What would you put in YOUR MMO game?

Arthalen

Arthalen

Arthalen

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Trailing around the internet over the past few days I've been searching, even desperately at times for a new MMO that satisfies my tastes and want's from a MMO game.

I've been sorely dissapointed.

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons online for quite some time, and for me its model of 'MMORPG' seems to still fit the closest. But its not got the same gleam and glint it once had, the updates have the lost there potential lustre, the enforcement of playing with the North American market instead of a EU-centric one and many, many other 'niggles' has started to really lessen the experience for me.

Experience. Fun. Key words that really epitomise WHY we play games on a computer in general. Any game or diversion really.... and when something no longer is an 'experience' or simply 'fun', we move on ....

So, after my fruitless search, I began to ponder - just what would I want in the IDEAL MMO game, or dare I say it, an MMORPG?

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Most MMO's have lost the sincere effort of providing an RPG experience. In an MMO, there is no immersion or even NPC Character development, or heck even a real storyline for you to really get to grips with. Recent Single RPGs such as The Witcher and Dragon Age:Origins can and indeed show a proper RPG element - but they were designed that way. Classic titles such as Planescape: Torment, Balder's Gate 2 and even non-PC platform titles such as the Zelda series epitomise this story-telling, immersive aspect. I openly criticise the lack of RPG elements in supposed MMORPGs, after trialling and testing many different MMO games out there.

Grinding has to go. I appreciate the intentions of why developers put Grinding into a game - to give players a long term goal to work to, to create avenues by which a games lifespan may be increased - but I'm sick to the back teeth of this being a games major content. 99% of of the Far-east / Asian MMO designed games are mindless, boring grindfests.

Pidgeon-Holing - I am not a Warrior. Or a 'Mage'. Or a Sniper. This single role 'pidgeon-holing' of people does not create diversity, it creates a system by which everyone is type-cast. Everyone is condsider lesser or greater than the next, based purely on what the game is type-casting you to do. FFS, if I want to I want pick up a shotgun and a sniper rifle, no matter how 'well' I can use either. If I want to dedicate my time while I play a game to learn how to swing a sword and cast the odd cantrip, to learn how to build a cooking fire and mine for copper, then why the hell can I not?

WOW Derivatives - Oh, there are so many cookie cutter MMO's out there now. Auto-attack, press a skill hotkey every three seconds, wait until either your health runs out or there's do. Sound familiar? Go kill 20 white rabbits. Go kill 30 were-bears. Go kill ... a walking tree. YAWWWN! Innovation has stopped in MMO's as everyone is after a slice of the WOW pie. Its not even WOWs fault really. It does what it does really nicely. I'd actually like to see Blizzard make a statement along the lines of "Anyone else copying our game will get sued". Hell, in all honesty Blizzard stole a lot of ideas itself, but its become a victim of its own well-presented, well executed package that has global appeal.

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So, I end my thread with the question in the title - What would you put in YOUR MMO game?

And some example questions you could try answering to help fire your imagination on this topic...

1. What features would you design into your game? List as many as you like..
2. How would you realistically achieve the ideas set out above in a game environment?
3. What features would you like to see disappear from current MMO's?
4. What's ideas or originality from a single player RPG experience would you like to see brought over into an MMO?

Time to put my money where my mouth is....
 
1. Randomisation.

Think Diablo / Diablo 2. so not an original idea, but one that could be implemented in an original way for a MMORPG point of view. Its randomisation extends not only to a MMORPG Environment point of view (dungeon/castle layouts, map styles for some kind of MMOFPS random map generation), but also to a quest/objective point of view too. You talk to a character, and during your conversation he has a need or requirement that results in a quest/mission. Talk to that person again later on, and a new pre-scripted 'type' of quest comes up that results in another randomised dungeon/mission-map generated for the character.

2. Templated Dungeon layouts that can be pre-constructed from peices into a cohesive layout. 'Art' could be pre-fabbed in such a way an intelligent randomiser could create your 'instance' for you.

3. Grinding. For the love of god, Grinding.

4. Randomisation from the Diablo series. Another one is would to love see implemented is the 'generational' play from Phantasy Star 3 on the Sega MegaDrive. Complete a storyline with a character, and your character effectively retires and has a son that is then roleplayed in the next section of the game?

Who needs multiple character slots when the game is designed to continually evolve the character you play from one story arc to the next??
 
future style ala syndicate type world. corporations player is agent for said corporation yada yada yada
 
Fps mmo.

A ffxiv/bfbc2 advancemect style in which you level up but can also level different roles.

Would be primarily pcp based which would be good as even with the best gear you would still need to be a decent fps player or you would still get a good spanking by most others.

Would make chacters and customisation massively diverse with you getting skills rather than points to allocate. Think bioshock in terms of the amount of diversification and how skills would work.

Crafting wise you can make your own gear from stuff you have to gather/salvage and once again can customise the gear to tailor yourself for more specific roles.

Would also have at least partially lootable players after death so living/dying made a difference.

Basically u want a game where skill makes a difference and players are unique from one another.
 
Semiskimmed said:
FPS mmo, borderlands for instance is begging for a MMO game ihmo :)
Click to expand...

The borderlands premise has potential.

I think something mission orientated would suit better though. You don't want to do the same mission over and over again, but randomisation could also take affect.

Also, underground/spacecraft-based FPS combat would be nice and immersive, claustrophobic style a'la Space Hulk or Doom 3.
 
My ideal MMo would be in the Battletech universe.
With space travel done like EvE Online.
Mech combat either in the form of sim like Mechwarrior or 3rd person like Mech Assault. Both work well.
No levels. Skill based. You do more of something, you get better at that something.
Player owned housing and businesses. Day to day runnings by NPC's but you get a say in whats sold etc.

And lots of other stuff I can be arsed to type.
 
OP:

If you like the Star Wars universe, than the Old Republic might blow you away, it is going to be very story driven, and hopefully less of a grind.

Can't wait for it.

To sum up. If I was creating a MMO or MMORPG it would be similar to Old Republic, can't wait :)
 
davewhite04 said:
OP:

If you like the Star Wars universe, than the Old Republic might blow you away, it is going to be very story driven, and hopefully less of a grind.

Can't wait for it.

To sum up. If I was creating a MMO or MMORPG it would be similar to Old Republic, can't wait :)
Click to expand...

Reviews and info so far are not even slightly promising. Looks complete trash. Though there is time for it and it may play better than it looks (though I doubt it very much)
 
No1newts said:
Reviews and info so far are not even slightly promising. Looks complete trash. Though there is time for it and it may play better than it looks (though I doubt it very much)
Click to expand...

You might eat your words my friend, Bioware do not release crap.

Have you got any sources btw?
 
im not sure if it would be ideal to take out grinding as what would you use to replace it? Mmorpgs are a killing mob experience. It would mean change the very structure of the genre. Which may lead to essentially not being a mmorpg then. Im on the fence on that one
 
Great thread idea. I've tried dozens and dozens of MMOs and they're all pretty much the same. If I had the time and money then I would sooo make my own and I'm certain it would be awesome and popular. Thing is, I actually reckon developers are well aware of what the MMO community really want, but they just seem happy shovelling the same crap down our throats. I guess copying another game is a way to make a quick buck and requires little thought. But it would be great to see just one development studio go against the trend and come up with something innovative and original.

Regarding ideas, i've always thought randomisation is massively under used in MMOs, but relatively easy to implement. I'm not talking about random enviroments or interiors as I think that ruins the immersion. I'm taking about random behavior from NPC's or random events that cause a chain reaction of random behavior.

A great example i can think of was while playing WoW a few years ago. I think it may have been just before TBC was released and Blizzard were doing lots of weird things on the servers. I remember logging in one day and running up to Stormwind to cash in a quest or something similar, and I noticed dozens of corpses all over the floor near the entrance and continuing all the way inside. I started to see cries of help appearing in the chat that seemed to be coming from Ironforge, and suspected the same thing was now happening there... whatever it was.

Turns out Blizzard had let loose a enormous raid boss out in the open and the damn thing was tearing up everything in it's path. It had spawned somewhere near Stormwind and a group had kited it all the way to Ironforge where it had finally been taken down.

It's possibly one of the most exciting experiences for me in WoW and in any MMO. The cheer chaos and bewilderment mixed with the mystery and a genuine feeling of fear was something I've never felt in a game since.

Now why doesn't this kind of thing happen more often in MMOs? You could use the same kind of idea in so many fun and exciting ways. The best thing about the whole episode was that for those few hours everyone was talking about it and involved. It was a good example of what an MMO should be like all the time.
 
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