Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

That kind of brings in the guild as an institution rather than a social convenience. I would love to have guilds and guild halls be more meaningful, be the holders of the power. For instance, if you have to get keyed that is something that comes from the guild. If the guild is keyed then you are keyed, if you leave the guild then you lose that key.

Being a member gives a lot of perks rather than just the ability to raid the content the guild is up to. You get better prices in some places and perhaps worse ones in others due to the guilds "faction". Hell, perhaps choosing a guild becomes a very important choice because you get that political faction from it that influences everything from where you raid to who is trying to kill you.

You start tying stuff like that in with guild halls and then you have something meaningful.

I"d suggest as an addendum to player housing have gambling in the game world.

Casinos perhaps where you could actually play with other players in game, with either games specific to your world, or real world betting games. Let players be able to host these games in their own in game homes as well, and gamble on the in game currency in whatever amounts they want to.

When you factor in the secondary market, you could take a pretty decent chunk of business from onlike betting sites if the games were fun and people actually enjoyed whatever form of gambling you wanted to institute.

Zhakran said:

I"d suggest as an addendum to player housing have gambling in the game world.

Casinos perhaps where you could actually play with other players in game, with either games specific to your world, or real world betting games. Let players be able to host these games in their own in game homes as well, and gamble on the in game currency in whatever amounts they want to.

When you factor in the secondary market, you could take a pretty decent chunk of business from onlike betting sites if the games were fun and people actually enjoyed whatever form of gambling you wanted to institute.

Click to expand...

And it would also be highly illegal.

really? because according to every EULA in existence the data has no real world value whatsoever and is the sole property of the company that makes the game.

If you"re betting real money, it would be illegal. Legally speaking though, WoW currency does not have any value. Games of chance are only illegal if they involve wagering currency.

Zhakran said:

If you"re betting real money, it would be illegal. Legally speaking though, WoW currency does not have any value. Games of chance are only illegal if they involve wagering currency.

Click to expand...

And you think this is going to stop legislators becoming very interested in this... how?

I've never liked player housing in MMO's, I've always felt it was pointless fluff that appealed mostly to female gamers. But Guild keeps have potential, and depending on what rule set the server has they should offer varied benefits.

Although, more than the benefits, a Guild Keep should represent the guild and its roster. If a guild has a certain amount of clerics at max level, the Keep should have a minor chapel on the grounds with the ability to resurrect and summon a PC corpse. If enough Wizards in the guild, the Keep would have an arcane tower, with portals inside to all major cities and so on with the rest of the classes. Raid caps would mean that no guild would be able to get all the special buildings just from those in the raid roster. To get all, the guild would have to make up the numbers with friends and family, who have no interest in raiding, or alt characters.

Keeps have to be in the world as well, not glossed over in instances where no one will ever see them. They should be a big bill board advertisement for guilds, situated in levelling zones, giving benefit and added resources for new players questing through the area. Insignias used in Guild tabards should be incorporated into large banners to throw across the walls, and on flags flapping above the walls. Trophies should be on display from guild accomplishments, as you progress through PVE raid tiers your keep vendors get special items to sell not available anywhere else in the world to help fund raiding progress.

I also think hiring NPC's would be cool too, to put on main doors, or patrolling above the walls, just to help defend the Guild Keep during off peak hours if on a PVP server. Could possibly associate the defending NPC's with the PVP accomplishments of the guild players, how high they are in the rankings, or how many confirmed kills they have combined. Keeps have huge potential, not even started on the pokemon pets segment...

Tuco said:

Slavery would be quite possibly the best MMO feature I"ve seen. Tyen could build a city with his guild mates, then as the city grows it has an NPC population living there.

Then Tyen talks shit to me on the forums and I come down with my brethern and pillage his city, taking his NPC population as slaves. Sell some of them, and force the others to work as guards, mercenaries, farmers etc. Shit that would work great in AoC.

Click to expand...

?2008 Tuco, Inc.

I know several people have made statements about "playing house", but at the same time there should be some form of social/interactive hubs in the gaming world. Instanced housing is decent enough, but loses any element of immersion because there is no element of socializing involved; basically it is a storage and private decorating zone. Non-instanced housing, while debatable due to UO"s problems, has had merit with games like SWG where you not only had houses (and the architect class to play as), but cantinas, medical centers, city halls, guild halls, varieties of buildings to serve different purposes, and an actual city system in place that could grow large enough to have its own transportation.

Do I argue that combat, gameplay, class design, and lore/the world or realm design should be second to this? Absolutely not. However, if you"re looking to add depth and some non-combat fun and interdependence to a game, SWG cities did it well, and were fun when cities were hostile against one another.

Finally, for argument"s sake, if you want to discuss "social hubs" for downtime and functionality for a game, look at the scout/ranger camps in SWG pre-CU/NGE. Great for downtime, socializing, and a base while you fished, hunted, gathered, etc.

Something comparable for a fantasy genre would be inns with NPCs who might offer quests according to race, faction, level/skill level, or even class; offered minigames, cards, etc.; brawling as it was suggested for AoC; drinking contests, darts or other tests of skill; entertainers (PC or NPC) who give buffs through their performances, etc.

Secondary activities for socializing would be great with minigames (chess, checkers, cards and other forms of gambling that were mentioned earlier). To me one of the big differences in classifying some gaming elements is that some help to define a setting, while others try to develop worlds with social mechanics (SWG). I wouldn"t use them as a model for content by any means, but their social mechanics, harvesting, housing/building ownership, and social interaction were very fun.

Ive kind of said it already...

But economic activity is the primary motivation for meaningful human interaction, that and getting laid.


Cities are economic entities, not purely social ones. If you want vibrant and alive settings, then give people motivation. Free Markets and Economic opportunity. What was true in 5,000 BC is true today of human nature.

Tuco said:

Slavery would be quite possibly the best MMO feature I"ve seen. Tyen could build a city with his guild mates, then as the city grows it has an NPC population living there.

Then Tyen talks shit to me on the forums and I come down with my brethern and pillage his city, taking his NPC population as slaves. Sell some of them, and force the others to work as guards, mercenaries, farmers etc. Shit that would work great in AoC.

Click to expand...

Lol. Don"t tell Jack Thompson.

Except in real life you don"t have to worry about dicks with 2 million gold and nothing to lose creating cities shaped like a penis.

Oh wait...on second thought...

Lleauaric~EW said:

Ive kind of said it already...

But economic activity is the primary motivation for meaningful human interaction, that and getting laid.


Cities are economic entities, not purely social ones. If you want vibrant and alive settings, then give people motivation. Free Markets and Economic opportunity. What was true in 5,000 BC is true today of human nature.

Click to expand...

True. Mercantile skills in SWG pre-CU/NGE were very interesting and allowed a person to own shops, tents, etc. and have NPC vendors to sell their wares. Another immersive and entertaining model Galaxies had.

I agree, most social city development revolves around economy, but that economy is typically based on need-based demand. While a controversial mechanic, I personally liked the SWG doctor/entertainer "jobs" of healing wounds and providing buffs since it helped to establish cities as social hubs, because there was a need/demand for interacting with those classes, as well as the typical buying/selling and so on.

Sorry if I sound like a shill. I just really enjoyed the social/city elements of early SWG and haven"t seen a game do nearly as well with it since.

One cool aspect of city building in SWG was the ability to build a city near a content hotspot (the krayts stand out as the big one, but there were other POIs on settleable worlds). These cities were intimately tied into the game economy and provide ready access to content for other players while reaping the rewards of a ton of visitors and immediate access to content for city residents. Making various places useful both for character advancement and economic purposes and letting players build settlements near said places can work wonders for a game.

Have to agree. Although the ghost towns did annoy later on (and that"s something that can be easily fixed in future games) the idea and implementation was otherwise damn good. Ok, minus the combat exploits

Slight tangent, but how much does monthly cost factor into things? I know I wouldn"t pay for more then 2 mmos at a time, even assuming I had the time to play 2. I think that is the cause of people assuming any new mmo has to be a wow killer, not so much because they will destroy wow, but they need to convince wow players to stop player and paying for wow and start playing paying for their game instead.


Single player games, or even just non subscription are not even close to that situation since people can easily move from one to another and back again at will.

So with that said, does 38S have any plan to be creative in terms of pricing?


ps, one of the great things I love about Eve is the fact I can effectively play for free, with the endorsement of the company, by virtue of their time card trading system.

Yea, I play EVE for "free" too. I hadn"t considered the monogamous(sp?) subscription to be an issue. I would think so.

I think allowing people to play for free is a big step in pushing the genre forward. No matter how good your game is, there"s a huge market of people out there that balk at paying a monthly fee, no matter how small or reasonable it is. If 38 Studios really wants to dominate the MMO market, they need to look at a subscription-less option. I would think the easiest way to do this would be to have the free client have ads on the patcher/launcher or maybe make you watch a short video clip ad when you start the game, similar to some online video players. Then in addition to the free client you could have a standard $14.99 a month client with no ads.