Seasons concept.

Back in the day I was a GM in a paper and pen rpg I invented with a season concept.

In shot we would sit down for a game, whether it was 1 hour or 5 hours every game was = to 1 season in a year.

Your avatar could learn any skill in the game, but there is just not enough time to learn them all. And they would peak.

So for example Eltavious sets out to adventure at age 14. From age 14 to 25 his natural skills (attributes) increase. Very quickly from 14 to 18, medium speed from 18 to 21, and a little slower from 21 to 25. From 25 onward his natural skills get lower and lower at different speeds every few years. In theory if I did the math correctly (just like in all 4 types of football - football,rugby,aussie rules football, american football and even boxing and mixed martial arts) a player is their strongest in terms of natural attributes and skills balance around age 29 (anywhere from 27 to 33)

Players can be relevant for long after their peak of course.

A great tank might peak at 29, but they are still at 65% of their max skill in tanking at age 50. And they have been training in other studies since turning 29.

So I would retire a tank at 29 and have him train in healing and every once in a while bring him as a back up mediocre healer and mediocre tank for my up and coming 21 year old hero. Depending on a number of factors though they do all eventually die of old age.

Putting this system into an mmorpg -

In short - if one week in real life is one season in game (13 years a year) and you get to pull out your old fellow - or two every once in a while as a partner(s). You can leave a young child (a future avatar) with your old one and have him "tutor" him for 14 years as well - essentially creating a char. that will have an even higher peak at 27 - 33.

It's a nice way to have a char. that can last only 12 to 18 months and yet still be used and create more powerful char.s every time.

Create a school with you and all of your guilds "old" char.s as teachers. The more xped and varied the teachers the more your "children" will learn. After 4 or 5 generations you will have char.s who at their peak my know 65 to 70% of all the top skills compared to 30 or 35% in generation 1.

Sound cool?

Just a concept that probably doesn't occur around here much:

A massively online role-playing game where you play a role in real life and project your skills into the digital world. That is to say, instead of watching a ticker count how many skill points you have, you can actually feel yourself get better at something through practice. Something concrete - something that isn't a grind because you never know (and nobody can tell you) when you've mastered it.

You could even get paid to play the game. How cool would that be?- you do RMT, but you don't farm, powerlevel, or grind. You just do something you enjoy, get really good at it, and can get paid more to do it as you keep getting better.

There are no NPCs, everything is player-run. There is no gear to grind, no drop charts to worry about, no instances you have to find a guild for, no waiting for groups, etc.

So it's a game about being good at life. Essentially, an omni-tool that you can make a living off of, or just enjoy as a productive hobby.

Wouldn't that be something? A game that could look good on a resume...

Random non related ideas.

Money binds to your account not character.  Tha is every character on ever server shares the same pool of money.  You might want to do this for a couple of reasons.  For one when you make new characters you are probably going to give them money anyway so this cuts to the chase.  But also if you are incorporating money sinks that increase with your total amount of money, like when you die you lose X% of your money, this makes it so that those money sinks will be the utmost effective.

Why do you need a skill or class to revive people?  If the fight is over why can't you just pick up your teamates and go. what is the point in having a special skill or class jsut for that?  Or if you wanted you could revive teamatesin combat, via Gears of War.

Making your own theme music.  Like in Spore when you can create the anthem for your civilization, you could make it for your character and it could play at certain times.

Personality traits, choices that effect how your character behaves in game.  Like you could be a wimpy vegan which means you can't heal yourself by eating an animal product, but you recieve extra healing from vegetables.  Or your character is hotheaded so when somebody uses a demoralizing shout instead of losing attack power you become enraged.

Property and content created is seperate from the character.  I know most people tend to think of them together but you could allow players to make things in the game, like a tavern, that is in no way owned by the character it just adds content to the game and essentially becomes public property.

Remember ghost fighters, that is computer fighters in a fighting game that you would teach moves to, so it would fight like you?  Players could make NPCs that they teach to fight like them, then they could use the NPCs for stuff, like a dungeon boss or something.

Why must I logout to switch characters?  Why can't I go to a terminal or something and just select my other characters?

Guild Roles/Jobs.

Your "role" could give you a completely new set of abilities to use, or an addition to the abilities that you already have, but the number of players allowed to be a given role depends on your guild's size and rank.

Example roles.

Standard Bearer: You carry your guild's standard into combat, keeping it from harm and maybe even fighting with it. (A concept that has been done before in Warhammer Online.) Abilities given may include things like and AoE knockback using your flag, or using the flag to suspend you off the ground (like climbing a pole) to keep you from being dealt damage from pools of AoE.

Forgemaster: The go-to guy for the guild when it comes to repairs. Can repair armor beyond its standard durability, and is the only player capable of forging guild-equipment. Abilities may include things like shattering an opponent's armor mid fight, or creating a portable anvil to repair allied armor, and the ability to smelt equipment without the use of a forge. This sort of role could go with all professions in the game.

Scavanger: A relatively standard role, thus can be given to more if not all players. Allows for additional currency to be gained from enemies, an increased chance of finding junked armor (to be smelted down or sold.) Abilities could include things like increased carrying or weight capacity, maybe increased movement speed when not in combat, or a reduced movement speed penalty from weight carried.

Soldier: Another standard role that can be given to more if not all players. Completing quests in areas grants more guild reputation for completion than you would normally receive. Abilities may include increased armor value, or increased parry chance versus non-player opponents, etc.

Elite: Grants even more reputation for the guild upon quest completion. Provides a morale bonus to other guildmates nearby. Maybe gains specific abilities to aid guildies, like an intervene-like ability (WoW.) Perhaps boosts all attributes passively.

Simple concept, but I've never seen it done, aside from aforementioned Standard Bearer in Warhammer Online.

 Very nice!

I see a lot of game ideas and character/class concepts in here, i'm going to propose something a little different... and i'm not sure what game you'd put this in.. or what purpose it would serve.. but I think it'd be an interesting concept all the same.

How about implementing a fully fledged seasonal weather system and ecology into a sandbox game. 

the seasons are obvious:

Summer: is sunny, birds are out, trees/grass/folliage are green

Winter: is cold, grass dies, trees don't have leaves, birds have migrated, characters maybe even need special winter gear in extreme areas to avoid frostbite.

Fall: leaves are on the ground, birds and other creatures begin to migrate.

Spring:  everything starts turning green again, increased re-spawns =)

In addition to that implement a fully fledged biological food-web and give the animals 'needs' which their AI try to fulfill.

eg. food would be the first thing on any animals mind, failing that shelter,mating, migratory patterns(move to new area and repeat)... or whatever order, but obviously the needs may vary from creature to creature, for instance, an ogre might have the need to 'go raid neighboring human settlement'

Thoughts, opinions?

Originally posted by CoryMLee

Thoughts, opinions?

Ya, I did a whole thread on weather patterns and reactive magic.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/261517/A-spin-on-magicschools.html

Fraid it was a TL;DR for anyone looking at it though, but I'm proud of the idea. Basically you prime the magic through changing the environment. Use a puzzle-sigil feature to get various effects from the weather, then cast spells using mouse gestures and aimed fire w/ charging that are boosted or hindered by the weather in question. Call rain and water planes rise locally, and everyone gets wet gradually, from there cold/electricity works better. Dry clothes, hot weather and bright sun conditions help fire/wind types. I could go on, but that's the jist of it.

Originally posted by CoryMLee

In addition to that implement a fully fledged biological food-web and give the animals 'needs' which their AI try to fulfill.

eg. food would be the first thing on any animals mind, failing that shelter,mating, migratory patterns(move to new area and repeat)... or whatever order, but obviously the needs may vary from creature to creature, for instance, an ogre might have the need to 'go raid neighboring human settlement'

I had thought of something like this as well.

I never understood why monsters would simply stand around in the wilderness, a world should be absolutely dynamic. It wouldn't even need to be an incredibly complicated system for it to work, just a little something would make the world seem more alive.

Monsters should hide/come out during different times of day, and hunt/forgage depending on their mentality. This sort of information would be stored in a "personality profile" of sorts, and is something that can be easily replicated.

You know something I think is wrong with most, that is all, the crafting systems I have tried, is that they do not know who they are making their systems for.  And overall I think crafting does not appeal to many people, other than to make money, due to that lack of focus.

I identified 3 economic or "crafting" roles with different playing styles.  I figure you could make each its own skill/s with specialties and such.  And they are designed to work together.

Invention:  This is aimed at people who want to be creative.  The goal is design, you don't worry about finding the materials or cost you just design items using basic components that you combine to get different effects.  You produce recipes of your designs and specialize in what kind of items you can design.  You can create your own designs but you don't make things very fast.

Manufacturing:  This is aimed at micro management and production of items, like the people who like to manage things in RTS games.  You have to balance workers and manage factories, producing machines to make certain things, which you use recipes for, finding synergies, going down tech trees to effect the way your workers and factories work and what they make.

Business:  This is for more social people who like to make business deals, form contacts and manage businesses, if you like tycoon games you would like this part.  This is retailing mostly, you don't make anything you just sell it.  You need to manage prices and stock as well as securing supply and funding.  You buy from manufactures, which have no way to really sell their goods themselves.  You can specialize in what kind of business you want to run and create your business strategy, as well as getting involved in finace.

If you notice most games roll all three of these together into one.  Well usually you can't actually design anything, nor can you really run a business using in game tools, but you usually have to worry about the manufacturing and business sides of things though neither are in any detail.  I think by seperating the three into seperate skills not only do you create more options for people and allow for more playing styles but you can go into each category with more depth.

I am rezing this thread because I think it could be useful if people added more to it..

Create your own school of magic,

Doesn't it bother you in a game when you have two types of magic that do not mesh, like fire and lightning.  It bothers me I like to be all one theme.

But what if you seperated functionality and appearence.

For example, typically if you were to learn say a damging spell, a heal and a defense buff, it would probably be all from different elements, like fire for damage, holy for healing, and water for defense.  But that is just kind of lame, and it looks stupid.

So what if you picked your style of magic independent from spell.  Like you want to be an ice mage, so your damage, heal and defense spells would alll use ice effects.  And you could even change the color.  Or maybe you want some nebulous cloud of non descript energy instead of an element, you could have that too, it could be orbs, gaseous etc.  You set the style for all your spells or individualy.

This way you can do what you want without having to compromise the theme or style of your character.

I know, I know, how do you heal with fire?  Well how do you heal people with golden light?  It is magic it does not have to make sense.

 You could cauterize wounds with fire.  

Yes I do agree with the idea that it would be nice to have a cohesive spell school which a caster utilizes for all different spell functions.  Not all schools have to be equal for healing, damage, utility, defense and crowd control.  

What do you think of those making a conscious decision to have two different schools?  Perhaps they cover each others weak points.  Ex:  Fire and Ice where as a school of magic fire is more offensive and ice is defensive.  Having both would have to be at a cost though.  Perhaps cannot use as advanced spells or the overall strength of your spells is reduced.

Originally posted by IzeBergz11

 You could cauterize wounds with fire.  

Yes I do agree with the idea that it would be nice to have a cohesive spell school which a caster utilizes for all different spell functions.  Not all schools have to be equal for healing, damage, utility, defense and crowd control.  

What do you think of those making a conscious decision to have two different schools?  Perhaps they cover each others weak points.  Ex:  Fire and Ice where as a school of magic fire is more offensive and ice is defensive.  Having both would have to be at a cost though.  Perhaps cannot use as advanced spells or the overall strength of your spells is reduced.

I do believe that WAR had a cauterize skill on their Bright Wizard-

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Cauterize

I thought it was pretty interesting, but at the same time it could have been implemented much better. 

Permadeath/Rebirth System

This system is visualized in a Viking/Nordic themed world.

I have often contemplated on how to make death in a game meaningful without totally annoying a player and after skimming through many, MANY posts I have envisioned this system.

1st step: Die.

2nd step: You awaken in Valhalla on the battlefield with giants charging at you. With a mug in one hand and a sword in one hand and a sword in the other you must face the Giants. It is possible to hold them off for a bit, but eventually you will be overcome and "die" once again.

3rd step: By dying you have disgraced yourself and you are banished back into the world of mortals. You are sent to the character creation screen where you re-create your character within a set of parameters (so that the reincarnation must resemble your first character). You will start at square 1 level wise, all property that was not stored on your body was saved as inheritance. 

Now here is what redeems the fact that you will have to start over again. Let us say that you were rank 10 in all your skills. Instead of losing ALL that training, on your reborn character you will be able to advance those skills to a point 1% higher than all of the non-reborn players. If you were rank 100 in all your skills you could reach with 5% higher power. Now this may not sound like a lot, but it WILL add up. 

I think this makes sense because if you are reborn you have the experience somewhere deep inside you, it is not like it is lost forever.

Edit: Percentages are just numbers I pulled out of thin air, not final numbers. I am also thinking of some sort of bonus to the speed at which you learn depending on how long you last in your battle against the Giants. 

Originally posted by loirnoir

Permadeath/Rebirth System

This system is visualized in a Viking/Nordic themed world.

I have often contemplated on how to make death in a game meaningful without totally annoying a player and after skimming through many, MANY posts I have envisioned this system.

1st step: Die.

2nd step: You awaken in Valhalla on the battlefield with giants charging at you. With a mug in one hand and a sword in one hand and a sword in the other you must face the Giants. It is possible to hold them off for a bit, but eventually you will be overcome and "die" once again.

3rd step: By dying you have disgraced yourself and you are banished back into the world of mortals. You are sent to the character creation screen where you re-create your character within a set of parameters (so that the reincarnation must resemble your first character). You will start at square 1 level wise, all property that was not stored on your body was saved as inheritance. 

Now here is what redeems the fact that you will have to start over again. Let us say that you were rank 10 in all your skills. Instead of losing ALL that training, on your reborn character you will be able to advance those skills to a point 1% higher than all of the non-reborn players. If you were rank 100 in all your skills you could reach with 5% higher power. Now this may not sound like a lot, but it WILL add up. 

I think this makes sense because if you are reborn you have the experience somewhere deep inside you, it is not like it is lost forever.

Edit: Percentages are just numbers I pulled out of thin air, not final numbers. I am also thinking of some sort of bonus to the speed at which you learn depending on how long you last in your battle against the Giants. 

I  think it's a great idea... when considered with a static scale.

Take this thought, and consider someone who dies 10 times, or 100 times. Is it so genius now? It would need heavy tweaking because frustration isn't a linear concept: it compounds.

Originally posted by pojung

Originally posted by loirnoir

Permadeath/Rebirth System

This system is visualized in a Viking/Nordic themed world.

I have often contemplated on how to make death in a game meaningful without totally annoying a player and after skimming through many, MANY posts I have envisioned this system.

1st step: Die.

2nd step: You awaken in Valhalla on the battlefield with giants charging at you. With a mug in one hand and a sword in one hand and a sword in the other you must face the Giants. It is possible to hold them off for a bit, but eventually you will be overcome and "die" once again.

3rd step: By dying you have disgraced yourself and you are banished back into the world of mortals. You are sent to the character creation screen where you re-create your character within a set of parameters (so that the reincarnation must resemble your first character). You will start at square 1 level wise, all property that was not stored on your body was saved as inheritance. 

Now here is what redeems the fact that you will have to start over again. Let us say that you were rank 10 in all your skills. Instead of losing ALL that training, on your reborn character you will be able to advance those skills to a point 1% higher than all of the non-reborn players. If you were rank 100 in all your skills you could reach with 5% higher power. Now this may not sound like a lot, but it WILL add up. 

I think this makes sense because if you are reborn you have the experience somewhere deep inside you, it is not like it is lost forever.

Edit: Percentages are just numbers I pulled out of thin air, not final numbers. I am also thinking of some sort of bonus to the speed at which you learn depending on how long you last in your battle against the Giants. 

 

I  think it's a great idea... when considered with a static scale.

Take this thought, and consider someone who dies 10 times, or 100 times. Is it so genius now? It would need heavy tweaking because frustration isn't a linear concept: it compounds.

Good point. Some players may get frustrated, but at the same time, permadeath provides incentive to try and stay alive. My system may be a little more painful than most people would like, but in a game where progression is relatively quick I wouldn't see it as too much of an issue. Permadeath is really all about the context.

Dynamic Music

One thing I love about movies is their use of music to convey emotion, games largely are missing this aspect, MMOs especially.  I have heard games that have great scores to them but they are just so under utilized.

What I would like to see is a way to incorporate and dynamically change the music in game.

The system would have to have cues to know what music to play, like maybe you are losing a fight or are sneaking or discover some ancient ruins.  We can get pretty sophisticated with the cues or keep them simple but needless to say we would need a lot of music.  But I also think you would need a way to mix themes and speed up ort slow down themes on the fly both to convey what is happening on screen and to transition between themes in a seemless manner.

I don't know too much about music, but I figure you would need all the parts of a particular theme to be seperate so that you can add them at seperate times.  Take the theme from Vertigo for a second.  Then if you divided the basis of the song from the accents, them you could play the basis the cue the accents to correspond with the players actions.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Dynamic Music

I've been thinking about this as well.

This has been in games ever since RPGs needed mood music. A mood theme, and a combat theme. You'll see this with forgotten realms games like Neverwinter and The Elder Scrolls series.

There's a little bit of a problem with the tempo changes and such that you imagine. Think of how film composers work - they know what's coming, they've seen it before. They know exactly what key they should be in before they leap into the pulse-pumping action scene.

This is not the case with video game music composers. They never know what a player is going to do, they never know when fast or slow parts will happen because they all happen at different times. So they compose full suites with different themes for different occasions meant to change in a pretty predictable and reactionary way - not so much to drive the action of the game.

An AI can change its mind as fast as a player and react pretty well to what's going on - but an orchestra, digital or not, cannot change moods on a dime to accommodate what's happening. The result would not sound good. However, I have heard many games (such as World of Warcraft) that simply add a percussive beat during combat. The background music blends into it quite well.

The kind of dynamic music you propose would require a drone or basic harmony to define the mood, while different instruments on separate layers blend in in accord to what's going on. That works if you're aiming for "background noise" since you won't get any memorable themes or auditory foreshadowing of events yet to come - and even if done with midi, you're not exactly going to get a stunning performance.

The non-linear nature of games really limits what composers can do. I'd like to see if there is a solution to it, because I see none from where I am.

Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Dynamic Music

I've been thinking about this as well.

This has been in games ever since RPGs needed mood music. A mood theme, and a combat theme. You'll see this with forgotten realms games like Neverwinter and The Elder Scrolls series.

There's a little bit of a problem with the tempo changes and such that you imagine. Think of how film composers work - they know what's coming, they've seen it before. They know exactly what key they should be in before they leap into the pulse-pumping action scene.

Strange, I was thinking about this kind of stuff just under a week ago... and it's not as complicated as you would think. It's just like directing a scene in a movie, but covering it on a "scenario by scenario" basis, as in the event is a constant, but the setting is not.

Most music in games can be organized very easily; background, combat, extraneous windows (end battle or level up's and shop windows, which then became "shop music" itself when you could roam inside one). Combat music tends to override the background music whenever it occurs, and some places have specific combat musics to suit the mood (which I agree with). Now the main problem at hand with all the things at hand is that the music doesn't feature specific changes to mood when they could. Like a beat dropping, change of tempo, muffling of it or the raising of separate bands on the EQ to "flood" the tune with more instrumental presence (like the flute in the background coming in more during a love scene with typical background music). There's a lot that can be done, all it takes is a little forethought and movie directing senses.

How about an example of what can be done in an action scene;

Two kung fu guys are on a cliff going at it, and the combat music plays. With that base music playing there are tons of options based on situations. Say one guy hit's a "limit breaker" or something; the tempo rises and drops in fuller emphasis on the instrument carrying the primary tune or riff (guitar or piano).

If one guy gets hit with an extremly hard attack that leaves him reeling; you muffle the music and put a filter that momentarily makes the music like it's heard from underwater. Just for a moment, then it zips back to whatever state it should be in.

If a guy puts the other into a grab-hold and walks him to the edge the tune can go into a "hectic" state, which is really just a predefined quicker version of the original song made separately, and it will pan volume to the side that the person is being leaned over in correlation to camera direction.

Say he actually gets thrown off; you muffle the music and slow it down until it can't be heard anymore, then enter stock soundfiles of wind blowing and perhaps a good camera angle of you hitting rocks on the way down or the final splat. This is only if the person actually experiences getting thrown down the cliff though. The guy still on the hill has his music pan back to the original zone's BGM.

~Nothing beats an epic tune for an epic moment though. Sometimes I just think about SotC's boss music and the hairs on my neck stand up. The tempo and mood set by it was perfect for the game too. Really suits the moments where you stand atop somethings head and just get a good look at the situation, not to mention when clinging for dear life. It seemed to fit every moment well, and even had a segment or two that could come in at just the right time, seemingly on it's own.

That would be something to think about - modular music - where you can swap in a new segment every 3/4th note and not have the player know the difference (if possible). That would be as dynamic as it gets, like the song never changes, but seems to do just the right thing, at the right times.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

Originally posted by CactusmanX

Dynamic Music

I've been thinking about this as well.

This has been in games ever since RPGs needed mood music. A mood theme, and a combat theme. You'll see this with forgotten realms games like Neverwinter and The Elder Scrolls series.

There's a little bit of a problem with the tempo changes and such that you imagine. Think of how film composers work - they know what's coming, they've seen it before. They know exactly what key they should be in before they leap into the pulse-pumping action scene.

Strange, I was thinking about this kind of stuff just under a week ago... and it's not as complicated as you would think. It's just like directing a scene in a movie, but covering it on a "scenario by scenario" basis, as in the event is a constant, but the setting is not.

That would be something to think about - modular music - where you can swap in a new segment every 3/4th note and not have the player know the difference (if possible). That would be as dynamic as it gets, like the song never changes, but seems to do just the right thing, at the right times.

Movies are of a linear nature. They can be watched and watched again - the composer will always know what is going to happen and will know exactly what to do.

Games, as you know, are not. If the music were designed to change every 3/4 of a note, you would have one massive sample cutting job ahead of you, and the composer involved would have to be talented enough to compose multiple parallel pieces of the same harmonic quality at the same times. Even then, what about a theme?

Imagine playing a Harry Potter game, you're walking through the halls in Hogwarts during a busy school day. A playful variant of Hedwig's theme plays. Suddenly, you're pulled aside by a teacher and scolded about something you didn't do - you've got a slight hint of Voldemort's theme there to foreshadow the teacher's true intent for being at the school. It's busy / happy music to scary / serious music. A composer planning to write these pieces for the event may watch that segment of the game played multiple times, but each time the player reaches the event, the clock reads a different time. What a bother.

What if the busy music was at the middle of Hedwig's melody suite when this teacher event happened? How would the scary music fit in while they are such different tunes? Suddenly the music changes from B minor to F minor? If the player had waited just three measures, the transition would have been seamless... but no. The player doesn't wait because he doesn't know what he's waiting for, and the game doesn't know what the player is going to do until he does it.

Really, most of my assumptions occur about the difference between digital and recorded music. When you have music pre-recorded at a symphony orchestra, you get a very rich sound you could not get from midi or any sample library or synth. Whereas if you wanted the music to be modular, it would either have to be midi (consumes tons of processing power and space on the client's computer if you want a good sound, which is not acceptable), or the recorded music itself would need to be inert enough to withstand any change at any time.

Real-time sound filters have been done, however. Games such as Haze feature them, and Norgate talks about it on his blog. Really, if any guy could figure out how to do dynamic music, it would be him.

I didn't say it *should* change at every 3/4th note, just saying that is the place it *can* be done. That's as fast as a change-up to the musical score can get without be overly noticeable, and even then (after thinking about it) you are going to need a bridge-piece to drag it into the accompanied change or it might be too harsh a change-up. Basically you just stretch/bend whatever note the dominant instrument that is playing the central riff is on, then swap in a single measure of some complimentary music to the main theme. There would basically be one for every kind of combat music.

The problem remains that it can change too drastically. Figure if the game was about fencing ala Sid Meier's Pirates, you'd have music for the fight as it would, then for when you gain/lose momentum against the enemy. Only problem is this can change rapidly, and that would throw off the score. It's a very simple approach in disallowing a shift as this for a limited amount of measures once changed though, or force the current score to creshendo.

As for the bit about movies knowing when to and games not - bollocks. You can tell a game when to make these dynamics changes easily based on event-type. The issue is telling it *not* to do so distastefully.