Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You KNOW players want to be the monsters (Mobs) in the game. Why hasn't someone done a good game where we can play the Mobs?

It's perfect for PvP. The Mobs vs the Humanoids.

 

When you level, you go to the next tougher Mob, or something like that. Instead of leveling up a rat, you go from rat to coyote cub, to spiderling, to skeleton, to Goblin, to Gargoyle, etc. all the way up to Dragon, or whatever Boss Mobs you want to put in the game.

Humanoids are the usual. Elves, Humans, Dwarves, or Star Wars type aliens and Humans, whatever.

There's a bunch of ways to design it, but I think I might do something like, Mobs can attack anyone, Humanoids or other Mobs. Humanoids can only attack Mobs.

I'd do it RvR style. Humanoids have a realm where they can fight NPC monsters. Mobs have a realm where they can fight NPC Humanoids.

Then there's the Frontier like in Daoc where you can fight each other, but also NPC Humanoids and Mobs are there as well. NPC's look just like players.

Hm, what do you mean with Mob? Mob is short for mobile which is used together with AI to say AI Mobile. I assume you mean players playing the various monsters/non humanoids that inhabit the world or?

If so then it is a good idea and I would like to play such an innovative MMORPG. Problem that I see is that non-humanoids rarely use weapons and armor so you would need to find a replacement for that or it could become quite dull playing a monster.

Originally posted by VirgoThree

I don't know if anyone remembers this but EQ did this briefly, but it was not exactly like your system you are proposing. There was a button on the character select screen of EQ that was play monster or something like that. Once you pressed it you would login in as a random monster in a random zone somewhere in the world. I remember one time I was a level 1 snake in Freeport, and another a orc in Oasis of Marr.

It wasn't a indepth system really. It was just fun to play and it was interesting to run into a mob that looked like it was smarter then the rest of the pack. I forget all the details to it but I believe it was permadeath for you if you were killed and you would just go back to character select screen.

The problem with this system is it unbalanced  the PvE. PvE in most games is balanced on stupid Mobs that players can pull and kill at their own pace.

Imagine any situation in an MMORPG where the Mobs actually decide when to attack you, not just when you decide to pull one. You're screwed. Mobs would not just stand their waiting on you to get full health and mana and then attack them. Players wait till you're down to one hit point and no mana, and THEN attack you.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You KNOW players want to be the monsters (Mobs) in the game. Why hasn't someone done a good game where we can play the Mobs?

It's perfect for PvP. The Mobs vs the Humanoids.

 

When you level, you go to the next tougher Mob, or something like that. Instead of leveling up a rat, you go from rat to coyote cub, to spiderling, to skeleton, to Goblin, to Gargoyle, etc. all the way up to Dragon, or whatever Boss Mobs you want to put in the game.

Humanoids are the usual. Elves, Humans, Dwarves, or Star Wars type aliens and Humans, whatever.

There's a bunch of ways to design it, but I think I might do something like, Mobs can attack anyone, Humanoids or other Mobs. Humanoids can only attack Mobs.

I'd do it RvR style. Humanoids have a realm where they can fight NPC monsters. Mobs have a realm where they can fight NPC Humanoids.

Then there's the Frontier like in Daoc where you can fight each other, but also NPC Humanoids and Mobs are there as well. NPC's look just like players.

 

Hm, what do you mean with Mob? Mob is short for mobile which is used together with AI to say AI Mobile. I assume you mean players playing the various monsters/non humanoids that inhabit the world or?

If so then it is a good idea and I would like to play such an innovative MMORPG. Problem that I see is that non-humanoids rarely use weapons and armor so you would need to find a replacement for that or it could become quite dull playing a monster.

 

You could give Monsters (you're right "Mob" is confusing) various abilities and skills. Plus some Monsters DO use weapons, skeletons, Kobolds, Ogres, Giants, things like that.

You could also do a sort of skill tree, only with Monsters instead of skills. Which Monster you pick to become next determines which Monsters will be available in the future as you level.

I've never been that interested in collecting gear, I find it an annoyance. Oh my gear is getting underpowerd for this level, I have to sell, buy, repair, do a quest for a new piece, whatever. But apparently a lot of people are really fond of collecting gear.

I found CoH refreshing because I didn't have to worry about collecting gear.

Adventurer class in Anarchy Online can transform himself in different beasts, last one being a dragonish flying mob.

You can be a Leet to improve you concealment ability, flying bird to improve your speed or different types of dog/tiger (one with 2 heads) to improve your combat skills.

Or, if you want to be a beast for your life and level it, you can play a dragon in Istaria (formerly Horizons).

Originally posted by VirgoThree

I don't know if anyone remembers this but EQ did this briefly, but it was not exactly like your system you are proposing. There was a button on the character select screen of EQ that was play monster or something like that. Once you pressed it you would login in as a random monster in a random zone somewhere in the world. I remember one time I was a level 1 snake in Freeport, and another a orc in Oasis of Marr.

It wasn't a indepth system really. It was just fun to play and it was interesting to run into a mob that looked like it was smarter then the rest of the pack. I forget all the details to it but I believe it was permadeath for you if you were killed and you would just go back to character select screen.

Project-M

I don't think I ever laughed so hard playing EQ like I did during Project-M.  You would spawn as a level 1-3? MOB, and you couldn't pick where you spawned.  But sometimes you'd get in a noob zone lol, you could actually as a skeleton, start killing other skeletons and gain levels.  Of course theres nothing better to do with these new levels than go terrorize some noobs =D  I remember having leveled up a skeleton in Nektulos, I was stalking this noob, waiting for him to get low on HP, walking in a straight line for a few seconds like the AI does, then I spot this other skeleton that looked a little odd.  I went closer and realized this skeleton was also a player, I think he saw me too because right after that we both raced for the noob, killed the unsuspecting noob in a bloody rage, and then turned on each other lol!  Sometimes I'd spend several hours getting XP for my skeleton, it was fun to see how high level I could get =)

I think it went downhill when the people spawning in low level dungeons started training the entire dungeon to the entrance, killing all the poor adventures in there along the way.  It's too bad developers can't do wild and creative stuff like this anymore, they must be all so scared of losing subs =P  but Project-M was AAA fun if you ask me!

LOTRo has the closest thing avaiable to this, with Monster Play and Critter Play.

I think they don't do this because it would require lore to do it, if they just keep adding new races like that their story writers will suffer from 24/7 work exhaustion :P

I recommend Mabinogi if you want to play a non-humanoid.

In Mabinogi you can role-play as your pets.

There are specific quest where you can role-play as the mobs like a spider, wolf, etc.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You KNOW players want to be the monsters (Mobs) in the game. Why hasn't someone done a good game where we can play the Mobs?

It's perfect for PvP. The Mobs vs the Humanoids.

I've thought about this concept before.  A couple strengths of the idea:

1. It's player-created content.
2. It gives PK'ers a proper vehicle to mess with others

Something I think LOTRO does is give points for successful monster play.  The points can buy rewards for your non-monster character.  I think that's a good system to encourage players to try a monster on.

A more extreme idea I've had is a game with no raise dead skills, but is based on reincarnationist cosmology.  You die, you respawn as some other creature.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You KNOW players want to be the monsters (Mobs) in the game. Why hasn't someone done a good game where we can play the Mobs?

It's perfect for PvP. The Mobs vs the Humanoids.

 

When you level, you go to the next tougher Mob, or something like that. Instead of leveling up a rat, you go from rat to coyote cub, to spiderling, to skeleton, to Goblin, to Gargoyle, etc. all the way up to Dragon, or whatever Boss Mobs you want to put in the game.

Humanoids are the usual. Elves, Humans, Dwarves, or Star Wars type aliens and Humans, whatever.

There's a bunch of ways to design it, but I think I might do something like, Mobs can attack anyone, Humanoids or other Mobs. Humanoids can only attack Mobs.

I'd do it RvR style. Humanoids have a realm where they can fight NPC monsters. Mobs have a realm where they can fight NPC Humanoids.

Then there's the Frontier like in Daoc where you can fight each other, but also NPC Humanoids and Mobs are there as well. NPC's look just like players.

 

Hm, what do you mean with Mob? Mob is short for mobile which is used together with AI to say AI Mobile. I assume you mean players playing the various monsters/non humanoids that inhabit the world or?

If so then it is a good idea and I would like to play such an innovative MMORPG. Problem that I see is that non-humanoids rarely use weapons and armor so you would need to find a replacement for that or it could become quite dull playing a monster.

 

Innovative... well EQ did this 8 or 9 years ago, it was called project M, i hope some devs can take this idea and evolve from there, it was fun.

Originally posted by judex99

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You KNOW players want to be the monsters (Mobs) in the game. Why hasn't someone done a good game where we can play the Mobs?

It's perfect for PvP. The Mobs vs the Humanoids.

 

When you level, you go to the next tougher Mob, or something like that. Instead of leveling up a rat, you go from rat to coyote cub, to spiderling, to skeleton, to Goblin, to Gargoyle, etc. all the way up to Dragon, or whatever Boss Mobs you want to put in the game.

Humanoids are the usual. Elves, Humans, Dwarves, or Star Wars type aliens and Humans, whatever.

There's a bunch of ways to design it, but I think I might do something like, Mobs can attack anyone, Humanoids or other Mobs. Humanoids can only attack Mobs.

I'd do it RvR style. Humanoids have a realm where they can fight NPC monsters. Mobs have a realm where they can fight NPC Humanoids.

Then there's the Frontier like in Daoc where you can fight each other, but also NPC Humanoids and Mobs are there as well. NPC's look just like players.

 

Hm, what do you mean with Mob? Mob is short for mobile which is used together with AI to say AI Mobile. I assume you mean players playing the various monsters/non humanoids that inhabit the world or?

If so then it is a good idea and I would like to play such an innovative MMORPG. Problem that I see is that non-humanoids rarely use weapons and armor so you would need to find a replacement for that or it could become quite dull playing a monster.

 

Innovative... well EQ did this 8 or 9 years ago, it was called project M, i hope some devs can take this idea and evolve from there, it was fun.

That was what I was thinking. The EQ feature was a goood start, but you needed some way to keep people from ganking newbs.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Legolas the Rat gnaws you for 34503 damage.

You die.

Legolas the Rat squeaks, "Ha ha noob, I have Heavy Mithril Fur of Human Repelling +6, Very Long Spiked Tail of Crushing +9, and Ultimate Poisonous Gnawing Teeth +6, silly noob you never stood a chance".

Legolas the Rat defecates on you.

ROFL!

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by judex99

 

That was what I was thinking. The EQ feature was a goood start, but you needed some way to keep people from ganking newbs.

Unfortunatly that's what most people want out of this system. They don't want to be a monster that keeps getting killed by players. They want to be able to be a powerfull monster that can grief players, that's where their fun comes from. If the monster was an actual balanced monster which was destined to lose it wouldn't be too fun for the monster.

Now if they had specific dungeons where a guild could fill all the monster rolls and players could come in to see if they could beat the dungeon then it might be interesting.

But really what most people are asking for is a way to grief players.

I'd rather play other NPCs, like bartenders etc.

they need to make an rvr game where the sides are the monsters, heroes, and common folks (shop owners)... Monsters of course want to destroy or conquer.. heroes wanna make a name for themselves and common folks wanna make a living... Each side can have different classes of course..

edit: the heroes can be hired by the commmon folk to help defend them, the monsters can hire heroes to help kill common folks, common folks make weapons for heroes to kill monsters etc.. NOT ALL ABOUT COMBAT

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

Unfortunatly that's what most people want out of this system. They don't want to be a monster that keeps getting killed by players. They want to be able to be a powerfull monster that can grief players, that's where their fun comes from. If the monster was an actual balanced monster which was destined to lose it wouldn't be too fun for the monster.

 

Now if they had specific dungeons where a guild could fill all the monster rolls and players could come in to see if they could beat the dungeon then it might be interesting.

 

But really what most people are asking for is a way to grief players.

Correct.  Monster play and a grocery list style MMO don't get along.  It's only going to work for a game with player-driven content.