I believe that I mentioned this before, but I have for several years (6 or so, I believe) been slowly piecing together an MMORPG in my head. I have never really written any of this down, so it's pretty good to finally have it solidified.

Just no that I am under no delusion that this game has any real chance of ever existing. It might, but it's a very small chance. Like one in a few trillion.

Also, I won't be saying everything about it at once, so as to avoid the tl;dr effect.

So, here it goes:

The main things I want to achieve with this game are-

1: Dynamic/player malleable gameworld. This includes the political climate, location of cities, environment, everything. Let's say, for example, a player notices a well-traveled crossroad. They think "Hey, if I put an inn there, I could make money". So that player builds an inn. Another player also notices it, and says "Maybe I could put a weapons shop there, and make money." So that guy builds on of those. And eventually, a whole city springs up. That is, assuming no giant monsters or anything kill it first.

2: Integration of player interaction. In most MMORPG's, player interaction is limited to very small areas of party forming and specific types of PvP. This one, however, will allow players to compete against each other in everything. Say, for example, that a Ninja player takes a quest to assassinate a certain NPC. That NPC finds out about it, and hires a Paladin player as a bodyguard. That bodyguard then ends up fighting the assassin. Whoever wins gets payed. And if the assassin wins, the NPC dies.

3: Believability. There won't be things like "Hey, this giant dragon is easier to kill than that goblin." No.

4: Diversity of characters and locations. There will be a huge number of races and classes available to players, ranging from generic elves to insectoids, and a giant game world with all kinds of environments, from mountains to swamps to deserts.

5: General polish. There won't be glitches, classes and races will be balanced, and there generally won't be little things to annoy the crap out of players. The interface will also be incredibly easy to use.

I'll go into more depth later, but like I said, I want to avoid tl;dr.

Lord Shplane
1: Dynamic/player malleable gameworld. This includes the political climate, location of cities, environment, everything. Let's say, for example, a player notices a well-traveled crossroad. They think "Hey, if I put an inn there, I could make money". So that player builds an inn. Another player also notices it, and says "Maybe I could put a weapons shop there, and make money." So that guy builds on of those. And eventually, a whole city springs up. That is, assuming no giant monsters or anything kill it first.

That sort of thing has actually been attempted before. I know it's a bad example since the game itself has so little merit, but Star Wars Galaxies basically let anyone build whatever they wanted wherever the terrain allowed it. Most towns were organized by guilds.

Anyway, conceptually it was really cool, but the problem was that there just wasn't enough variety in them. One city was basically same as the next, no matter what the layout was. Granted it was quite a bit like that in the non-player-built cities, but still. The point is that what really brings a city alive in an MMO isn't just existing, but having stuff like quests, environment-specific units, etc. Kind of difficult to explain, really. Mentally I just keep going back to World of Warcraft, and how all of the major cities had a uniqueness about them that was wholly engaging without being too easy to describe.

Basically what I'm getting at is it's a good idea, but needs a lot of work.

Inkmonkey

Lord Shplane
1: Dynamic/player malleable gameworld. This includes the political climate, location of cities, environment, everything. Let's say, for example, a player notices a well-traveled crossroad. They think "Hey, if I put an inn there, I could make money". So that player builds an inn. Another player also notices it, and says "Maybe I could put a weapons shop there, and make money." So that guy builds on of those. And eventually, a whole city springs up. That is, assuming no giant monsters or anything kill it first.

That sort of thing has actually been attempted before. I know it's a bad example since the game itself has so little merit, but Star Wars Galaxies basically let anyone build whatever they wanted wherever the terrain allowed it. Most towns were organized by guilds.

Anyway, conceptually it was really cool, but the problem was that there just wasn't enough variety in them. One city was basically same as the next, no matter what the layout was. Granted it was quite a bit like that in the non-player-built cities, but still. The point is that what really brings a city alive in an MMO isn't just existing, but having stuff like quests, environment-specific units, etc. Kind of difficult to explain, really. Mentally I just keep going back to World of Warcraft, and how all of the major cities had a uniqueness about them that was wholly engaging without being too easy to describe.

Basically what I'm getting at is it's a good idea, but needs a lot of work.

See, that's something I would think about.

I think one thing that would help would be a way to generate NPC's based on the players that founded the town, the types of characters inigenous to the region, and what types of people generally go by that area, as well as other towns that trade with those towns often.

As for quests, I was planning on having those be either randomly generated, or sometimes players could post quests for other players. However, quests would generally be based on something that is actually going on, and not just something like "Hey, you took this dragon slaying quest. When you get to the area, a dragon will appear." Instead, if there's a quest to kill a dragon up, it's because that dragon has actually been terrorizing a village somewhere. And anyone number of people can take the quest, it's just that only the person or group that kills the dragon actually get the reward.

Also, most quests would be handled through guilds, though individual NPC's would randomly have quests.

Sounds painfully complicated to program. It's no wonder that sort of thing doesn't happen in MMOs being produced these days.

Inkmonkey
Sounds painfully complicated to program. It's no wonder that sort of thing doesn't happen in MMOs being produced these days.

Which is why I doubt that it'll ever happen.

lol!

It's not just that something like this would be complicated to program. Quite honestly, there have been games that try to do these things since the old text-based MUDs. There wa one a friend of mine used to moderate for which would frequently offer quests for unique items which would pit guilds against one another and put the whole game world in an uproar.

Today, however, there is a heavy emphasis on questing in MMOs. You couldn't rely just on real time events for side quests. You'd end up with a game that was way too heavy on the grinding and had very little substance to keep people entertained.

Player run shops and towns have been done before. There was even an MMO at one point where players would form the government bodies for towns and could build and destroy entirely player created cities. I don't remember the name of the game, though, just that I read about it in some magazine at some point a few years back. I don't think it managed to do well.

Also, player run services and shops has been around since MMOs first hit the market. I kind of miss the old days of games like Ultima Online where your skills weren't limited to just mining, fishing, and fighting. It made for some more intersting characters and situations. I kind of miss the depth the game had, as broken as the rest of it was. I still hated that I'd get killed randomly on the roads because I was labeled evil for keeping skulls in my pack. I never killed anybody, but I got a lot of "wtf" responses when people looted my body.

Believablity would be a nice thing, but I can see why so many games aren't realistically designed. Still, I can think of ways to balance a game and still keep some semblance of reality in it. The only problem would be the fun factor for those people who like to have that extra two or three hits to down a potion when they get low on health.

Some things I'd like to see are real opportunities for role playing. Most MMOs these days focus on grinding and leveling. I'd like to see a game where characters didn't have overall levels, but leveled skills or classes through their actions. For some skills or classes, simply killing monsters wouldn't net any experience. A healer might gain experience through actually healing people instead of through killing, for instance. Some classes might even be penalized for killing.

isukun
It's not just that something like this would be complicated to program. Quite honestly, there have been games that try to do these things since the old text-based MUDs. There wa one a friend of mine used to moderate for which would frequently offer quests for unique items which would pit guilds against one another and put the whole game world in an uproar.

Today, however, there is a heavy emphasis on questing in MMOs. You couldn't rely just on real time events for side quests. You'd end up with a game that was way too heavy on the grinding and had very little substance to keep people entertained.

See though, there WOULD be static quests. It's just that none of the really huge quests would be there all the time.

You could always walk into a Hunter's Guild, for example, and get a quest to kill 10 wolves, or other things like that. You could always walk into a Fighters Guild and get something like "Kill the bandits." Or a Church (What I like to call 'Holy classes', Priests, Paladins, and Crusaders, go to a Church for whatever god they follow instead of a guild.) would always have an evangelical sort of quest where you go somewhere to preach.

But then certain quests, generally the really big ones, would be randomly generated events. Now this isn't to say that they wouldn't be around very often. Generally, a player would be able to find something like this going on. This is why I'd like to have a really huge game world, because that way there could always be something like this happening somewhere, without it seeming strange that all eight towns have dragons attacking them. Instead, 20 out of 800 towns would have dragons attacking them, and a few others would be besieged by demons, and another one would have been taken over by a necromancer and all of its citizens raised as undead.

isukun
Player run shops and towns have been done before. There was even an MMO at one point where players would form the government bodies for towns and could build and destroy entirely player created cities. I don't remember the name of the game, though, just that I read about it in some magazine at some point a few years back. I don't think it managed to do well.

Also, player run services and shops has been around since MMOs first hit the market. I kind of miss the old days of games like Ultima Online where your skills weren't limited to just mining, fishing, and fighting. It made for some more intersting characters and situations. I kind of miss the depth the game had, as broken as the rest of it was. I still hated that I'd get killed randomly on the roads because I was labeled evil for keeping skulls in my pack. I never killed anybody, but I got a lot of "wtf" responses when people looted my body.

I guess I'd just have to balance it better than they did. I'm actually thinking of a set of rules for enemies invading a city that would keep it from just being "Attack that building until it burns down." While "Attack that building until it burns down." is cool, it probably wouldn't be too fun for the people defending the city.

isukun
Believablity would be a nice thing, but I can see why so many games aren't realistically designed. Still, I can think of ways to balance a game and still keep some semblance of reality in it. The only problem would be the fun factor for those people who like to have that extra two or three hits to down a potion when they get low on health.

Yeah, I would like to find a good middle path between believability and, you know, not dying all the time. Though I think that the really freakishly powerful monsters, like the dragons I keep talking about, would still be able to beat the hell out of you in one hit.

isukun
Some things I'd like to see are real opportunities for role playing. Most MMOs these days focus on grinding and leveling. I'd like to see a game where characters didn't have overall levels, but leveled skills or classes through their actions. For some skills or classes, simply killing monsters wouldn't net any experience. A healer might gain experience through actually healing people instead of through killing, for instance. Some classes might even be penalized for killing.

That's actually an interesting idea. I'm not sure that I would like to take away killing for XP for some classes, but it would be cool to in some way incorporate that too.

Maybe have something where different classes get different amounts of XP for different actions? Like say a Fighter gets more XP for killing than a Priest does (Once again, unless the Priest follows an evil god), whereas a Priest would get more XP for healing (Assuming they follow a god that would reward them for healing). That's not to say that Fighters wouldn't get XP for using a potion on their allies, they just wouldn't get as much as a Priest would. And a Priest would still get XP for killing things, just not as much as a Fighter would.

Anyway, here's another part that I had already thought of.

Races&Sub-races

This would help with character diversity.

Ok, so there are things like lycanthropy and vampirism. These are more of acquired traits than anything, right? So what I wanted to do was have a system for characters being able to be their original race, but still gain additional attributes later on. These would be sub-races.

For example, if you start of as an elf, but are then bitten by a were-something (Not just werewolves, weretigers and werebears and werewolverines etc.), you would become and elf and a were-whatever. Therefore, your character's status page would look like:

Race: Elf
Sub-race: Lycanthrope (name of animal)

Or maybe you play as a human, and get bitten by a vampire:

Race: Human
Sub-race: Vampire

Or you're a halfling, and you level up high enough as a Necromancer to become a lich.

Race: Halfling
Sube-race: Lich

And there would be all kinds of combinations like this. I'll try to gather my thoughts and put down all the races and sub-races I would want to have some time soon, but that's the framework for the system.

isukun
Some things I'd like to see are real opportunities for role playing. Most MMOs these days focus on grinding and leveling. I'd like to see a game where characters didn't have overall levels, but leveled skills or classes through their actions. For some skills or classes, simply killing monsters wouldn't net any experience. A healer might gain experience through actually healing people instead of through killing, for instance. Some classes might even be penalized for killing.

I hate to bring up Star Wars Galaxies again (because it is such a dull, lifeless game), and I hear the whole system has changed now so I'm not sure if it still does this, but SWG had that. Basically, throughout the game you gained experience for specific skills; not generic experience points, and you could spend those skill points on whatever skill they're good for. Crafters only gained crafting experience by crafting, fighters gained fighting experience by fighting, etc. It worked out pretty well, for the most part, except some classes were harder to train than others. Keep in mind that it was possible to have multiple "jobs" in SWG, so there were certain jobs built specifically to be support, such as "survival". Survival basically just made your character walk faster over rough terrain and gave the option of building camps. Unfortunately, for the longest time, the only way to acquire survival experience was to hang out in a camp. Pretty much every class other than fighter was a chore to level up.

Survival basically just made your character walk faster over rough terrain and gave the option of building camps. Unfortunately, for the longest time, the only way to acquire survival experience was to hang out in a camp.

That sounds like pretty poor implementation of a fundamentally good idea. I only brought it up because I've seen a lot of games where characters just level up through fighting. When you've got a healer class who generally only gets healing skills, it doesn't make much sense that you learn those skills by beating people over the head with a club. In general, though, you would still want to level your skills through some sort of action and not have skills based around being passive.

You would also need a fairly entertaining system for things like crafting. Something that goes beyond just putting "item a" and "item b" into a pot and getting "item c". Have failure rates based on difficulty, maybe involve some smithing to reshape materials into the right form to make the pieces you need. Either eliminate NPC shops or make it so that high level items can only be crafted, not found or bought. I think Ultima Online did this to a limited degree originally. Plus I've always wanted to see some level of farming in an MMO, as well as a food requirement. I've seen cooking, although poorly done, but it would be nice to see food used for more than just replenishing health and magic.

All told, I've always been more of a fan of classless systems since they are closer to how we learn in real life. People learn by doing, not through an arbitrary experience system based on how many skulls they bash. Every time I've considered what I'd like in an MMO, the top thing I always want to see is a classless system where players earn XP towards skill sets based on how often they use those skills. Want to be a sword master, use a freaking sword, want to be a mage, then you have to cast some spells.

isukun
You would also need a fairly entertaining system for things like crafting. Something that goes beyond just putting "item a" and "item b" into a pot and getting "item c". Have failure rates based on difficulty, maybe involve some smithing to reshape materials into the right form to make the pieces you need. Either eliminate NPC shops or make it so that high level items can only be crafted, not found or bought. I think Ultima Online did this to a limited degree originally. Plus I've always wanted to see some level of farming in an MMO, as well as a food requirement. I've seen cooking, although poorly done, but it would be nice to see food used for more than just replenishing health and magic.

I actually had an idea like that, which would allow players to decide how their weapons and armor looked as they designed it. Every piece added would also in some way affect the stats of the item.

Food requirement sounds like an interesting idea, though I think that a lot of people wouldn't like having to carry food around. But I guess that's what hunting is for.

As for shops, player owned shops could have NPC's to run the shop while they're gone (They don't have to, they can do it themselves if they want), and could also populate it with any rare items they happen to find/make.

Speaking of making items, most high level items would be extremely rare to find, and would almost have to be made. However, there would be some one of a kind items that could only be found, and are ridiculously powerful. I just like the idea of going on a quest to find the One Ring or Scythe of the Death God.

isukun
All told, I've always been more of a fan of classless systems since they are closer to how we learn in real life. People learn by doing, not through an arbitrary experience system based on how many skulls they bash. Every time I've considered what I'd like in an MMO, the top thing I always want to see is a classless system where players earn XP towards skill sets based on how often they use those skills. Want to be a sword master, use a freaking sword, want to be a mage, then you have to cast some spells.

While I like classless systems, they have one major flaw that makes me not want to use them. That would be the fact that any player could just level up all skills to maximum. So all high level players would be exactly the same.

However, I like the idea of having the individual skills of a class level up within that class. So some level 20 Fighters would be better with an axe, and others would be better with a sword. Some level 20 Mages would be better with fire spells, and others would be better with ice spells. I was also thinking about making the skills themselves stop increasing once a mage's level maxes out, thereby keeping all high level mages from having all skills at maximum.

And here's just another idea that I had:

Different classes have different control schemes. A Gunner class, for example, would have a first-person view with a control scheme designed for shooting. A Fighter, however, would have a third-person control scheme designed for melee combat. An agility based class would have a Prince or Persia-esque control scheme.

Lord Shplane
However, I like the idea of having the individual skills of a class level up within that class. So some level 20 Fighters would be better with an axe, and others would be better with a sword. Some level 20 Mages would be better with fire spells, and others would be better with ice spells. I was also thinking about making the skills themselves stop increasing once a mage's level maxes out, thereby keeping all high level mages from having all skills at maximum.

That's actually fairly common in MMOs these days. In World of Warcraft, for example, one's proficiency with a weapon type is based on how long they've used that type of weapon. So if you've used axes basically the whole game, but suddenly find yourself in the possession of an awesome sword, you have to take time away from the main game to fight some weaker enemies to pump up your "sword" proficiency.

Inkmonkey

Lord Shplane
However, I like the idea of having the individual skills of a class level up within that class. So some level 20 Fighters would be better with an axe, and others would be better with a sword. Some level 20 Mages would be better with fire spells, and others would be better with ice spells. I was also thinking about making the skills themselves stop increasing once a mage's level maxes out, thereby keeping all high level mages from having all skills at maximum.

That's actually fairly common in MMOs these days. In World of Warcraft, for example, one's proficiency with a weapon type is based on how long they've used that type of weapon. So if you've used axes basically the whole game, but suddenly find yourself in the possession of an awesome sword, you have to take time away from the main game to fight some weaker enemies to pump up your "sword" proficiency.

Yeah, I know that it's pretty common. It happens in FFXI. I was just saying that that's the kind of system I would use.

If you don't have level caps for skill sets, you don't really have to worry about people maxing out every skill. Plus skill sets could still level at the same rate as characters, with more XP having to be earned to continue leveling up a particular skill set. It would take too long to max out any particular skill set to make it worthwhile to max out everything.

Another approach could be a variable skill system. XP is earned towards a skill set based on use, but at the same time, if a skill set is neglected (determined by the amount of use a skill set gets during the player's time spent in game), the skill set starts to actually lose XP and can eventually start to lose levels (to a point). Individual skills may not be forgotten, but their effectiveness would be dulled over time as a character grew "rusty". This would make it just about impossible to max out everything in the game and would encourage players to focus just on those skills they think they would use the most.

Food requirement sounds like an interesting idea, though I think that a lot of people wouldn't like having to carry food around. But I guess that's what hunting is for.

Most people already carry around either food or potions based on the game design, so I don't think it would be a major stretch to include it. I could see concerns over death by starvation, but perhaps hunger could just make a character sluggsh and less powerful. Food would still have the usual qualities of healing, but special dishes could also be used for temporary status effects or replenishing magic and all prepared foods would need to be made in game by PCs. Cooking skill would determine the quality of the food and its potency when eaten. Some raw materials could be eaten, but their effects would be limited beyond curing hunger.

isukun
If you don't have level caps for skill sets, you don't really have to worry about people maxing out every skill. Plus skill sets could still level at the same rate as characters, with more XP having to be earned to continue leveling up a particular skill set. It would take too long to max out any particular skill set to make it worthwhile to max out everything.

Another approach could be a variable skill system. XP is earned towards a skill set based on use, but at the same time, if a skill set is neglected (determined by the amount of use a skill set gets during the player's time spent in game), the skill set starts to actually lose XP and can eventually start to lose levels (to a point). Individual skills may not be forgotten, but their effectiveness would be dulled over time as a character grew "rusty". This would make it just about impossible to max out everything in the game and would encourage players to focus just on those skills they think they would use the most.

The only problem with not having a level cap is that someone could just get too ridiculously powerful. And as for loss of skills over time, that would probably just end up pissing people off.

Maybe a character could gain overall levels whenever they gained a certain number of skill levels. And once the player's overall level maxed out, they couldn't gain any more skill levels.

Really though, I like the class system because of some really insanely awesome class-specific skills for the high level players, usually skills that they couldn't gain through leveling, but would get through class-specific quests.

A Paladin, for example, would gain the ability to turn into an "Angel" form temporarily, giving him/her increased stats and special abilities. A Necromancer would be able to form a Flesh Colossus, a giant golem made of corpses. However, uber-skills like these would only be available when fighting high level monster or other players with uber-skills.

I also liked it because of something I was going to do with Necromancers, which would cause them to slowly turn into a Lich as they leveled up.

isukun
Most people already carry around either food or potions based on the game design, so I don't think it would be a major stretch to include it. I could see concerns over death by starvation, but perhaps hunger could just make a character sluggsh and less powerful. Food would still have the usual qualities of healing, but special dishes could also be used for temporary status effects or replenishing magic and all prepared foods would need to be made in game by PCs. Cooking skill would determine the quality of the food and its potency when eaten. Some raw materials could be eaten, but their effects would be limited beyond curing hunger.

That is all actually a good idea. I would put that in the game, actually.

The only problem with not having a level cap is that someone could just get too ridiculously powerful.

I've never seen that become a problem, even in the grinding friendly free Korean MMOs I've played. Generally, the more you level, the harder it becomes to gain levels. It's not like you continue to gain ten levels a day as you get into the 20's and beyond.

And as for loss of skills over time, that would probably just end up pissing people off.

Like I said, you wouldn't lose skills, just skill set levels which would make your skills less effective. Really, though, if you're going to learn skills, you should need to use them. Learning skills just for the sake of learning them is pretty pointless. In terms of annoyances, I always found it more irritating to have to start class-based characters over again because I didn't level them "right". The problem with defined classes is that there will always be an "ideal" way to level the character which kills a lot of the need for customization and shoehorns people into set paths when leveling characters. They always seem to favor certain stats and usually only a handful of the class-specific abilities are actually useful.

The other stuff you mention could still be done with a classless system. I wrote up a design for an MMO based on Bhag at one point. The system had no classes, but did allow players to align themselves with specific deities. By doing so, they could access abilities and spells specific to that deity, but it wouldn't have any bearing on their ability to learn weapons-based, harvesting, or crafting skills. Likewise, to learn certain weapons-based abilities, players could join guilds and take guild specific quests that would result in being taught a new skill they couldn't learn through the regular skill sets. Other options would be rare books found through quests or weapons/spell masters located in remote sections of the world (the Bhag MMO was very big on learning skills through other people and books rather than just "discovering" abilities).

Another thing that could add a little realism to an MMO is the elimination of earned points which players can drop arbitrarily into their stats. I've always like the idea of having each action associated with the logical stats they would use when performing the action. The more a stat is used, the faster it levels up. This would not only mimic real life where you tend to grow stronger in the areas you work at, but it would also kill the need to level characters "correctly" since players would be gaining points only in the areas where they most need them.

Hmmm... perhaps those uber-skills would only be available to players who level certain normal skills high enough.

These are actually some pretty good ideas you have Isukun. Have you been thinking about this stuff too?

Something else I wanted to do was discourage general assholishness without actually making it impossible to do assholish things in the game.

A few ways I was going to do it were:

Town guards, like in Elder Scrolls games.

Bounties which other players can collect by killing law-breaking players. Said bounties would be posted in Bounty Hunter Guilds and any large official buildings.

I'm trying to think of a few others. I'm pretty sure I had some at some other point in time, but I can't remember them at the moment.

They had town guards and a kharma system in Ultima Online (I only played the original, I don't know how things have changed since). The problem was that there were no restrictions on PVP. You could randomly kill people outside of towns and the worst that would happen is you would be flagged as being evil. People would be rewarded for killing you, but if you were crazy powerful, it wouldn't matter. Also, the kharma system was way too strict. Like I mentioned above, I never killed any player characters in the game, but was flagged evil for taking skulls from bodies I passed by. Made it really hard to travel since any self righteous asshole would kill me as I went from town to town or as I tried to fight through dungeons without provocation and I couldn't do anything about it.

The guards were a little iffy, too. Basically, they would warp to wherever someone was breaking the rules within a town and instakill them. It was good incentive not to player kill in town, but they'd also do it for pickpocketing (and honestly, where else would you pickpocket someone, but in a town?), stealing, attacking NPCs, or if you were attacking someone outside of a town and they ran into the town. It was an extreme measure since every time you died, your corpse was open to looting (anything you had on you could be taken as long as you're dead and the guards wouldn't stop it). It also set up situations where real pricks would pack light and hit low level newbies in town. They'd be willing to take a hit if it meant others could loot the new guy's corpse leaving him with nothing. I think the fact that you had to perform an action in order to be punished was what led to the killing of Lord British. Enough guys ganged up on him that they were actually able to kill him in game, despite his high HP and the guards striking them all down.

So having guards and a system for detemining good and evil characters, even with rewards for killing evil characters, doesn't necessarily deter bad behavior. If anything, people were worse on Ultima Online than in any other MMO I've played. Give people the freedom to be assholes, even if there are in game punishments for those actions, and you better believe you're going to attract every asshole player on the net to your game. A slap on the wrist is still better to them than a total lock on that behavior.

isukun
Most people already carry around either food or potions based on the game design, so I don't think it would be a major stretch to include it. I could see concerns over death by starvation, but perhaps hunger could just make a character sluggsh and less powerful. Food would still have the usual qualities of healing, but special dishes could also be used for temporary status effects or replenishing magic and all prepared foods would need to be made in game by PCs. Cooking skill would determine the quality of the food and its potency when eaten. Some raw materials could be eaten, but their effects would be limited beyond curing hunger.

That actually sounds a lot like World of Warcraft. Granted there's no "hungry" status, but eating... okay, I might as well just explain the whole mechanic.

Eating food causes the player character to sit down, becoming temporarily immobile while they eat. During this time their health recovers faster than normal, how quickly based on what food they are eating. Drinking does the same thing, except for magic. If the character eats long enough, he becomes "well-fed", giving stat-boosts primarily in stamina. Specific foods and drinks give other effects as well, ranging from increase in resistances to inebriation. While basic food can be purchased from vendors, any really good food has to be player-made and/or found as rare drops. As you suggested, some raw materials can be eaten, but are about as effective as food bought from vendors.


On the skills getting rusty thing, I'll again refer back to World of Warcraft. In that game skills don't diminish, but at each level gain one's skill level cap increases. At level twelve you might only be able to get your axe skill up to 80, but at level 16 you could get it up to 180. This means that if you max out a weapons skill once, then don't use it for 8 or 9 levels, then you will essentially be "rusty" with that skill.

isukun
They had town guards and a kharma system in Ultima Online (I only played the original, I don't know how things have changed since). The problem was that there were no restrictions on PVP. You could randomly kill people outside of towns and the worst that would happen is you would be flagged as being evil. People would be rewarded for killing you, but if you were crazy powerful, it wouldn't matter. Also, the kharma system was way too strict. Like I mentioned above, I never killed any player characters in the game, but was flagged evil for taking skulls from bodies I passed by. Made it really hard to travel since any self righteous asshole would kill me as I went from town to town or as I tried to fight through dungeons without provocation and I couldn't do anything about it.

The guards were a little iffy, too. Basically, they would warp to wherever someone was breaking the rules within a town and instakill them. It was good incentive not to player kill in town, but they'd also do it for pickpocketing (and honestly, where else would you pickpocket someone, but in a town?), stealing, attacking NPCs, or if you were attacking someone outside of a town and they ran into the town. It was an extreme measure since every time you died, your corpse was open to looting (anything you had on you could be taken as long as you're dead and the guards wouldn't stop it). It also set up situations where real pricks would pack light and hit low level newbies in town. They'd be willing to take a hit if it meant others could loot the new guy's corpse leaving him with nothing. I think the fact that you had to perform an action in order to be punished was what led to the killing of Lord British. Enough guys ganged up on him that they were actually able to kill him in game, despite his high HP and the guards striking them all down.

So having guards and a system for detemining good and evil characters, even with rewards for killing evil characters, doesn't necessarily deter bad behavior. If anything, people were worse on Ultima Online than in any other MMO I've played. Give people the freedom to be assholes, even if there are in game punishments for those actions, and you better believe you're going to attract every asshole player on the net to your game. A slap on the wrist is still better to them than a total lock on that behavior.

Ok, for one, I wouldn't have the "lol, skullz killz u" thing. That's retarded. The only thing that would make you evil would be killing innocent players/NPC's, and stealing from innocent players/NPC's.

As for guards catching people, that player would have to get caught, by an NPC or other player or just a guard seeing them. Basically, any player that sees them can call the guards (Doesn't have to, but can) and any NPC that sees them WILL call the guards. Also, players beaten by the guards would have to spend X amount of time in jail, where X is a number determined by the seriousness of their crime.

As for people in areas where guards wouldn't normally be, I'm still trying to decide what to do with that. While guards would patrol patrol roads and such, there wouldn't always be one around. Maybe just have an ability for players to learn that lets them sense when someone has done something evil? All guards could have the ability as well.

And as for being tagged as evil, I was going to have a whole D&D style "Good/Evil Lawful/Chaotic" thing, which would change based on character actions. Killing would add to a character's evil score. So most other characters wouldn't want to have much to do with them, and a lot of things that characters would want to do would require the help of other characters. Guards from good-aligned towns would attack them on site. The "evil" tag would be permanent until a player could do enough good actions to get rid of it.

Is that how it worked on Ultima Online? Because if it is, then my system will be pretty much useless. :cry:

The inherent flaw with the punishment for being a dick system is that some people just don't care. Some douche-bags are perfectly happy to be stuck in jail for 5-10 minutes if it means they can piss some random guy off. Any game with opposing forces will have guys occasionally sneak into the enemies hometown/base/spaceship and just wreck shit until a couple higher-ups annihilate them.

Basically, when designing a game you have to ask yourself: Do you want people to be able to kill eachother willy nilly. If your punishment system exists simply in the hopes that people won't kill each other, then why give them the option in the first place?

Personally, I'm of the mindset that games should have servers that cater to things like this. No matter what game you have, you'll have players who like the thrill of having to be constantly wary of attack and/or the ability to drop out of the bushes and Ninja somebody until they stop moving, and you'll have players who just want to get from point A to point B without fear of having someone set them on fire on the A-B highway. Options are always good, that's what I say. The more options you get in a game, the better.

Inkmonkey
The inherent flaw with the punishment for being a dick system is that some people just don't care. Some douche-bags are perfectly happy to be stuck in jail for 5-10 minutes if it means they can piss some random guy off. Any game with opposing forces will have guys occasionally sneak into the enemies hometown/base/spaceship and just wreck shit until a couple higher-ups annihilate them.

Basically, when designing a game you have to ask yourself: Do you want people to be able to kill eachother willy nilly. If your punishment system exists simply in the hopes that people won't kill each other, then why give them the option in the first place?

Personally, I'm of the mindset that games should have servers that cater to things like this. No matter what game you have, you'll have players who like the thrill of having to be constantly wary of attack and/or the ability to drop out of the bushes and Ninja somebody until they stop moving, and you'll have players who just want to get from point A to point B without fear of having someone set them on fire on the A-B highway. Options are always good, that's what I say. The more options you get in a game, the better.

See, that's the thing. If a few people are dicks, and act like dicks, that's ok. I just don't want EVERYONE doing it. And a strict enough punishment system should at least make most people think twice.

Ultima's kharma system did work a lot like that. It wasn't just an on off switch for evil, but a scale based on your actions in the game. It took me a long to to get my evil rating because carving skulls gives you less points than actuall killing other characters or stealing.

Guards weren't omnipresent, but if any NPC witnessed a crime, they would call them, plus I think player characters would automatically call guards if they caught someone stealing from them. They could also call for the guard manually if they suspected someone of looking in their inventory (which I thought was really anal and stupid since early on that was also part of the trading system). guards didn't patrol outside of towns. Quite honestly, it shouldn't be necessary to do so, anyway.

The punishment for killing or stealing was instadeath in towns, which in the early days of Ultima Online was much more devastating than jailtime. You had to ressurect yourself if you died and hope you could run to your body fast enough to get your belongings back before the random people around you completely looted your body. In town, there was no way you'd have any equipment left by the time you got there. So any armor, items, weapons, and money you had would be gone. It still didn't stop the game from being one of the biggest havens for Player Killers and general dicks. That's the problem. When you give the option at all, you are going to attract hordes of those people. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

Hmmm...

I'd probably make it so that killing other players adds so much to your evil score that you can never enter towns without getting your ass beaten by the guards, unless you spend a few months only doing good deeds. And since so much of the game will depend on entering towns (Trading with other players, getting quests from guilds etc..), people wouldn't want to do it.

I really want some realism here. People can kill each other irl, it's just that they rarely do because of the consequences. I know that game consequences can never be as harsh as real life consequences, but I still think that if you do it right you can dissuade players from doing it.

a lot of the systems you're discussing awfully sounds a lot like Morrowwind. They have that whole skills thing, etc. They've even got a jail system where if npcs or guards catch you commiting an crime then you have to pay fines or go directly to jail.
Of course, Morrowwind isn't a MMORPG, which is all the more pity. =(

Aurora Moon
a lot of the systems you're discussing awfully sounds a lot like Morrowwind. They have that whole skills thing, etc. They've even got a jail system where if npcs or guards catch you commiting an crime then you have to pay fines or go directly to jail.
Of course, Morrowwind isn't a MMORPG, which is all the more pity. =(

Yeah, I did get a lot of my recent ideas from Oblivion, which has mostly the same rules as Morrowind.

I need to get back to remembering all the races I'd come up with. I had some pretty crazy ones. And I had cultures made up for all of them and everything. Hell, I think at one point I was working on an evolution tree that showed the relationship between dragons, wyverns, lizard people (Still thinking of a name for their race), and other lizards.

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
Sounds painfully complicated to program. It's no wonder that sort of thing doesn't happen in MMOs being produced these days.

Which is why I doubt that it'll ever happen.

lol!

are you kidding me?

do you think when were all playing NES that we'd have super realistic games like today?
of course games like that could happen and will happen.
its only a matter of when.

The problem with MMOs, though, isn't a simple user-side technology hurdle. The more complex a game is, the more data it has to stream to and from the player. So while it may be simply a matter of when, it isn't as simple a solution as better CPUs and more storage space. We could all be old and gray before bandwidth catches up with the amount of data we need to stream for high complexity MMOs. Hell, we can't even handle the games we have now and there aren't any signs that things are going to change in the foreseeable future.

As for the taking of ideas from Morrowind, The old Ultima games actually did the jail thing before the Elder Scrolls series. Regardless, it's a bad idea for an MMO. Punishment shouldn't be applied to anything a user pays for and IS allowed to do in game. It's simple bad business. It's like saying, yeah, you CAN kill another player in the game, but you get temporarily banned for it. Why program in the ability in the first place, then? Making it so they can run and even get away without punishment only makes bad behavior a game and encourages people to do it.

there was actually a mulitiplayer mod for Morrowwind....

I actually tried it out with a friend of mine... but it didn't work too well due to the fact that there was this firewall issue, and ip connectivity. I understood it better than my friend did, snice I was used to ip-mulitiplayer types of games before I did MMO's. But he didn't have much expernice with it so he wasn't able to connect with me from his end.

I wonder if there's a mulitiplayer mod for Oblivion too?