Originally posted by carrarn
guildwars.. if you can call it a mmo -
then again - whats grinding anyway? repetively kill the same monster a milion times.. repetively do nearly the same quest 1000 of times... however nobody wants a mmo where you start out at max lvl/ability with no way of growing right? ... or do we... mm
Mmo where you start all at the same lvl - and that has no: go here, talk to him get x that and bring back - or atleast no more then what a player could stomic (re: 1?:P)
pro: no grind for lvls/progression
con: need a different way to get players to spend time/ want to play the game - to get a feeling of achiefment
optinal :
can spend more time on skils / abilities / classes - let everybody be able to create a char that has to choose his own skills abilities where not all abilities are alowed on the same class perhaps with a faction based system || give everybody the same skillset and then just let them choose what to use
hmmmm
a different way to get a feeling of achiefment... unlocks like in fighter games? perhaps unlocks that are needed to remove limits on dungeons? so progres through content.. mmm seen that before havent we.. mostly in rts games.
or... a pvp list with ranking.. then again u get player slaughter grinding... mm a story progression where u get more info while progressing.. mm most likey a click/through as fast as u get fest ... mmmmmmmm
then a exploration game.. hide interesting things in a huge world and let people find them.. but to what purpose.. mm and what should you hide.. interesting encounters.. but what will the reward for finding it be.. hints for other locations? mm but then what, you cant do that for ever, then you would expect a end .. mmm a ending.. why not.. mmo;s could have endings cant they... if there isnt anything to be gained from playing then the playing.. you could let a mmo have a ending and if the players lose or do not survive you just restart the server.. ah now we are on to something.. this way you could create a story centric game where the goal is to reach the ending in a certain way ... aahh a idea is forming... imagine this..
a world/server where you have a x number of faction minium 2 that have a goal. The goals are oposite. The story involves a non-linear plot where multiple worlds/dimensions coexist every world starts the same and has similar ending targets. When a server/world has reached the end the winning faction is moved to another world with other goals together with a winning factino from another world and they are pitted against eachother. THe losing faction is pitted against another losing faction. Put some timelimit on certain turning points to make sure everybody has a similar amount of time to reach to a descision/conclusion. Ah but now what... we reach a trouble point again... will you keep pitting factions against eachother forever? whats the reward in this... ah! what about this.. we create a super world a world everybody "lives in" in this world we create entities.. gods - these are in a eternal struggle for supremecy.. one for good one for evil, one for nature one for progress options anough. The gods, instead of waging war that can destroy the galaxy have formed a agreement. Let the minions.. uh believers what not fight in there stead. They create alaborat worlds with goals that test there folowers. The pit them against each other and the victors get rewards from there deities. Rewards .. hmm damnit now what.. ah wait.. howabout houses .. castles npcs and other fluff... mmm but what about the timing.. for the world events... back to back leaves no time to enjoy the super world.. and whats in the world.. only houses? mmm perhaps create a normal feeling world.. one with mobs/encounters and pvp... something people can, from own accord fight for there deities... mmm but then how do you descide when to take x factions and pit them against each other. Say factions win, then u give them what a day ? a week of time to explore the world before you put them into another one.. and then what... how long does it take.. mmm say you descide the main goal is the factions world.. you would say min1week to max4weeks per testing grounds.. then a week min of 1 week to a max of 2 weeks on the main world.. Fine perhaps we find a good balance but then?! how do you guarantee that all the factions have the same amount of folowers.. what if a faction can never play because they perhaps dont reach a minimum following.. or perhaps a faction has so many folowers you have to devide it into sub factions.. and whats the limit for a faction anyway.. 100? 500? 1000? say we take 3 factions good neutral evil.. and we give a faction 3 sub factions or races.. at start people chose a faction and a race.. then we take the super world and say we limit it at 10,000 players. then we take the sub worlds / servers and limit those at 2000 thatgives us 5 servers of 2000 people.. with 3 factions and 3 subrace/factions we have around 220 people per faction.. say we limit it at that.. when people want to joina faction but cant they try another subworld.. if they try all 5 subworlds and cant join the faction they want ..then what? outa luck? try another superserver? what if there is only one.. hmm howabout we randomise the faction you get kicked in and balance it ourselfs.. but that takes controll away from the players..what about guilds wanting to join the game.. well we could say its the nature of game and be done with that.. or let people put up people they want to be with in the same faction.. that way people can all enter the name of the guild leader and all be put in the same faction.. so what if a guild has more then 220 members? .. hmm perhaps we shouldnt want to think about allt hose options.. and say.. if u got more then 220 join the subfaction/race of the same faction with half and another subfaction of the same race with the other halfe.. so but then... we pit subfactions against eachother? or whole factions... we have 9 factions 3x3 and 27 sub factions 9x3... that would give us the option to either create 9 worlds for people to do there gods bidding or 27... but that gives us a uneven number.... mmm this is getting complicated.. lets drop back a few notches.. 1 super world.. a x number of subworlds.. people join a subworld.. then they chose a faction and subfaction... they get teleported into the .. uh.. ow right.. gues we need a starter world.. we need to get a even number of factions so we can always pit people against eachother.. so say we do it like this a faction battle is on a world with max 2k people devided over the factions, the factions have a world wide goal and 1 faction will win and whos god will hold most power, . then there is a sub faction goal that will descide who holds the most favor with there god... good that sounds better so everybody can join the game, have the same abilities / level and it all comes down to team play.. but now what kinda things should people fight over.. keeps? mmm that kinda sounds to simple.. we can put in keeps for something else tho.. say we give everybody the same skills but the ability to get a bit better weapons.. not to good but better.. now we say you dont need resources to craft armors/weapons but a keep.. the keep has all the requirements - now let people fight for these, let them have the ability for instance to always get standard equipment from vendors provided by the gods.. but if standard deflects 10damage the special should deflect 12 damage.. (or any other similar difference) and weapon standard does 10 damage but weapon special does 12.. etc... now we need a skillbased combat system.. otherwise this aint going to work.. something that will let us fight realtime like a 3Dshooter or like a rts.. hmm should think on that later... then we have a sub element in the game... we could put in pve factions per haps gods that cant be chosen but have there own folowing.. they will also try to perform the objectives/goals.. now the goals.. perhaps a dungeon like thing - but then like a puzzle.. ah but then people will look on the web to find solutions.. then perhaps dynamic puzzles - a dungeon where you need to perform a goal that changes...mmm a goal thats a puzzle, requiring sub puzzles to solved to gain the elements needed to solve it.. puzzles that require skill and ability instead of grinding.. gah! a idea forms.. give people faction wide skils / abilities things they can gain only on the world that only work there.. skills needed to cross bariers and solve puzzles.. then again.. only things that groups can do? mmm we need a way for people to do things when they are not with alot of others.. say mini objectives .. things that will make sub objectives easier.. explorations for instance.. solo players could scout things and thereby unlock certain obtional elements to make things easyer... ah but then we can put a most valued player reward at the end.. a most valued player per faction/subfaction that gets honoured at the end of the story arq. And even a most valuable team/party... let people in subfactions form teams that perform larger submissions that cant be done solo this way you get solo/group and faction wide gameplay. Put in a good background story about the factions and subfactions...
and its lunchtime! so.. im not even going to TRY read what i just wrote.. nor am i going to be upset if nobody reads it ^_^ i will however be verry impressed if someone manages to read it and understand even a smithering :P
For the records let me say that i just did this to releave my own stress and anoyence with my inability to like any mmo out there! :P Daoc spoiled me i gues :P
no way did my Mithral chain shirt stop that wall of text from killing me. I should not be standing let alone concious. Good ideas though.
