I am a digital art student going into video games. After a few years of experience with the industry, I plan on gathering a team and creating an MMO that will be the big legacy of my career. I'm already doing the pre planning and concept art myself. The idea is to have the entire game mapped out before I ever propose this to an indie team or big publisher so all that's needed is the actual game creation, testing, some writing, etc.
Due to not wanting my ideas stolen, I won't divulge much information but I can tell you it will be an MMORPG with a heavy emphasis on building your character to fill specific roles, with a variety of options. The goal is to make any playstyle plausible and effective if designed and used by the player well. The combat will be very fluid. Think Guild Wars 2, not WoW.
So, for this thread I'd like to have a discussion on MMOs and what you guys think some developers did so well and what other developers did so, so wrong. This could be about anything. A game mechanic, business practice, GUI design, sound design, stories, etc.
I'm gonna make one suggestion that you might find silly; Look at what Neopets did and try implementing that.
Of course it sounds dumb, but one of the things that Neopets did was integrate stories and events that took place within the world and allowed the audience to participate through boss battles, but not without challenging them first through puzzles and clues that were really difficult to solve, but when you got through them, you had an edge on your opponent that allowed victory to be achievable (but not easy), and those that managed to be the first to achieve that goal got major recognition for it. It might be considerably more difficult to make that happen without it being outright frustrating in an MMO that actually has graphics, but I don't think it would be impossible.
I guess what I'm mostly saying from this is not to narrow who you build ideas from simply from their popularity. There are a lot of MMO's out there that have unique ideas that you can build upon to make an excellent game without being a carbon copy.
Oh, I've already decided to have lots of optional, challenging content that requires a super organised party. The rogue in WoW could open chests, but what's the point? Getting some crap green item? Guild Wars 2 took it further with guild puzzles. Nobody does those puzzles without bringing mesmers for mass teleport and guardians and warriors for speed buffs. And I've been in one puzzle where we had like 10 rangers just because their longbows + extra range talent point made 2 rooms easier than trying to do it with, say, slow AF elementalist long range spells.
So I've already been thinking about devilish optional content that would force players to efficiently work like a machine. I'll have to look up Neopets to see what you specifically mean.
I also have an idea that would break from the norm of traditional MMOs. Take something from Valve and do cosmetic drops with crates and all that jazz to allow income to flow in, allow there to be an economy, and make it much more feasible to release expansions for free because of one thing:
Imagine that you buy an expansion that, once bought, most if not all of it is locked behind a big one-time world boss that requires someone to figure out a secret special way of defeating it. You'd initially feel unmotivated to buy it and it would cause the game to suffer. Imagine if that same expansion were for free. You wouldn't feel like your money just got jacked and there would be a huge incentive to try to down the boss, especially if, say, the boss has a baller-as-hell cosmetic set that you and only you get if you unlock the secret. Imagine if you could also trade said item!
Don't implement the shitty crafting/gathering point system of TERA where you have a limited amount of points that get consumed everytime you gather resources or craft something and if you run out you need until they get restored over time. Not only is that annoying AF, the points are shared by every character on the server you're playing on. Started playing that game mainly to satisfy my need for crafting/gathering and TERA is free (that's why I didn't return to WoW) and this limitation pisses me off so much.
In-game story commences that everyone reads up on and can watch sometimes.
Story is involved in a land that is currently locked from the game.
Story reaches a head and the big bad guy of the story becomes a one-time world boss that can only be defeated via a secret item/weapon that can be found by only one person that would take some effort and intelligence to find the clues and solve the puzzles that would allow one to find the item.
Chosen One takes on big boss with a huge group and, because of said item/weapon, boss is weakened to the point where it is possible (but not easy) to defeat him.
Boss gets defeated, CO gets tradable unique cosmetic set, new land is opened up to the public.
You should also take a tip from UO and make it so that, instead of being a paladin, per se, a character could be a blacksmith and make incredibly amazing armors an weapons and shit. Do away with the "professions" idea that WoW has and make it so that, in academic speak, Blacksmithing becomes a major and not an elective.
This would make it so that crafting could be more profitable without requiring excruciating effort and needless wait times like WoW does with its most premium items.
That bit about the boss would totally break my game. There's just no compatibility with how I'm designing the story and game mechanics.
And my crafting system for gear is based around what your character will use. I.e. heavy armor characters only make heavy armor. But secondary things like alchemy can be picked up on the side. And anybody can harvest anything. So, a lot like Guild Wars 2, but with some heavy modifications.
Reread your two opening sentences. They were quite snide and gave no advice. Don't go assuming someone doesn't know what they're doing simply because they are confident in their work.
One thing that's of great interest to most MMOers is the Holy Trinity. What do you guys think? Like it? Hate it?
I've been working on a system that does rely on a Trinity like role system but it's fluid, rather than gridlocked like WoW. I want to create a system that's fixed but flexible and I've already figured much of it out, but would love to hear the experiences of people who have played more MMOs than myself. I've played WoW and GW2 and watched but never played TERA, Rift, and a few others.
I think you both should relax and don't read into things so much. Remember your reading something someone wrote on a forum. You guys get to read it with what ever emotion or intention you feel. Not necessarily the emotion and intention it was meant to be.
Writes an unproductive comment with an unnecessary impolite tone. Then talks about reading things on a forum and how it's difficult to convey intended message and tone.
You don't take your own advice do you?
Please stay in topic or refrain from posting on this thread. I wanted to start an involved discussion about different people's online gaming experience but we're 19 comments in and getting nowhere.
Real time blocking with shields? I really enjoy playing as a knight/paladin and using a tower shield; it make me feel more realistic than being just a guy with armor.
Something I've always wanted to see in an MMORPG is aerial sword abilities and combos.
I'd like to see an MMORPG that doesn't have any warning shapes/targeting areas on the ground for incoming AOE abilities. I'd like to see enemies that have relatively obvious tells (not flashing lights but gestures and body language) for when they are about to do a certain move so that you actually have to engage yourself in the combat as opposed to button mashing. It would add depth to the combat becuase players would have to watch the monster try to attack for a little while before the player could determine the best plan of attack.
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More stuff
I like the idea of making crafting take dedication and a lot of skill points so that it's not something that every player will spec into. It'd be nice if blacksmiths were valued by other players because they could do things that not everyone could do. I hate that every single player in a a lot of MMOs is basically a master craftsmen.
To add to the shield thing. I think lancers should be a class in more MMORPGs.
To add to the combat depth thing. I'd like to see enemies have weak points that, when hit , trigger body language changes like wincing, or staggering. Players would need to pay attention to these things to fight efficiently.
Instead of requiring an insane amount of dedication, I think it would be better to have classes receive bonuses to certain aspects, so an engineer class could be more efficient and make slightly better gear than the average person. Another way you could do it is pick a craft and specialize in it, regardless of class, if you want to be more open about it.
This is probably a good plan in terms of design. The idea that GW2 has is amazing but it is very difficult to balance. They still have not managed to do that fully.
On the other hand it does almost eliminate class choice when you make a party. It is closer to the idea that any class can fit every needed role more or less. No class get isolated because of typical roles. This is almost liberating. To find a middle ground between the two could be dangerous of not achieving any of the two sides.
An other thing that GW2 did very well is that they made the levelling part of the core experience. You are not supposed to rush it to max level and you end up to get a lot more for your money. Plus give more time for the Dev team to prepare the end game (Even if Anet really took its time for it. A bit too much).
The lack of gear treadmill also makes the game really different and a more meaningful experience. Its more about setting a goal to complete and getting there than the endless cycles of better gear->harder raids->better gear and so on.
Also dynamic events being the core activity is great. I would totally look into improving those and completely eliminating the traditional quests. Even heart quests that are a bit more streamlined than traditional quests in GW2 get grindy and boring. Dynamic event chains and Big Ass bosses that the whole map takes down is the way to go.
Also if you have story mode instances make sure you add a hard mode version to make old players return. I really miss such a thing on GW2 when I try to level an alt on the typical way.
Finally I am definitely a fan of the buy to play model. Subs feel like you are forced to play the game just to get the most of your money, while F2P limitations (used as incentives to buy stuff) always problematic. B2P its the best compromise between the 2 imo...
Okay, I have a thousand+ hours in Lord of the Rings Online. It was an amazing game. Unfortunately, I don't as easily cross into the magic circle of believability anymore. But what allowed me to be so engrossed in the world was curiosity.
For the first few years of playing LotRO, the world map was not available right off the bat. You literally had to step into an area to uncover specific portions of the map. That was amazing. My brother and I would venture deep into much higher level areas just to get a glimpse into what was there (and have a permanent map charted). This was especially awesome for LotRO displayed landmarks from the books or movies.
As I progressed into the game, I became more interested in loot, stats, and group content.
I now no longer play the game because they messed with the loot and group content. By completely stopping development in raids, the game became a solo queue/small group grind fest (not that it wasn't grind-y before). I literally had the best gear in the game (from progression, that is token collection), but I didn't have the best jewelry in the game. That was granted solely based on RNG. When you saw a player will fully max jewlery, you knew he played 4 hours + a day for a couple weeks. After hours of grinding myself, I decided it wasn't worth it. I would rather a challenge that had a mix of RNG and progressive loot drop.
In other words, they removed epic raids and replaced them with group instances that were scaled from previous expansions. Please no.