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o   Economy : having a realistic close circuit economy seems difficult to get flexible with player number variations, etc? It can potentially require a lot of manual adjustment.

Our main example is Star Wars Galaxies (and Ultima Online). That game we loved and we think, that was the right direction, which MMORPGs should have gone.

In SWG there was an almost 100% player driven economy and it worked fantastic. Their main failure was, that they allowed endless money to flow into the game and the inflation become uncontrollable . Player could grind millions of credits doing fighter missions in 2-3 hours and the money sink features could not get that money out of the game.

If we can learn from their failures, and design the system so, that inflation can?t run out of control, we can hold the economy flexible jus by a little adjustment here or there.

The players will create their prices and values automatically, depending on a few predetermined values, like fees and taxes etc.

Player numbers will change the prices for sure, but it should be selfbalancing. If more people come, the demand may raise and with it the prices too. If players go away, the demand sinks and the prices too.

If it seems, that the prices are getting too high, we can let new capital flow into the game or take it away again, if there is too much money in the game.

I know, it sounds simple and maybe na?ve and I am not an economic scientist, but I think, what works in real life, should work in a game too.

Prices and economy arise in every game, where trading is allowed, no matter if goods come from loot or from crafters. Every game has its high value items, which have a price, made by the players, so you can?t really make a failsafe system, which never has to be adjusted.

We just think, it?s better to let the people do it by themselves. It?s their game and it?s much more fun.

?   There is a huge amount of user-created and user-dependent content, which can be very resource-consuming to run:
o   Player made skills and quests, very open crafting : will there be a form of control on it (validation/nerfing?). If crafting is so open, with uncertain recipes, etc, how will it be implemented (will there be a random component)?

Renaissance has a strong backstory, which is the backbone of the game. There is enough static content in the game to be able to play without GM events or player made quests.

Player made quests are just a little extra to give the players the possibility to make their own roleplaying. These features, we are talking about are highly demanded features by mature players almost in every MMORP games and on every MMORPG-forum.

We are sure, if we give them the tools, they will use them and so they even disencumber the development and GM team. If they don?t use them, there is still enough content in the game, making it fun for a long time.

At the beginning player made quests are based on things only, which are allowed by the system, so there is a validating process in it, but it occurs automatically. There is no need for a GM or a control process by a real person.

Crafting:
There are predetermined recipes of craftable items in the system, of course, but the recipes have no fix values, telling you, which metal and how much of them you need, just variables.

A recipe to a simple sword can look like this:

Neded resources metal:
min 10
max 50

Needed slots:
min 2
max 4

Needed parts:
Hilt

There are resources, which are marked as metals, so you can use them by crafting a sword. The real values of the sword will be generated dynamically depending on the values of the metals and other things, explained in the document. This sword will be then created in the database and it will be just moved from player to player, when traded.

The recipes differ from weapon class to weapon class. A short sword has another recipe, than a bastard sword and maybe there are different recipes between two bastard swords too, but the recipes are not the real point. They just give the basic, what has to be considered in the crafting process. The real point is in the material, the skills, the place, the god and much more. These are all modifiers in the formula, which influence the values, the formula is working with.

Like creating two characters never result in the same character, crafting a sword never results in the same sword. Based on the same recipe, every sword is a bit different.

A similar system was created for SWG too. It was not so open, but the main idea was similar. There you could experiment on an item and change it?s values.

In Renaissance we don?t even need so many different recipes, because we don?t have to determine the values of each sword one by one. In other games you have 20 different swords made by 20 different recipes, which had to be calculated and written by a poor guy in the office. In Renaissance the basics are the same for all swords in the same category, but the modifiers make the swords different, so while you need 20 recipes for 20 swords in other games, you need 1 recipe for 200 swords in Renaissance.

Nerfing/adjusting/balancing will probably occur rather by resources and other variables, not by the recipes themselves. That means, we must nerf the stats of the resources or even the calculating values of the formulas, if some of the items get to powerful.

o   Similarly, having every item lootable and stealable can be an issue with Ebay sales : being a thief in the game could be a way to get rich in real life too?

Thievery should be PvE content in the first line, but it should be a lifestyle too. Looting and stealing items from players is very hard. It is very time consuming and interruptible. It generates bad charma and stolen items are also marked as such, until they get into the natural loot circuit.

If somebody is being caught with contraband, the item gets back to its owner, if he is known and trackable.

Items can be enchanted, helping the owner to track the item, or the item even comes back by its own to the owner etc.

Players can store their items in banks or in their houses, which can be defended by traps and other mechanisms. There are enough security mechanics, which prevent a thief to get too rich in a short time.

It has no sense to announce a stolen item on eBay, because the item is useless for others. Nobody would buy a stolen item a second time and it will make the round very quick, that a player must pay attention, what he buys on eBay. So the thief would sit on his items and couldn?t make a penny.

Players buy a special item for real money, because they can?t afford it in game. They have not enough money or no time or no desire to go for the item - which is mostly an uber loot item - by themselves.

The second thing, which is beloved on eBay is ingame currency. As written in the document, there is the XXX system in Renaissance, so a player can always have the needed money in game to get the desired item.

If everybody can always get enough money, they don?t need to buy it on eBay.

There is no uber loot item in Renaissance, so nobody can sell them on eBay. Everything comes from crafters, so if a crafter can make uber items, the player can contact him and ask for such an item. They will probably cost much money, but through the XXX system, the player can always afford the needed amount of money.

Again Star Wars Galaxies: You have never ever seen an item selling on eBay from SWG, because there was nothing, what another player couldn?t get relatively easy. From SWG the only thing on eBay was money. I think, I don?t have to explain it any further.

Of course there may be cases, we can?t estimate without a playable version of the game, but we are aware of the problem and we will find a way to solve it, if we discover a possibility for such illegal activities.

I hope, you see, we don?t just invent cool features without thinking about it twice.
We know, there are cheater and griefer and people, who try to trick the system. We are long time gamer and we know, what other gamers might think and try and exactly that?s why there are ?harsh? rules. But we try to turn these rules into fun.

?   Finally, a lot of aspect seems very harsh on players (everything can be stolen, 48 hours notice when sieges then hourly penalties ? what happens if I?m on holidays?, jail and pillory ? do I want to pay a subscription and not being able to play?, item that lose stats even when repaired ) which can restrict the game?s audience

These things may seam harsh for the first look, but they have a reason (maybe just roleplaying, maybe technical) and we try to design them so, that also if it is a penalty, it gives another kind of fun and experience.

Jail:
We need to prevent people doing certain things just for cheating or griefing. For example you know for sure the problem of PlayerKillers.

You have the standard options from other games: You don?t allow PvP or make an extra PvP server or you make level restrictions or you make non PvP areas in the game or you don?t even let opposite factions into certain areas etc.

We don?t like these options. We say, there must be in game rules, which regulate these kinds of things automatically and in a roleplaying and lifelike atmosphere. If somebody kills newbies in a row for fun, it is not good, because these newbies won?t stay long in the game, but we also don?t want to restrict those people, who want to play a killer in the world as a role. So we design laws. If you don?t like the penalties, you probably think twice, before you do something, what can ruin the game of another player, but if you want to play an evil person, you must live with the consequences.

Going to jail happens not every day 10 times. You must be a very bad person and have been caught many times to actually go to jail. You wanted it this way. We have been warning you many times.
So if you go to jail, it does not mean, you must sit there for days and you can?t do anything.
You can try to trick the guards and brake out, or you can solve riddles and find a secret tunnel or even you can call your friends, who can get you out by brute force. The jail is an instanced dungeon and like in any other dungeon, you have to fight mobs to reach your goal.

So as you can see, such things are penalties, but if you are smart or you have friends, you can make it to an extra experience and a few hours extra fun and it makes the world believable and lifelike.

The 48 hour siege thing:
An MMORPG is not only killing mobs. Renaissance should be a game, where people have to (and want to) socialize, where they can come together and just trade or talk, dance, roleplay and have fun.

A siege is a thing, which happens also not every day 10 times, but rather seldom. A siege is a very important thing and it has to have the feeling of a siege. When an army sieges a town, there has to be an army around the town. If there are 10 guys with a sword, then it is not a siege, but a simple attack.

When my guild wants to take your city, I have to make an ultimatum and there is a deadline for the fight, so you can prepare to defend your city and I can prepare for a strategy, how to attack the city. Now let say, we attack tomorrow at 12 o?clock. Ten to 12 there are 5 guys, who are interested to fight the city. Not good.

So we said, a siege is a guild thing, a big happening. If you want take the advantage your fighters have to gather around the city. But isn?t it unfair, if I am waiting for the fight since 30 hours next to the city, but Average Joe, who had no interest to come, because he wanted to grind XP, can do so and he does not get a penalty?

The next time I will come within the last 10 minutes too! But wait, then everybody comes just 10 minutes before the war begins?

If there is nobody around the town, because we don?t dare to tell the players, that there is the rule and they have to follow them, if they want to take a city from other people, than spies and diplomats and assassins can?t do their jobs.

If we are afraid of harsh rules, because we might lose subscribers, than we should also be afraid of loosing those people, whose city was taken over without any notice or possibility to prepare for the war. Or we can get rid of the idea to make a game, where an army can siege a city and make a cookiecutter game, where the player has nothing to do, just raid the same dungeon the tenth time a day.

When an army gathers around a town to siege it, it?s a perfect opportunity for traders and dancers and thieves and beggars to go there and do their stuff and get a little cash. It is an event in itself, without having to use or allocate GM power.

We think, it is more fun to follow rules and being part of a big event, than to have the freedom to do anything else, instead of defending our city or helping our guild mates. And exactly for this is the penalty. You can go and do your thing, if you don?t want to be part of the event, but then you must pay in exchange.

You see, we just want to make it fun for everyone. We don?t wake up in the morning and ask ourselves, how should we mess around with players today, but we want to make a roleplaying game, which is different and you can breath in the world and live a second life.

XXX

To summarize, there are a lot of original and interesting ideas (crafting system, XXX, children, diplomacy, bounty hunting ?) but I would be very cautious on some aspects:
?   Difficulty ? for development (optimizing resources) and for players (game complexity and harshness). The game seems to go in a very hardcore direction, which can put part of the audience off ? MMOs are very expensive so being a niche product may not be profitable.

Most of the features of Renaissance are already working mechanisms in other games. We just developed them further. So these are features with precedence.

Beside the things, we want to play in a game, our ideas are coming from Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, Horizons, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes etc., and of course from many MMORPG discussion boards on the internet.

The game should be a real roleplaying game. It may seem very hardcore, but it isn?t really. It is just a virtual world, where everybody can do, what he wants to do. People are waiting for such a game since years.

You can look at the boards of Dark&Light. They have over 300 000 registered users (and those, who don?t want to talk, just read), but all of them are pissed off, because the developers messed up the game. The 10 000 preorder accounts were taken within 3 seconds(!), back the days, when people still had hope, they get a hardcore PvP game.

Ten thousands are waiting for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, because they believe, this will be THE roleplaying game, because it comes from the maker of EverQuest.
They will be disappointed, when it comes out.

Thousands are waiting for Mourning, but it won?t make it, if we look at their history.
Thousands are waiting for Darkfall, but the development lasts years, because they try to make it alone, without money. The graphics look already a little bit old.

There are hundreds of fan projects, which try to make exactly this, what we try with Renaissance.

The only two big sandbox games were very successful.
Ultima Online still has a few thousand subscribers, after 10 years.
Star Wars Galaxies had 500 000 before the NGE although it was a very special setting, which doesn?t apply for all.

So complexity is not a problem, I think. There will be enough people, who would love to pay for such a game.

We believe, that nobody can make an ?Egg laying woolmilk sow? (like the Germans say). That should mean, you can?t make a game for everybody. We believe, it is more important to choose a target audience and stick with it.

We know, that World of Warcraft is a very attractive game from the financial point of view and everybody is trying to get there, where they are, but it won?t work. WoW collected all the features from other action adventure games, refined them and put them together. Nobody can do it a second time. Nobody can break this success with the same concept.

We try to make something similar with the roleplaying elements of other games. We look at the best features, refine them and put them together. Some day, the players of WoW, who don?t know any other games, because WoW is their first one, will get bored (if not already) with the endless itemgrind. They grow up and then they will look for a more mature game, which provide them another level of fun.

If somebody takes the risk now and develops a really good sandbox type game in a virtual world with fantasy setting, which is the future of MMORPGs, will be the next Blizzard and his name will be noted in the Hall of Fame.

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