Build-A-MMO

[ubernoob]

Okay, so here goes. Something new for the forum, but I have zero idea if anyone else will be interested.

Basically I want this to be an open-ended discussion (argument spot/pining/whatever else) about what we, personally, feel is important in today's stagnant MMO scene. I'd love to see in-depth "system crafting" (for lack of a better term) but really, just discussions about MMOs.

I'll start off with an open-ended question and my answers.

What are the three most important things to you when looking at MMOs (or, what would the three most important things to you be if you were to build your MMO from the ground up to be what you wanted it to be?) However, feel free to talk about anything you wish here. I just want it to be an open-ended rolling discussion.

In no particular order, these would be my three.

A - Payment Model
- For me, this has to be near the top of the list. No free-to-play. Some type of demo (Like WoW has 1-20 is free to check out the game.) This provides a solid, predictable income without the need for development and money being devoted to how to get people to spend money. Free-to-play games (not games that started sub then went f2p) are literally designed about getting people to part with their money. That is the #1 most important thing for those games. Maybe it is my old-school nature but F2P has zero business being in MMO games. It's fine (and actually a fantastic system) for games like TF2, LoL and DotA but let's leave it where it belongs and not try to fit a square peg in a round hole.

B - Content Delivery Style
- Again, old-school mentality here coming back. I want no instancing in my games, in terms of the way players today think of it. Having zone lines separating the physical zones (a la Everquest) is fine, especially if it helps server performance. However, the entire world should be open - and not gated, outside of keys/special circumstances. If the first thing I wanted to do upon logging in to the game for the first time was to run and see everything... I should be able to - if I can avoid getting killed in the process (which I couldn't.) Also, zero queueing up for dungeons and no cross-server stuff. Bring back the community of the game actually mattering. For all the good LFD/LFR queues bring, it also helps in killing the game community.

C - PvE/Crafting intertwining
- I actually have a notebook full of stupid ideas for the game I will never have the money/skills needed required to make, but this one is one of the main things for me. Crafting (and I am not a crafter in games, but it may be for this particular reason) should matter, but it should also mean that if you want to be one of the top crafters in the game you need to devote time to this. I want everyone to be able to do everything, but I also want a specialization in some sort. If I devote more of my time to raiding, I'll probably be a better raider than you. If I devote more of my time to PvP, I'll probably be a better PvPer than you. So on and so forth. The same goes for characters in game. Crafting shouldn't just be something "oh everyone can make this epic item". It should be it's own living, breathing world in game.

Like I said, feel free to post anything. I'll go in-depth on more ideas I have for systems later (plus it'll take forever for me to type up/break into readable paragraphs and such.) The questions are just there to help get some discussion started.

[KSUowls]

Re: Build-A-MMO

Lets see how many I can come up with. A lot of these ideas I am taking from an old MMO I used to play called Shadowbane which was centered around PvP.

1 - Payment model. I first started playing MMO's around 2003 so I am a bit old school in this regard, but I like the monthly fee model. I have a general dislike for the micro-transaction model for any genre of game simply because I guess I have the mentality that I bought the game and I should have full access to it (expansion packs not-withstanding). So, I don't like having to decide if I want to shell out a few bucks to pay for something that looks cool or gives me a slight bonus, and I absolutely refuse to play any Pay-2-Win model game.

2 - Open World PvP. If I am playing a game with thousands of other people and I want to be play against them (PvP). There is a certain intensity you feel when playing a true open world pvp game. I'm not talking about something like the WvWvW instances in Guild Wars or Battlegrounds in WoW where you willingly commit yourself to go into an area where everyone is fair game. No, in a true sandbox pvp game you willingly commit yourself to attacking or being attacked by anyone every time you log in.

3 - PvP with consequences (an extension of #2 on my list). There has to be some kind of partial loot and destruction system. I am not for full loot where you lose all of the items your character has equipped, but things like items and gold you have picked up while farming should be fair game. This forces players to be more cautious when roaming around and provides real rewards to the victors in a pvp game. I get completely bored with most modern MMO's featuring PvP because the PvP is meaningless. You fight, someone loses, and beyond having to respawn at your last bindpoint there are no other reasons to feel bad about losing.

4 - The Holy Trinity. I never though I would put this as a requirement, but given the trend over the last several years in MMOs...The holy trinity just means that there is a class system like Healer/Tank/Mage. To me this creates a level of strategy and specialization that you do not get in many recent games which allow you to be a sort of jack of all trades character.

5 - Character customization. Provide multiple classes, multiple ways of playing those classes, and the tools to specialize your character into a defined role. There should be a system to allocate skill points ever level into things like Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, etc and to allocate into various spells and/or abilities unique to your class. This way you can have 5 different characters of the same race/class combination, but all 5 can be unique with the way the player decided to allocate his skill points. The characters can then be either further specialized or more evenly balanced through equipment gained from crafting/drops.

6 - Player cities that are destructible. I have to say that the most exciting times I have ever had in a MMO were when I was a part of a clan either attacking or defending a player built city against another clan. Whether the city stood or fell the battle that was fought for it was always epic.

[ubernoob]

Re: Build-A-MMO

2 - Open World PvP. If I am playing a game with thousands of other people and I want to be play against them (PvP). There is a certain intensity you feel when playing a true open world pvp game. I'm not talking about something like the WvWvW instances in Guild Wars or Battlegrounds in WoW where you willingly commit yourself to go into an area where everyone is fair game. No, in a true sandbox pvp game you willingly commit yourself to attacking or being attacked by anyone every time you log in.

Ooh, this leads me to an intriguing question as well.

Would you consider a game a sandbox if it didn't have open-world PvP that you could avoid?

Personally, I still would and I am sick and tired of seeing people say that FFA open-world PvP is a necessity for "sandboxes."

Take SW:G for example. For all that the game did wrong, it did a ton right. The crafting was fantastic. The PvP was just downright smart.

You weren't flagged for PvP unless you did something (and it was a toggle-able flag, but not quite in the way that WoW is) to show.

For instance: If you were a Jedi, you were flagged. That's just how that worked, because Jedis and BH were mortal enemies. If you were wearing faction armor (like stormtrooper armor) that flagged you, because duh... you're openly admitting you're a soldier of whoever. If you were doing a quest that had you killing members of the other faction in the civil war, that flagged you. Everything about it had *some* type of consensual action that took place whether that action was overt or covert.

[KSUowls]

Re: Build-A-MMO

I think a small zone for new players that is a safe area is not the worst thing. Perhaps even one or two small safe havens in various parts of the world where players can go to trade/craft and such. In general though, the more opportunities you offer players to avoid pvp the more the experience is lost.

In some ways SW:G pvp model made sense. Wear a storm troopers armor and then the alliance knows you are an enemy, but that was because of the specific lore of the franchise. That is not the ideal situation to me though. I do not care for the Realm vs. Realm aspect of games like SW:G, Guild Wars, WoW, or even something like Dark Age of Camelot which was RvRvR. The best MMO I ever played was a game called Shadowbane. There were not any pre-defined alliances. Alliances were developed by the players which made it one big free for all, and it created a political atmosphere that would put Star Wars lore to shame. You could identify other players by guild tags hanging over their heads, and if you did not have my clan tags then I knew you were not an ally. It created an interesting community dynamic that is rarely seen in modern MMOs.

So to answer your question in short. I would not consider that type of game a sandbox. Not in the literal definition of it anyway. In the same way a game like Skyrim is a sandbox single player game, an MMO would need to allow for virtually unfiltered freedom. The consequences of your actions are of course yours to deal with, but that was always part of the fun to me.