Developers Corner

1. Replace magic with time control.

I was just playing around with a non-cookie cutter fantasy/sci fi game idea and background when this thought came across my mind : make a setting where magic is replaced by manipulation of time. Backstory of some 4th and 5th dimensional creatures being discovered in the exploration of space or something of the like, and this has led to great changes in society and warfare etc..

What this entails:

Channels/Instancing without a break in immersion i.e Go to a dungeons past/present/future to different degrees, affecting spawns, loot, etc, and having channels like +3 hours +2 hours +1 hour :present: -1 Hour -2 Hours -3 Hours. The magnitude of the change would be determined by the characters time control skills, so only high levels or people with expensive equipment would be in the higher channels.

-Different branches of time control i.e Divination (mainly buffs) , Reversal (healing? Maybe even a PoPesque go back in time to retrace your actions mechanism(poor servers)),  people who can controll how fast/slow time passes (offensive attacks, buffs as well).

-Overuse modulators : make an NPC faction who regulates the use of time travel, maybe time abnormalities (whoops, warped back in time bye bye 2 days xp or something like that)

-Time control vs High technology : Changing time breaks technology or makes it malfunction and the gameworld represents this. Two major factions could be in combat with one another, making a back story for the action. Classes would also represent this with an extremity scale Technologist - Technological fighting class - balanced class - Time fighting class - Time changer, races have an affinity to one of the two sides.

-5th dimensional control as well i.e grabbing a giant mutation from an alternate reality to fight for you, maybe a bit closer to classical magic.

Might sound a 'bit' like AO, but with a focus on time control

Just thought it would be an interesting setting to play around with mentally.

2. Make the MMO experience differ from player to player

This is another concept I thought (heard and ran through the dusty pathways of my inadequate mind) of : Instead of making 3 different quests/instances make 1 quest with the components of those quests and swap between them each time it is accessed. So say a quest has 3 key events and there are 3 different scenarios for those events, we can get a total of 18 different combinations (correct me if I am wrong). So, instead of making 18 different quests, you can just make 3 and combine them! Add random monster spawns and dynamic loot, you can totally eliminate repetition in mmos!

Having this uncertainty in quests will mean that team work will have to be present every time you go to an instance, as a set formula won't work any more. Scouts and stealth characters will become more important than ever before, as the group would have to know which path to follow (imagine a time limited quest with a split pathway and there are two routes to chose from every time).

Ya, I know it has been thought of before, but I have never seen it implemented so get working devs!

Woohoo, another idea that I like. That's 2 in 2 days. Ok, so you're not a developer, so you probably won't be using this logo. Still, its my custom to design a logo for ideas that I think have promise. Who knows, maybe my company will look into something like this in the future (though it doesn't really fit too well into our plans).

Anyway, nice thoughts. Here ya go!

Nice design, thanks. Can't see myself ever making a game though ( a bit on the lazy side hehe), but MMO's are an interesting genre, and could do with a few new ideas...