It occured to me, reading that, that I've never actually given EVE a try before.  So I've gone out and signed up for the 14 day trial.  I figure that 14 days is enough time to decide whether I really like a certain game or not.

I've recently started to get back into MMOs after a long absence from the genre, and I'm interested in trying out some new entries into the genre.  I've given WoW another go, but it didn't really go anywhere.  Likewise, I tried out City of Heroes again, and gave Cryptic's games (Champions Online and Star Trek Online) another go, but none of them quite fit what I was looking for either.

So, I would like to give another game a try, one that's a bit different from the norm.  Something with a trial period or a demo would be great.

After a bit of a hiatus from MMOing, I've come back and I'm looking for a new game to dive into.  However, at the moment, I'm on a sort-of Healer kick.  I've played the role in the past and done so well, so I'd like to find a game where my skills in this particular sort of gameplay are useful.  This wasn't the case with the last games I played, Champions Online and Star Trek Online, and while I did have some fun on City of Heroes and even on WoW filling that role, I'm looking for something a bit different here.

So, if such a thing is available, I'd like a teaming-oriented game where-in a healer would be either a necessity, or merely a helpful thing to have around.  Similarly, a PVE-centric game would be a plus, being that playing the medic in a PVP game, from my experience, is very much like walking into a bar in Alabama with a shirt reading "NASCAR Sucks": you're going to get killed to death very quickly.  Do you think there's such a thing on the MMO landscape?

I don't tend to enjoy PVP all that much, to be frank.  Oh I love PVE and teaming up with other players, but the competitive factor just isn't my bag.  So if there was an MMO that was heavily predicated on PVE, and with little or no PVP involved, and which had stellar elements otherwise, I would be thrilled to give it a go.

I love the sound of non-combat character classes.  I've been getting very bored of games which require the player to murder a certain number of forest creatures before moving on with the game, and I would love to take part in a game where-in I could go through without ever having to kill ten rats.  Either basing my gameplay on political pursuits, or entirely around creating weaponry or armor for others, or what have you.  The other details seem like nice features, but none of them would grab my attention nearly as quickly as non-combat builds.

I have found myself pondering the concept of a driving MMO for some time.  It may stem from the most basic thing, my intense interest in racing games coupled with my love of MMOs, or perhaps it lay in regret for not giving a chance to the last game that touted itself as a driving MMO, Motor City Online, when it was still around.  Whatever the case may be, the idea tends to prance in and out of my mind like a showpony, and so this thread is equal parts me sharing these ideas, and venting them off in a somewhat constructive manner.

Now, before we get into the technical details, I think I should share a bit about myself.  As things stand, I'm not the sort of person who can pull off an MMO or any other game-related project on my own.  I'm not talented with programming or design, and my skill with a pen and paper is barely above that of a third-grade art student.  However, I am a very talented writer, with a knack for characterization and the creation of an intensely interesting history for a given setting (which may not be the most applicable skillset for this particular game).  I have done a bit of voice acting, although it has been in a purely amateur facet and I don't believe myself to be skilled enough to actually charge for those particular services.  To top it all off, I sport something of an overactive, if at times unfocused, imagination, which is handy for more elaborate character and setting designs.

And so, being that I am incapable of crafting this game in anything more then a complementary role, this little airing of ideas is open to consideration and interpretation.  Not that there's anything particularly new here.  Most of these notions have popped up in one game or another already, many in MMORPGs, and do not seem to my fairly uneducated mind to be impossible goals to strive for.

The first thing that a good MMO needs is a world.  And this sort of game, I believe, would fare best using something akin to Cryptic's "Zone" model.  Fairly large areas where-in the drivers can roam this way and that at their leisure, with tunnels, or bridges, or even airborn transport which can take them to other areas.  These areas would differ geographically, stylistically, and even in terms of outright changing the gameplay.  For instance, an area based upon Canada would sport paved roads as well as muddy side-roads, and that's not even factoring in the likelihood of a snowy mountain peak or two.  The Sahara, by contrast, would feature shifting sands and very few roads, and be a delight for off-road drivers (and the bane of drivers who would rather keep their wheels on the tarmac).  The ever-pleasant English countryside, the French Riviera, the Swiss Alps, rainsoaked rainforest trails in South America, even the odd major city or two could make for a wonderful area for drivers to explore.

But what would they do?  After all, the idea of an MMO is to grow stronger as you grow more talented, or at least one would think so.  To that end, we can't have players gaining levels simply by finding enemies and killing them off (or rather, they could, but then we would be wandering into Carmageddon territory, and that's a whole other thing).  Lacking that pillar of MMORPG design, some more creative design choices are required.  To get them out of the way, the standard postal carrier missions would remain, with players carrying packages and people from point A to point B.  Some would feature time limits, causing the resulting situation to resemble Crazy Taxi with drivers driving wildly from place to place against a ticking clock.  And, of course, you get a bonus for reaching your destination as quickly as possible.  Other missions would include driving challenges that test the skill of a particular driver in a particular car.  These, again, are fairly straight-forward.

There would also be more structured Event Races, where-in a person would randomly appear in the center of a street and set up a checkpoint race.  Park your car in one of the starting spots, and you're in.  Once the timer runs down, the race begins, and players are awarded points for finishing well.  Even more structured would be the Track Races.  These, unfortunately, would have to be instanced as they take place on enclosed, specialized racing tracks, but racing in them, and winning them, would grant a boost in experience, funds.  The former of which being required to enter higher-level races.  You're not going to convince the racing board that you can drive in a high-level race just because your car is up to the task.  Similarly, some of these high-level races will even require certain cars to even enter them.  Wouldn't make any sense to enter an open-wheel race with your old banger, would it?

Now, car customization would also be handled in an odd way.  To begin the game, each player would be granted an old beater with a basic engine and a pair of regular road tires.  It would be an ugly, dented-up old thing that wouldn't perform well, but drivers would soon be able to patch up the dents and swap out the engine and tires for something better.  In the store, in-game funds could be spent to purchase basic car models of various sorts, as well as new styles of frames, body panels to tack onto said frames, engines, tires, brakes, suspensions, paint colors, and body designs to make your car extra snazzy-looking.  This would allow for a great deal of customization.  For instance, if a player should want to seat a sportscar engine exposed to the elements in the bed of a pickup truck, then they would be more then welcome to do so.

The cars would deteriorate over time, naturally.  Crash into a wall and your car will get dented up, and that will take a bit of cash to fix if you want to fix it.  The body damage is cosmetic, but damage to tires, brakes, shocks, and the engine most certainly is not.  Fortunately, should a player find themselves out of money, our of parts to slap on, and with a battered-up and useless car, there's always the old starter car to fall back on.  And the car lot's happy to get rid of those, free of charge.

PVP would include the above Event and Track races, as well as a fairly straightforward "Duel" race mechanic.  Once both drivers agree to a duel race, a map of their current zone appears.  The players would each be able to plop down two checkpoints on any road on the map, and in later areas this would include off-road places.  From there, a route is set, with the checkpoints numbered from one to four.  This is the route of the race, with the winner winning and the loser not winning nearly as much.  Additionally, as would be the cases with the Event races, the cars involved in this race would be temporarily made intangible to other cars.  We wouldn't want other drivers to interfere in the outcome of one of these races, or to simply wander out into their path and take out every member of the top five, now would we?

Team-Based Racing is another thing that would be a joy to see.  Not simply forming up guilds made up of other racers, but the formation of small, two or three car teams for certain events.  Many of the higher-level races are of this sort, and teams would be more inclined to work together and communicate with one another.  This would be important for a number of reasons, for instance, certain races would feature an entire team sharing a pit stall.  That could be slightly awkward.

Lastly, the thought occurs to me that some people would like to simply wander around and see the sights of the world.  I see no reason to ignore them, or to hold them back.  In fact, this game would encourage it.  Throughout the world are various Landmarks, buildings and stone formations and hundreds of other things that a person can seek out.  Once there, or more specifically once in range of a small device, the player would gain a nice little experience bonus for locating them.  Even though this can get a bit silly, such as driving into the ancient tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh.

And, well, that's about all I've got for the time being.  Alot of little conceptual pieces and not the slightest idea how to piece them all together.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this post, if you have any.  And threads you want to tug at or any points you want to build upon, you're more then welcome to.

For the longest time I've wanted to try to play through an MMO without actually having to kill anything.  No bandits or monsters or rats or anything of the like.  Are there any games that you bearded and beardless gentlemen can suggest that would allow me to approach a game in such a manner?

My first MMO was Maple Story, and it almost scared me off of the genre entirely.

My second was City of Heroes and I loved it, so I suppose I'd treat that as my first.  Since then, only my recent tryst with Champions Online has been able to match it in terms of overall enjoyment.  That said, I do have a soft spot for superhero stories in general, so in my mind these games had a natural leg-up on the WoWs and LotROs and AoCs of the world.

Originally posted by zerglin87

Yeah i been looking into racing mmos, And I was wondering what is going to be out there, and There is this game i found a while back, It is a multiplayer simulation racing game but it required a steering wheel and supposedly actual race car drivers play it, frogot what it was, had NASCAR, Midgets, Formula, GT, and other racing classes.

There are actually two games that sound like what you're talking about: iRacing and RFactor.  Both are fairly similar though, so you might have to take a look at both of them a bit more deeply to decide which one you want to go with.

I'm playing Champions Online currently, and while the game is pretty fun, I can't help thinking that it really needs to push grouping more.  When you have a full team raiding a villain's lair, the game is fantastic.  But just wandering solo on the streets of Millenium City gets really dull really quickly.

Originally posted by -aLpHa-

 

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Originally posted by socksquatch

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Originally posted by heartless

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Originally posted by Yunbei

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Originally posted by heartless

 

The game is going to have both RMT and a subscription fee. No thanks.

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What really, both? Sheesh, that sounds bad. :/

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What's worse is that Star Trek Online will have the same thing. At least that's what I got from that TTH interview.
Someone linked it on the CO forums on this site.

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star trek?

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You work for Cryptic and don't know your own in-house production?

Not exactly employee of the month, is he?

Originally posted by patrikd23

Originally posted by Milky

A) Is Champions Online ready and fit for release?

B) Is it a worthy follow up to CoX?

C) Will it go out the door full of bugs and unfinished content?

D) Are the gameplay features expansive enough to satisfy and go beyond the expectations of today's mmoRPG'ers?

 

a) Maybe

b) Maybe

c) Maybe

Play it and find out, I think its open beta very soon.

Early next month actually.  But if it'll help you sleep soundly tonight, I have been hearing good things from the people in the closed beta.

It could be interesting and worth playing if they make it well.

Of course, you can say that about every single product known to man.

This was found in another topic on the boards, but I really like that this game seems to have a sense of humor about itself.

Originally posted by iSoul

 Mario online will fail. It all ready has.

Did I miss something here?

Maybe not a Mario game then, but one inspired by it.  A 2D platformer with controls every bit as straightforward and tight as the classic Mario games, with numerous temperary powerups to grab and use until either they run out, or you bump into a baddie and lose them.

Sounds reasonable.  Though I would like to be certain that players are given equivalent experience for completing tasks and offing mobs via solo or group methods.  It would be a bit folish to punish one side or the other for playing the way they feel like playing.

I prefer bosses that take a little bit more thought then "Kill That Until It Dies".  If the boss is just a meandering blob of HP that can hit harder then the usual mobs, it's not really all that interesting.  A boss with a particular weak point or weakness to a particular sort of attack is a bit more unique.  However, something like a boss that requires the party to scale it's outside while it stomps it's way toward a city, reach it's head (fighting mobs all the way up), and then destroy it's cranium from the inside, would be alot more thrilling and worthwhile an experience.

I don't hate PvP.  I don't even particularly dislike it.  But I tend to view MMORPGs primarily as a social game, and as a cooperative game, which causes me to mainly play group-based PvE.  Competing against other players is simply not the reason that I pick up an MMO.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

• StrikeRacer
• GoGoRacer
• ProjectTorque
• KartRider

 

Check those out.

Not remotely what I had in mind, but thanks for the suggestions.