How to make a good MMORPG

[Geminosity]

actually me and some friends used to play Dungeons and Dragons without dice or paper, we\'d just leave it up to the GM to work out if things worked/hit or not.
Made for some exciting adventures, though the reason we use dice-like systems and stuff in PC games is because it\'s kinda hard to make a AI GM with good judgement for thousands of players at once.
That and some people are so tied up in their stats, the idea of just playing for a sense of adventure and fun almost seems long lost

[Fanomatic2000]

Originally posted by sashok20
I didn\'t mean realistin in that way, I realize that it\'s medieval approach with wizardry and such. By realistic I mean, feeling like you are in another world, not just in a game  

Wasn\'t that pretty obvious?

[Nadius]

this is my take on rpgs and mmorpgs what makes them popular.............


its all about compleating tasks... tasks set by you quests, making stuff and combat......

we need a stat system to make the game more addicting it been proven by medical studdies that games like this are chemically addicting....

i read a studdy that a person\'s dopemine levels where tripple normal when people leveled or completed a quest and up to 5 times normal levels when either winning a intense fight or pking

in order to make this game as fun as possible we need some sort of goal orented leveling system and either by words or numbers .......

and i personally like knowing for shure where im at.....
as exact as possible.. really helps with highscore type applications and the all powerfull bragging rights

i played some no dice no stats table top games but i  stopped cause if i pissed off the dm whch i did from time to time id miss more see if you dint know where you where at you wounlt know what your character should be doing you could have a really good weppon but you are having a bad day and you dont hit often you might sell your nice wep and never know where you are at........
        i wish we had numbers in real life cause then people might have more confidence in there self or know exactly what to work on

[Fanomatic2000]

The wonderful thing about the \"UO\" style online-games is that everybody has their own goals, and everybody can do whatever they think is fun. They can become heroes, villains, mercenaries, soldiers, thiefs etc.
Or they can choose a more peaceful path and become farmers, mercants, beggars, crafters, lumberjacks, bards, animal trainers etc.
That\'s the difference between the \"UO\" style and the \"Tibia\" style.

Freedom to choose your own path.

[Geminosity]

you mentioned 4 things there that the study found addictive.  Levelling, Quests, Intense Fighting and PKing.

I\'ve never seen anything in an MMO outside of fighting my way through a dungeon to whack the boss that I\'d really call a quest, so lets just say for a moment that this is lacking, so far most mmos have 3 of the points you were talking about.  Now... Intense fighting, if you\'re actively involved like in an FPS or something like PSO where you have a lot of real-time control over the combat almost every fight is intense in some way but when it\'s like DAoC or Diablo or whatever, it\'s \'tension\' mainly comes from watching a stupid energy bar and freaking out when it looks like it might not last the fight :rolleyes:

My suggestion is to make the levelling take care of itself and be more subtle (more analogue, less digital) while increasing the emphasis on quests and just generally intense stuff as much as possible.  You don\'t read cool epic stories about how Kaleff sat in a field killing monsters all day to reach her 27th level and put some points into archery, you read stories about how she killed the dragon after fighting off it\'s endless minions, dodging the mountains various traps.  The fact she gets better as she does this is in the background, it\'s the feat of killing the big bad boss and knicking his treasure that you really care about =3

If you really want to go whacking the psychology stuff you\'ll find that people have 4 primary elements in what they look for in a game, and these levels differ from person to person.  They are...

- Challenge
- Curiousity
- Fantasy
- Control

based off what I enjoy it pretty much reads that I have high levels of curiosity and fantasy medium levels of control and pretty low levels of challenge
Guys in general tend to have higher levels of Challenge, that\'s where most of these games are aimed, especially with this levelling crud ><

anyways... there\'s a point buried in this post somewhere, I\'ve just went and lost it ^^;

[tygerwilde]

you can\'t really define what makes a good game, simply because people have different play styles, some peeps like the hack and slash, some (like me) are creators, we like to have some say over the game world it\'self, others want to interact with other players socially, yet others just want to pk them, the difficult part is creating a game that suits all these things in a harmonious balance, which hasn\'t yet been done in my opinion.

[hazbahal]

A good game should be the one that makes happy most of the people (nobody is perfect) so it shouldn\'t be just Hack & Slash neither be only Role Play... you should have both, so you can attract all kinds of players...

suggestions i have that improves the desirability are these:
more than just the alls basic stats, when you have more stats to work you play more and play on a more diverse way (adding luck would be nice, it would help or penalyze a little on the other gains, Will is a good put, courage would also be nice by making you flee if something bad happens or giving bonuses on berserker acts... thats goes on...)

Charisma should not be just a idea that doesn\'t do a thing, it should really change your gameplay, like npcs be eager to talk with persons with high charisma (if they like you they will trust you and talk more, do more details about the subject or if you are too ugly the can be scared and run, refusing to talk to you) it would modify you chances to get a big deal when you buy or sell things, when people see your description it could say \"Ugly Mr. Hazbahal\" and all other uses of this so ignored stat...

also i think that should have plenty of quests scatered on the world (not only H & S ones, quest of deliveries to be done, people to give you hints when you are on a quest, crime solving and all those things that changes your play , making you stop for a while to just being a level raiser to really explore and discover the secrets of the world

PK should have, the idea of the outlaw flag is cool, but the idea of 5 min penalty in my opinion is awful, everyone hates to be stuck... the better idea is that if you are an outlaw you will be attacked by guards and peacekeeper creatures (you become the main target) and will be target by other players because they can kill you and will not be outlaw... (with that a bounty system cam be used to be a good reason to hunt outlaws, that will make groups of players to joinf forces to attack the outlaws wanting the reward)

the improving of the char should not be just \"you rose a level so every stat you have has improved\" it to improve the game should be based on what you do (it\'s pointless to gain more mana just because you killed many enemies with a sword, you should improve your mana and spellcasting by using it... it helps a lot in making the players more diverse if you want to improve your magic, use magic, to improve strenght use it... just like we do in the real world (i know it is not THE real world, but follow principles helps the player the \"enter\" the play

well, i wrote so many things but now i have to go... more to come when i return...

[tygerwilde]

there\'s one reason why open pk never works on more than a one out of many server basis... greifers, and there\'s really very little you can do about griefers, unless you limit pks to one a day or put up a lvl restriction, because they like to kill and hunt low lvl characters. so likely, you\'ll never see anyone implement pk on a large scale unless the designers are individual pkers designing a game specifically for pk

[gilgameshbk]

I agree, graphics are always a must.  For every aspect of the game.  Ive seen alot of muds and mmorpgs that would have been alot better if was more graphic.  And pk is also a big must because then people tend to form clans and kingdoms.  Then eventually armies start forming and its really cool.  But there should also be pk police and you should be able to hire a body guard, that way the newbies (such as myself) can get around without having to avoid anywhere profitable or fun just to avoid being killed for sport.

[Jalix Amundus]

First, I think the stats and skills should go by numbers, so the limits are much higher. Once you reach max on a skill it\'s like...ok, no more point in working on that, then you move to the next one. I like things where there really is no max. You should level up only in the skills you are using, as in Morrowind, for the sake of realism. Once you level up in enough skills you gain a level and get extra hp and maybe a stat point to put on any stat of your choice. Having lower standards on stats, but higher standards on skills tends to work well, as skills increase more often than stats do, but each point on a stat should make a noticible difference, while points on skills barely even show. Ok...I\'m done ranting for now...

[tygerwilde]

the problem with that is that an exceptional person(or character{and the chances are we all want to play exceptional characters, rather than mediochre} in rpgs) learns from what he sees as well as what he does, therefore, he would learn to an extent the basics of what he watches others do as well, which would be nearly impossible to impliment. how do you set up a system where a character can learn from other people\'s actions around him?

[Jalix Amundus]

You could have it that when a character nearby gets xp in a skill, if you are performing the same task, you could get a bit of xp also, say 5% of what they gained, if that is what you mean.