures in town available via a quest of course they might fail. The turn wouldn't happen immediately of course but would happen by the time the next maintenance occured. This could be a problem if you get turned but your guild doesn't so I guess there would have to be a challenging quest to turn back. Of course there would also be those who decide to try and get turned so there might need to be an initial quest eventually that lets you choose whether to become a were and what type or a vamp.

letters vs numbers, 25 different classes, 25 letters, 25 numbers, can have a pvp server and a pve server , the game would not be graphics heavy due to eveything is a number or letter enabling a fair gaming experience for everyone.

Originally posted by FreddyNoNose

Originally posted by b.alex

I`m curious to see what ideas the masses have. If you can describe in only a few sentences a completely original idea for an mmo that is like nothing else out there, post it here. Make it as abstract as you want!

 

I`m making this post because almost all "original" ideas arent original, honestly. I`m hoping for some huge and outside the box stuff.

The mmorpg genre has been run by sheep for over a decade, cmon, I know you guys have great ideas. Now where are they?

 

Here are some slightly different games to get your immagination going.

portal

guild wars

spore

little big planet

 

These are only slightly off the rocker, can you do better?

 And MMORPG, where players are building their own mmorpg to competed in the game world against each other.  Includes management of money, time and other resources. The goal is to produce a game which makes the most profit over a simulated and accelerated ten year period.

 Haha, i could see that doing us a lot of good. The scary part is that, dispite that being no different from real life. If you did that, you would see a whole bunch of amazing mmo`s because people wouldnt fear failure so much. They would be more open to make mistakes and learn from them, because hey, its just a game right? :P

haha, but, life is too actually...