Build your dream MMO.Follow

So I was wandering home from town yesterday and thinking of how I'd make an MMORPG, I couldnt think of anything original so I started to piece one together from bits of other games.

I thought It would be cool to see how other people would build their ultimate mmorpg.

Heres mine:

Genre: Planetside - Sci-fi; big guns, armour suits, endless war.
Art style: Team Fortress 2 - Serious but not boring environments and cartooney (not anime) characters.
Classes: Rising Forces Online - That game had everything and no hybrids.
Meele dps
Tank
Ranger
Stealther
Crafter
Mech Driver
Wizard
Healbot
Combat style: Fable - 3rd person default with the ability to go to 1st person to aim precision shots (ganks) with your spells and abilities. Tab targetting for close range.
Leveling curve: Diablo 2 - Very fast leveling for the early levels then slows to the point you stop trying to level and just play.
Raiding: EverQuest Classic (PoP) - Bosses are more of a gearcheck than a minigame, some raids requiring 50+ players to kill.
PvP: Warhammer Online - Small scale skirmishes for simple objectives at low levels,large scale open pvp at the endgame. Kill people, earn points, get rewards+xp.
Story: Dungeon Siege 2 - "used to be a nobody, wrong place wrong time, off to save the world" story with fairly intense mini storylines along the way.
I'm sure I'll think of more.


Cmon folks share your ultimate MMO. :)

Edited, Feb 6th 2010 2:50am by rsjabber

Edited, Feb 6th 2010 2:50am by rsjabber

Oh yeah,

I forgot to add that I'd abuse the hell outa Warhammers "public quests" idea.

If a few people are farming/questing in one area solo the game would throw them in a semi-party where they share kill credit and get an xp bonus for mobs they damage/kill, would be great to get people communicating :)

I'd base it off Wild ARMs, with customizable guns.

This is something I've thought and written about quite a bit before, and you can read some of what I've thought here and here.

I might be a bit full of myself, but I do think I have some pretty darn good ideas. What I've thought about primarily isn't related to settings, story, or art. All of that is cosmetic trivialities to me. Monopoly and Star Wars monopoly are almost entirely the same game. What concerns me is the core fundamental game play, and that is what I have tried to think and write about.
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Classes and Roles

To start with I want to differentiate to terms: classes and roles. A role is a function a character performs in combat. Common roles seen in most MMORPGS include: tank, healer, damage dealer, buffer, debuffer, crowd control, puller. A class is a character type that is able to perform one or more of these roles (effectively). Sometimes classes tend to perform only one roll very well (paladins in FFXI tend to only tank and not do too much else), where others--hybrids--can perform several roles very well (Red mages in FFXI are able to heal and debuff very effectively).

I believe pigeonholing classes into one role is a flaw in many MMORPGS. In Lotro for example there is only one class that can tank (the guardian), and that class can only tank. In my opinion that is a huge problem. You have two issues. 1) A class that performs only one role. 2) A role that can only be performed by one class.

The first issue is one of player boredom. I find it very boring and frustrating to be limited to only one role. I remember on the WoW boards how protection warriors would constantly complain about how annoying it was for them to farm, because they had specced to tank and only tank. This was later mitigated with the release of dual specs. But in my opinion no class should ever be limited to one role. Every class in the game should be a hybrid. Personally I really enjoy buffing, but sometimes it's fun to do something different. Having options makes a game better. I think it also makes the game more interesting. You can be more creative and inventive with strategy and tactics when you can perform more than just one role. It would be nice when you get an add to have the FFXI Samurai turn into a backup tank, or that debuffing Red mage swap over to full time healer. When you have hybrids, you have options; when you have options, you can create fun and interesting situations and solutions.

The second issue is about party formation and role deficits. Because in Lotro only 1 class could tank, you could not complete a group event if you didn't have that one class. Instead of players being pigeonholed into one role, groups get pigeonholed into one class makeup. Tank, healer, damage dealer seems to be the holy trinity of most MMORPGs. If you missing one (tends to be less of a problem with damage dealers), then you out of luck. When every class is a hybrid, then more options open up for group makeup. For example, let's say in one MMORPG you have 1 tank class, 1 damage dealer class, and 1 healer class. If you wanted to form a complete part you would always need one of each of these classes, which makes it very difficult to form groups. But when you make them all hybrids, new possibilities open up. Now you have a Tank/DD, a DD/Healer, and a Healer/Tank. You only need 2 of the 3 in that situation to form a complete party.

You might be wondering "if every class is a hybrid then how do you make them unique?" Two ways. The first is each class would have it's own unique set of roles. A tank/healer for example wouldn't be the only tank in the game or the only healer, but it would be the only class that could tank and heal. No other class brings that set of options to the table. The seond way is to allow for each class to fulfill their hybrid roles uniquely. For example, a tank/healer and a damagedealer/healer can both heal, but maybe the tank/eahler specializes in casting damage absorbing shields and direct heals why the damagedealer/healer specializes in regenerating hp steadily and lifestealing from his damage. They both heal, but they do it in different and unique ways.
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Leveling: Casual and Hard Core

Leveling should be skewed progressively. That is, the more time you spend leveling the less effective it should be. This sounds like it is penalizing people for exping, but that isn't what it is about, it's about boosting up players with less time each day and about encouraging people not to grind but instead have fun. WoW and a few others have already implemented limited versions of this idea. When you logout in WOW you get rested exp, which doubles your exp gain for a time. A player who levels up only on rested exp might take longer to level in real world time than one who cosntantly grinds, but he will take less "game time" to level.

I think rested exp is a good idea, but I want to add to that. On top of rested exp I want to add something that works like a combination of FFXI's BCNM and WoW's daily quest. Once or twice a day players have the option of completing a special quest/boss fight. The rewards both exp and monetary for completing it would be very significant. It should also be very fun and epic feeling, as I found FFXI's BXCNMs and mission fights to be.

For some sample numbers let's say this once a day fight took one hour to complete and gave 3000 exp. Normally through quest grinding you would gain about 1000 exp an hour. This allows more casual gamers to get 3 hours worth of grinding done in only 1 hour. More hardcore players will still outpace casual players, but it will be difficult to gain a substantial lead. It would take a hardcore player 4 hours (3000 exp special fight plus 3 hours grinding) to get twice as much exp as a casual player gets in 1 hour.
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Level Capping

Players should be able to and want to level cap themselves somewhat frequently. This spawns from two other ideas: Player want to play with their friends and MMORPGs shouldn't be focused on endgame.

Players want to play with their friends. Whether they are real life or ones you met in game, you like hanging out with them. However often levels are hard to keep in sync. Maybe you play more often than your friend. Maybe your friend swapped classes. Maybe your friend just started the game after you invited him. Whatever the reason your levels are out of sync. This should not be a problem. Games should allows and encourage friends to play together.

FFXI did it a little late, but did a good job with level sync. In addition to that there were lots of level capped events to do, where friends could fight with each other on equal terms. What I would like to see is that MMORPGs have plenty of options to play with people of lower levels. Not only do players get to play with their friends more easily, but it builds a stronger community by breaking apart the higher level elite country club and encouraging interaction and fraternization amongst all levels.

MMORPGs should not be focused on end game. I should not have to play 50, 60, 75, 80, or how ever many levels there are to get to the good stuff. The good stuff should be strewn out throughout the game. This becomes difficult if you don't allow players to level cap themselves, because then everyone ends up at max level while you're developing content evening for all levels. If you let players level cap themselves, then it makes sense to develop content for lower levels because everyone will be able to appreciate it.

By taking the emphasis off end game you also remove the strain there is on gear progression. In many games, gear becomes the only way to progress at level cap, and since most everyone is stuck at level cap you have to constantly release new and better gear.
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Gear Progression

Lateral not vertical. Almost all problems and drama at end game are the result of this. When you progress gear only linearly you make old gear obsolete and you make old encounters trivial. It's also propagating a continual ephemeral lie. You might be overjoyed to receive your gloves of uberness drop now, but that joy disappears once the bosses inevitably scale up and now your gloves of uberness are considered a required item to even get into the raid that drops gloves of uberness +5.

Lateral progression means unlocking new options and play styles for classes. If a class is form example a swordmage, then give options on drops that can either improve strength and raw sword damage or improve intelligence and the magical enhancements of its sword. Don't just keep making numbers bigger.

Edited, Feb 8th 2010 2:19pm by Allegory