I second what Fencers said. I wonder if another, top secret, World of Warcraft has existed that nobody knows of.
I love most of your ideas! (I've been thinking about some of them too before starting the thread but didn't have time to post them or just forgot) I hope that this thread will grow and maybe a new, crazy mmorpg will be made based on it! (shhhh, let some of us dream
NPC depth would be awesome, I agree. Having a child with an NPC? Yes, please.
No levels.. how could I forgot that!? It's mandatory to me now. I refuse to play a MMORPG with levels. Actually I'm surprised by the number of people desiring no-level system. Let the wishes be heard!
A one-huge-zone with no maping/waypoints/flightpaths etc. Walking (or raiding, sailing etc.) only! Something like Tibia just massivly upgraded.
I forgot about no gear grinding. No simple stats on gear, just cool and deep effects. No more "Omg, I roll need on this because it has +5 spirit!"
Maybe, if this therad turns out to be popular, I (or someone else, willing to do so, like Fencers? :3) will post a "recap-summary" of the most popular ideas from here. That would give us a brief vision on what the next truly succeful MMORPG would need to look like.
VRMMORPG (Sword Art Online etc.) - well, I don't mean such "feature" in this thread to be discussed. I think we have a thread about it here anyway.
No grinding - It's not fun.
No cashshop whatsoever - Paying money to gain ingame advantages kills the game for most people. But even paying money to look pretty is dumb too. All items should be obtainable in game as rewards for effort and skill.
No generic questing. Finding a village and speaking to 5 guys with ! on their head to go kill X / collect Y is a tired convention. Something original would be nice, GW2 was decent about it but could've been done better.
Night and day changes and a weekly cycle could be interesting. Depending on zone and possibly other factors things can change between night and day such as different enemies, "quests", paths opening up, etc. Possibly allow the player to switch channels if you rather play in the daytime instead whenever you want. A week cycle is iffy but sounds interesting to me if done properly.
1v1, 2v2, 3v3 balanced pvp ladders.
Gear is cosmetic and doesn't give you stats. Much like Blade & Soul. Gear has in depth customization such as removing sleeves or altering pauldrons allowing the player to have more freedom over what they can pick and choose.
I'm not so much interested in what features an MMO can bring. I'd rather just have an MMO that keeps "shitty" design choices to a minimal.
Last edited by Borfl; 2015-02-01 at 06:38 PM.
I think you should Kickstart your MMO. I will back.
Most of that is exactly what I'm looking for, the only thing I would change personally is I think I'd like to see MMOs get away from instanced stuff. I think it's ok for some small group scalable instances that are just really for some mediocre rewards and slight challenges, I just don't want it to ever be the end game progression. I want to see activity in the open world have the best rewards in the game.
I'd also like to see more lore/exploration based progression paths. I'm hoping the new Lore path thing in GW2 does it well, but I'm envisioning a way to actually find an artifact piece with a clue, and by reading an in-game book, know where to look next for the next clue... etc etc. Basically through lore knowledge and exploration you can find powerful artifact weapons and such. Maybe even driving some competition for some artifacts (Indiana Jones treasure hunting). I have no idea how they could prevent this from becoming a quick wowhead.com look up for the next clue, but I have faith there's a good game designer out there who can make it happen.
gw2 with wow end-game.
I agree with that assessment.
GW2 does a lot of cool stuff but it can be OVERLY chaotic at times. I think GW2 after a few more years might end up polishing up some things and turn into a much better experience.
WoW over the years has become SO linear that once you complete things, the world and content just seems dead.
I was terribad at Ultima Online, but I loved it. The corpse looting idea was genius. Sure it sucked when I farmed ore for hours and made a full set of lead armor and a naked mage would burn me alive, saying "let me just lighten the load, brah", but there was something unique about it. Guy showing up alone without his guild at graveyard wielding +13(?) bardiche was begging to get ganked. My favorite story is how an alchemist was travelling alone and met a player killer mage who tried to burn him. Little did the mage know, the alchemist was carrying a full bag of full hp reju potions
I worked for two MMO publishers. Thanks, but not again. =)
I thought about this as a design choice. I do like a open world content but instancing allows a designer to create play spaces and challenges that don't work in the context of an openly available encounter.I'd like to see MMOs get away from instanced stuff.
The major hurdle isn't scale, but pressure. In an instanced encounter I can for example create a mechanism that forces individual accountability that is consistent within a theme.
For example, I had the idea of a boss encounter where players face a banshee spirit- a sort of hag-witch in a tomb. During the encounter a player is randomly selected to, or rather, imprisoned within a clay jar. The jar represents a soul vessel to the underworld. Upon being trapped the player is taken to a shadowy/ghostly world where they fight some spirits and so forth. Nothing unique.
However, while in the ghostly world the player will not have vision or direct awareness of the main encounter space occupying the remaining party and banshee. To get back in the fight the player in the ghost world would need to defeat the various baddies and find the right jar the banshee trapped them within- which only players in the real encounter space can directly see. Meaning the party will have to communicate to allow their team member to escape the ghostly/shadow world and rejoin the fight.
This simple mechanic is huge in a group of 5 or 10 players. But among 30, 50, 100 in the open world? There is a barrier of communication inherent when groups become too large. I remember the massive raids in EQ1; talking to each other was the largest and most difficult aspect of these encounters usually.
Among the smaller group content I played in SWTOR, Rift or World of Warcraft we had a great times working together even if the task was simple- hitting two switches at once, off tanking, kiting, jumping on tech pads, driving tanks, etc. And it did allow the designers to create magnificent designs like Akylois in Rift or The Lich King in World of Warcraft.
I think the problem with instancing in modern MMOs is that it has become too convenient of a way out for designers. Thus most content that is relevant is by necessity tucked into singular, linear and bimodal instancing.
The reward and loot structure I outlined in my OP briefly would solve this dilemma. It would make instances a challenge for those who wish to undertake such but the randomization & "catastrophe" events would allow for players not keen on instancing to pursue reward tracks of equal merit outside of structured group content. At least that is how I envision it since there would be no object "better loot" to dungeons/raids so much as more "deterministic" loot.
When I think of an Endgame I do not desire one that is bimodal (like World of Warcraft or Swtor). The GW2 approach where ALL the content is potentially relevant to all players is what I would shoot for from a design POV.
Again I think the stigma of "endgame" like instancing is rooted not in the activity or design itself but in the necessity of it in modern MMOs.
Last edited by Fencers; 2015-02-01 at 07:15 PM.
I want this too. I just think the technology isn't there just yet, but we will definitely get to see it in the future. Also check this video about the subject. It's an hour long but worth the watch.
There is no doubt instances allow developers to control a lot more variables in an encounter which gives them a lot of knobs to turn to tune it just right. I don't really mind some casual instanced content, I liked Chronicle hopping on Rift (prefer the outdoor Adventures though) and I still love 5 man heroic dungeons in WoW. I just think when you start using the instanced content to make the most challenging encounters, suddenly there's an expectation hardest stuff = best loot. So I don't want to see it go away, I just don't want it to be where everyone is funneled to.
I'd much rather see the best rewards from open world bosses that are more like Wintergrasp events. What I mean by that is you have an event arise where "Big dragon and swarm of drakes are attacking X place" and notifies everyone in the zone. Then there are a ton of objectives a bunch of small casual groups/solo players can participate in towards the overall objective of the boss.
The whole encounter wouldn't really be about everyone just dpsing it down and being focused on a health bar. The event objective would be like the Apexis daily bar we have where a ton of different small objectives: activating magic runes, manning cannons and dealing damage, taking out smaller minions solo or in a small group, all contribute to the success of the event.
I also always wanted to see something that highlights a role (I'm a fan of the trinity)... rogues and scout types maybe can have a little parkour action where they can scale a castle wall and use archery to pick off enemies, or being able to climb towers to light fires to signal to allies you need help (if you light all 3 fires you summon gryphon riders to help you or something). Maybe for a group of stealth archetypes, they can deliver things past the boss. Tank archetypes could participate in holding waves of smaller enemies and healers healing up injured guards or something.
I think you should get more credit based on your participation rank, and better rewards, but no SO much better that most people get shit. I'm thinking mostly like the WoW Garrison invasion bags where EVERYONE would get a Green, Blue or Purple bag based on how quickly you defeat the event, BUT if you were a high level participant and did some notable things - you would get a random bonus bag.
What I like about this model is you are in the open world, an event is dynamic, and it gets everyone on the same side participating. If you're a hardcore player, maybe your team is really good at getting everyone that Purple bag, so the zone would be like "OH SWEET <BEST GUILD> IS HERE!".
As far as if the event fails, I think you'd still get a bag based on performance, but the zone would then change to a failed status where you have to regain control, which can be an event of itself. Obviously I think the NPCs and game itself would prevent it from devolving into complete chaos.
So basically there are a bunch of zones, each have 3-5 possible dynamic events. When the event happens it will either end in a success or failure. If it's success, people get rewarded and it goes back to normal. If it's a failure, it goes to it's fail state and the event is to get it back. Each event would have a different flavor failure state if the enemy forces succeed, which would keep the zone interesting imo.
Last edited by ro9ue; 2015-02-01 at 08:06 PM.
- Unlimited progression. Whether gear can be continuously made better, or your character can continuously level, or both, or some other system I have no idea of... There is no end point.
- Content scaling to facilitate unlimited progression. Scaling up that is. You need a specific amount of levels/gear to do this particular content, but when you are far beyond that point it is still worth doing that content because it is scaled up to you. So by the time your reach your own specific endgame where you are happy, the entire world and all of the content is still there for you to enjoy at that level of play.
- Group scaling. If I want to do something alone, I can. If I want to do it with one friend, I can. If I want to do it with 30 people, I can.
- Meaningful crafting. If you put the effort to find the best patterns and materials, the gear you yourself can create can rival that of the strongest bosses (with materials and patterns coming from said bosses).
- Build diversity. Different builds are good for different things. Your talents, skill point allocations, etc, etc... Can be changed on the fly whenever you want. You are encouraged to change your style of play and your build when the situation calls for it.
- No classes. Simply skills that you can pick and choose, find, unlock, etc... Through quests, raids, dungeons, exploration, etc... You can use a select few, you can use them all, there are no limitations.
- Procedural generated instanced content. Some raids, some dungeons, all the zones, etc will be set in stone... But to facilitate playing/progressing for as long as you desire... Many instances and other such content will be procedural generated. Random layout, random bosses, random loot, etc.
- Building. Whether it be SW: Galaxies esque towns in the world or your own little private instanced corner of the world. I want to build my own house... My own fortress. Ridiculous customization... Say its in an instance somewhere, you can build it anywhere in there... An evil genius lair in the side of a mountain, a simple house in a field, a cabin the middle of a forest... Whatever you want.
Probably a lot more.
TL;DR: Unlimited progression sandbox where I can do anything anywhere at anytime, the sky is not even the limit, anything.