what the MMORPG world REALLY needs

[Grayswandir]

As for Grayswandir's surprisingly coherent and sensible post

Oh, I'm sorry.
The bears! The bears are on fire! Quick give me that frozen 1-pound tuna in the freezer and I'll put the fires out! Quick before the ninja whales break through the ceiling and steal it, MMOs!!!

[invertin]

I think a 1 pound frozen tuna would be very good for putting out fires.

But why would you want to hurt my delicious burning orange tendrils?

/morebraincrack

I think in general the MMORPG genre has fallen into a pit of dispair, grinding and silly ideas that won't work.

In the wise words of Ben Crowshaw (paraphrasing)
"Taking the grinding out of MMORPG's is pointless because grinding is what keeps people playing for so long."

[rudel_ic]

As for Grayswandir's surprisingly coherent and sensible post

Oh, I'm sorry.
The bears! The bears are on fire! Quick give me that frozen 1-pound tuna in the freezer and I'll put the fires out! Quick before the ninja whales break through the ceiling and steal it, MMOs!!!

It's not like you can't eat the fire, imbecile...

[rudel_ic]

The rest are obvious. (How in the hell would you have a single player online game!?)

Probably something alike Spore - you play alone and your creature interacts with creatures from other people, they enjoy slaughtering your creature, but you two will never meet.

[Zantalos]

But if the world was persistent and player-controlled, along with the other ideas that Blorx mentioned in the original post, then it wouldn't be 20 days of mad grinding and boredom and antiquated chat systems with absolutely no role-playing. And you probably wouldn't need to continually update your client.

The biggest problem is that if a company made a game like Blorx is describing, it would be subscription-based.

Basically, a good MMO - and please bear in mind that an MMO does not necessarily mean an RPG; Counter-Strike is an MMO, for example - would be a game that anyone can pick up and play, but that has hidden depths of gameplay that would keep people coming back for more. However, even more important than this is player interaction - in fact, player interaction should be so good that the game doesn't even need NPCs, because the players can do absolutely everything, including giving tasks and rewards. Because the players are giving out the tasks and rewards, almost every single menial job you do is contributing towards the betterment of your 'side', or the game as a whole. And of course, you would notice gradual increases in skillsets as you continually do things; for example running everywhere would increase your speed and stamina; fighting a lot would increase your skills as a fighter; heavy lifting would make your character stronger, and the more you did these things, the easier and faster they would be - rather than an actual number, it would be a lot more dynamic, thus no two characters would be exactly the same.

Seen all that in MMO's before, they still suck.

The problems Rudel has addressed wouldn't be fixed with these.. ideas.

[Blorx]

given that it is subscription based, a major game flaw i just thouht about would be assholes...given that you can do anything, there would be people that ignore their role in the persistant universe and kill other players and slowly throw the gov't into turmoil
given that this would be awesome to see and really entertaining to fix, i think when you lose your job, income should be nothing except for things you pawn, which you won't find a lot of b/c in most MMOs, items from dead players don't drop there
paying for gas for your spaceship would be an interesting idea too
lol

[Renegade_Turner]

Things that own from this thread:

1. Every post by rudel_ic
2. Invertin impersonating Lex Luthor.
3. The fact that rudel_ic's first post made all consequent posts that were not posted by him boring and meaningless.

[invertin]

I don't try to impersonate him, I just do. It's a thing I do on another forum that bled into this one. Yay bleeding.

Erm. Anyway-

World where there are no NPCs-
Why set up quests? Why give other players EXP and gold you need and want? And even if you do gain EXP or gold for giving quests away, all the noobs will rely on it and not have to do anything.

World with no grinding-
Already said.

Persistant world-
Who in the hell would want to run an entire city by themselves? Of course I wouldn't because I know it's hard work, and alot of smarter people think the same, there may be lots of towns with rulers because people want to help, but imagine how many newbs would come in, build a town and think "I am teh so grayetst".

Reinventing the whole fricken franchise- YES. FUDGE YES.

There is one RPG that I can't remember the name of, basically you create a character, choose a side while creating it, and then get put into a futuristic world where everything on sale and everything in the game is made by players. You can build guns and then sell them, or go out and fight aliens with them. (Erm.. I think you can fight aliens)

Either way, every single item in that game that you can buy was made by a player. As a game it worked, but newbies (I.E me) were confused because the game has a very complex button layout.

[Count Roland]

if there were a persistant world, than we would have to have some organization to stop noobs, or newbs, from building some city or town and claiming to be great, we could destroy it every time they started bragging, It would probably piss some people off but it might make em more humble.

[invertin]

Of course, the players would set up that organisation? And the government? And the laws?

Somehow having players decide EVERYTHING does NOT seem like a good idea.

[rudel_ic]

Things that own from this thread:

1. Every post by rudel_ic
2. Invertin impersonating Lex Luthor.
3. The fact that rudel_ic's first post made all consequent posts that were not posted by him boring and meaningless.

I'm de bess. I did it.

[Count Roland]

Of course, the players would set up that organisation? And the government? And the laws?

Somehow having players decide EVERYTHING does NOT seem like a good idea.

of course not everything, there could possibly be a few unkillable npc's at the top of the government/organization that would order the lead players what to do, like if there was a report of a hacker, or someone breaking the rules of the game, than the players would be dispensed to kill that player, or something like that

[invertin]

It would take a long time to even be considered for a organisation like that, but it sounds like fun for everyone. If a player breaks the law, he can be an outlaw and actually be wanted by other players. (Unlike alot of games where you can break every law known to mankind and then walk into town as if nothing happened.)

And even then there would be the occasional nice player who would look after outlaws if they're not evil.

Maybe it would be good, but either-

A- At the start there is one big city and lots of smaller cities, the big city is owned by the super government and the other cities are free for the taking.

B- NPC run cities at the start.

EDIT:
OH HAY GUIS I FOWND A PROBLEM

Quests.

In every single good MMORPG I've played Quests are the only thing keeping me playing, they are so important to gameplay they get a capital letter. In a persistant world, people would make their own quests, right?

Problem-

A- Players like killing. If they have to set up Quests then wait till playerX does it then they'll get bored.

B- Players like killing. They will most likely run off to do something else, then playerX will never find them.

C- Players like killing.

D- Players like to get stuff from quests. Either every Quest is a- "get me X amount of item Y so I can Z" which are the only Quests I don't like. Or players earn EXP/Gold from setting up Quests. Then we have a problem.

D2- PLAYERS
LIKE
EXP

D2 I- What I mean is, if players only get a little bit of EXP, they'll only want to do quests, not make them, if nobody wants to make quests, nobody can do them, see the problem?

D2 II- If players do get alot of EXP from quests, or even just enough for it to be an award, there will be people who rely on quest making for levelling up.

Remedies
1- Special quests that have to be done before a level up.
2- Earning a third type of reward from quests (E.G earning "Hypergold" which can be used to buy stuff for special items.) This would make questing players want to make quests rather than do them for the "hypergold" and because the quest makers aren't earning normal gold or EXP they can't be lazy bastards and sit around telling people to find/kill/destroy/summon X before/with/when X amount of time/amount of X/ X happens.
3- LEAVING NPCS IN.

[Makrond]

Wow, you all seem to be under the impression that someone who was out to destroy the universe would be unstoppable.

THAT'S THE FRIKKIN' POINT OF A PLAYER-CONTROLLED MMO - THE PLAYERS CAN REGULATE WHAT OTHER PLAYERS DO AND KILL THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEM IF THEY DON'T DO WHAT THEY'RE TOLD!!

Not angry, just like big capitals. But seriously, just because some people want to cause havoc doesn't mean they would be successful, because contrary to popular belief, there are a shitload of people out there on the Internet who are actually willing to work towards a great community, if you're willing to look a little below the surface.

The other problem I have is that every single problem you're describing is prevalent in nearly all MMOs today. It seems to me that you all have a problem with the Massive part of MMO. If you put enough people in one place, it's going to go to shit, in one way or another. You've just got to leave it up to the good people in there to sort the whole mess out, and the problems are manageable.

EDIT:

D2 II- If players do get alot of EXP from quests, or even just enough for it to be an award, there will be people who rely on quest making for levelling up.

I think you fail to see the point here. THAT'S A GOOD THING! If people rely on quest-giving to level up, then there's always going to be people to get quests from.

Has anyone here ever played Shaiya? It has an interesting dynamic in that every PvP kill your 'side' makes, it makes a little bar fill up more. When that bar is full, your 'side' gets a whole bunch of bonuses, such as extra combat damage, cheaper prices, faster mana recharges... the list goes on.

If there was a similar system for this in that performing certain tasks would bring your 'side' closer to a huge bonus, then it would encourage quest-givers to send other people to do these tasks. And you could also have quests where the quest-giver must also perform the task, the upshot being that they would get the same rewards.

Finally - Blorx's suggestion was a game without levels or EXP. So why is that factoring into your arguments? Seriously, READ THE MOTHERF'ING THREAD BEFORE YOU MOTHERF'ING POST! (Not going to post the pic, so ner)

[Count Roland]

actually that's a good point, without experience player run guilds could well be more attainable