I have been reading what I can get my hands on for MMOG design, technology, and business issues, and I wanted to know what people here generally thought about the core mechanic of my potential game. I'm going to try to avoid posting a huge stream-of-consciousness rant about all the wonderful features I've thought up. It's dawned on me that thinking up new and unique features really isn't all that difficult, and really that phase should generally wait until a slice of the game is already coded. I can go into them in more detail if someone wants, though.

The core mechanic for my ideal MMORPG is complex collision detection melee combat. I've played a game called Jedi Academy that I would like to use to illustrate the game play. Once you have a good understanding of Jedi Academy, you will have a fairly good grasp of what I’m aiming for in my core mechanic, and if nothing else will understand my inspiring game. Please note that Jedi Academy (heretofore JA) is several years old. JA features roughly 15 different saber swings per "stance," with three completely different stances. The stances are weak but fast (light), medium speed but stronger (medium), and slow but strong (heavy). Each stance therefore varies both in how difficult it is to dodge a swing, and the cost of failing to dodge one (for example light is tough to dodge but you can take quite a few hits from it). Furthermore, each stance differs in its ability to parry. Light stance generally cannot parry heavy stance, as it cuts through like butter, and light has some trouble parrying medium. Only heavy can parry heavy stance reliably. However, if you are attacking, you cannot be parrying at the same time, so heavy stance has the disadvantage of committing much more risk on a poorly aimed attack, and light stance has the advantage of being able to move in and strike quickly. Also, moving hampers your ability to parry.  For example, if you are moving a great deal (with wasd) in medium stance, you might fail to parry a light attack. Couple all of this with the fact that you can change stances at any time, and you have one hell of a complicated melee fight.

Each of the 15 or so swings was activated depending on what direction you were pressing on "wasd," or what combination. So if you pressed "w" and attack, you would do a downward slash, "a" and attack and it would be a left sideswipe, "a" and "w" and it would be a diagonal slash, etc., same goes for crouching (it had all its own directions also). Furthermore, there were generally a couple jumping attacks, and a few "power" attacks that drained what I will call "mana" when used but are slightly stronger than normal ones. In any case, once an attack was activated, you were committed through the length of the swing. For the special attacks that use mana, generally the character went through a multi-attack sequence that could take several seconds, so if you missed, or the enemy saw it coming and backed off, you were exposed to a potential well-timed counter. Keep in mind that during a normal attack you could still control what direction you walked (wasd) and where you faced (mouse) meaning that each individual strike had a near limitless degree of alteration. Special attacks' direction could also be changed with the mouse, so if it was moving attack sequence then there was dynamic control of its direction during the combo sequence.

The melee fights in this game were extraordinarily intricate, replayable, and extremely satisfying. But it doesn't stop there.

Each player had a series of acrobatics at their disposal for dodging and movement. The back flip allowed players to back flip over most sword swipes. Players could also wall-run along the sides of walls for some distance, allowing them to feign an aggression, run along a wall, and strike from behind, or jump off the wall in mid wall-run and bring their saber down on their enemy. There was also the ability to run straight up walls, and either wall-flip off and head in the opposite direction, or run to the next level if a ledge was close enough. Players could also cling to the side of a cliff or wall that they jumped against and perch momentarily. There were side flips, high jumps, and rolls, among others. Keep in mind that all of the more exotic acrobatics also used "mana," but again, it was a supplement of the melee, not in spite of it.  All of these made the combat's depth even more limitless. But it still doesn't stop there. 

Each player also had some degree of "the force," what I'll call magic, at their fingertips. You could force pull your opponent towards you, and time an attack to correspond, or force push them if you wanted distance. It's important to note that a player was affected much less by these if they stood still than if moving, far more if moving and attacking, and even more if jumping. Their distance also changed the impact of such "crowd control" spells. Thus, you were constantly trying to predict and counter your opponent. However, it all tied back into the melee, because you didn't have to put your sword away to cast. You could also "grip" your opponent, and choke him/her, which he could interrupt with a number of his spells. I won't go into all the spells, but the key is that every spell had a counter, and again the whole system was in support of melee combat, not in spite of it. It was all built around melee as the core mechanic. And the melee was indeed the most fun I've had in any TPS or FPS video game.

I'll note here that ranged weapons existed, but generally were only used for just that - range. There was very little in-your-face rocket blasting and the like because all you needed to do was force pull the rocket launcher at close range and it would fly out of their hands and, if you were good, right into yours. Thus ranged weapons were good starters, but a fight usually developed into good old intricate melee bouts. Further, you could force push virtually any projectile back at an enemy, and they could then force push it back at you. What often happened was that, person "a" would see person "b" at some distance, and shoot a rocket, person "b" would force push it back while now closing the distance, person "a" would then force push it back while now also running forward, and the rocket would fly back and forth like this while the players closed the distance, and the last to whom it was aimed would invariably jump over it while pulling out their saber and the two would meet in melee combat. Faster projectiles besides the slower rockets could be force pushed, but you could not cast quick enough to get them all. However other abilities, such as the number of points you had allocated to "saber defense," would allow you to parry and often reflect them right back at the enemy (albeit often with poor aim). A very skilled marksman could aim for your feet, but this was difficult to do to an opponent moving in on you who could jump, roll, run along walls, etc. The game’s sniper rifle could not be parried, but if you put enough points into the ability “force sense,” your player would automatically duck his head or move his body just slightly out of the path of a sniper shot. So, even those pesky “pro” snipers and aim botters could be countered, albeit with a small but still costly allocation of points into said skill. The point is that everything had a counter, and again: it all revolved around highly complex melee fights.  It supplemented, but rarely fully replaced.

Now that I've given you an idea of the best example of properly balanced melee combat I know of, I would like to know what the general community thinks of a collision detection FPS/TPSMMORPG based on that singular core mechanic. No, a game like Darkfall is not what I mean, as it lacks anything close to the number of swings, stances, acrobatics, and many, many other things I'm talking about (and jsut described). A closer example of a still outdated game would be to start with Planetside's scope, latency, and cost, and build from that based on better server architechture and throughput (my point being that it's best to start with a smaller scale MMOFPS for an example and build on that, rather than try to take a concept like WoW and put this in as a core mechanic). Also, I have many design “features” in mind that would keep a paying customer hooked for more than the standard 20 hours that your typical FPS garners, so please do not argue business strategies with me. The question in my mind isn’t “can I keep a paying customer hooked,” it’s “is technology good enough yet, and if not, how much will I have to sacrifice.”

I’m considering a new MMOG model that asks for a considerably higher per-month subscription fee. The plug, of course, is that this is a premium game design that offers something that no other game can. Few know this, but when MMOGs were first being born, the standard rate was literally hundreds of dollars a month for the average player, and thousands of people were willing to shell it out. Now, I’m certainly not looking at hundreds of dollars a month, but I am considering something along the lines of $50, if necessary, perhaps less, perhaps more.  My primary argument is that there is an emerging population of pay-check earning professionals who are also hardcore gamers, serious gamers, and casual gamers, that would spend 1.5% of their paycheck on entertainment if they thought it was premium fun, offered them something they couldn't get elsewhere, and gave hours of playbility and replayability.

The point here is that I already know my core mechanic is very heavy on throughput, potentially heavy on processing power, and certainly would require a very well connected server architecture. It would have to be a state of the art network. Such networks do cost money.

I guess what I want to know is: does anyone here think its possible to have a server with, say, 3,000 concurrent players, each with multiple hitboxes (at least six per person), sending and receiving their movements and attacks etc (with complex acrobatics) on a seamless server (dungeons can be instanced, but only one instance per server), with hundreds of mobs, items, and NPC throughout the world? Is it further possible to have, say, 50 people within the same sphere (within each others visual area) under playable lag for such twitch combat?  Is more than that possible? Would $50/month conceivable pay for what this would entail? Could it conceivably be less? We’ll assume that the live team is collocated with the servers which are collocated with the ISP, which would minimize costs somewhat.

I know there are many ramifications that this question entails, but feel free to bloviate on the matter a bit. Tell me your thoughts, the possibilities, options, etc. Keep in mind that the core mechanic cannot be compromised, although other tradeoffs would be considered, such as: reducing the max population of the game world, creating more frequent telestorms, encouraging better population dispersion, etc. But melee as described must remain the core mechanic, and the world must remain seamless.

So, bloviate away.  And please spare me the ”MMORPGs and twitch don’t mix” rant along with all the other sacred cows I read here all the time. Melee twitch is far more forgiving of slight latency issues than shooter twitch, but I don’t think many gamers really understand that since 3D immersive melee twitch games are relatively rare.

[quote]I guess what I want to know is: does anyone here think its possible to have a server with, say, 3,000 concurrent players, each with multiple hitboxes (at least six per person), sending and receiving their movements and attacks etc (with complex acrobatics) on a seamless server (dungeons can be instanced, but only one instance per server), with hundreds of mobs, items, and NPC throughout the world? Is it further possible to have, say, 50 people within the same sphere (within each others visual area) under playable lag for such twitch combat? Is more than that possible? Would $50/month conceivable pay for what this would entail? Could it conceivably be less? We’ll assume that the live team is collocated with the servers which are collocated with the ISP, which would minimize costs somewhat.[/quote]

The short asnwer is: Yes.

You seem to not want comments on your pricing structure, so I'll ignore that, but most of what you're talking about is not as hard as you seem to make it sound.  Dynamic animations on erratic movement, 100 people in the same area fighting, 3K on a server, lag free.  This has all been done.  For $15/mo. 

Taking ten year old tech and putting it an MMO is not a technical problem, so if that's your only concern, the tech, then there is no concern, as far as I understand.

Well, from what little knowledge I have about code, servers, and technology, I would think twice before saying this could be done.

Of course, from my SA&D class, time, money, and experience = quality of program. Increase any of these three and you get a better program. The issue becomes that if money and time is of no issue, then the quality of the program is of no bounds. So in theory, if you have unlimited funds and time, you will eventually make the program you are looking for with all the correct algorithms, all the added features you were looking for, ect.

But, we all know this is an issue. I feel, with what knowledge I have, that this is not obtainable without an amount of resources that no one person would be convinced to spend.

Of course, like you said in your post, we could limit the number of people in the world. But what happens if all those people are in one area? Maybe the way the game mechanics work would almost guarantee that a world's population would never been in the same place.

Either way, this is basically the extent of what I know. Personally, I remember playing JA back then. The combat was quite unique. I believe an interest in such an MMO is out there. But I think a team would need years of just solid testing of different possible ways to solve issues that would arise is a must. I would also think those programs built for testing purposes would only be just for that, testing. After those years of testing what works and what not works, I believe then you could start on the actual MMO program.

With your target market, yes it can be done with few if any sacrifices.  I've figured that 500vs 500 in a "twitchy" game (built for 250ms latency) can be done on under a 1mb/s connection (client side), but I question the ability of PCs to handle the rendering at speed.  50 players fighting on a screen seems very achievable.  (I cover my methodology in "the FPS problem")

With similar methodology, the bandwidth should be suitably low, quite possibly in the 250-300kb/s range for clients  (~1gb/s server with stated population goals).  I can't imagine the $9M that you think you'll get each year per server (using peak concurrent = 20% of total subsx $50/mo)  wouldn't easily cover that.

I simply don't see the long-term market for a game that has a subscription about 3x the existing market.  It would have to offer an experience that is both unique (which won't last long if it does work) and superior to everything else that is offered.  Truth is the sub price won't keep you away from the "kids", as 25+ has a large population that act 12 (sad truth of human nature).  Beyond that, I'm picturing the combat as similar to console fighters (tekken, virtua fighter) just set in a persistant world.  I'm not sure a large enough group would see that as unique enough to pony up, which also makes it hard to hit a critical mass.  But hey, you've done your research (right?) and see it as a market that can be tapped, and just maybe you have a plan to make it work.

Thanks for the replies.  I'm surprised to get two "yes" answers and one "no," if anything I expected at least two "no" answers if not all three.  The sentiment of those who believe it is possible parallels my own.  Even the one who said "no" essentially agreed that it was technically possible; merely that the funding would be impossible to obtain (a somewhat difficult argument to make in my opinion, but one I respect).

I appreciate everyone's feedback.  I take slight issue with ghstwolf's opinion of the game's market viability. However, I certainly understand his skepticism, as I listed virtually zero features, and am only arguing for a core mechanic.  I have not discussed skill progression or skill listings, item attainment, economics and the balacing thereof, quest systems, player factions, AI behavior, grief control or the lack thereof, leveing or whether or not such a thing would even exist, or virtually any other aspect of the game other than its core mechanic.  Have I theoretically designed many of those other features?  Certainly.  However, to posit a tome of a feature-set without a scrap of coded game world is putting the carriage in front of the horse - at least moreso than I prefer to do outright.

In my opinion, the belief that the game is not viable to the market must by its nature also assume  that there is no niche for such a game as a premium service experience.  I will agree that $50 a month may be significantly excessive to what is technically necessary to sustain the service, however my point in using such a number was merely to show that even that cost can be justified by quality.  To an individual making a steady paycheck in a developed country, $50 a month is unarguably good value for 80 hours of entertainment each month (a fairly common monthly play time among MMORPG players based on my research).  My subscription price had nothing to do with keeping kids away, I was merely pointing out that the number of adults playing MMORPGs (who also have solid incomes) has grown tremendously in recent years.  Let me be clear: I would certainly never charge more than I needed to sustain the service and make a modest living (so long as "the suits" agreed) as I find such a thing dishonest and therefore unfulfilling.

To Hype: I hope the above answered some of your concerns over the pricing structure.  In addition, I would prefer not to use 10 year old technology if I could avoid it.  I'd much rather use next year's technology.

Any other feedback would be appreciated.

No particular offense was intended (I did come off a bit harsh).  I have no problem believing a game could reach the point where it was worth that sort of premium.  I do however, doubt that anyone would fund it especially as a boutique product.  To reach the point where you could get such a premium, even a quarter Billion might be a low ball figure.  If I were writing that check, you'd best be able to repay 5-10 million a month once it goes live.  Thats the gross of 10 full servers based on the earlier 9M a year per server, and maybe 2 or 3 more full servers to cover operating (barely).  @15K subs per server ~ 200K subs total.  Not unrealistic for an MMO, but I do question it for an aberrantly priced one, when so many conventionally priced games seem to have so much difficulty in maintaining that level.

Again it's not a question of value, some existing games would be decent values at higher prices (if only on a price to "entertainment" hour basis).  What I do question (regardless of the unknown features) is if it is even possible to deliver percieved value under the above conditions.  What would people expect for a very high sub? Then what would it cost to deliver on those expectations?  I'd laugh you out of the room if you didn't have good answers for this come pitch time, and I doubt I'm half as skeptical as someone thinking about writing a check that size would be.

It's not meant to be mean or even discouraging, I'd like to think everyone could succeed with their ideas.  However, I've never seen the value in just being told what I want to hear, so I guess that's how I offer my thoughts on stuff like this.

I echo ghstwolf on that issue.  There's no amount of standard MMO features that would make $50 a month attractive to me.  You'd need something bigger and badder and better than any MMO out ever had a shot at.  In short, you have to have a premium experience.  Very nice versions of what we already have may justify doubling the price, but not tripling it.  A good core melee mechanic is nice, but for $50, at least for me personally, I would want something that I couldn't get anywhere else.

I wasn't suggesting that you use ten year old tech, but just saying in general, if they could do it on a console ten years ago, you can certainly do it in an MMO over the net today.  If you're pulling core mechanics from Jedi Academy, there really is no need for cocern about your tech.  I'm honestly bewildered what is so special that you feel that you need, or can get $50/month.

I'd go for a plausible.   Right now your combat(larp style) is what's used for/from secondlife, needless to say we're talking about a "game" that at the time was using a script-interupt-system, lots of secondary systems(since it's made for being able to anything instead of one thing), and some horribly unoptimized models for client side.  Granted the system is A LOT simpler but the control scheme is still the same,  insanely frustrating and hard to use since it's still controlling movement.

I could easily see a professional team getting this done with some "drift" from your core ideal, a paid indy one getting it done with major drift, and mircro indy "maybe" getting something to show. 

I was without internet for some time, but I didn't want to drop this thread quite yet.

To Hype (and Ghstwolf):
 

Who said this MMO was standard?  There isn't one currently in existence with the kind of combat I've described as its core mechanic (that is to say, the thing that players will spend the majority of their time doing).  You can't get that anywhere today in a truly massive MMO.  I freely admit that $50 a month may not be necessary, the real question is what will the server necessary to handle it cost.  If the server could be built for a small-scale virtual world and a small population and be reasonably priced, but be made to expand modularly as the population increased via subscriptions, then business risk could be minimized and customer pricing could be reduced/optimized.  I don't see any reason why that solution might not be able to assuage all of our concenrs (sufficient server power, cost, and ghstwolf's business loan concern).  But, I'm not formally educated in networking, so I don't even know where the boundaries for the box I should be thinking inside of are.

Paulscott: Interesting.  You seem to have a solid grasp of the kind of game I'm proposing.  It's interesting you choose to refer to it as a "LARP style" core mechanic, as that's actually about as close an approximation to it as I would know to give.  Another approximation might be "fully graphically interactive MUD," but I'm not sure many people would know what I meant by that.

I would not argue the technical aspects of the game, but rather point out a couple problems with the Jedi Academy playstyle, having played both JK2 and JA thuroughly online and off...

The game, by those who played it, was fun for a time, admittedly, but in terms of combat, wore us thin due to unbarable imbalances in certain mechanics of the game.

So where you might have the 15 different swings, does this mean everyone has the same weapon?  The same abilities?
Probably not, no, but when I played JA, the mechanics were flimsy, and hitbox tracking was lackluster...

What I'm trying to say is that it would need heavy tweaking from the JA model to be something effective for an MMOG, let alone an MMORPG

And that's the other thing: the 'twitch' aspect of the game is going to scare off a lot of would be customers.  Most MMO players I know would get frustrated losing to some teen that is just better at twitch gaming.

I liked the gold box AD&D games, where role playing games were a separate genre from action/arcade games.  It sounds like you'd prefer to play online Tekken than a RPG.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

I would not argue the technical aspects of the game, but rather point out a couple problems with the Jedi Academy playstyle, having played both JK2 and JA thuroughly online and off...

The game, by those who played it, was fun for a time, admittedly, but in terms of combat, wore us thin due to unbarable imbalances in certain mechanics of the game.

So where you might have the 15 different swings, does this mean everyone has the same weapon?  The same abilities?
Probably not, no, but when I played JA, the mechanics were flimsy, and hitbox tracking was lackluster...

What I'm trying to say is that it would need heavy tweaking from the JA model to be something effective for an MMOG, let alone an MMORPG

And that's the other thing: the 'twitch' aspect of the game is going to scare off a lot of would be customers.  Most MMO players I know would get frustrated losing to some teen that is just better at twitch gaming.

Very interesting.  I have to say I could not disagree more.  In fact, you basically posit the exact opposite view of mine in all of your points.

First, the game is still being played online.  In fact, mods for the game are being made to this day, and include some of the most ambitious game mods ever attempted by non-funded independent gamers (that's a fact).  One such mod is an MMORPG under constuction known as "JKA Galaxies," among many others.  To say that the game quickly wore thin in terms of combat is to - fairly grossly - misunderstand how pivotal that mechanic (indeed the games core mechanic) was in keeping the dated, unsupported game online for so long with one of the most active modding communities seen.  All of this evidence in fact supports the viability of the game's combat structure.

Second, I have not stated whether or not everyone in my ideal MMO would have the same weapon or not.  Would it matter?  Not if the designer were creative and clever, it would not.  In addition, the combat was extremely well balanced.  I have to wonder how skilled you actually became, given this lopsided understanding of combat and the fact that you apparently did not enjoy it.  You probably didn't play very long.  I'm curious as to what was imbalanced, since every player had the same options in terms of the arsenal at their disposal.

Additionally, the hit box tracking in JKA was exquisite, particularly for its time.  In what other game could a skilled player slash at you and, if they barely scrape you, are barely damaged?  In what game can you very slightly move your sword as it moves through your opponent's flesh to do increased damage (known as "jiggling")?  Any complaints about the hitboxes in JKA were relatively easy tweaks anyways, and have in fact been tweaked by several of the mods currently out there.   But even before that, they game was ahead of its time.

Finally, JKA could only be considered partially twitch, since the game is largely a thinking game.  Its a game of counters and cross-counters.  If your opponent pulls out a gun, what do you do?  You can pull it away from him, attempt to deflect the shots, push him away for distance, jump to confuse him, pull out your own gun, etc.  Of these, which counter will you attempt?  If you choose, for example, to pull the weapon out of his hands, will you now use it against him?  Close on him with your saber?  How does he then respond?  Does he mind trick you?  Then what do you do?  It's a fight of constant counters, not simple "twitch."  Twitch is a match of who can get their reticule on the opponent's head graphic and pull the trigger fastest.  Combat in JKA was in a whole different category, and if you don't agree, then I find it difficult to believe we played the same game.

"I have to wonder how skilled you actually became, given this lopsided understanding of combat and the fact that you apparently did not enjoy it. You probably didn't play very long. I'm curious as to what was imbalanced, since every player had the same options in terms of the arsenal at their disposal."

I wasn't looking to have some Epeen comparison, but whatever.  I find the fact that you turned it into posturing about who was better at the game as nothing but juvinile.

Regardless, my experience with JA and it's mechanics started with JK2, and I was very familiar with the single saber, and very content with it's implementation in JA. 

HOWEVER, where I had issue was with the implementation of dual sabers.  As we both know, strong style was the best for defense in single saber, and in many ways for offense as well (although I often switched to medium).  However, that meatgrinder move of Dual Sabers could not be defended against, and it was nothing for a dual saber player to corner you if they had any semblance of skill.  After that, the mechanics of the game killed you for them.

Yes, you could choke or force push them so many times, but it became all my matches in JA were about.  Everyone was using dual sabers.

I admit, the game takes skill.  But the skill is only reflected when the user is using single saber or saber staff.

As for issues with JA in an MMO standpoint, there's some aspects of the game that will harm it's appeal to the MMO masses, primarily of which I see as constant movement.  I know this already happens in WoW to an extent, but what I mean is that to perform actual moves, your character has to move around constantly.  We learned how to work with it, but the learning curve for actually hitting with it won't work for everyone.  Additionally, it looks bad.  As in, the fact that characters are constantly moving around as they do in JA, harms the suspense of disbelief. 

I think there are outright better ways of implementing the combat in the manner you desire, but I would not us JA as the   springboard.  I think this would find more easy success as a MMO Action Game, like a fantasy version of MAG, strictly from a picking your audience standpoint.

To say that I "turned it into an epeen match" is ridiculous.  The fact is simple: if you did not like the game, why would you bother to get good? If you did not get good, then how do you develop a good understand of the combat mechanics?  That's sound logic, and how could you expect me not to ask it?  What's more is that, of my entire post, that was the only part you wanted to directly quote and respond to.

I also notice that you ignore the fact that the game remains one of the most heavily modded games out there, that the modding community is still extremely active, and that an MMORPG (or LMORPG) is actually being made as a mod to it.  Ignoring such facts is your right, but is not something I would generally advise as good practice.

Apparently you had bad experiences fighting dual saber wielders.  I can honestly say that I never fought a single dual wielder that I could not consistently beat with single saber red stance.  I don't know when you played but I would suggest playing again, you will see that dual wield saber has long been relegated to a goof-off weapon, and single saber is widely considered the best weapon.  There are very rare players that have mastered dual, but a great single saber will beat a great duel saber most of the time.  What dual wield is good at is fighting more than one opponent at once - particularly with friendly fire turned on.  What does this have to do with complex melee being the core mechanic for my ideal MMO?  I don't know, I didn't bring it up.

I don't understand your dislike of movement, but I haven't found many players who consider fast-paced intense gaming to be a negative.  If you do, then I daresay you are not the majority.  In any case, I am not proposing a new game type so that it will be the same experience as all the other games out there, I'm proposing one that is in fact a new experience.  However, there have been MMORPG's with constant movement and collision detection: Asheron's Call comes to mind.  That game involved a great deal of keyboard manipulation, attempting to dodge, gain better vantage and angles, etc. (at least among the upper echelons of good players).  Ironically, that game is also still being played and outlasted Asheron's Call 2 for that very reason: it's combat was so much more interesting.  I think what you really mean is that people who like timer-based RPGs that involve pattern-memorization with regards to combat skill timings will not like a real-time combat system.  If that is in fact true (it isn't, but it really doesn't matter) then those people can stay in their genres.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying this game should be set in the Star Wars universe, all I'm saying is that the thing the players would spend the most time doing (i.e. the core mechanic) would be that kind of complex melee combat - and not always with other players, as fighting MOBs while questing would also involve it.

I pointed out that I learned to play in JK2.  It seems you missed that.

As for the constant movement, I don't think I clearly stated what I mean.  In JK2 or JA, you control which move you do based on which direction you move in.  So moving to the right and attacking gives you one swing, moving to the left the other.  You can alternate between them, but what the visual result is, is that your character is constantly shuffling their feet, or moving in one direction awkwardly.

To be more specific, let's say I want to do the red stance S+attack overhead chop.  I start pressing S, and do the attack, then run forward to cause it to hit in time.  So, my keyboard commands are S,S+Mouse1,W, along with mouse movement to aim.  Yes, it's not that hard to do, but does that apply for everyone?  It just seems fairly awkward, and your character shuffling his/her feet to get the attack to work ends up looking weird.  Especially since you kind of stop moving when you do this move (or at least you did in JK2).

Let's see something else, too, in terms of implementation.  Let's say you have someone with an axe, versus someone with a sword.  What are the differences?  Does the sword swing faster, and the axe slower?  How does that work with the quick stance?  How about with chaining attacks?  Range? The point is the balance factor here starts to get weird, especially with that constant movement in play.  I mean, if range is a factor, couldn't a spear using person constantly attack and keep another melee person in check? 

On top of that, you have the extremely wonky auto-block system.  This is where my general issues with dual wielding came into play, as if your saber gets hit by a strong attack, it gets knocked away when you block, leaving you open to other hits.  While this was completely balanced for single saber, the issue was that the dual wield grinder had all those quick attacks count as strong attacks, knocking the saber away.  So you could block one hit, but then had to jump away or die...and that didn't always work.  If you tried to use a force power that close, you often just ate the sabers. Yes, I'm aware the rest of the dual wielding moveset is kind of a joke (especially their floating saber thing), but the meatgrinder really made up for it.  As for when I played JA, it was right after it's release, as it was the logical step from playing JK2.  And the JA single player was fun.

The point I'm getting at is that I would not start on a project with JA as the example base. 

Controlling your attack types by moving around in the JA fashion is just awkward, and makes the game a bit more twitchy for the tastes of the greater public.  Start with something else along the same lines, in terms of input for doing the moves, and build it from there.  It also allows you to have an easier time to balance things as you have more control on exactly when an how attacks come out.

And the autoblocking in it's implementation in JA is a little tough to work with.  I'm sure there's other alernatives too.

So, if you are wanting to do this yourself, and aren't hoping someone else picks it up, I suggest starting with "A MMO with hitbox based and more action oriented combat, where how your weapon intersects actually reflects the damage you do", and build it up from there. 

As for JA and all this thinking of it as some ultimate game, but even with mods, it still looks like a game that is just a modified version of JK2, which is now 8 years old.  It had interesting combat for the time, and the combat in JK2 was extremely well balanced (since everyone used nearly the same playstyle!) and so hence the question about combat balance. 

I never was one who told you the idea wouldn't happen.  I simply said JA was a bad base.  It needs heavy tweaking...a lot more than your original post would suggest.  Our disagreement comes from that I do NOT think JA is the be all end all game that you make it out to be.  That does NOT mean I didn't like it, I enjoyed it while I played it.

So I hope this point is at a point where what I say can be taken at face value, rather than using it as some sort of internet magic insight into exactly how I percieve not just JA, but all games as a whole, which is honestly nothing but absolute bull$#!*.

I mean really, it sounds like a neat game idea!  But getting hung up on me disliking JA, without stating ANYTHING about what you think the design for this new game should be, but rather just constantly reitering examples of how great JA is, does absolutely nothing for either of us.

Ok, now I more or less understand what your concern is.  If you want, you can forget I said "JKA" and put in "JK2" if you think it was more balanced.  That alone seems to assuage a great deal of your concerns.  Most of these concerns are superficial balancing issues that are micro factors from a developmental standpoint.  I'm describing a very macro design characteristic, which is what the core mechanic is (the most macro, in fact).  Game balancing is really a seperate issue from deciding what you want your core mechanic to be.  If we can agree that JK2 was balanced, then we can agree that such a game can be made balanced.

The three other concerns that I'm able to discern from your post are: a) Awkward movement that makes for difficult gameplay b) The inability to balance multiple weapon types and c) Autoblocking.

For concern "a" I can do little more than respectfully disagree based on experience in past games.  In terms of combat being "not that hard to do, but does that apply for everyone?" my answer is simple: I hope not.  In a game of skill, some players will be better than others, and even the relatively easy twitch of JK2/JA should require some skill.  As I said in my last post, I'm not proposing the same pattern-memorizing zombie combat seen in most MMOs.  But to your core point: I have never considered JK2 to have awkward movement.  In fact, I'm generally so busy concentrating on my opponent, what they are doing, my distance from their max saber range, etc., that the particular foot movements of my character have never really interested me.  Nor do I know of anyone else who has complained of it.  In the MMORPG Asheron's Call, constant keyboard manipulation to cause one's character to "slide-cast" around in a truly awkward manner was in fact the norm, and that game was a successful MMO that's still alive today.  The PvP was considered revolutionary, dynamic and exciting despite the awkwardness, and the degree of awkwardness in that game certainly dwarfs JK2.  You can watch an example of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDwa5qCfUK8  As I said, we may just have to agree to disagree here.  I believe most players value excitement and challenging PvP situations far above how realistically their footwork appears.  This of course assumes that a game cannot have both (I don't believe that is true, either).

As for "b" I never said there would be more than one weapon type.  As I said, a clever designer could make a single weapon dynamic enough for a fantastic game.  That's a specific that, frankly, I haven't decided, although I have designed more than one melee weapon that could be balanced in theory, I haven't decided if it would be worth the playerbase "balance" whining that so many MMO's are fraught with - not because I don't believe I can balance it as well or better than other MMORPGs balance their weapons.  Now you may respond that "without multiple weapons the game will be too bland to compete," that, however, is a judgment on my creativity, not on the limitless possibilities that one weapon can in fact offer.  And I don't think you are in a position to judge my creativity, so I won't bother pre-empting the comment.

As for "c," autoblock is indeed an interesting way of going about it.  You can be sure that I wouldn't employ a fully auto blocking system like JK2, but would instead require at least an active blocking associated with the direction the character was facing.  It would also be possible to obtain parries and counter-parries, as well as more than one kind of block, for advanced characters that were developed in the relevant direction.  In short, the simplified system in JK2/JA would not be how this game would employ blocking.

As for your latter comments about changing the game, your description of hit-box oriented action etc. sounds a lot like Darkfall.  I played the game and it was awful.  Simply awful.  This design goes well beyond simply having an MMO with hitoxes and solid melee collision detection.  I tried to illuminate in what ways in the OP.  I also never said "JA" was "the ultimate game," nor do I see why you need to put words in my mouth to make the point.  If you're going to quote me, just quote me, the text is right here; it doesn't require a whole lot of research to go get.  All I said was that JA was "the best example of properly balanced melee combat I know of."  JK2 and JA are brothers, if not twins, so saying I should use one over the other to illustrate my point is to get stuck in the weeds and miss the whole point of what I'm trying to describe.  If you want to know, the best of them all was JA with the JA+ mod that almost everyone currently duels under which combines many aspects of JK2 and JA and improves on both, but I didn't bother saying that since I doubt virtually anyone here knows what that is, including yourself judging from how long ago you likely stopped playing.  I'm not trying to be snide, only blunt.

I think the point that the JA/JK combat mechanic has flaws, and can be mis-implemented has been made. 

It's also worth repeating that twitch gameplay, no matter how easy it seems to people that love it, has a high learning curve for the masses, and a high learning curve is off-putting. That has to be taken into account as you design your game, you have to realize your target audience is no longer the masses, or even the traditional MMO player.  Your target audience is now something else, and other systems should reflect that.

I do think the idea is interesting, though.

Originally posted by Andromedus1

 To an individual making a steady paycheck in a developed country, $50 a month is unarguably good value for 80 hours of entertainment each month (a fairly common monthly play time among MMORPG players based on my research). 

That's not how perceived value and price points work, though. If an MMO's price is expected (by the buyer) to be $15.00 a month then you can get away with $15.99 a month but you'd see a significant drop in interest the minute you announce it at $16.00 a month. Your hours of entertainment per dollar argument goes out the window at that point.

Originally posted by Andromedus1

I was without internet for some time, but I didn't want to drop this thread quite yet.

To Hype (and Ghstwolf):
 

Who said this MMO was standard?  There isn't one currently in existence with the kind of combat I've described as its core mechanic (that is to say, the thing that players will spend the majority of their time doing).  You can't get that anywhere today in a truly massive MMO.  I freely admit that $50 a month may not be necessary, the real question is what will the server necessary to handle it cost.  If the server could be built for a small-scale virtual world and a small population and be reasonably priced, but be made to expand modularly as the population increased via subscriptions, then business risk could be minimized and customer pricing could be reduced/optimized.  I don't see any reason why that solution might not be able to assuage all of our concenrs (sufficient server power, cost, and ghstwolf's business loan concern).  But, I'm not formally educated in networking, so I don't even know where the boundaries for the box I should be thinking inside of are.

But combat is a standard mmo feature. You can get combat anywhere. And while twitch melee combat is certainly different, it isn't inherently 'better' and the logic of charging more for it doesn't carry through.

What makes you think that the standard MMO servers can't handle this, much less the ones out in two years? There's plenty of leftover computing power for every available mmo.  The real concern should be client side in drawing all this mess in real time. That's where the concern is.  No one is pushing their server on triple A MMOs.  I suspect they're not even close to pushing their servers.  I imagine they're like jets.  Flying around the country at 30% capacity. (Not to be confused with 30% CPU usage!)

I don't have a whole lot of insider information on MMO networks, but from my research on lack of AI, there are no server computing power problems, and when there are, it's typically due to a programming oversight and the whole system goes down, prompting those issues to be worked out in late beta or just after launch.

If you're talking specifically about a small release, then all we need to do is math.  How much do servers cost, how many calculations/sec are needed on average in a battle of this type, plug the numbers in and viola, you have a much better idea of the amount of money you need to recoup.  I highly doubt that $50/mo will be it.  I mean, how much are the JKA Galaxies guys charging?