How to addict consumers to a real next-generation MMO

For me a good MMO needs to allow players to solo by having some solo classes and grouping classes. I would like to see something like this:

1) No levels, or if there are levels they are more secondary. Leveling isn't seen as the purpose of the game in order to obtain awesomeness. I would like to see tiers that had fun encounters that showed the world more and gave meaning to the world you played in

2) Itemization isn't the end all be all. I believe there are tons of ways to make itemization of characters fun without the eye-b fleeding raiding or non-stop crafting. I would like to see raids and crafting, but at the same time, items that grow with you as well. A sword you picked up you can use and hone your skills in and it can grow in power.

3) Classes should be plentiful and have custom options. I like in depth classes that you can custimize abilities with but I also enjoy cookie-cutter classes. I think a mix of both especially with spellcasters would be great. If spellcaster classes could make their own spells alone and together with other casters, that would be a fun new idea I think.

4) World needs to be big and fun to travel and have a purpose. I think a good world with lore and lots of meaning will help people create a lasting community. Events should be plentiful and fun as well as have some meaning for new content etc.

These are all general ideas, so don't flame too hard. I have a detailed game idea I would share if anyone is interested. It combines fun aspects of EQ, UO, WoW, AOC into something that in my head and in my opinion makes sense for many gamers, but not everyone.

maybe getting people addicted to MMOs isnt such a great idea
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/...craft-all-day/

alternatively plan your MMO so that kids can be productive and farm all day for free

Chillz_sl said:

The true next gen MMO needs a lot of Dark Souls in it.

From immersion, to leveling, game mechanics, itemisation, skill rewarding gameplay, weight (yes weight!), Dark Souls had to many things just right.

Immersion:
The pre chewed comic book lore and quests need to go. Have everything as mysterious and vague as possible, let the player experience their own stories. People filled whole blogs and disussion boards about Dark Souls, the actual story, the covenants, about the darkness and the light. Epic Shit.

Leveling:
A level 1 player can finish the game due to skill and from learning the game mechanics. Higher level simply allows specialisation, like the ability to wear heavy armor, special weapons etc. Leveling is practically infinite due to the exponential leveling curve, while being a high level makes content a little bit easier it was not neccessary to level beyond a certain point. The ability to stop at a certain level for balanced PvP matches is even recommended.

Game mechanics, skill and weight:
The realistic movement, blocking and dodge mechanics blew my mind. So simple, yet perfect. Once you mastered a weapon set, there was no stopping you. Everything you do has actual weight behind it: Heavy weapons move slower, yet throw a punch and have additional effects like knockdown. Wear light armor and you stay nimble etc. You have a few actual abilities and combos, no skillbar needed with 20 different neglible skills. Your spec IS "you" and what you wear.

Itemisation:
Nothing standing out here, yet it is simple and effective. There is stuff you can farm and stuff you can find and after beating difficult bosses, the option to combine stuff. Risk vs Reward is key.

I am aware that not everything from the Souls games translates well into a MMO, yet i am spoiled by that game and sick of WoW clones. I want an adult MMO, where actions define you. More Westeros, less Tyria.

TL;DR - Sandbox MMO with Dark Souls game mechanics and mysterious and open as fuck Lore. Yes, please.

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Yes DarkSouls combat is win. Try to kill a skeleton with a sword... kinda hard as it should be.

shabushabu_sl said:

Yes DarkSouls combat is win. Try to kill a skeleton with a sword... kinda hard as it should be.

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pshhh. every part of a sword is a weapon. A long sword would wreck a skeleton just fine. pommel, guard. grab the blade and swing away like a hammer. or even the blade itself, would have enough weight to deal damage.

Caliane_sl said:

pshhh. every part of a sword is a weapon. A long sword would wreck a skeleton just fine. pommel, guard. grab the blade and swing away like a hammer. or even the blade itself, would have enough weight to deal damage.

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You could belt a fucken skeleton with a thick enough piece of wood. Nerds just tryna be mad hipsters like they know their skeleton lore. Fuck you could wrestle a skeleton and break some of it's bones.

Skeletons don't even have any muscles how they gonna hurt you, GLOWER POWER?

Not read the entire thread, but agree with most of the OPs points.

I think my perfect MMO now would be some sort of Dark Souls hybrid.

World - Where you have one open world, no different than many mmos, similar to the main part of Dark Souls which has no instances. You can run everywhere at once. Mobs would be scaled similar to mmos by number and respawn. Where the additonal dungeons could be instanced (similar to Demon Souls), scaling the difficulty by how many are there. I would love to actually dungeon crawl with groups in dungeons similar to the Demon/dark souls ones.

Gameplay - Like dark souls. Wildstar telegraphed moves.

Leveling - Like dark souls. Build your character. Want skills? Find them, find npcs, get drops, etc. Want to be a battle mage? Sure, but the difference in stats on plate compared to an int robe would make you unable to use your most powerful spells. But it would be up to the player. Edit: By that I mean that you should not be created as a class, but rather build towards one. Want to use that sword you got from a boss instead of selling it, then you should be able to make the choice to start boosting your STR stat at the cost of your normally picked stats. Group loot could be handled on a stat basis. If an item drops for a group, the people with the stats required to wield it would get priority in a need roll. To avoid that "But I will build towards the 200 str I need! I need it. I do. I do!".

Crafting - Same as above. Find npcs, make it a challenge. Need to craft a spesific item from a smith in a dungeon, get help.

PvP - Similar to Dark Souls. Faction based. Want PvE, join PvE factions. Certain actions could make you invadable even if you are PvE. Danger and consequences should be in the world.
Edit 2: NPCs should be attackable like they were initially in EQ. I first entered EQ, accidentally hit A and hit a trainer, died. As I should have. It was totally realistic. I remember he even said it was stupid of me before he killed me in one hit. If you stab forwards with a sword, the NPC in front of you should not be immune just because it has a green colored name instead of a red one. It is stupid. Rather you could have it so that high level/important NPCs should be very difficult to kill, while a low level baker in the market district might be easier to kill. However, it should respawn with guards that despawn after a certain time. Making griefing over and over again impossible. Killing an innocent NPC could flag you for certain PvP guilds, where the sociopaths who like to gank lowbie players can get their kicks killing the players who just like to kill everything. Eventually maybe killing innocent NPCs would make you able to join factions who reward from killing high level NPCs, who when killed might even flag you for killing from PvE players as well. Making every PvE player recognize you as attackable, while they will not be attackable by you until they attack. A lowbie might then call for help, gather up, and raid a high level player at the same time providing they dont run away while they gather.

Death penalty - Similar to Dark souls. In groups in an instance, you could for example drop your aquired exp since you entered the dungeon, and respawn of mobs behind (until people die, things should not respawn in instances). Group would then have to work their way back to rejoin the dead player to help them get back their exp. If they die on the way back before they collect it, it is gone. Making it incredibly rude to leave someone behind after death, and people would not want to die causing that hassle and danger to themselves and the group. Could have bonfire type of save points throughout the instance, so you would not die at a end boss and be teleported all the way to the beginning.

I want Dark Souls the mmo

I havent played Dark Souls but it sounds like I would like Dark Souls the MMO. It does sound a bit niche though - how successful was Dark Souls financially and critically?

bixxby_sl said:

Skeletons don't even have any muscles how they gonna hurt you, GLOWER POWER?

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well I did assume magical empowerment.

Caliane_sl said:

pshhh. every part of a sword is a weapon. A long sword would wreck a skeleton just fine. pommel, guard. grab the blade and swing away like a hammer. or even the blade itself, would have enough weight to deal damage.

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well considering weight is the key to crushing bones and in games only slashing attacks are simulated it does make sense that a mace would do more damage to a skeleton than not. Of course, if we are abstracting damage to a mob in action games and showing a "slashing" animation that means nothing as far as what you are doing to the thing, then sure who cares what weapon it is. At least in games like DDO and other 3.X implementations they assume slash/pierce/crush based on weapon type.. new games don't even care. It was one of the very cool things that DD 3.x had that has gone the way of the dodo for the casual crowd who can't be bothered with monster knowledge.

To your point, if you want to get technical sure you can use a sword in different ways but abstracting damage in most games to ( any weapon does same damage to any mob ) is a casual consolitis cop-out.

Gotta have our hack and slash !

I think EVE has done a lot of things right with player driven content in 0.0. The problem with EVE is that the basic mechanics of the game are boring and the metagame is interesting. A game with interesting basic mechanics that drive an interesting metagame would be extremely fun. SP is also a huge barrier to the new player and most people just buy high SP characters. When your players are engaging in workarounds like buying characters in a market, you have a flaw in your character design.

My ideal fantasy setting sandbox would have a very large megaserver world, with several artistically/culturally unique cities (safe zones). These are the areas where currency and new characters enter the world and low risk-low reward interactions take place. These would be the only places where a character could actually "log out" of the world. Significant gains in account or character progression would be difficult to make in the cities because of limited access to resources, scaling rent, etc. They are areas for markets, and places to return to after you've been killed and all your shit taken.

Outside the walls, characters are persistent, and can be set to engage in scripts while logged off, such as farming, travelling, or patrolling, or training. Each character can perform any skill or job available to any other character, equip any item, etc. However, the efficacy of this skill is determined by the character attributes, i.e. efficient farming requires a high strength, or efficient item design requires high intelligence, efficient archery requires high dexterity. Simple jobs consider one or a few attributes. Complex jobs require more.

Each attribute increases with use. So...doing what you like to do makes you better at it. However, attributes decay back to baseline without use. The logoff scripts allow you to maintain a higher baseline attribute rating. You could also have more complex scripts like "retreat to holdfast if attacked," or "if holdfast is low on grain, restock." Your characters need food or water or sleep, etc and if they don't get it, their attributes decay faster, or they die.

The design moves the focus away from investment into a single character that carries all the weight of your prowess and makes them disposable. You can then focus on account growth. For example, my successes in the game make it possible for me to build a guild hall that spits out higher baseline characters when the previous ones die. Clutter from logged off characters is avoided by the large world, and because they die without maintenance. However, character death is a small loss. Account gains are more easily protected.

This allows you to create player interactions over things like protection schemes, resource control, and monitoring, bounty hunting for revenge, etc. It gives players a reason to raid, reave, fight, attack convoys, protect them, etc because the resources are out there in the game world rather than protected areas that are not accessible. Characters and items are easy to lose and easy to replace at first and as your account progresses, you have more resources invested in each character and the losses scale.

Valuable resources are far away from the cities. Players may build houses, farms, castles, markets, etc. World content should be dynamic. For example, the more frequently miners visit mountain caves, the more likely that trolls invade the neighboring farmlands, etc. Player content is generated by relationships, and by the struggle for resources. Targeting convoys or raiding farmlands creates reasons to PvP beyond vendettas. Fighting off raiders gives players a reason to band together.

Begin with a simple account, the ability to make 1 or 2 characters. Success in the game enables you to upgrade your account through ingame assets. A player house lets them spawn more characters. A bank or vault lets them hide their wealth, etc. The loss of a single character, even a particularly well equipped one, is probably a hiccup. The loss of a castle sets your account back significantly.

Finally, forget picking up loot from mobs. Killing mobs should give you some resources (like skins or leather or meat, etc), but gear should be primarily player crafted and market driven. The attribute gain I get from hunting a deer should be the same or less as tracking and killing a bounty, etc.

Anyway, I'd play this game if the basics were done correctly and fun. As WoW proved, so much of the granular, moment to moment fun of a game is in its core gameplay. The characters and animations need to feel responsive and dynamic. Different combat styles and crafting jobs need to be relatively balanced. The whole house of cards falls if the basics aren't done right. On the other hand, if the world doesn't keep giving you a reason to log in and engage with other players, it fails the basic MMO test.

Cheers.

Elradriendir_sl said:

1) Everyone has access to the same character bases
2) Each one of your characters has their own gear, health, etc.
3) Every 30 seconds or so you're allowed to instantly swap characters

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So basically FF11/14?