Originally posted by itoshiki

Hi everyone!

There's a korean MMO-sport game called "Bodycheck Online": an arcade hockey in sci-fi style. It's totally free, but I can't register an account because their web-site is on korean. Does anyone know how to register there?  

Learn Korean.

It looks interesting, but I'm not sold just yet.  There were alot of characters in that trailer that looked quite similar, and a lack of individuality is a major turn-off for me.

I've recently discovered a love of racing games, and driving titles in general.  Track racing, arcade-style driving, doing flippy stunts, and even occasionally embracing my malicious side and smashing things with the front and of a demolition derby car.  So, being that I've wandered onto this side, the thought occurred to me that there could, potentially, be an MMO that takes advantage of this type of gameplay.

Let's start with the basics.  Each player would start out by making both an avatar and a basic vehicle.  The avatar would be fairly straightforward, a human-shaped character with arms, legs, a head, and colored and shaped and put into clothing as the player sees fit.  The vehicle, meanwhile, would be fully customizable, with several frames on which players can attach engines, wheels, windscreens, seats, and weaponry (although I would suggest that this weaponry be more imaginative then simply guns and missiles.  Having an articulated catapult that tosses boulders, or the ability to drop marbles from the back end.)  Naturally, players would then be able to pick up car and character upgrades throughout the world, either through shops or via drops.  Certain items would have certain effects, both positive and negative, including adding to the weight of your craft, increasing how well it handles on road as opposed to off it, or negating the effectiveness of certain items.  A hovercraft isn't going to be hard to handle on marbles or ice, for instance.

Now, gameplay would handle alot more like a driving game then an MMO, at least while the player is in their car.  There is the option of getting out, and moving around like a classical WoWish MMORPG, but this is not recommended due to the player's squishy nature outside of their vehicle.  Anywho, players would be able to take missions, grind on monsters (by running them down, mostly), or simply explore the world at large.  Fuel is another example of this sort of thing.  Big, gigantic world to explore and race in, but with lots of MMO elements too, rather then just being big for the sake of being big.  I would suggest it be fantasy-based as well, if only because the concept of killing a dragon by driving a car off a cliff and spearing it through the heart mid-flight would be just so incredibly awesome as to make the ensuing splat against the jagged rocks below entirely worthwhile.

As far as specific missions go, going around killing monsters and delivering the mail is all well and good, but there can be more variety here.  Races, for instance, could easily take place.  Either circuit races or point-to-point, with players having the option of making their own and holding checkpoint races.  Players can even enguage one another in PvP races, and can each pony up a bit of cash beforehand to sweeten the win even further.  On top of all of that, there would be boss battles, which would amount to large monsters wandering around the landscape and the players, plucky as they may be, trying very hard to bring it down for the mass AoE XP that would result.  That gets a bit harder since most of the bosses would be puzzle bosses, rather then just heaping slabs of HP.  One in particular that I have in mind is a boss that loks like it belongs in Shadow of the Colossus.  It's a giant stone best that will slam it's head down onto the ground, creating an earthquake.  Players would then need to drive up onto his bowed head, onto his back, wait for him to stand up, and then traverse the stone ramps and platforms on his body before they can find a tunnel leading into his weak point, his heart.  Pound on that enough, and the big guy hits the ground.

Thoughts anyone?

If Nintendo does do a Pokemon MMO, or a new pokemon game in general, I'd really like to see a revamp of the battle system.  In place of the classic turn-based gameplay, I would like to see a more action-oriented style of play.  You are able to take control of your little monster and move them around the battlefield and out of the way of attacks (if they're quick enough), as well as being able to launch attacks while on the move.  You would have access to all of your attacks with just a button press, while other items, pokeballs and healing items and all that, could be accessed through a handy side menu.  Hit your opponent with an attack that stuns them, toss in a pokeball, and you've got yourself a new monster.

Now, I also think that online matchmaking could be a little bit of a hastle, so here's what I would do.  Say you find someone that you would like to have a pokemon battle with.  Go up to them and click on them (with the wii-mote, stylis, what have you), and their information will appear.  Their player name, their roster of six usable pokemon, and how many battles they've had.  You can then challenge them to a battle.  Similarly, if you are the once being challenged, you have the option to accept, decline, or ignore the player for a set period of time, say a half hour (if you're not in the dueling mood or if they're becoming annoying).

It could be pretty fun, I suppose.  It will definately attract kids like flies and make Nintendo wads of cash.

I really hope that you folks can pull this off.  It's a very unique and interesting idea that stands out against the miles of classical fantasy MMOs that litter the landscape, and I hope that you can find some reliable backing to get the ball rolling.

Originally posted by Cursedsei

The issue with making a 2D game that doesn't use some easily modifiable, basic sprites is cost.

Muramasa and Odin Sphere (should of looked that game up as well, its made by the same company) are single-player rpgs that took a few years of development. No need to add in different looks or gear, or make sure that when the person is moving it looks right with every possible piece of equipment or style (or lack of) hair. And no several different classes to add onto that, and skills for that matter. The  cost of making every sprite look hand-drawn and just as good as the next would be insane, as would be the time involved in doing it.

 

Now I'd love to have a 2D mmo with the quality of graphics that OS or Muramasa had, and f2p or not, I'd probably at least play it for a bit.

I would just let the players do it.

More specifically, I would release a set of spritesheets of the basic character models, let's say male and female humanoids, and allow players to create their own costume items over top of them to submit for addition into the game, along with their own in-game name.  These costume items would be put into a cash shop-like structure, with players needing to pay a small fee to buy them.  (It would be a one-time fee for each item.  This isn't a rental system here.)  And the player that created the item would, for every instance their item is bought, be granted a percentage of cash shop points to use as they please.

Not sure how fully player-made content like this could work effectively in anything other then a cash shop system, honestly.

Originally posted by Caldicot

I'm glad to see some of the creativity in this thread :)

Careful tho, some company might snatch you and demand your complete obedience :O

An idea means very little without the means to put it into motion.  Take mine for instance.  It's simple, straightforward, something that most anyone could drum up.  Whether I was involved or not, I would like very much to see an MMO show up that fit into those fairly vague criteria.  Big, open world, minimal restrictions on character growth and customization, and a fairly hands-off aproach to the overall gameplay experience.  If a player wants to get on your game and throw cars at NPCs to blow off some steam, or go up to a certain online friend and punch him so hard that he pinballs off the sides of six different buildings, then that should be encouraged.  And if that player wants to pay you a small monthly fee to have that situation available to them, then that should be encouraged even more.

Maybe not Tetris exactly, but a simple, easy-to-make puzzle game that is genuinely fun to play would be a great choice.  Ideally, one that would be released for the Wii as well, since there's a market there for simple, fun games.

If it has to be an MMO though, I would go the most straightforward route I can.  I would create a sandbox setting.  A city, about the scope of GTA3 perhaps.  Then I would give the players the ability to travel around the city and do whatever they like.  Interacting with static objects and moving ones would depend on your stats, not only physical, but personality-based as well.  It is entirely possible to reach a point where your player character can run faster then a car can drive, or leap across rooftops, shrug off gunshots, pick up and carry buses and trains, and all manner of other wonderfully fun things.  To go along with this theme, there would be a number of missions available which a player can use to grow from a puny, weak human into a Superhuman.  That's actually the name of the game at the moment, in fact.  Superhuman.

Not that the concept couldn't use a bit of TLC at this stage, of course.

I have many fond memories of playing Carmaggedon II at the local youth center many years ago.  It was a fun thing, but simply taking that and slapping the usual MMO trappings onto it isn't going to turn out well.  Something drastic needs to be done to make an idea like this work.

First off, I would suggest a fairly unique car design system.  It would allow players to change the shape of the car, the placement of the driver and the engine, the size of the wheels, and all sorts of other spiffy details.  This sort of technology would be loosely based upon the technology used to make the creatures in Spore not fall over their own feet and burst into flames upon creation, and would thus allow a great deal of creative freedom.  Once you have your unique car and a spiffy little avatar which can be launched out during particularly violent crashes, you are set loose in the world.  Literally, you appear in the game world, and an ominous voice calls out "Welcome to the world!  Go!"

Players would receive offers for missions of various sorts over a radio, with these missions ranging from completing feats of daring driving skill, to delivering items from one place to another, to destroying various objects.  The player can simply refuse these missions or turn off their radio if they just want to roam around unbothered by that noise (the game would have some elements to encourage free-roaming too).  Also, one other type of mission would tend to show up often, these being classic checkpoint races.  However, the player, and the computer cars he is racing, would not get their own instance to race in.  These races would happen in the very same game world where everything else is going on.  This can lead to some griefing, of course, but that sort of behavior is half the fun.

Indeed, this would be a game that doesn't take itself too seriously.  You drive, you crash, you run over pedestrians who explode fantastically upon your windscreen.   The assorted voice actors would be hilariously campy and over the top, the settings would be large enough to allow the players to explore the strange, strange world, and the music, well, I'm thinking some kind of metal.

One last note.  I'm not sure how Boss Battles would be done in a game like this, but it'll be completely worth it if you get to destroy a demonicly possessed skyscraper by ramming through it with your car.

To me, an MMORPG is, indeed, a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game.  However, more specifically, it is a video game played over the internet that involves a large number of players playing in a single, sustained world using personal avatars of some sort.

That is, admittedly, still a fairly loose definition.

Since we're left to guess on the genre of the game, I'm going with side-scrolling beat-em-up.  One of the ones where you clear a screen and the arrow pops up that says "Go".  It also has historically accurate giant crabs.

I tend to like groups in two different forms, those in the 3 to 4 character range, and those in the 7 to 8 character range.  The former is better for more fast-paced action, but the larger groups are better for situations that call for more firepower.  Quite frankly, playing in groups that are larger then that just results in people getting lost in the shuffle.

Plus those smaller groups allow for more personal interaction, which I am quite fond of myself.

Originally posted by Draklon

Too bad the original Marvel MMO was cancelled.

 

Hmz, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Universe_Online:

 

Marvel Universe Online was the previous working title of Champions Online. The MMO game was developed by Cryptic Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for Microsoft Windows Vista and Xbox 360 platforms using a license from Marvel.

IGN stated that Marvel Universe Online would take history from 60 years of Marvel Comics as well as integrate current events in the comic books for the next five to ten years.

However, the project was changed on Feb. 11, 2008 due to what a Microsoft spokesperson referred to as "an inability to compete" with the current MMO marketplace. Less than a week later, Cryptic Studios announced that development would continue using a new IP license of The Champions (Hero Universe), a superhero-based role playing game.
 

"An Inability To Compete" has been generally translated to mean that someone on either the Microsoft or Marvel side of the tracks, or quite possibly both of them, got cold feet.  Cryptic found a new dance partner in the Champions series, and went with that.

As for the topic at hand, Blizzard is not, never has been, and never will, make a Marvel universe game.  There is no justification for it that makes any sort of reasonable sense.

I do love our cheeky mods.

Originally posted by grunty

Originally posted by Knived11

Originally posted by RetroMonster

 I have no Idea if its even close to a MMORPG, but it's wicked fun. True gamers play this game.

 

"True Gamers"? what is your definition of a "True Gamer"? if you don't mind me asking.

 

Someone who wasn't born when Zork hit the floppy disk.

Heck, he probably doesn't even know what a floppy is.  And now, if you listen close, I bet you can hear him scurrying to Wikipedia to look it up.

I'm pretty fond of the idea of sports-based MMOs.  Each club would act as something of a guild, with the owner and players of their choice coaching and having control of the finances, while players would play and manage their player's growth individually.  It would effectively combine single-player building and customization akin to a normal MMORPG, with the team management of browser games like hattrick.

A fun game with a good deal of character customization.  I'm not hard to please on the gameplay front, but if my character looks like armor-clad medieval warrior #252000000 then I'm probably not going to become attached to them and stick around.  Meanwhile, if my character looks unusual set against the rest of the player characters in the immidiate area, then I am going to feel that the character is more interesting, and thus grow more attached.  It's probably why I stuck with City of Heroes for as long as I did, and why I'm looking forward to the upcoming superhero games.

If there was an "Other" option it would probably be winning.

It's unfortunate that there aren't more titles featuring steampunk or clockpunk elements.  There is a great deal of room for creativity in those styles that tends to get passed over in favor of knights, dragons, elves, gnomes, and frightfully large amounts of forests.

I would play the hell out of that sort of game.  Something where a player could advance by exploring, or crafting equipment or weapons for other players, without being forced to go kill monsters to become stronger.  It doesn't make a lick of sense that I have to have a sufficient bodycount before I can learn how to sew a poofy shirt; I should be able to sew the poofy shirt once I become good enough at sewing to do so.