The [MMO] RPG Brainstorm Thread

[Joseph Porta]

Disclaimer: Sorry for my english I might have fucked up here and there... 

Hello and welcome to this thread!

I have now been around here for a little while, and I think that our community consists of fairly concious gamers that know what is good and what isn't in games. So I wondered what game mechanics would attract you to a game.

So, my request for you guys is to share the ideas you have for a game that you would buy, and play as much as you have played Mount & Blade.

With the upcoming Donkey Crew game I think it'd be relevant and interesting to brainstorm with TOP SECRET in your mind, and to be more precise the [EPIC]^gekados side of the game.

What is it that you would like to see? How would you regulate PvP? Or how do you picture the Hunting & Gathering mechanics? Would you like something akin to an auction house? Or should trade only go player to player? How would travelling work? Would your game include Fast-Travel? Or would it not.

I think you guys could bring up very interesting idea's about how and in what way things could work.

A request:
please spoiler your idea's with titles that state the category it belongs to, for example: trade, PvP, Questing, PvE or Social. Ofcourse there are far more options but that is somewhat obvious.


I'll start!

Trading

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I think not having an Auction House could be very interesting, the entire idea of an auction house is, imo, very unpersonal. But how would one advertise his goods to the other, letting the others know what he's got for sale.

I think around the world all supermarkets have those little notice boards on which people can advertise their stuff, I think something similar to this could work. It would be solely an add, for the actual trade you'd have to go to the seller, or vice versa, and have player to player contact.

I think this creates for a more social environment and a lot more immersion then talking to a robot.

Another idea of mine is that the shops would strictly be filled by the players gathered items, with prices fluctuating depending on wether the shop is stocked or not.

This would also add the interesting aspect of a trade good being low on stock, which would result in players 'massively' trying to grind that good for a good profit before its filled up again and the prices will dwindle.
These shop items are only basic mats, player crafted items will only be traded p2p.

Naturally there are a lot of things to consider and work out to make it work, you got to take the playerbase in mind, S&D things, prices etc. Nothing is certain untill it is actual being played by a large audience.

I think alot of you guys are bloody excited about TOP SECRET, and have fantasized aswell about how you hope it will look like in the end.

Maybe we can even conjure some good ideas with which the Donkey Crew can do something with!

[Joseph Porta]

Reserved, I will archive and categorize all your ideas because I have nothing to do with my life!

(click to show/hide)

travelling, world infrastructure, PvP, merchanting

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Travelling should, imo, be fairly safe. But there should also be a rewarding risk to it.

Roads should be PvP free area's over which you can travel safely, but as soon as you go off the road, say 10 meters from it, you are able to be attacked by others.

You might think that this is boring but wait, i'm not done yet.

There should be considerable shorter roads to your destination, but with the shorter travel time also comes a risk, these roads will have PvP enabled.

A little paint drawing on how I think the world could be devided into parts.
red: dangerous road
Blue: safe road
Green: major towns

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


This is just a rough example, Obviously safe roads should follow geological logical roads, whilst shortcuts should go through forests, mountain passes and that kind of stuff. Keep in mind that bandits will most likely operate from a place from which they will be able to escape the law easily, thus making forests ideal for this.


Wy would you take the shorter road then?

With this question we come to the next idea that was in my mind: trade caravans.

It will function as a quest, but the reward will be bound to the time it takes you to get to the destination. The profit for a fast delivery should be exponentially(balanced, ofc.) bigger then one that takes the regular safe road. Naturally this should be balanced with the minimum time the short and long roads take to get there in mind.

This is seriously interesting for the group making aspect aswell, if you have more people that need to make a delivery you can group up and take on the dangerous road together, everyone will profit more! Social aspects etc etc.

Trade caravans

(click to show/hide)

a little more info on this.

I mentioned in my earlier post about trading and shops solely being filled by player supplies. Well this could be perfectly combined with the caravan system. Say in town A good 1 is in abundance, but trading good 2 is in shortage, whilst in town B it is the other way around.

Town A will then send caravans with good 1 to town B, whilst town. B will send good 2 towards town A.
This creates a very livid and interactive environment I think, the players will supply the goods, and move them around the world themselves!

This is awesome imo, its like a frigging living world.

Now, the goods.

Goods should be obtained in designated areas, BUT gathering in the wild should be much more profitable.

Towns should have mines etc, but with a low 'drop' rate.

But then you would  say, well, lets just mine this shit right next to the road! Well, it wont work like that, imo it would be ideal to devide the forests/whatevs into levels, the deeper you go in the more rewarding it should be.
Plus the outer world holds unsuspected surprises, where in the mines youd only find iron you could find a gold vein in the outside world! Or something else, this is just an example.

Again the group aspect of this is cool, go with a band of jolly adventurers and gather stuff in deep no mans land!

[Thryn]

I'd buy Mount & MMO

like a good PW



that isn't shitty

like pw is

thx

[Joseph Porta]

Naturally that is what I want too, but I made this thread to discuss individual mechanics, not the overall idea.

(Not hating btw )

[Joseph Porta]

travelling, world infrastructure, PvP, merchanting

(click to show/hide)

Travelling should, imo, be fairly safe. But there should also be a rewarding risk to it.

Roads should be PvP free area's over which you can travel safely, but as soon as you go off the road, say 10 meters from it, you are able to be attacked by others.

You might think that this is boring but wait, i'm not done yet.

There should be considerable shorter roads to your destination, but with the shorter travel time also comes a risk, these roads will have PvP enabled.

A little paint drawing on how I think the world could be devided into parts.
red: dangerous road
Blue: safe road
Green: major towns

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


This is just a rough example, Obviously safe roads should follow geological logical roads, whilst shortcuts should go through forests, mountain passes and that kind of stuff. Keep in mind that bandits will most likely operate from a place from which they will be able to escape the law easily, thus making forests ideal for this.


Wy would you take the shorter road then?

With this question we come to the next idea that was in my mind: trade caravans.

It will function as a quest, but the reward will be bound to the time it takes you to get to the destination. The profit for a fast delivery should be exponentially(balanced, ofc.) bigger then one that takes the regular safe road. Naturally this should be balanced with the minimum time the short and long roads take to get there in mind.

This is seriously interesting for the group making aspect aswell, if you have more people that need to make a delivery you can group up and take on the dangerous road together, everyone will profit more! Social aspects etc etc.

Trade caravans

(click to show/hide)

a little more info on this.

I mentioned in my earlier post about trading and shops solely being filled by player supplies. Well this could be perfectly combined with the caravan system. Say in town A good 1 is in abundance, but trading good 2 is in shortage, whilst in town B it is the other way around.

Town A will then send caravans with good 1 to town B, whilst town. B will send good 2 towards town A.
This creates a very livid and interactive environment I think, the players will supply the goods, and move them around the world themselves!

This is awesome imo, its like a frigging living world.

Now, the goods.

Goods should be obtained in designated areas, BUT gathering in the wild should be much more profitable.

Towns should have mines etc, but with a low 'drop' rate.

But then you would  say, well, lets just mine this shit right next to the road! Well, it wont work like that, imo it would be ideal to devide the forests/whatevs into levels, the deeper you go in the more rewarding it should be.
Plus the outer world holds unsuspected surprises, where in the mines youd only find iron you could find a gold vein in the outside world! Or something else, this is just an example.

Again the group aspect of this is cool, go with a band of jolly adventurers and gather stuff in deep no mans land!

[Berserkadin]

For trading, you could always use shops. Would also be interesting with fairs, auctions and such, like events where players can meet up and trade in a more accesible way. This way players will have to interact to trade, and it's even better if prices of goods will flaculate due to supply & demand (bartering is !FUN!).

[Joseph Porta]

For trading, you could always use shops. Would also be interesting with fairs, auctions and such, like events where players can meet up and trade in a more accesible way. This way players will have to interact to trade, and it's even better if prices of goods will flaculate due to supply & demand (bartering is !FUN!).

I definetly want player to player trading aswell, but I also think this is a way to make the world very alive and immersive. Naturally not everything will be available in shops just the basic raw materials everyone needs. What is created out of them will not be in shops, besides a basic sword and board, or some pants and boots.

(Check my latest post, i ninja edited it!  )

[Grumbs]

I just want a spiritual successor to Ultima Online before they split the realms in two so you couldn't attack people. That pretty much nailed MMO design for me. Risk vs reward, freedom, full loot, thievery, sandbox housing + player owned shops, proper alignment system, dynamic events just by wandering around (well you stumbled upon people and would decide how to engage with them), traps you could set etc. Looking back I guess the combat wasn't great, but it did a lot of stuff right and hasn't been successfully emulated since

Darkfall and Mortal Online come closest, but each have their own problems. DF isn't really much of a sandbox and Mortal I don't think ever had a good engine, but I didn't play past the beginning

[Joseph Porta]

I just want a spiritual successor to Ultima Online before they split the realms in two so you couldn't attack people. That pretty much nailed MMO design for me. Risk vs reward, freedom, full loot, thievery, sandbox housing + player owned shops, proper alignment system, dynamic events just by wandering around (well you stumbled upon people and would decide how to engage with them), traps you could set etc. Looking back I guess the combat wasn't great, but it did a lot of stuff right and hasn't been successfully emulated since

Darkfall and Mortal Online come closest, but each have their own problems. DF isn't really much of a sandbox and Mortal I don't think ever had a good engine, but I didn't play past the beginning

I have heard about ultima, but neveer personally played it, neither the other two.. So i'm kind of blind here, so to speak.

[Thryn]

Mortal = great idea, poor execution


Lord British is coming out with a new mmo btw, https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/

[Joseph Porta]

Mortal = great idea, poor execution


Lord British is coming out with a new mmo btw, https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/

Looks pretty cool! Ill keep my eye on this one

[Grumbs]

Yeah I feel like Richard Garriott is kind of past it when it comes to games. I don't really think hes got the interest in making something that builds on the strengths of UO. I've seen some interviews a while ago and I just didn't get much of a positive impression. Hes more into WoW style game design I think now

[Joseph Porta]

Besides texture/art it doesnt look very wow-ish to me.

[Thryn]

i just really love his take on player housing

[Joseph Porta]

Do you guys also like elaborate crafting systems?