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Originally posted by Zindaihas

Earlier this week, I started a thread called "The Ulitmate MMORPG".  It was the first post I have made on this website.  I made it because I believe I have an idea for one that would be wildly popular and I am seeing MMAOF (multi-massive amounts of frustration) for the current batch of games out there.  Then this morning I see a new thread called "Why won't anyone make this kind of MMO?", started by Mihos.  Some of the things he would like to see are very similiar to what my game would do.  So I have decided to provide a description of my MMO idea.  If someone decides to steal it for themselves and make it without my permission, I guess that would be better than having it sit on my desk forever.  I apologize for its length, but to give you a complete view, I will have to post quite a bit of information.

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 you see, 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

Well, that's about as brief a description as I was able to provide.  I have hundreds of other ideas, none of which need to be detailed here.  I don't know if you like the idea or not, or if what I have proposed is even possible to make into an MMORPG.  But since I am not a developer, this is about the only avenue I have to getting the idea out there.  I am just a Historian with a very fertile mind and enough exerience playing MMO's to have a pretty good idea what works and what doesn't.  I know this probably doesn't improve my chances of seeing this game made, but with all the frustration that I am seeing on this website, I thought I would give you folks a taste of something else.  I'm still working on making that fortune so I can hire someone to develop this game for me.  But that could take years, or not even happen at all.  If there are any companies out there that want to try something different, my email address is on the user info screen.  Contact me and I'll be happy to hook you up.

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Originally posted by ghoul31

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Second, have u ever heard of free trials???  That's what they are for, to try the game for... even cheaper than $5!

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They don't have free trials for MMORPGS at release. They might have a free trial many months later, but not at release. I wasted $50 on that piece of crap EQ2. If I could have gotten in to the beta for $5, I would have saved a lot of money.

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Originally posted by Elnator
I love how you guys are.  You want to support indie game companies but those indies have proven time and time and time again that without major backing they can't produce squat.  Everyone raves about Turbine and the 'wonders' that were AC 'back in the bygone era' but wait:

1) Turbine was backed by MS
2) AC wasn't a "huge success", it never broke 130k players and quickly dropped down to 50k after the initial rush of interest wore off.  It is successful... but it's not a "great" MMO... not by a long shot.  And it was horrible at release (thus why over 75% of the population didn't renew.

Another company often lifted up as an example of a great "indie" company is Mythic.  Just a clue.  Mythic wasn't an "indie" company when they made DAOC.  They were already established as a fairly well known developer of online and single player games.  Just not MMORPG's.  CCP is the only "indie" company that I can think of that's produced a truely successful MMORPG.  And even EVE isn't a widely popular game. 

When you look at TRUE indie companies you get these games:  D&L, Irth, Mourning, Dawn/Horizons, Ryzom, etc.  The list is endless of indie developers who have tried to deliver a good MMORPG only to be bashed by those of you who repeatedly state that you want an indie to produce a game.

Just a clue:  Sigil *IS* an Indie company.  They are merely contracting SOE to host their servers and handle their billing and marketting. 

I don't care if you play or not but you guys are the most hypocritical people I've seen.  You want to see indies produce games but when those Indies do what they must in order to get the capitol they need to produce a quality game you jump ship and try your best to kill them.

I don't much like SOE but I also don't see many alternatives for Sigil to produce this game.

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Originally posted by cumbom
I think EQ2 would work for you.... if there are game cards...

Its pretty much like a  more mature version of WoW.... not at launch, but since launch they have been somewhat emulationg WoW.

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Originally posted by josjikawa

hey i dont know if this is posted before but check out this

http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/download/

i just dont get that download code, could annyone give some info where we can get them?

if this work its going to be GREAT

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Originally posted by rubydragon5
Click me

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Originally posted by kovah
The Red box or the Blue box, that is the question:

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/matrix_online/trial/

Yep, its for File Planet subscribers.

Yep, its 10 days for free(minus the FP subscription).

Yep, its a 2gb download.

[edit]Yep, this is my 100th post.



GL HF!

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Originally posted by HiGHPLaiNS

LOL

I would never have guessed!  Anyways, I am having a blast in the game and I thought this game would fall in the majority of people on this website (hating this concept) go figure!?

The game is actually fun (I still cant believe what I am saying), but worth a shot to people that dont have it.  Go find a friend with a Trial Key, then you will see if this is your type of game.

nuff said..

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Originally posted by fredrik1

The only thing negative about LCD is that they have an native resolution, if you are used to run the games with a resolution bigger than 1024x768 you'll probbably want a bigger screen.

otherwise the picture might be abit blurry.

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