So I got back into brainstorming about an MMO that I would actually play, as things that currently exist are deeply unappealing to me on a personal level.
Basically, what I have envisioned is a game where the whole MMO is a giant communal struggle of PVE. There's one giant, central fortified city, and that's where players start and are encouraged to participate in. The world outside the City is hostile and formidable, but it's the place where real glory and treasure is to be found. Inside the city, there'd be shoppes, player homes, PVP arenas, public places to socialize, the game auction house, things like that, it's all right there when you start the game. In the center is a crystal that is the "Heart" of the city.
The idea is that the City is occasionally besieged by demons, huge swathes of'em coming from every direction, not a small task for even the most hardened MMO players. It's up to everyone to break these sieges and save the city before the demons get to the center, to the Heart of the city, and destroy it which triggers the loss condition for the server. Now, instead of just being a "You Lose" screen, it sends out an energy pulse that kills all living things in and around the city, players included for an impromptu exodus to save itself. This has consequences for everyone who owns anything, or who wants to progress their character. Basically, it'd be things like: Player's player homes are either badly damaged, reducing them to an impoverished looking state, or their ownership is ripped from them and gets fed into the Lottery Economy again (which I'll get to later), all the shoppes are downgraded and some shoppes are closed until the 'city level' is back to high enough point, any lustre the public places have built up is gone, and people lose their medals (which are the closest thing I have envisioned for money).
Basically, the longer the Player's Home City goes without getting pillaged, the fancier and prettier it gets through just the normal actions of players interacting with it. When it's protected, player homes are safe to be upgraded upon and invested into, shoppes get better and better and more numerous and diverse, and I was thinking there'd be some passive magical benefit that gives all players a blanket bonus of some kind to encourage everyone equally to participate in the game's sieges rather than ignore them, and the longer the City is safe, the stronger this benefit becomes.
Now, I mentioned a lottery system, and it has to do with a pretty simple idea:
The fact that the game's City has finite resources for everyone. There's limited player homes based on the number of them that exist, yes, but there's also a finite number of weapons and armor in the shoppes, only a few horses are produced each day in the stables, only so much furniture and other vanity kind of accessories are made each day for player's homes (and even the type and quality are randomized to some extent), so basically there's just never enough to go around for everyone.
How it'd work, is that there'd be lotteries held for nearly everything. Players would go to the venue that offers what they want, be that the Castle which bequeaths player homes, the shoppes for weapons and armor, Apothecaries for potions, stables for horses, etc, and they'd be able to clearly see exactly what and how much is being made for that day or that hour. Players would then enter the lottery for these materials by chipping in "Medals" which gives them a chance to win these things they want. The winners have the things delivered to their Player Bank (with a chime to let them know they got it) and the losers just lose their Medals, probably explained in that the Medals are taken in as tax, and the losers are actually passively making their Kingdom nicer and shinier. The crux though is that you can chip in as many Medals as you want towards what you want, each medal constitutes it's own chance in the lottery, and thus more Medals = more chances to get what you want.
Now, WHAT are Medals? Medals are a temporary currency. The game world runs on a 24 hour clock, and every midnight a special Witching Hour event happens where all the Medals in players inventories, or those existing anywhere, are instantly invalidated and they disappear from the game world. This idea is to both prevent hoarding, and also to encourage spending and participation in the game's economy. It also confers a kind of equality to players, cause every Witching Hour places every player back on the same foot. This doesn't have an effect on items or weapons or anything, just Medals.
Now, HOW do you get medals? The idea of Medals is that they're indicative of your personal glory. You go out and kill demons, you get medals. You travel to distant lands and solve ancient puzzles and find artifacts to return to your peoples, you get medals. You engage in the PVP arenas against other players, you get medals. You have to put yourself out there to get ahead, and the people that are the most active and the most daring in the game's world will be the ones reaping the most rewards.
Of course, the closer and closer you get to the Witching hour, the less and less time you have to actually USE those Medals. So I was thinking that the closer you get to midnight, the more violently dangerous things get outside the City's Walls, and the more rewarding things outside get, so while you'd only be able to participate in the very last lotteries of that day, you'd have tons of medals to chip in when you do.
It's only things in the player economy that function like normal this-for-that trading. Things, including medals and other items, between players can be traded, things in the auction house are rewarded to the highest bidder, etc etc.
Now I'm just asking what others think of this. I don't play MMORPG's, so additional perspective is appreciated.