I'm trying to think of how an RPG could work like that. Would that be an equipment-based game? Such as advancement only coming from obtaining better equipment, which could be looted or lost?

Do any of you know of any games that are kind of like this?

You could have a VW or IF like that, but not really an RPG. The term 'RPG' indicates the game has player progress and advancement.

Wouldn't that just be a normal FPS, hen?

Originally posted by cyrana

Wouldn't that just be a normal FPS, hen?

Actually there are FPS's that work just like this. But it doesn't neccessarily have to be FPS style, character progression could happen in terms of equipment gained. World of warcraft is actually really close to this, since after level cap, the only gains is through equipment. However if all there was, was equipment, you could just swap and rebuild your character as easily and switching from a shotgun to a rifle, or from a sword to a wand.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking for here, but I have a general idea.

*edit* another benefit to this would be in pvp. Defeating someone with better equipment than you means gaining all their good equip. In other words, the most skillfull players would wind up right at the top, and the only way to 'demount' them would be to gather as many players together to kill that one. It's kind of like free-market capitalism meets rpg-pvp.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

You could have a VW or IF like that, but not really an RPG. The term 'RPG' indicates the game has player progress and advancement.

Gear is a form of advancement.

What you are talking about is, If you want to make more damage on melee, buy a better sword, or axe. If you want to throw some fireball, just buy a wand for magic.

Well, it wouldnt be a common rpg, but the game will sure be interesting.

Originally posted by alakram

What you are talking about is, If you want to make more damage on melee, buy a better sword, or axe. If you want to throw some fireball, just buy a wand for magic.

Well, it wouldnt be a common rpg, but the game will sure be interesting.

Yep, that's exactly it. It doesn't really matter to me if it's fantasy based, or with guns, or space-ships or whatever. But I do wonder...what would you call something like this? "equipment-based rpg"?

The first thing that came into my mind when reading this title was ... that's not an RPG, that's an adventure game.

well The Secret World will be level-less and class-less  claiming to be the first MMO-action/adventure-rpg.

checkout www.darkdaysarecoming.com for more info

Originally posted by Xasapis

The first thing that came into my mind when reading this title was ... that's not an RPG, that's an adventure game.

"Players are allowed to choose how they want to improve their character's (or party's) performance in terms of attributes, skills, special abilities, and equipment. These improvements are given as rewards for overcoming challenges and achieving goals."

What if the only advancement was via equipment? To go from a small club, to a two-handed broadsword, and then instead of rolling a new character to be a miner, you simply buy a pick-axe or even kill a miner and use his equipment.

The "label" that the game would fall under kind of depends on the gameplay.

If you're talking about first/third person shooter style combat where your characters accuracy with a pistol is determined by whether you (the player) aims the crosshairs in the right place and fires at the right time, then the game would simply fall under the heading of MMOFPS/TPS and the ability to get better gear would merely be a "feature". Lots of FPS' have that.

If you're talking about MMO style combat; where your characters accuracy with a pistol is determined entirely by the pistol that he is carrying and/or a random dice roll, then it's a genre of game that doesn't really have a classification; I'd just classifiy it as an MMOG.

The basic idea of a game all based on gear sounds like fun. Trading, crafting, loot drops, etc., make up most of the game 'cause it's all about the gear. However, it would be hard to control Mudflation, and Twinking. Here newb, this is the BFG 9 Million, and the Armor of God.  Have fun.

I can see it for PvP. We're not equal, but we can be equal if we can get the right gear. Some of the gear may even operate like Rock, Paper, Scissors.

If someone has a flame thrower, or fireball spell, you need armor that protects yhou from flame damage. But that may do you no good against lightening damage, or projectiles, etc.

The problem is with PvE, assuming you want that in the game.

I have a difficult time seeing PvE that is not progressive in nature. What is your top Boss Mob in the game? For example in fantasy games it's a Dragon, or some type of God. IN Star Wars, maybe a Krayt Dragon, or it could be Darth Vader and pals.

If there is no progression, just gear, you can go get the gear you need to take out this Boss Mob on day one. Seems rather anti-climatic to then go tackle anything less. If you can't get the gear, and need to work up to it over months, how is this differnt from levels, except in name? Instead of level 34, I have the BFG 34 that took me the same amount of time to get.

Or, there are no Boss Mobs, and everything is kinda equal. That also seems rather anti-climatic if there's no big tough Boss to work up to, but all challenges are roughly the same.

Sounds great in concept, and I've always thought it would be great to remove the grind completely from RPGs

But after having a good think about it, I wouldn't like a game like that. It would become all about money to purchase better gear. And as the above poster stated, the twinking would be insane.

Seriously good idea for a post though. But thanks for making it clear, at least to me, why we DO have skills or levels. But I still think a skill system is better any day :-) Or at a push... how SWG was in the CU where your level was linked to the amount of skills you had.

Originally posted by shad0w99

Sounds great in concept, and I've always thought it would be great to remove the grind completely from RPGs

But after having a good think about it, I wouldn't like a game like that. It would become all about money to purchase better gear. And as the above poster stated, the twinking would be insane.

Seriously good idea for a post though. But thanks for making it clear, at least to me, why we DO have skills or levels. But I still think a skill system is better any day :-) Or at a push... how SWG was in the CU where your level was linked to the amount of skills you had.

Unless you used more of a situational use for gear, not necessarily progressive.

For example, sniper rifles are great on the plains, not so good in the jungle. Or something like Ice Swords are not much good against someone with an Ice Shield, but do mega damage to someone with a Fire Shield.

Sort of like Guild Wars, only with gear instead of skills.

Personally, I like progression rather than no progression. The tiny pistol, to the .38 to the .45 to the .50 cal, to the BFG 9000, etc.

First off, my opinion is that a good game needs advancement. My main gripe with todays games is that advancement is the ONLY thing these games are about, and as a result, the advancement ding is, shall we say, too strong. Then the result of that is the very wide division of players into level zones, the uselessness of most guilds due to this division (unless you're a powergamer who can keep up with other powergamers), the breakage of the trades systems, and the loss of social interactions in many ways. (Those of you who played UO might understand this.)

Back on this topic, equipment would just replace levels/skills/stats. The game play would be pretty much the same. This goes back to my first paragraph, it depends on how you do it as to the overall effect. If you have swords or rifles that go from level 1 to level 60, and the same with other equipment, you have the exact same game play...grind.

Other than gear, a game could substitute things such as building an army, supplying them, housing them, training them, basically a game like Civilization made from a MMO player perspective. That could be cool. But again, it could develop into another grind.

For all of you who are seeking a way to get rid of the grind, read my first paragraph again. What you really want isn't to remove all grind, what you want is to replace it as the main part of your game play. The only way to do that is to reduce it's impact, and the reason for this is that it's the only way to allow other aspects to be important. Why can't a farmer build a large herd and fertile fields and become rich and powerful because of it? Why can't a scribe become among the rich and famous for his ability to scribe magic and his library of important knowledge used to find those rare artifacts? Why can't thieves and assassins actually be feared for their usefulness and impact? Why can't there be actual caravans for players to organize, run, and use? Why can't be have meaningful shipping and transport? Why can't we breed horses?

The reason to the above questions is purely because under the current level grind systems, these things just won't work. Who's going to breed a level 5 horse for a level 5 character for 5 gold coin when they are level 50 and can breed a level 50 horse for a level 50 character for 500 platinum coin? How can you have meaningful shipping and transport in a world divided by level zones? How does a caravan work by levels? How does a low level community handle even a single high level thief or assassin?

On and on, the level grind dictates the game play, and restricts all other game options to uselessness.

Answering to the OP.

Yes, it is possible.

Go to http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/239111/page/8 and search for "Time is Paramount"

then read my post and every other below that it seem rough, but it slowly build a brainstorm of how to remove the chronological factor of MMORPGs that pretty much is what is being discussed here (skill-less, level-less, class-less game).

According to our brainstorm in that same thread, items also dont need to play a huge part.

In our utopian solution to the problem, success revolves around player skill, choices, explorations, organization, wits.

It mixes several concepts of sandboxes WITH story driven single player games

With other core elements:

* all the progression in the persistent world element is filled on "historical events", changes done to the world/players by the players themselfs, its not about what the character is that matters, its about what the player is and in a minor size what resources/tools/objects/items the character holds at that time.

              -obs.: items arent unbalancing, they are just functional tools for whatever action, they dont change in quality, they have durability and they break and people lose them when they die, yeah.

* give the players the tools to create their own contents, change the world, make their own adventures = embrace the freedom, dont fear what people can do

               -allow players to craft items, design/build buildings, control territory/landscape everything being destroyable. Create complex social, political, economical systems, giving the players control over those (based on organization, choices, resources, and their actions) with meaningfull choices whose effects are very well pre-programmed.

* give the players the tools to create their own stories/adventures: this one is tricky, not in a neverwinternights way, oblivion/morrowing mod, be the game master type of thing. No, players will always be players. When I say give the tools for them to create their own stories/adventures is in an individual sense of living their own stories/adventures. Not creating as they go and design a map, lay down the npcs, script events, not that type of freedom. Stories and Adventures should be something like this: they could at some point influence major events in the game world, like making a major npc unleash a major attack on a certain area and that event created (ACTIVATED, as in given start) by the players or doing something that changes the landscape forever (like, explode a mountain, or some shernobyl type of disaster) but made by a group of players as an effect of their explorings and adventures, not an npc with a quest mark. And everytime one of those pre-planted seeds gets activated, give the players props for such achievements (publically if there is witnesses or privatelly in their character logs or such). Make it so those seeds arent scripted events, but procedurally generated and organic stories/events, with results in the following:

* make it so those events can be organic in nature, while procedurally generated in mechanic, ever evolving aspects of the world, be it geographical, demographic, cultural, etc. (who here played Depths of Peril, there are dozens of random events and all of them can get affected by the player, just improve on that concept, make it so its not random, but player influenced/activated, therefore "created")

* program addaptative A.I. so it blends regardless of the situation/circunstances, (its not impossible, have you guys played Space Rangers, or Galactic Civilizations, the A.I. in those games is phenomenal)

Remove levels, classes, skills. Everyone is born equal, and they can do whatever they want.

Its not that they will wander around aimlessly. There will be stuff happening everywhere, other players will need help, some will try to influence others, organize, trade, war. Its a brilliant concept, Ive seen parts of it being done in different games, its just that noone put everything together correctly.

No, Darkfall sucks, they dont have 1/5 of what I mention. The closest you get is EVE in one aspect: player driven political-economical world, but the progression system and lack of twitch gameplay for wars/conflict sucks. But I give them props where they did right.

It would be a game designed around the New Motion Controllers for the PS3 and the Natal. Follow the persons movements directly like on screen. It would be just like life. You pick up a sword, and whack someone with it, it matters where you hit them, how strong you hit, what armor they are wearing, and if you even hit them at all.

That is the closest to a levelless, classless, skill-basedless game I can think of. Its also the type of game i want!

Lol.

People dislocate their shoulders in the first boss.

Isn't this exactly what SoE's "The Agency" has promised?

Street Gears kinda works like this, there are levels, but they're a bit meaningless, they're just there to time when I get new abilities. There's no classes, no different starting cities or races, everyone is just a roller blader and starts in the main city. (4 character types, 2 girls / 2 guys iirc)

We do get abilities though, but you just get them, there's no skill you have to work up, there's no grind or anything. It's kind of like an action game MMO. I don't even know what level I am right now, it's that meaningless, but I do know what flips my character can do and what I've done.

There isn't really progression or advancement, so it's not needed. People somehow think that it's essential for MMO, well it's not, I can skate against lvl 1 characters still and no one minds, I'm not that much more powerful and it doesn't matter.

The abilities are free, you just get them each time after a few races. Money is used to buy clothes, but doesn't impact the gameplay at all.

I really like action MMO, but there's very very few out there still, I'm sure this will change though.