Developers Corner

I originally posted this message in the Pub section of this website, when I should have posted it here.  Might not make any difference, but worth I try I guess.  I have no programming experience whatsoever, but believe I have a killer idea for an MMO game.  If I ever get the money myself, I plan to see that this game gets made, but since that could take awhile, I thought I might post some info here and see if anything happens (fat chance, I know).  I can share this info without much fear of the idea being stolen because this is only a small fraction of what I have.  I just copied what I posted on the other forum.  Here it is:

The first thing I do is avoid the "fantasy" genre because it has been done to death.  Granted it is the most fun, but to make another one would be to lose it in the crowd.  The game is set in the ancient world of the Mediterranean (in fact, I refer to the game as "Mediterranean", although that's not necessarily the name).  It consists of four empires, Rome, Greece, Egypt and Cathage all spread out along the four corners of the Mediterranean Sea.  These are all civilizations that achieved greatness in ancient times and still have an impact on our world today.  The four empires naturally are rivals and attempt to take over the world in which they exist.  So when a player enters the world of "Mediterranean", they can do so as a citizen of one of these four empires.

This set-up allows for the classic PvP variety of MMO.  But, unlike, previous "realm vs realm" games, this one goes further.  First of all, each of the four empires has a home territory with a capital city, Rome, Athens, Alexandria and Carthage.  Instead of being able to safely stay in your home territory without fear of attack, it will be vulnerable to capture by each of the other three empires.  If your capital falls, you and your civilization become a part of that empire.  However, you retain your nationality and are treated as a second class citizen by your conquerers.  This provides incentive for rebellion and an opportunity to regain your independence at a later time.

Another key difference is the part politics plays in "Mediterranean"  The four empires are not necessarily in a state of constant war.  They can negotiate between peace and conflict.  This would allow one of the classes in the game (the spy, a type of rogue) to infiltrate an opposing empire, gather intelligence and feed it back to their own.  Characters in the game can become leaders of their empire and negotiate between a state of war and peace.  Becoming a leader of your empire will be handled differently for each one.  For instance, since Greece was the cradle of Democracy, its leaders could be elected.  Since Rome was infamous for its gladatorial games, the players could fight in The Colosseum for the right to lead their nation.  They would serve for set terms to allow multiple players to serve as leaders.

Now let's say you hate PvP games.  No problem.  Besides the four empires, there will be a number of independent cities scattered around the world.  A player could enter "Mediterranean" in one of these cities and opt out of the PvP aspect.  They would be like the country of Switzerland.  They wouldn't attack other players, nor would they be attacked.  Here's another neat angle of the game.  Suppose you start off as a citizen of one of the empires and you grow tired of it.  You would be able to renounce your citizenship and become an independent or even defect to another empire.  Likewise, if PvE got a bit boring after awhile, you could petition to become a citizen of one of the empires.  I need to emphasize the gravity of renouncing your citizenship.  If you defected to another empire, you would become a marked character and never be able to go back to your home country.  So weigh the decision carefully.

Instead of following a strictly historical line, "Mediterranean" would incorporate the wonderful mythologies of the ancient world into it.  So the magic and the monsters would still be there (how could they not?).  So, although, it would not be a "fantasy" genre, it would still play like one.

Graphically, "Mediterranean" would be visually stunning.  It would contain many of the great structures of antiquity.  The Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon, etc.  But instead of appearing as they do today, they would appear as they did back then, brand spanking new.

That's a brief description of the setting of the game.  There are a number of other ideas that depart from the typical MMO, few which I will mention briefly.  Leveling is eliminated in "Mediterranean" but character classes remain.  Characters will have to be able to specialize to perform their various rolls, such as the spy which I mentioned earlier.  In addition, each empire will have a unique class.  I mentioned this in my first thread, so I will do so again here.  Carthage's unique class will be called the Magonid.  This term comes from a family of rulers of Carthage from the 6th century B.C.  They were a family of warrior/priests.  So the Magonid will be a warrior/priest hybrid that will exist in Carthage alone.  But this does not mean that, as the game progresses, only Carthage will have Magonids.  Remember, the possibility of defection exists.  So there could eventually be Magonids in other empires after a few defections.  Even the independent cities will have some unique classes.  Characters advance through aquiring skills and items.  This would eliminate the tedious grinding that exists in experience based MMO's.

If anyone did try to make this game without my permission, I'm sure they would miss the mark, because I have all kinds of ideas that would capture the culture, economics, politics, etc. of the genre.  So if there are any developers out there with the talent, but in need of an idea, feel free to respond.

Everyone has an idea (or ten).  That's the easy part.  About once a week someone comes through here, or gamedev.net, or idga.org, or indiegamer.com or some other game related site stating that they have the idea for the best MMO ever.  Of course they can't give us the details because they are afraid we will steal their never-thought-of-before-ideas.  The people who can plan, finance, and program your MMO are already working on their own.

Companies aren't interested in ideas.  They aren't interested even if you have a 100-page design document and business plan to back it up.  They are only marginally interested if you have a design document, business plan, and working prototype/demo of your game.  They are really only interested if you have a completed game and it's already generating revenue in which case they just want to know how much to buy your company.

I come across people all the time who claim to have the next great thing in MMOs that no one has ever thought of.  Almost all the time their cool new idea has been circulating around MMO circles about as long as there have been MMOs.  There aren't many novel ideas anymore, but I do concur that very few of those ideas actually make it into games.

Anyone who has the money/programming skills/business savvy to make an MMO isn't going to let you come in and run their established project with your vision.  If they are that far along they already have their own artistic vision and since they are the ones with the resources, they aren't going to give up on their ideas to make your dream game.

If you really want to make your MMO you are pretty much going to have to do what the rest of us indie MMO devs have done -- lots and lots of work on your own.  A backstory, a design document, a business plan, some money, artwork, website, written code.  The more of those things you have under your belt the more likely you will be able to attract (and keep) talented people to help you out.  Just saying you have the "best idea eva" but you can't tell us about it won't get you far.

Regards,

~PD

I agree with you on several points you make in your post.  Companies don't just come together on a whim.  They have their own ideas and they have plenty of brain power working on ideas.  I also know that most of the great ideas of the world were already thought of by the time Socrates walked on the earth.

However, I would make a couple of observations.  I don't know if you read many of the posts on some of the other forums on this site, but clearly there is a lot of frustration out there among gamers with the current and upcoming crop of MMORPGs.  I share their frustration.  I have played a total of five MMO's, the first of which was Everquest, and I have not yet been able to recapture fascination I experienced with EQ.  If all the ideas are already circulating, why does it seem that the same games are being recycled over and over?

I think there are a couple of reasons.  First of all, when a successful game is created for the first time, it inevitably establishes a paradigm that is used again and again and it gets hard for developers to break out of that paradigm.  Second, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to get a game out and have a big initial sales to cover its costs in the event that it doesn't last.  I understand that the average length of playing time for most gamers on one game is roughly four months.  So companies can't depend on the long term revenues to make a game profitable.  I think this causes developers to cut some corners and sacrifice content for expediency.

I also do feel kind of silly saying that I have a great idea for the next big MMO considering that that claim has been made already thousands of times by other people.  However, I have read some of these ideas on other posts, and I usually see a one or two sentence idea on what they think will work and when questioned further, they usually are able to provide only sketchy details without realizing how much content really goes into an MMO.  Although, I myself have a lot to learn about how much content goes into an MMO, I do have a lot more than just sketchy details.  I pretty much have an entire concept put together from start to finish.

Now, I'm under no illusion.  I can post my ideas until I'm blue in the face and that wouldn't improve my chances of having the game made one bit.  But, I would challenge the developers to consider looking at solutions that come from outside the gaming industry.  Who better to think outside the box than someone who is not in it?

I do thank you for your works of advice.

++ to you for punctuation, grammar, spelling, and paragraphs!

I am in complete agreement that the state of the MMO market (from a creativity and innovation standpoint) is in bad shape.  Here are my thoughts:

The "the first MMO i ever played was the best and nothing else compares" has been discussed at length in mutliple venues.  Might I also suggest terranova if you are not already familiar and I would suggest the MUD DEV mailing list but it appears that it died some months back.  I almost wonder if people's fondness for their first game might be something like their fondness for their first love.  It might have some strong psychological roots.  The topic has been brought up before, but i'm not sure any good conclusions have come from it.

UO was my first "modern graphical, MMO".  I have fond memories of the game even though it was very flawed.  The only MMO i've played since then that gives me a similar feeling is EVE.  Most argue that the old MMOs were better and that's why they have such strong memories.  That might be the case, but I still wonder if it's something related to human nature.  At any rate it's a good observation and unfortunately i don't have a good answer.

The overall downward spiral (again from a creativity and innovation standpoint not from a revenue standpoint) is how big business works.  When the market was small big companies such as VUG, Microsoft, Sony, etc weren't the least bit interested.  That left the market to the dreamers and the visionaries.  An indie game developer can compete just fine if his competitors are all themselves indie game developers.  Everyone is on a shoestring budget, everyone's graphics suck, and gameplay must be good.

As with any market, as the money grows it gains the attention of big companies.  Such is the case with MMOs.  In general (note i didn't say always) the indie developer makes games first for the love of making great games.  Nearly all those people would also like to make enough money so they don't have to eat top ramen the rest of their lives, but again the primary reason for making games is to make great games, not get rich.  That is not to say getting rich is someone a bad thing, it's just not their primary drive.  As the saying goes "it's a tough way to make an easy living".

Businesses on the otherhand, especially big publically traded ones (note i didn't say all) have a different primary focus:  to make money.  They have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors/stockholders to make a profit.  Making a "great" game is fine and dandy, but making a profit is more important. 

This creates a problem.  The bottom line is to make money, and to not risk the company on some unproven franchise/game mechanic/storyline/whatever.  This has the effect of driving creativity right out of the market.  They cannot "afford" to make innovative games because they cannot afford to take the risk. 

Unfortunately game companies are creating products/services in a creative medium -- much like the music and movie industries.  The key to long term success in a creative industry is to be creative, but since these companies can't take big risks, they tend not to innovate.  That's why we see the same game franchises again and again with only new numbers appended to the end of the title.  This is what the 15th or 16th year of Madden NFL?  EA recently said that of their nearly 30 titles they are to release this year that one (1!) would be an original IP.  Wow one, let me sit down for a minute and catch my breath.

The net result of all this is that big companies (which is most everyone in the games industry nowadays) will not innovate because of the high risks of failure.  Yet for the long-term health of the industry innovation is exactly what they must do.  Personally I do believe that the games industry will go the same way as the music/movies industries where creativity is driven out of the market and all we are left with is the same rehashed tripe each year.

EA, MS, VUG, and the rest do understand this  -- at least some of them do.  Typically the way they "innovate" is to simply buy small indie game studios who are coming up with the great games.  Unfortunately the people who start those small studios don't generally like being part of the big coporate machinery and quickly leave after cashing their paycheck.  So the big company gets the creative people and those same creative people leave quickly therafter.

All of this is bad news for video games in general and MMOs in particular.  The cost of producing a AAA MMO is rising rapidly.  10,20,30 million USD to make such a game is not unheard of anymore.  This all but assures that no one other than the largest of companies can produce a top-tier MMO.  Of course they complain publically about the cost of producing such games, but behind the scenes they are more than happy to let costs rise because it has the natural effect of reducing competition.  They know that if their only competitors are other large, top-heavy, bloated companies, then they don't need to be nearly as creative to stay in the game.

The ones who suffer, of course, are the gamers.  This, I believe, is the main reason there is so much frustration among MMO players today.  They are inbreeding the MMOs from one generation to the next, and we will end up with totally sterile games as a result.

That's why none of the much discusses creative ideas fail to make it into mainstream MMOs.  EA, Microsoft, SOE, VUG, none of them are going to make a game with full-open PvP.  It's too big of a risk.  Nor are they going to make a game with permadeath, or any of the dozens of great MMO ideas.

The only ones who are going to bring any of that to us are the indie startup MMOs.  Since they are have no fiduciary responsibility they are free to come up with crazy ideas and to actually make games out of them.  If they succeed one of the big companies will be along shortly thereafter checkbook intow wanting to know the price, and if they fail it just means they are back to eating ramen noodles again.

Unfortunately the chance of an indie making a 3-D MMO with rock-solid client/server code, the vast amounts of graphics (3-D models, animation, skinning, pixel art), story, website, server hardware, CS department, etc is almost zero.  There are many indie MMOs in development (eternal lands, Wurm, etc), but most of them will never capture enough players to get their devs out of poverty let alone allow them to build a AAA game.

This doesn't mean we should give up.  I quit my job 25 months ago to build an MMO.  As a result i'm dirt poor (left a very high paying job as head of software development at a small software company to start an MMO company).   There is a chance -- albiet a small one -- that my game will one day make it to market and I might even have enough money left over that I can afford the fancy ramen noodles instead of the cheap 10/$1 variety.

There are those of us in the trenches trying to make a better MMO.  It's really hard though.  If  you  still want to make an MMO, i'm happy to listen.  Like you i'm here in the Seattle area.  I will say that we spent a full year working on backstory, design document, business plan, game mechanics, settings, etc before we wrote a single line of code, and at this point You would be hard pressed to get us to change our vision for our game.  Moreoever, unless you take ramen as payment i can't afford to pay you for your time, but if you want to chat about MMOs, or if you think you could be an asset to our team, drop me a line and maybe we can work something out.

/rant

Regards,

~PD

Wow, what a great post.  Very informative.  Now I know exactly why most everything that has been coming out sucks lately.  I also think you have a very valid point about a person's very first MMO.  Like UO (I never played it, I'll take your word for it), EQ also had many flaws.  In fact, it was while playing EQ that I got the idea for my MMO.  I have been sitting on this idea for about four years now.  But despite the flaws, I'll never forget the first time I logged onto EQ.  It felt like I had been transported into another world, not simply playing a game.

I think the reason I was struck by my idea while playing EQ is because I am an historian and I love history.  In fact, more than just loving to study history, I have, for the longest time, wished there was a way I could live history.  And it was the world (artificial) transforming power of EQ that made me think an MMO would be the closest way I could find to make that happen.  Of course history, like many other things can be boring as well.  That's why I keep the monsters and the magic to spice history up a bit.

I did notice on your info button that you live in Seattle as well.  And the fact that you're a developer is pretty promising news.  Since you already have a company started and an idea in the works, I don't want to take your valuable development time away from that project.  However, I wonder if there is any spare time you(or someone on your team) might have to whom I could give more or less a complete picture of my game idea.  If after a pitch, you find the idea interesting, some computer models (I don't know if that's the correct term, I'm a programming neophyte) might be able to be put together to see how they look.  Again, only if it doesn't take away from what you're currently working on.

In terms of me giving up my idea unprotected to someone else, I'm not really concerned about that at all.  I would much rather see the game get built then for me get any credit for it.  And I'm not looking for any type of compensation for it (unless it became a mega-hit) either.  I know all about being poor.  I am currently scraping by on a job that pays very low wages.  But, at the same time, I have a patent for an invention that I am trying to get licensed with at least one of several companies, one of which is a Fortune 500.  I've always said if I could get a nice upfront payment for licensing my patent, I would devote a considerable percentage to the game idea to increase the odds of seeing it completed.

So, I see your email address on your info screen and I have one posted as well.  If you want to talk about some kind of potential collaboration, you can post a response or simply email me directly.

Best regards,

zind