Game Idea's

[Tvenu]

Well me and a friend from work were discussing the world of MMPORG\'s the other day. We have both played quite a few of them Everquest, Asherons Call 2, Neocron, Dark Age, Anarchy Online to name a few. We were discussing how we were both getting bored with MMPORG\'s and why. We came to the conclusion that all the MMPORG\'s were missing something, a goal. When you get down to it the only thing to do was Kill, loot, and level and repeat untill braindead. Everquest had a lot of quests and that would have been ok if they all weren\'t useless by the time you could do one. What I\'m getting at is I think alot of people need to have some type of goal, except Kill, loot and level. Maybe a large variety quests, or guild tasks ( that are doable and usefull for your level ) would help this. Maybe you should have to complete a class tasks handed to you by your class guild before you can advance to each level, I don\'t know, but people need a purpose. We also talked about what attracted people to a MMPORG. One thing we came up with was a large variety of customizing options for your character. People don\'t want to be like everyone else. Planeshift has a good variety of races, I think it could use a few more classes, but it really needs alot of options for people to customize the look of their character, hair, eye\'s, face\'s ect. Let me know what you all think. I also think the game needs to be able to support solo and group play equally. I like to not have to group all the time to play the game. Let me know what you all think! Thanks  

[Kiern]

well, you don\'t have to worry then Tvenu, pretty much everything yo usay your looking for is what they are planning on having

lets see, they will have jobs for you (not running errands but real jobs)...guild quests/items....customizable characters....and many many more to add to the game (that is, of course, if they get to add everything  8o ),  it\'s one of the reasons i\'ve stuck around here  

[Golbez]

[...] I think it could use a few more classes [...]

You are wrong there. PlaneShift does not use a class-based system. You just train in the skills you want, and that way you define what kind of character you will be playing.

Pretty much everything you said will be in the game. It is also planned to have the possibility of customizing the looks of each character. So don\'t worry about a thing, it seems you will have lots of stuff to play with once the game is out

[kinshadow]

Well, the new Myst Online is supposed drive charcters by making them want to advance the story line as opposed to charcter advancement.  This is kind of a lofty goal and will be difficult to pursue without making it boring.

I think a good system is one that makes charcter advancement kind of a side effect of role playing.  Hopefully the rp, guild, setting, quest, etc. aspects of PS will be strong enough to complement the skills system.  If people are driven to socialize and add to the game enviroment, then the \'boring\' advancement side will be concealed.

[Monkeys eat peanuts]

Well storyline quests and such things are hard to implement in a mmorpg because there are a lot of players walking around in the world and all from small to big want to participate in these stroyline events.
But I have a few ideas which might work non the less.

First of all in morrowind there was a questline which researched what had happened to the disappeared dwarven race. It sucked you in further and further and a little bit was revealed at a time. I was dying to find out what had happened.
So my idea was rather than having all of the history on the planeshift website have ruins and scrolls whatever which unveal the complete history bit by bit. And make sure people know or find out where they can find more wallwritings or things like that so that they can slowly look and find more parts of the worlds history.

This would of course mean that at some point all would be revealed so my second idea was to have taverns in which u can pick up rumors. So rather than luckily finding the ubersword of sweetness have the barkeeper tell you for a modest fee. And he would tell you that rumor had it that a sword of great power could be found in the east labyrinth somewhere gaurded by a foul monster heh. Or a tip on the whereabouts of an evil force growing stronger with plans to invade the city\'s or something.

Maybe even give out quests based on the players skill levels so that they wouldnt get a tip which would be way to hard or easy for them

[Xolon]

Maybe even give out quests based on the players skill levels so that they wouldnt get a tip which would be way to hard or easy for them

I disagree,

If there is a dragon closing on Hydlaa, it needs to be stopped. The person can then make to descission to give it a try or not, which might result in a painfull death

If you only would get quests for your lvl, then the excitment is gone. You go to the dragon\'s cave, draw your sword...hit...and walk to Hydlaa to get your price.
All the fun is gone..

So its better to have loads of quest rumours and letting the player to find out if he is able to succeed or not (maybe by doing some research in Jayose\'s Library).

-Xolon-

[Fanomatic2000]

I think that the best XP-system in the world is the one in Elder scrolls lll: Morrowind. It\'s perfect because everything you do will affect you (like if you run a lot you get XP for that \"Athletics\" If you jump a lot it\'s called \"acrobatics\" etc.) Then you can become good in what skills you want. You can choose a class in Morrowind, but I know it won\'t be included in PS.
It doesn\'t matter because I don\'t really like the class system anyway. It\'s good but it makes players create a lot of characters instead of just having one. Every account should only have ONE character.
I like the idea about quests for gaining levels. I\'ve played 4\'th coming for some time, and I thought the quests were a good way to create variation in the game. The best about quests is that you often team up to reach a common (or different) goal.

[Jessyn]

yeah, the advancement system in morrowind was great, and from what i\'ve heard, something similar will be occuring in PS, with the skills you use growing faster than the ones you don\'t.  skills not used in ages might even atrophy?

Jessyn

[kinshadow]

Here\'s another of my 2 cents.  (I\'m starting to go into dept )

I think that quest based character advancement would be nice if implemented properly.  Certain skills can always be trained, but the training could be easier (or you get a bonus) for skills related to the quests. I.E. a quest that requires that you sneak past a monster (which you have no chance of actually killing) gives an \"additional\" bonus to your hiding/sneaking/whatever skill.  The beauty is that you are concentrating on an activity/story line and the advancement is a secondary reward.

Quests that end an item reward, involve killing a monster for an item, or involve retrieving ANYTHING of rarity should be avoided at all costs.  All these quests lead to is camping and auctioning of in-game quest related items, which effectively disolve the system in place.

Another possibilty (which may be hard to implement on the rules/admin/setting side) is a character history based quest system.  The system keeps track of all the quests you\'ve attempted and which you are successful at,etc.  When you are approaching a guild/person/etc for a new quest, your quest \'reputation\' defines the things you are known for being good at.  This doesn\'t mean you can\'t get other types, but you may be able to get the more complex  (and rewarding) versions of ones you trend towards.  This could also be a tool to advance personal plots or allow the more dedicated players (and groups) of a specific type to advance the \'world\' storyline.  An example of this (to go along with the previous example)would be a thief/assassin oriented guild, whose members have completed a series of story oriented quests.  The guild\'s history triggers the system to give them a guild based quest (which can be broken into a series of smaller quests so the guild can destribute tasks to its members) to assassinate an order of bad guys (or whatever).  If the quest is successfull, then the \'world\' story is advanced and no more of that specific \'bad guy\' gets spawned....a new threat emerges and the story path is defined.

[Monkeys eat peanuts]

a lil comment on xolon\'s reply to the tavern keeper thingie based on skill levels. I meant it to prevent skilled players from stealing all the tips and hints that are meant for lower levels. So if there would be a tip on a mid level sword the high levels wouldnt beat the ones that really need it (which are the same persons that will recieve most joy from this quest because they can only just pull it off (or even fail)).

And the tip would not give the specific location of the item/monster whatever and the location would change once it has been found or once the villain is killed (some kind of tip generating engine) it wont even really be a quest since the barkeeper doesnt give you the reward he merely tells you very globally where it is to be found.

[Silverblade]

speaking of quests,

most RPG\'s have some form of quest journal where quests that you have recieved from NPC\'s are automatically recorded.

I, and probably most other people, take the quest journal for granted, until you play a game without one. Then realise how hard it is to keep track of what quests you have recieved and what information you have discovered.

So my question is, is there a quest journal, or something similar planned for Planeshift?

[Keldorn]

There better be. A quest journal is very important, you can never remember everything. Especially when you get multiple quests at the same time.

Though there should also be somekind of notebook where you can make personal notes, that\'s just as important as a quest journal.

[kinshadow]

Originally posted by Silverblade
most RPG\'s have some form of quest journal where quests that you have recieved from NPC\'s are automatically recorded.

But is this true for MMORPGs?  I\'ve played UO and EQ in the past and niether had a \"quest journal\" (that I can remember).  This might have changed since then.

Also, the journal wasn\'t the concern.  The idea I was pitching was that past quests effect future quests.  The world \"remembers\" you.  Your past deeds count for more in life than just an \"alignment\".  Hopefully, this will lead to more character role playing and less build-it-up-and-destroy-the-newbs.

I know that  Morrowind did this to some degree, but that was only one person to cater to.  Any ideas on a larger version of this?

[kyalin]

Just on the thing with the quest journal, some MMORPG\'s have done it, because there is a quest journal in DAOC, and it actually is quite useful, when u have multiple quests at a time, and it is a very nice thing to have.

[Aztec_Brave]

Just my 0.02 Tria:

I think that the whole \'recieve quest\' system should be dropped. It isn\'t realistic that you go to some king or guild boss guy and he gives you a quest (Ok, sometimes it is, but it often isn\'t. If a dragon attacks a town then a brae warrior won\'t have to go to his lord to get a bloody quest deed, he\'ll friggin well go out and kill the dragon. Ok, sometimes a quest should be given by a specific person. But I think this should be minimalized and possibly left only to players (I want this guy dead, bring me his head and I\'ll reward you, style of thing).