Hero's Journey

   I was just wondering if there would be any mini-games in Hero's Journey. If well executed, they could provide a nice break from combat. I'll list some suggestions and explain them further.

   Hunting: Maybe someone in a store told you they need, like, 4 little animals of some kind. They give you a bow(Or blowgun) and let you do a little hunting in the forest. You maybe have to find and shoot however many and collect them. Possibly in first person or something.

   Gathering: Maybe the peorson at the apothecary sends you out to collect some herbs. You find particular ones and bring them back to the person.

   Dice/Cards: A couple possible tavern games. Fairly self explanitory.

   Marbles: You could control a marble and lead it through a maze or something.

   Bounce & Glide: You play as a ball with retractable wings. You can do the traditional "Butt-Slam"s and could pull out your wings and glide for a short distance. You could roll around and jump when not gliding or bouncing, but you would need to glide and bouce to get through the levels.

   Keep in mind, these are just some ideas I had. I don't think these are very good ideas, but they were just some examples of mini-games... Actually, the first two seem kind of like lame quests, but they'd hopefully be set up differently or something.

   If any of you have ideas, feel free to post them. Thanks you.

I strongly second the call for mini-games. Almost every game's message board has a strong contingent of players who want this, but seldom are their prayers answered.

This puzzles me, because mini-games are a fantastic way to attract people to pubs and public squares to socialize and build community.

I would like to see:

In pubs:

Darts

Billiards

Some sort of card game

Some sort of puzzle game

Games of chance

And maybe an NPC fortune teller!

In public squares:

Tables with chess and checkers

As I stated in my Character Creation Article: "the character creation process is a like a mini-game that you can spend five minutes playing, or five hours playing."

There should be a traveling fair/circus in game that has all the classic old timey fair games.  Things like hitting the bar to make the bell ring, Dunk booths (That'd be AWSOME), and other carnie brick-a-brack.    That'd be fun. 

For even more fun have the fair/circus be affected by who's in power. Have more nature if the nature faction is in control, more gears/steam punk stuff with the tech faction and more magical stuff when the magic faction is in control.  

Sorry I forgot the name of the factions

Sceonded? Thirded? Nthed?

Minigames, it seems to me, are one of the great unexplored opportunities for MMORPG developers. The "mini" part means the cost to design, develop, and test these features is relatively low. And the game aspect means that players will amuse themselves playing these games with each other, which extends the lifespan of the more expensive content you create (i.e., keeps people subscribed longer).

Maybe there's some obvious reason why more developers don't offer minigames, but it's not obvious to me....

Imagine a card collecting game set within a MMORPG. Not only can you play it against other people (perhaps with spectators, perhaps with betting), which can occupy people for hours as a competitive sport or social facilitator, you also satisfy the Explorers by offering different ways to find new cards (perhaps as loot drops, perhaps by solving puzzle quests, perhaps by being very observant while traveling). You even create a whole new set of goods to trade, stimulating the game economy.

And that's just one example of a minigame. A game that contained several/many of these in addition to the main content could, I believe, only help its subscription levels.

Everybody wins.

--Flatfingers

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Originally posted by HJ-Cirakin
A traveling carnival and/or casino could be lots of fun.

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Helloooooo, Wanderers!

(Definitely looking forward to hearing more about the Wanderers, whether they wind up being carnie folk or not....)

--Flatfingers